A friend just saw it and confirmed they changed the script.
Basically they turned a flawed but brilliant psychological moral drama into a creepy stalker fantasy pretending to be a romantic love story (in space). The female lead had a bunch of lines and backstory cut to nix her character and make her more damsel-in-distressy. Moral ambiguity and nuance ditched apparently in the interests of making male lead more decisive, but that just made him less empathetic and more rapey. I also hear some of the changes were because after paying so much for Jennifer Lawrence, they decided she needed more scenes, and shoehorned them in at the expense of one of my favourite parts. And they changed the ending - this had been one of those stories where two extreme wrongs make a very sadistically twisted right, but I guess they figured that was too much wrong for one movie and decided to get rid of that second one, leaving the first one hanging with nothing to balance it out.
I hate Hollywood. I'd been looking forward to this since 2008, and now I'll always mourn what could have been.
This isn't a spoiler though it's been presented as such (it used to be the summary, and you find it out pretty much when the movie starts):
The premise of the film is that due to an unknown malfunction, Pratt's character Jim wakes up 90 years too early from suspended animation on the way to colonise a new planet. He panics, but his SOS to Earth will take decades for a reply, there's nobody else around, and there's no one he can go to for help. He's completely alone on this gigantic luxury spaceship with no way to go back into hibernation, and has been doomed to live out his life alone. He tries to make the best of this for a year as he descends into a prolonged mental breakdown, spiraling into existential horror and despair from the extreme loneliness and desperate need for any form of human connection. He tries and fails to fix his pod and realises how it malfunctioned, but can't get it to work again. And then one day when wandering through the pods of sleeping humans, he finds himself looking at a woman (Lawrence), and is entranced. For a long time he's content just looking at her and reading up on her life. He falls in love. That nagging possibility blossoms: he knows how to wake her up. He's horrified at the thought, knowing it would doom her to his fate, but he can't let it go.
One day, in a moment of weakness following a suicide attempt, he wakes her.
Suffice to say the script did a pretty good job in exploring all the juicy moral ramifications of that decision, but the movie firstly eliminates a lot of his original mental agonising (director thought he should stop waffling and own it) - which makes him much less empathetic - and glosses over the moral issues in the resulting romance, which makes it more disturbing and rapey than it should be. Likewise they changed the ending, which was originally something huge and shocking enough to counter the shockingness of his original decision and make the whole story delightfully dark and twisted, but the studio didn't have the guts to go there and settled for trying to make a traditional feelgood Hollywood romance out of a premise you can't do that with without being very creepy.
I just read about this and I'm wondering why there is a robot bartender on board a ship where everyone is expected to sleep through the entire journey.
__
You can't hang a man for killing a woman who's trying to steal his horse.
No, I meant it. Did they kill your dog or something? Why would you wish failure on two people who are just doing the best they can at their jobs and have never done anything to you? I do not understand this internet mentality.
If you are going to triumph in someone's failure, why not direct your ire at the idiotic studio executives whose notes apparently turned a highly praised, emotionally and morally sophisticated script into a dumb popcorn flick? It's their fault, not the two stars who signed onto one project and saw it changed midstream into something else.
EDIT: By the way, I just saw it and it wasn't as bad as the backlash from critics indicates. The first two thirds are just about perfect before it goes into action cliche territory. So still, damn those Sony executives, but kudos to what the movie wanted to be, which I think it succeeded at for a good while.
After they discover the malfunction with the central computer and fix it, the computer reboots and wrongly assumed they have landed - which in this case means ejecting all the hibernation pods into space with the 5000 passsengers still inside them. Jim and Aurora look on in horror as one of those passengers (they tried to wake them to save them) wakes up and realizes in terror that his pod is floating in space. All 5000 of them die. Jim and Aurora are the only passengers who survive.
That becomes the turning point for Aurora forgiving Jim - being shaken at what a close call it was for her, and it becomes much harder for her to continue resenting what he did when his selfish obsession is the only reason she's not out there dying with the rest of them. The alternative was no longer a fresh start on a new planet but slowly suffocating to death; she was no longer unlucky but lucky that she got woken, as was he, and that was a brilliant way of turning it around.
Whereas in the final film, while both of them were needed to save the passengers, she still didn't ask for this - it's still not fair that she's the one who had to sacrifice her future to save the rest of them because some guy thought she was hot. It also adds an element of guilt:
"Why didn't you wake someone else to save the ship, instead of ruining my life?" -> sounds extremely selfish on her part, vs
"Why didn't you wake someone else... oh, but then I'd be dead."
That plus the exhilaration of surviving a disaster together that killed everyone else was a much more compelling (and human, and also self-centered) justification for her forgiveness of his selfishness and eventually getting back together, vs her realizing that hey, he's not such a bad guy after all and she has come to love him so much, which carries the unfortunate message that if you like a girl and make it impossible for her to get away, eventually she'll come around and fall in love with you.
It completely changes the tone of their relationship. I preferred it when they were two survivors who'd spend the rest of their lives thinking "holy shit, we could have died", with the hysterical, twisted thrill of that, the sole survivors on a ship that Earth obliviously thought was still doing great; it made them so much more appreciative of a situation that had previously seemed unbearably horrible. Vs, well, Stockholm Syndrome in space. But I guess they couldn't have had their feel good romantic movie include 5000 people dying horribly. :/
Just... lol. Mate, you shouldn't take everything I say super 100% seriously. I don't actually want Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt to fail. Well, actually, I take that back. I want Chris Pratt to fail, because he has zero talent and the only reason he's famous is because he's a boring generic goofy bland white dude. His personality annoys me. He deserves absolutely none of the fame he has and I want his fifteen minutes to be up already. I don't want Jennifer Lawrence to fail, because she's actually talented, even though her personality also annoys me.
I realize you like J Law quite a lot, so I figured that comment would annoy you. Well, I'm sorry. I don't like her. As a general personal rule, I don't like any Hollywood celebrities. They're all horrible people until proven otherwise. I don't quite know why you have such an intense emotional attachment to her, but I'm not going to stop saying mean things about her for you. Sorry.
Why is an actor's personality even relevant, unless it bleeds through onto the screen? I don't want the guy who picks up my garbage to be fired if he's not likable enough, in fact I don't give even the slightest shit if he's likable at all. When I go to a restaurant, I don't worry about how well I might get along with the cook, I just hope the food tastes good. The clerk that rings me up at the grocery store could be a total dick outside of work, but if the total is accurate and they don't treat me poorly I'm fine with it.
Chris Pratt entertained me, and millions of others, in Guardians of the Galaxy, so I don't have a problem with him. Jurassic World was shit, but I don't think that was his fault. I don't really understand people's fixations with celebrities' personal lives.
@DA - not so much that it was mean as unnecessary (the second comment, not the first) and came across as weirdly personal. It's the level of ire I'd expect towards someone who murdered your puppy and laughed about it, not someone whose only crime is to be a famous actor whom you find boring and annoying.
Last edited by Anakin McFly on Sun Dec 25, 2016 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Well, the general consensus is that Keanu is a very nice guy who can't act, so that wouldn't make him worse than Chris Pratt at least on the personality front.
Was absolutely looking forward to this but kinda expecting to be disappointed. Having said that - I have never heard of the story before and won't be disappointed by any actual departure from its original premise. I just saw the ad's and decided it looked like something that could be really good - looked awesome and I love sci-fi so, was just hoping it would be really good.
Also - I really like Chris Pratt and really don't get why you're hating on him .. Loved him in Parks and Rec, Guardians .. Jurassic, not so much but that had less to do with Chris and more to do with the entire movie being sub-par based on expectations.
Certainly not trying to make a case for him being an amazing actor but - he is likeable and I'm yet to hear anything about him personally that gives me reason to believe that he is anything but a pretty decent, pretty funny warm cat.
I mean, I already explained it. I did like him in Parks and Rec, he was very good there. He should do more stuff like that. I've seen the outtakes, and they prove he's actually funny. But he's not actually good at acting. He's good at being goofy. Not much else. The only reason he's cast in leading roles all the time is because he's the dictionary definition of Generic White Guy. I don't actually have some kind of obsessive hatred of him. My comment was pretty much theatrical and it wasn't even that mean anyway.
Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Theatrics and sarcasm are hard to read in text.
Passengers is a fascinating case study on how changing so little can affect the entire tone of a story and make it almost something entirely different. Something as small as an altered line earlier on can affect the implications of later scenes, and so on, even if those play out the exact same way.
Yep - I read the reasons why you dislike him, and I'm hardly interested in going back and forward defending him.
I can see why you could claim he is generic - I just find him immensely likeable, both interview wise/ outtake wise and acting wise.
I couldn't comment on his acting abilities past saying - when he acts in a role that he is cast in, he performs that role well enuff so that I'm not thinking "God he has zero talent" .. We've just not been given much of an opportunity for him to stretch his acting chops.. which is all past the point anyways .. when he does act, I like him, he's funny, feels natural and being able to pull off comedy well is a skill even if that is your only acting skill..
So - yup, you don't like him and I do and that's pretty much all there is to be said about that really.. what surprised me wasn't that you don't like him rather - there's seems to be absolutely no reason for him to make a point of not likeing him past he's become successful at playing roles in Hollywood beyond the level of success that you feel he deserves - well, I have no idea how to respond to that given being good at a specific genre and being likeable defines how most people become successful and I can't find a single objective reason why Chris stands out as being anything but a guy who seems to pretty good at comedy, decent pulling off a leading man role and seems lke a nice guy.
Its all good - I don't really care, it just seemed worth me expressing befuddlement
Yeah... I should take some of what I said back. Being funny is actually hard, and being good at it is no small feat. I've read how a lot of serious dramatic actors try to pull off a funny role and comment on how it's one of the most difficult things they've ever done. So, yeah, he's good at what he does. But he gets cast in leading roles that don't take advantage of his natural abilities and which are extremely misplaced, and my speculation is that the only reason that happens is because he's blandly handsome (I mean, I guess), generic, and (probably) white. That's obviously not his fault at all, but that's sort of where I'm coming from when I say he doesn't deserve his fame. He does have comedic talent. Just not "leading man" talent.
Also, um, I'm not exactly fixated on celebrities' personal lives. I'm inferring what he's like from his media appearances and stuff. He's so huge right now that even though I try to avoid that stuff, I still can't ignore him. He's everywhere. And he acts so charming and perfect all the time that it eventually just becomes weird and off-putting. Like he's a male Stepford Smiler. If this was a movie, a guy that charming and likeable and handsome all the time would turn out to be a psycho at the end.
But I don't actually hate him. I was exaggerating for rhetorical purposes. I do that a lot.
I've read how a lot of serious dramatic actors try to pull off a funny role and comment on how it's one of the most difficult things they've ever done
Point in case would be Meryl Streep - arguably a massive talent but almost universally hopeless at being funny - almost every movie that I have seen her in where she attempts comedy is painful pantomime - the only notable exception is Devil wears Prada - which wasn't really a comedy and she wasn't comedic in it.
Also, um, I'm not exactly fixated on celebrities' personal lives. I'm inferring what he's like from his media appearances and stuff
There's probably a small handful of celebrities that I would specifically tune into a talk show to watch - and by talk show, the only one I ever watch is Graham Norton - who is sensational. And Chris forms a part of that handful along with Michael Fassbender, Daniel Craig, oddly enuff, Matt LeBlanc, Cate Blanchett (even tho she normally pisses me off at some point in her interviews) - Helen MIrren (Cos I love her), and maybe a few other people that don't immediately spring to mind.
Chris - I like watching in interviews just cos he seems like a really good bloke who's been catapulted to fame and still seems a really good bloke, even watching him interact with his colleagues in outtakes, he still seems like a really good bloke so, I guess I'd be surprised to find out he's really an asshole or difficult - and that's really the sort of person I enjoy.
Chris Hemsworth, to my mind, seems to fit your description better - I mean, that boy is crazy good looking, never seems to get flustered or offer and opinion on anything, is crazily overrated as an actor (even tho he's capable and was awesome in Rush) .. but has hit his level of success by being really really ridiculously good looking.. having said that,. I like Chris Hemsworth plenty, I just kinda think he doesn't fit his roles as expertly as his wage indicates.. except for Thor which was more about looking the part rather than acting the part .
Huntsman - he was awful in, Ghost Busters kinda showed he can't really do comedy - but Meh - as long as they aint assholes, I'm fine with whatever happens in that space
I dunno, I haven't watched a single Chris Pratt interview or out take. The click bait has been there, but I just don't feel compelled to watch it. I don't typically find out takes funny, and celebrity interviews are incredibly boring, unless Conan O'Brien is involved. I've probably been invited to watch Chris Pratt and J-Law call each other names at least a dozen times the past couple weeks, but I haven't done it.
BruceSmith78 wrote:I've probably been invited to watch Chris Pratt and J-Law call each other names at least a dozen times the past couple weeks, but I haven't done it.
Lol I'm going to watch this later. I need closure. I'm practically going through the five stages of grief over how they apparently turned my favourite script into a psuedo-MRA fantasy. I'm creeped out by the number of guys who think this was a really romantic movie.
Just watched it! It wasn't as bad as I feared - the first half in particular was great, and overall it was sufficiently entertaining - but they totally hollywood-ised the script to make it much more formulaic than it should have been, and the minor changes made the eventual romance much more morally uncomfortable. Plus they compressed my favorite third of the script into a two minute montage, and pages of moral angst into another short and vaguely humorous montage.
The visuals are amazing though - it's perhaps the prettiest spaceship I've ever seen on screen, and that alone was worth the price of admission.
Anakin McFly wrote:Just watched it! It wasn't as bad as I feared - the first half in particular was great, and overall it was sufficiently entertaining - but they totally hollywood-ised the script to make it much more formulaic than it should have been, and the minor changes made the eventual romance much more morally uncomfortable. Plus they compressed my favorite third of the script into a two minute montage, and pages of moral angst into another short and vaguely humorous montage.
The visuals are amazing though - it's perhaps the prettiest spaceship I've ever seen on screen, and that alone was worth the price of admission.
Also just watched this last night with the kiddies and it was much better than I expected. Like you said, its amazingly pretty.
There's a lot to be said about the morality of Chris's actions and the eventual romance but, I do feel it was much more nuanced than simply "he picks an attractive passenger to wake and screw" which is how it seemed to have been framed prior to going in. His decision, once discovered, isn't glossed over. She reacts appropriately by being horrified by his choice..
I haven't read the book as previously mentioned so couldn't speak all that meaningfully to the differences between the movie and the book ..
My biggest gripe to how they resolved their relationship is the speed of its resolution from "This guy is a fucking asshole who essentially murdered me" to "Oh fuck it, lets get it back on" .. altho you could also see that she arrives at this point when she is faced with her own possibility of being stranded on the ship for the next 88 years if Chris dies trying to save the ship. From what you say about the original story, where everyone else is ejected into space to die and her misfortune becomes her salvation doesn't seem all that different from what happens in the movie. Essentially, if they weren't both woken, then everyone on board the ship would have died. Her misfortune still leads to her salvation, and in this case, rthe salvation of everyone on board.
In both cases ( the original version and the movie) the morality of his initial decision to wake her) remains - he woke her because he was driven near mad by isolation and wants company .. this leading to the salvation of her or the balance of those involved doesn't play into his decision at all.
Her decision to get back on good terms with him is what is effected by this change and to me, they both work fine. In the movie .. I think its fair to read into Her decision that when faced with potentially the same situation, she may have decided that she may be driven to make the same decision later on down the track and decide that, while the decision I is flawed and morally repugnant, she may be just as flawed given the same set of circumstances as he was and do the same thing.
The other issue is that he essentially starts a relationship with this women under false pretences and so - rapey. But I don't feel this is glossed over or that her character dismisses this casually before deciding that he is relationship material. She spends months and months angry at him and its only when things get dire and he attempts to redeem himself by first - nearly sacrificing his life for the ship and then offering to put her back into stasis and go back to living his days out alone that she decides that despite his flaws, his impact on her and his previous actions, he's a flawed good guy that she still wants to be with.
So - I didn't have that much of an issue with this given at no point was his actions condoned or even really justified. He acted out in a bad place, followed this up by acting even more morally repugnant, He knew what he was doing was wrong but he was in a pretty extraordinary situation when he acted this way and at no point was this delivered as the right thing to do. She, simply made a decision for herself that despite his actions against her, and despite his flaws, he redeemed himself and she better empathised with his situation.
The point of ponder then is really - would you or anyone else watching this movie have made the same decision as she did to get back with him after knowing exactly what he did .. whether she does or doesn't doesn't condone or justify his actions, its simply a reflection of how she feels about him and his flaws and how she would relate to this internally. Its really her decision to make and she, for better or worse, made it.
I think that they didn't sell Jim's loneliness enough in the movie, which was partly a result of them condensing a lot of that (they wanted to rush through it to maximise JLaw's screentime). Those scenes of him alone had made for almost a third of the original script and was imo the best part of it - we follow him through that year of loneliness and there are more things that mark the passage of time (e.g. he had 2700+ different drinks), other than him having a very big beard. The passage of time and the sheer horror of that isolation didn't come across as strongly in the movie, and ultimately made his decision less empathetic than it could have been.
[quote]My biggest gripe to how they resolved their relationship is the speed of its resolution from "This guy is a fucking asshole who essentially murdered me" to "Oh fuck it, lets get it back on"[/quote]
Yeah; it was too abrupt, and something that a lot of reviewers picked on, as well as the sudden transition to a save-the-world action movie just when things were getting interesting.
While it's her misfortune that leads to everyone's salvation, the impact isn't the same because she was still the unlucky one - of all the 5000 people - who was woken to then fill that saviour role. Both Jim and Aurora thus remain the most unlucky passengers in this scenario, whereas everyone dying flipped that around completely and made them the most lucky. So that misfortune is still something they'll have to deal with - it would still have been better for them had it been other passengers who were woken and ended up saving the ship, while they slept away, oblivious to the catastrophe.
One change I did like was how Aurora's reaction to Jim's betrayal was a lot more intense and realistic in the final film, although this then makes the later transition a lot more jarring. But a couple other changes stuck out to me: 1) Gus' reaction to discovering the situation. I really didn't like how they left him hanging at "But he was drowning" (the original scene went on for quite a bit more) - she had been searching for sympathy, but instead got a version of "well, he had it really bad, so you can't blame him", and that didn't sit right with me. 2) The video from Aurora's friend, saying that she wishes she'll find someone who will fill her heart and that she'll let him in. This was a new scene written for the movie, and the way it was presented made me uncomfortable because she didn't find Jim so much as he abducted her. She was at that moment hurting very badly because of what he did, while the voiceover was telling her to open up and let herself be loved. I found that particularly disturbing in how it reminded me of abuse victims feeling pressured to forgive abusers and not shut them out, in some cases because they do genuinely love them.
Re: the very last scene - the original script mentioned that they were carrying thousands of egg and sperm samples on board to help mass populate the new planet (by that point they had figured out how to create babies outside a womb). It ended with the ship arriving on Homestead 2, and the door opens and hundreds of people run out: people of all ages and ethnicities. Camera pans back to the ship, and in there we see it's been turned into a vibrant community space with the signs of a hundred years' worth of people living and dying and building a society together on the ship. Along one wall is a sort of museum, and there we see various memorabilia from the events of the movie, with the final shot lingering on a strip of animated photos of Jim and Aurora smiling and laughing and playing around.
It was an ode to human resilience and finding the good in the bad. It hinted at the two of them having found a full, rich life in the ship building that society of other people, no longer alone on their voyage through space but surrounded by community, and that was pretty heartwarming. As it is, in the movie's ending the two of them are still stuck alone for 90 years (and still to Jim's benefit; had she a choice from the start, Aurora might very well have preferred another man to be stuck with), and even with each other's company it's a very lonely existence. It didn't feel anywhere as satisfying or resolved, and I think that's what bugs me. There's the sense that it could have been so much more, but it never quite got to exploring the full potential of the ideas it laid out.
think that they didn't sell Jim's loneliness enough in the movie, which was partly a result of them condensing a lot of that (they wanted to rush through it to maximise JLaw's screentime).
I kinda feel like what they showed on screen was enuff to set the scene. there was more than simply Pratt growing a beard, we see him try out a whole bunch of stuff on the ship - he's clearly spent a great deal of time trying to get into the Crew quarters as well as the bridge, establishes a long up and down relationship with the bar robot, tries to keep himself amused with space walks etc .. and thru it all the passage of time is marked by his increasing lack of attention to grooming and personal hygiene - I certainly didn't feel like the point wasn't made that lots of time had passed and his mood evolved from "Make the best of it to, this is hopeless"..
Like anything, its obviously subjective as to how well you feel this was handles but I felt that more time spent on him making time would have slowed the movie down way too much as well as also not leaving enuff time for Jlaw and Pratt to develop a relationship without it seeming like she's just bonking the only awake chap on the ship because he's the only awake chap on the ship. The way it was executed showed that they had a genuine rapport, made a slow connection that was later leveraged in her decision to stay with him, which is overall, far more crucial.
"Both Jim and Aurora thus remain the most unlucky passengers in this scenario, whereas everyone dying flipped that around completely and made them the most lucky. So that misfortune is still something they'll have to deal with - it would still have been better for them had it been other passengers who were woken and ended up saving the ship, while they slept away, oblivious to the catastrophe."
True - but this is resolved into a choice by Jlaw when she is given the option of staying awake with Chris or going into the medical pod thing. She could have just slept thru the balance of the 88 odd years but instead made a choice to do what she felt worked for her best and ultimately, led a perfectish life on board the ship - The major difference seems to be that their survival wasn't contrasted against everyone else perishing - but resolved into everyone on board lives happily ... which didn't really bother me at all.
" she had been searching for sympathy, but instead got a version of "well, he had it really bad, so you can't blame him", and that didn't sit right with me. "
I didn't read his statement like that at all - He extended his sympathy for her situation and absolutely made a point of that being a completely immoral choice by Chris - He was simply saying that its human nature to act irrationally when survival is at stake - its not an excuse or a justification or even watering down blame, its just human nature. People do bad things in extreme circumstances not because they are evil people but because they are people .. which didn't resonate with her till she was put into exactly the same situation.
Understanding why people make poor choices isn't the same as excusing those poor choices .. it's just an invitation to take these into account by way of a reason and empathise. I could conceivably let 100 people die to save my own child - I could 100% recognise that this would be a morally appalling choice and wear that 100% but I would also expect a good number of people to understand why I would do that without giving me a free pass for that decision ..So the point to me was, when you judge someone's poor decision's, understand the context of those decisions and put yourself in the same position, it's overwhelmingly in our nature to act in our own best interests even when we know its wrong - which doesn't excuse the action but it does give you pause to think how you might react in the same position which might be equally appallingly.
" The video from Aurora's friend, saying that she wishes she'll find someone who will fill her heart and that she'll let him in. This was a new scene written for the movie, and the way it was presented made me uncomfortable because she didn't find Jim so much as he abducted her. She was at that moment hurting very badly because of what he did, while the voiceover was telling her to open up and let herself be loved. I found that particularly disturbing in how it reminded me of abuse victims feeling pressured to forgive abusers and not shut them out, in some cases because they do genuinely love them"
This I absolutely agree with .. the entire scene just didn't fit at all .. Aurora wasn't emotionally unavailable prior to finding out about the deception - the timing of the message was kinda post deception where she had a legitimate reason to distance herself and this did come over as "You just gotta make yourself available" which distracted from the bigger point of "How should I process this grotesque abuse that's been visited on me" .. and it did lend an air of Rapey absue victim just suck it up and move on"..
"It was an ode to human resilience and finding the good in the bad. It hinted at the two of them having found a full, rich life in the ship building that society of other people, no longer alone on their voyage through space but surrounded by community, and that was pretty heartwarming. As it is, in the movie's ending the two of them are still stuck alone for 90 years (and still to Jim's benefit; had she a choice from the start, Aurora might very well have preferred another man to be stuck with),"
Yeah - I dunno. I had no issue at all with the direction they went with in the movie. Its a different take but not necessarily a bad one. They create a new "Eden" on board the ship, live out their lives in comparative bliss - die and hand over to a new generation... Aurora was given a choice, she could have elected to stay in the medipod thingy for the balance of the 88 years and she chose to stay with Chris - and that decision wasn't framed as guilt at leaving him to his own fate but - a willingness to overlook his harm and stay with him because she loved him and maybe recognised her own human fragility when deciding to reconcile with his initial decision, .. So - they both had good lives - she had a choice and made it with full autonomy and everyone on board lived .. the only room for debate here is whether she made the right choice given all the circumstances and - if we allow her autonomy, that's not really a consideration because her choice is her own and judging that is effectively saying - we know better, which I don't think is a healthy message.
Yeah, good point about how it was more crucial to show their relationship building up over time.
Gus' statement - I agree with what you say about understanding his choice, but it was the way they ended that particular bit of dialogue. (compare it to his earlier conversation with Jim, where it was flipped around - he was sympathetic, then added "But still." - It's the last line where the weight lies.) This was the original scene:
AURORA
It's not forgivable, Gus. It's not. Don't tell me it is.
GUS
No, it's a bad thing. But...
(he shrugs helplessly)
Look. When a drowning man drags
somebody down with him, you don't
call it right. But he's drowning. A
starving man steals a loaf of bread,
what can you say? You should have
starved?
AURORA
I would have starved.
GUS
Really?
Aurora looks hard at Gus, thinking, and says nothing.
--
I felt that that was more powerful, because it managed to sympathise with both Aurora and Jim, as well as more clearly invited her to realise that if she'd been in that situation, her own moral principles (which at that point she was certain about) might have failed her as well.
But regarding her choice to go into the pod, I don't think there was much freedom in that choice just by virtue of her not being completely heartless. If there had been two pods available, I'm certain that both of them would have opted to go back into hibernation. So her motivation for declining the offer wasn't because she was okay with her fate, but because she didn't want to doom him to being alone forever (which still wasn't his fault - he got unlucky), and was willing to make that sacrifice. I think most people would have made the choice she did, even if they didn't love the other person, because going back into hibernation would require dooming them to eternal isolation, and would be cruel.
I really like the conversations that this movie has started, though, and that was one of the goals of the filmmakers, so they did at least achieve a lot of that.
"I felt that that was more powerful, because it managed to sympathise with both Aurora and Jim, as well as more clearly invited her to realise that if she'd been in that situation, her own moral principles (which at that point she was certain about) might have failed her as well"
Yup, reading the original version, its probably more explicit - but, I took what he said in this context without the extra wording so, I don't feel it was needed given I never actually read this as an excuse rather than an invitation to consider that people in extreme situations aren't always acting rationally .. so, effectively I read all that into the original wording .. to me then, this is a minor point of contention.
"But regarding her choice to go into the pod, I don't think there was much freedom in that choice just by virtue of her not being completely heartless. If there had been two pods available, I'm certain that both of them would have opted to go back into hibernation. So her motivation for declining the offer wasn't because she was okay with her fate, but because she didn't want to doom him to being alone forever (which still wasn't his fault - he got unlucky), and was willing to make that sacrifice. I think most people would have made the choice she did, even if they didn't love the other person"
I agree with all of that in principal but, I still feel there's a bit more to it than than. Had Chris not redeemed herself in her eyes, lets say they discovered the pod and its capabilities prior to later events unfolding and while she was of a mind that he was an asshole that condemned her to his fate .. I would have thought she would have jumped straight in the pod and happily left him to live out his days on the ship alone ...
To me, she made the decision to stay with him because she both established empathy for his decision, decided that he redeemed himself, made her peace with that and decided that she loved him enuff to stay with him on the ship because she didn't want to live in a world without him.
She wasn't making do with a choice made for her and the relationship and affection wasn't forced. She seemed genuinely compatible and happy with his character right up until she found out he woke her up - the balance of the relationship hangs on whether or not she decided to forgive him for that and get back to where she was at with the relationship prior to finding out his deception.
If she was simply staying because she felt that leaving him on his own was mean spirited, then she could have lived there platonically rather than jumping straight back into a relationship - and we see that they were happy and lived a full life in each others company one she acted on that decision - So, to me, the authors intent was more geared around showing she forgave him and loves him despite his previous actions rather than she's just too nice of a person to let him live alone forever...
I really like the conversations that this movie has started, though, and that was one of the goals of the filmmakers, so they did at least achieve a lot of that.
I agree - the movie is morally ambiguous and I like that it lends itself to debate cos life is morally ambiguous, people in relationships don't always act as solid moral agents even if they are essentially good people.
The danger here would be in white washing his choices with regards to her and making it not that big of a deal where she should forgive him - and apart from the aforementioned message from a friend at home, I don't feel they did that.
She made her decisions with her own agency which, as you correctly noted, was more complicated than simply " Do I choose to stay" .. but it was still her decision and what he did to her was still dealt with as serious and devastating, but she also made it of her own accord and for what seemed like reasons she owned.
"I would have thought she would have jumped straight in the pod and happily left him to live out his days on the ship alone"
Yeah, good point there. Though perhaps that too would have been influenced by her current feelings about him (hatred, betrayal). Whereas if they had discovered this pod right after she woke, and he was still a complete stranger, I think she would have still chosen to stay rather than leave him, despite not yet coming to feel for him. It would have been selfish otherwise to insist that she gets the pod and he doesn't.
I'm not sure about describing their relationship as good before the discovery, though, because it wasn't a natural scenario. He'd been researching her for months and finding out about her life: what she liked, what kind of person she was, her dreams and beliefs, and even if he had never consciously manipulated her, it would have subconsciously affected his behaviour. I've Facebook stalked people I like, and it inevitably affected how I acted around them (e.g. I know that aels hates spiders, so if I give her spider-repellent it would likely make her like me more). A similar analogy would be a time traveller who upsets his girlfriend and then rewinds time to do things differently, the end result being that he seems like the perfect boyfriend who can do no wrong - naturally she would love him for that, genuinely so, but it wouldn't be completely real.
Likewise here, they started out with him knowing a lot about her (but hiding that fact) while she knew nothing about him. The power dynamics were imbalanced from the start. There was that line: "Do you trust me?" and she said she did, but the audience was aware that he had been lying to her all this while, and her trust (and love?) was thus misplaced. So, even if her feelings for him had been genuine, she had no way of knowing how deep the lies ran: if he could lie about something this big and horrific without her suspecting anything, who knows what else he had lied about, including being the sort of guy she liked?
From reading interviews with the filmmakers, I realise that what bothers me most isn't they don't think what Jim did was that bad (they make it quite clear they find it despicable), but rather why they think it was despicable. It's not just about Jim dooming Aurora to his fate, but dooming her to share that fate with him. He likes her, so either way being stuck with her will be an improvement for him, but he doesn't know if she will like him back (even just platonically) - he practically assumes she will, which is where the creepiness comes in. He's choosing her life partner for her. She may very well have been in love with another passenger, but he completely disregards that fact. (He mentions himself that he would have normally never gotten the chance to be with a rich, beautiful woman like her.)
So he's potentially condemning her to spend her life alone with someone she might hate or find unattractive. The disturbing thing isn't that, so much as how this factor doesn't at all cross his mind in his moral calculations. He only considers how it would ruin her life in the same way his own was ruined; the possibility she might dislike him never occurs to him, which requires a level of oblivious narcissism, and that's the crux of the problem for me, because I don't think it occurred to the filmmakers either.
If she had turned out to be a lesbian, for example, her nightmare would have been compounded by knowing that some guy woke her and destroyed her life in the vain hope that she would love him back. Or if she had been partnered, and now doomed to either cheating or celibacy. Or if he just wasn't her type at all. His crime was thus twofold: condemning her to living and dying on the ship, as well as making himself her only option for love (and sex) without even once taking her own preferences into account. The movie acknowledges the first crime, but not the second. Having her fall in love with him was the easy way out of the problem, and a bit of a copout.
A lot of this also hinges on the fact that he's a young and attractive guy. Had he been an old ugly pervert but the story remained the same, I think it would have changed things, even though one's appearance and even character should not be a factor in the morality - and forgivability - of a given action.
My favourite thing about this story was always the discussions it produced. I've had many great chats with friends over this.
"I'm not sure about describing their relationship as good before the discovery, though, because it wasn't a natural scenario. He'd been researching her for months and finding out about her life: what she liked, what kind of person she was, her dreams and beliefs, and even if he had never consciously manipulated her, it would have subconsciously affected his behaviour. I've Facebook stalked people I like, and it inevitably affected how I acted around them (e.g. I know that aels hates spiders, so if I give her spider-repellent it would likely make her like me more). A similar analogy would be a time traveller who upsets his girlfriend and then rewinds time to do things differently, the end result being that he seems like the perfect boyfriend who can do no wrong - naturally she would love him for that, genuinely so, but it wouldn't be completely real]
Yeah - well I guess that was a cautious "Good" .. the relationship before was predicated on deceit, which is the big thing I guess .. as well as his research into who she was, which I have less of a problem with all things considered pretty much for the same reasons why I don't feel its all that morally compromising in the normal course of things to facebook someone you might be interested in.
At the end of the day, that only takes you so far and its pretty mundane .. People lie about who they are all the time whether it be on facebook or in real life, just about every single relationship I've ever been involved in runs the same way, it not right but its not where it all ends .. what end up mattering is what you learn about someone in real time rather than what research you do up front. If they weren't really compatible, that would have come out in the wash in the year they spent together - and the way it was presented was, they got along naturally after a time..
'So he's potentially condemning her to spend her life alone with someone she might hate or find unattractive. The disturbing thing isn't that, so much as how this factor doesn't at all cross his mind in his moral calculations. He only considers how it would ruin her life in the same way his own was ruined; the possibility she might dislike him never occurs to him"
True, but that would be a different movie. In this movie, we aren't given any reason to think that she wasn't happy with Chris or that there was more bearing on her decision than she decided that she would enjoy a life with him. To read it otherwise goes off script.. which would have been interesting but ultimately, a different thing entirely.
In this movie - she is attracted to him, they do appear compatible, she makes her decision with full knowledge of what happened and decides to forgive him and spend her life with him the ship despite all that. She may well have decided that on the basis of just not leaving him to die on his own but there's no reason to think that's true - which is later cemented by the impression that they led a happy life together prior to everyone else waking up .. so, its an interesting point of discussion but to read it in as a definitive factor in this movie seems beyond the intentions of the writers.
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