Gravity [Not a spambot]

[SecondRevan]

Gravity amazed me. For the first time is a long time, I struggled to articulate just what made it so good. It works on so many subtle levels. Been so long, even with movies I love, that I haven't been able to see the strings (I mean, there is a lot of obvious surface stuff throughout the movie, but they weren't the stuff that made Gravity so good. It was all the subtle stuff that turned the obvious stuff from trite symbolism or meaningless action to the amazing experience it is.)

Also, on realism. There are issues, but honestly they don't matter, except to experts. Very few movies try and be realistic. Those that do are generally very experimental. Movies like Gravity instead attempt to have the appearance of reality (which is why this doesn't work on experts. Experts have a different belief of what the appearance of reality is to most people). This is a distinct, different thing, as reality is does a really bad job at being 'realistic'.

Though even as I say that, Gravity actually is doing it for slightly different reasons than most. Gravity is supposed to show us the wonder and terror of space. Therefore, they had to make changes to make sure that was shown. Interestingly, by doing things like making the space stations too close to each other, you do a better job at showing just how big space is than having them the true distance. Because running out of oxygen and jetpack fuel on the trip there does a much better job of showing distance than simply saying 'its too far'. There is a reason show, don't tell exists