When I watched the original, I made pushing motions as soon as the reporter character was invited to the roof. My boyfriend, who showed it to me, was like "how did you know that was going to happen?" I was like "she needed to die."

In the original, the reporter character was killed at the end of the series, making the one mini-series be a self-contained 6-hour story.

She should have died at the end of last season. She was on borrowed time.

Sorry to necrocomment on this necrocomment, but there's a big debate between those who fell in love with the naturalistic original version which left things vague and the too-techy director's cut version that spoonfed the ideas in pop-out imagery that didn't match the tonality of the main movie. I was all ready to…

You forgot about the scene of Eric Roberts banging the Christian woman. I wish I could…

She only flies the Soyuz first because it's closer. She also couldn't read Cyrillic.

Actually, you need to modify your assumptions, because they're contradictory to each other. I can't be assuming that people take all of their strength from external sources and also be assuming that there are people who definitively do and do not have internal strength. I either am assuming that somebody gets…

That's what I argued somewhere in here, but mainly over at The Dissolve. Physics is practically its own character in this movie. It's almost an antagonist. Physics provides the momentum for the space debris, it provides the path and speed for the debris, it provides the momentum for the characters, it provides the…

I've seen it read your way, and I (and other women I know) have read it the other way, where George Clooney is the voice of reason and calming to help a super-panicky woman who hyperventilates all the time, and even gives up at one point to turn off some air, until she imagines a male voice telling her to man up,…

Actually, I briefly had the thought that she was going to be kidnapped by the apes from Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

I totally agree.  And, because I didn't think about the politics of the stations as I watched it, I probably wouldn't have noticed, and it would have been a weird little quirk.  Instead it borders Russia bashing (which I'm fully supporting of in most contexts right now due to gay policies), and is more China worship.…

At that point, my section of the theater had been snickering at every seeming struggle.  Oh, look, the director throws something else.  Finally, she gets out of the capsule, and BAM, seaweed. I think the audience thought it was one challenge too many, and had now crossed over to full on ridiculous.  I do mean my…

Actually, we have been destroying satellites by missile since 1985. China also destroyed a satellite in high orbit by missile in 2008, causing controversy over space debris.

I would agree with you if it was shown that Clooney was still rotating after the line snapped taut. But, I think it was fairly obvious he was stationary and being pulled in a lateral motion when he was released. Centrifugal and centripetal forces are forces caused by motion. It would have been a small change for…

I wondered why it had to be Russia.  I guess because we shouldn't piss off the Chinese, whose technology is used to save the day?

@avclub-95266da9313a7ff77098ebbaa0a7772e:disqus Lulz.  Slate.  It should be named Slant though.

Yup.  When Clooney told her to set her watch, I was like…wait…so everything is in a straight line with the orbit?  What the hell kind of space is this?  Even on a 2-D plane it made little sense.  Plus, I guess they exploded it from one side, so that most of the serious debris was careening in one direction only,…

@e_buzz_miller:disqus I agree it wasn't a complete blank slate.  Just overly overly broad to not alienate anybody,  
I also think there was a traditional character arc in the movie.  She goes from weakling to powerful woman through trials by fire.

My audience was starting to laugh by the end.  We had a frightfully good laugh at the seaweed.

@avclub-95d9d605ddd379304ad070a2ca57ebae:disqus Did you really just sign up to troll with ad hominem attacks at somebody who didn't like the film?  Really?