.gif)
Sunshine (2007 film)
Encyclopedia
Sunshine is a 2007 British science fiction film
directed by Danny Boyle
and written by Alex Garland
about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun
. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. The crew is made up of an ensemble cast
consisting of Cillian Murphy
, Chris Evans
, Rose Byrne
, Michelle Yeoh
, Cliff Curtis
, Troy Garity
, Hiroyuki Sanada
, Benedict Wong
, Chipo Chung
, and Mark Strong
.
The script was based on a scientific back-story
that took the characters on a psychological journey. The director cast a group of international actors for the film, and had the actors live together and learn about topics related to their roles, as a form of method acting
. To have the actors realistically react to visual effects that would be implemented in post-production, the filmmakers constructed live sets to serve as cues.
Previous science fiction films that Boyle cited as influences included Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
, the 1972 Tarkovsky's Solaris
, and the 1979 science-fiction horror film Alien
. Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom
on 6 April 2007 and in the United States
on 20 July 2007. The film took £3.2 million in the UK over twelve weeks, and in the USA it was placed no. 13 in the box office on the first weekend of its wide release. With a budget of US$40 million, it ultimately grossed almost US$32 million worldwide.
threatens life on the planet, compelling humanity to send a spacecraft that carries a stellar bomb payload intended to re-ignite it. The first spacecraft with the payload, the Icarus I, was lost seven years previously for reasons unknown, having failed in its mission. A second spacecraft with a new payload, the Icarus II, is sent to the Sun in a final attempt, as the Earth has been exhausted of the materials necessary to make the bomb.
The design of the Icarus spacecraft, displayed in the opening shots of the movie, incorporates a massive heat shield made of many small positionable mirrors in an umbrella shape at the front of the vessel. This shield protects the relatively fragile main hull of the Icarus craft from the intense radiation and superheated particles of the solar wind
, which at such close proximity to the Sun can dissolve most materials near-instantaneously. The stellar bomb is located just behind the heat shield, with the remainder of the ship, including the engines, living quarters, oxygen garden, computer core, and other structure behind a second, smaller heat shield. This second shield will be used as both protection and a solar sail
during the return trip, after the payload is deployed into the Sun taking the larger shield with it.
As the movie opens, the Icarus II is passing into the "dead zone", beyond which the radio communications of the crew back to Earth are lost in the solar wind. Mission Physicist Capa records a last-minute message to send back to his parents on Earth, while psychiatrist Searle views the Sun's filtered light on the ship's solar observation deck, pushing the limits of the computer's safety protocols to view as much light as is allowed.
When the Icarus II passes Mercury
on its way to the Sun, communications officer Harvey discovers the distress beacon
of Icarus I. Capa is asked by Captain Kaneda to decide whether to change course and approach Icarus I. Capa runs a simulation of the bomb's deployment and detonation, which like all previous runs is inconclusive due to the unpredictable variables inherent in the physics inside a gravity well
. After a risk assessment
, Capa decides to rendezvous
with the stricken vessel in order to acquire its payload, hopefully doubling their chances of success.
In planning the new course, navigator Trey forgets to realign the heat shield to match the new trajectory, which results in damage to some of the mirrors on the heat shield, putting the spacecraft and mission at risk. Kaneda and Capa embark on a spacewalk to make repairs while the ship is angled to shelter the damaged portion of the shield, but an unintended automatic override by the ship's computer puts the two men at risk of fatal solar exposure. Capa escapes to shelter behind the shield while Kaneda completes the vital repairs. Unable to reach safety before the shields are completely exposed to full sunlight, he turns back and stares at the Sun as the solar wind consumes him. The incident that caused the override turns out to be a fire in the ship's oxygen garden, started by sunlight reflected from an exposed part of the ship. The fire both totally destroys the garden and dangerously depletes the oxygen levels, making a return trip impossible. Trey blames himself for the losses due to his neglect, and Searle sedates him, assessing him as a suicide risk.
The Icarus II makes rendezvous with the Icarus I, and the lost spacecraft is explored by four men of the crew: Harvey, Capa, Searle, and engineer Mace. While the Icarus I has a functional oxygen garden, the ship's operational computer is found to be sabotaged, rendering delivery of the payload impossible. Mace finds a video left behind by Captain Pinbacker, an extremely religious man, who states the mission was purposely abandoned, thinking it was the "will of God" that humanity should die. The crew of Icarus I is found dead in the solar observation room, having been exposed to unshielded rays of sunlight. During the group's exploration, the airlocks inexplicably decouple, damaging the Icarus Is airlock and stranding the crew members on the derelict spacecraft. In a risky move, Searle stays behind to jettison the three men using the coordinated vacuuming of the airlock to propel them to the airlock of the Icarus II. Harvey is knocked into space and quickly freezes to death in the near-absolute zero
temperatures of space, while Searle, trapped on the Icarus I, submits himself to the same fate as the original crew in the observation room, exposing himself to the full light of the Sun.
Five remain on the Icarus II: Capa, Mace, Trey, Cassie, and Corazon. The survivors check the Icarus activity file and discover that someone must have manually decoupled the airlock as there was no hardware failure. While Trey — now the prime suspect for sabotaging the airlock — is elsewhere, the four other crew members discuss that the remaining oxygen reserves would only allow them to reach the Sun to deliver the payload if there were only four people. Everyone except Cassie decides Trey must be killed, but when they go to Trey, they find he has apparently committed suicide. During a final inspection some nineteen hours before the delivery point, Capa discovers with surprise from the spacecraft's computer that even without Trey the reserves will not last long enough to deploy, because of an unaccounted-for fifth person on the spacecraft. He discovers that Pinbacker is still alive and has made his way into the Icarus II observation room, having sneaked aboard and decoupled the ship from the Icarus I. He is very badly burned because of repeated exposures to the Sun. He slashes Capa with a scalpel and seals him in an airlock.
Pinbacker attempts to sabotage the spacecraft so that it will not complete its mission, removing the Icarus mainframe computer stack from its sub-zero coolant bath, and attacking the other crew members, killing Corazon in the oxygen garden. Mace attempts to undo Pinbacker's sabotage, but is trapped in the coolant reservoir and freezes to death there. Capa, trapped in the airlock, manages to blow the airlock door off, completely decompressing most of Icarus II. He makes his way to the computer core and manually uncouples the bomb from the rest of the spacecraft. Capa then travels to the airlock and jumps the distance to the payload, reaching it just as the boosters ignite. This sends the bomb out of solar orbit and into the Sun's corona, which burns up the remains of Icarus II as Capa enters the payload's airlock. He finds Cassie in the payload section, having been pursued there by Pinbacker. Pinbacker attempts to drop Capa off a precipice within the bomb, but Cassie grabs on to Capa, their combined weight peels the skin off Pinbacker's arm and they fall but the changing gravitational pull of the Sun arrests their fall down the cliff. Capa triggers the bomb in time to re-ignite the Sun. With the sparks of the stellar bomb multiplying, Capa watches the inner surface of the Sun burst through one wall of the payload capsule, as space and time break down, owing to the Sun's immense gravity field. He reaches out and touches it, smiling blissfully.
On Earth, Capa's sister reviews her brother's last message on video while her children build snowmen. Suddenly, the sky brightens, an indication of the mission's success. The final scene reveals that they were building snowmen on the frozen harbour near the Sydney Opera House
.
(2004), director Danny Boyle
was briefly attached to direct 3000 Degrees, a Warner Bros. project about the 1999 Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire
in Massachusetts, but due to opposition from surviving victims and firefighters, the project did not enter production. At the same time, Boyle received a script from screenwriter Alex Garland
, who had paired with Boyle for The Beach
(2000) and 28 Days Later
(2002). Producer Andrew Macdonald
, working with Boyle and Garland, pitched the script to 20th Century Fox
, who were reluctant to finance the film based on its similarities to the 2002 remake Solaris
, which performed dismally for the studio. The project was instead financed by Fox's specialized film unit Fox Searchlight Pictures
. Since the preliminary budget at US$40 million was too demanding for Fox Searchlight, Macdonald sought outside financing from British lottery funds, U.K. rebates, and outside investor Ingenious Film Partners. With financing in place, Boyle entered pre-production work for Sunshine, for which he planned to commence production by the following July. Since Boyle had previously worked with Fox Searchlight on 28 Days Later, the existing relationship permitted the director with freedom in production, working in a small studio.
Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, spent a second year preparing for production, filmed for three months, and spent a third full year editing and completing visual effects for Sunshine. After completion of filming for Sunshine, Boyle said that he would not revisit the science fiction
genre, citing production as a spiritually exhausting experience. The director said making the film had conquered his fear of the difficulty encountered in producing a science fiction film, and that he would move on from the genre.
was inspired to write Sunshine based on scientific ideas about the heat death of the universe
, specifically "an article projecting the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective," according to Garland. The article was from an American scientific periodical, and Garland had wondered about what would result from the Sun's death. Garland brought the script to director Danny Boyle
, who enthusiastically took up the project due to his long-time desire to direct a science fiction film in space. Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, creating 35 drafts in their experimenting.
The director (Danny Boyle) also considered the story of Sunshine as a counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming
, with the death of the Sun being a threat. Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the Sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the Sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power. The director also described the film's villain as based on light, explaining, "That's quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness." The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths. To capture the dangers of the voyage that the crew members went through, the director cited Bill Bryson
's A Short History of Nearly Everything
as influential in "articulating the universe's power".
The story was also written in part to reflect the brilliance and "necessary arrogance" of real-life science when the world's scientists are presented with the crisis that threatens Earth. The time period of the story, 50 years in the future, was chosen to enable the level of technology to advance to the ability to travel to the Sun, but to simultaneously keep a feel of familiarity for the audience. Scientific advisers, futurists, and people who developed products for the future were consulted to shape an idea of the future.
To shape the science of the film, Boyle and Garland hired scientist advisers, including NASA employees and astrophysicists. One physicist, Brian Cox
of University of Manchester
, was hired to advise the cast and crew after the director had seen Cox on the science TV series Horizon. The physicist gave regular lectures to the film's cast members about solar physics. Cox also advised the filmmakers to scale down the nuclear device in the film from the mass of the Moon to the size of Manhattan. In the film's backstory, a Q-Ball
enters the Earth
's Sun and begins to eat it away. According to Cox, the Sun would not be dense enough in real life to stop a Q-ball, but filmmakers took creative licence
in writing the backstory.
Boyle originally included romantic subplots, including a sex scene
planned between the characters Capa (Murphy) and Cassie (Byrne) in the ship's oxygen garden. However, the director considered the attempt for relationships in space too "embarrassing" and excluded the subplots. Boyle further distanced the characters from possible relationships by ensuring that the cast members wore little to no make-up to avoid any romantic overtures. The director also avoided including humor in the script with the exception of a few gags, believing that humor was a difficult fit for the story. "You get intensity of experience in space movies but not joy. So there's not much room for comedy or sex - everything is waiting to destroy you," explained Boyle.
Director Danny Boyle
chose to have an ensemble cast
for Sunshine to encourage a more democratic process, similar to the ensemble cast in Alien
. Boyle also chose to have the cast be international in order to reflect the mission's purpose "on behalf of all mankind". The space crew in the film also consisted of American/Asian nationality because of the filmmakers' belief that the American
and Chinese space program
s would be the most developed and economically empowered 50 years in the future. The director had also received advice that there would be advanced space programs with India and Brazil, but the advice was overlooked to avoid creating a cast that was too disparate. According to producer Andrew Macdonald
, the actors were required to speak with American accents to target the U.S. audience as much as international audiences due to the budget level of the project.
To prepare the international actors for the film, Boyle had the cast undergo method acting
. At the beginning of the film, the characters had been together for sixteen months, so Boyle desired to capture a sense of togetherness among the actors by assigning them to live together. He also enrolled the cast members in space training and scuba diving, as well as watching films together, such as The Right Stuff (1983) and the documentary For All Mankind
(1989). Boyle also took the cast on a tour of a nuclear submarine
to comprehend claustrophobic living conditions. He also had the cast experience weightlessness
in the zero G environment of an acrobatic plane.
Cast members operated a Boeing 747
flight simulator
and were introduced to futurologist Richard Seymour. The book Moondust by Andrew Smith
, a collection of accounts of the men who had walked on the moon, was required reading for cast members. The book had been assigned by Boyle because it described the lasting psychological changes experienced by that particular group of astronauts. The director sought to manifest the effect by showing the Sun's awesome, radiant power influencing the psyches of the ship's crew.
Filming began on 23 August 2005, lasting for 15 weeks, with August and September being difficult months due to the heat and the cast's requirement to wear spacesuits for their roles. Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler chose to film in anamorphic format
to capture a physical sense of the light. "We shot certain sequences in a very dark environment, which you get used to, so when the Sun plays a role, we wanted the audience to have a physical reaction to it," Kuchler said. Due to filming with the actors taking place on a stage, director Danny Boyle
constructed live effects so the actors could realistically respond to computer-generated effects that were later implemented.
To increase the feeling of claustrophobia
in Sunshine, Boyle refused to cut back to scenes on Earth, a traditional technique in most films about the planet in jeopardy. The director also maintained an atmosphere of confinement in Sunshine by avoiding filming the primary ship, Icarus II, from the outside. He also attempted to avoid filming star field backgrounds, keeping the ship's exterior pitch black, but he was ultimately compelled to show stars outside the spacecraft to help convey a sense of the ship's movement.
A scene in a snow-covered park with three stone monoliths was a homage to a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey
. The scene was filmed at a May Day memorial in Stockholm
, Sweden
. The Sydney Opera House
in Sydney
, Australia
was chosen by Boyle out of six monuments that he considered universally recognisable. The Opera House, according to the director, possessed a "heat-thing" quality that decided it as his choice for a final establishing shot on Earth.
The snowy territory of the final scene was shot in Stockholm, Sweden, and a composite shot was created combining Stockholm's background and the Sydney Opera House. A slightly different ending was shot after the original but was not chosen as the director felt that it did not fit the film. The alternate ending became available on the DVD of Sunshine.
's Das Boot
(1981). Boyle also cited inevitable visual influences from science fiction film
s in space by Andrei Tarkovsky
(Solaris
in 1972), Stanley Kubrick
(2001: A Space Odyssey
in 1968), and Ridley Scott
(Alien
in 1979). Influences from other science fiction films also included Paul W. S. Anderson
's Event Horizon
(1997), John Carpenter
's Dark Star
(1974), and Douglas Trumbull
's Silent Running
(1971).
Filmmakers consulted NASA
in designing the scientific aspects of the film. Technical specifications for the ship were provided in order to make it more realistic. An oxygen garden was also recommended to provide oxygen for the ship and to enable the crew to grow their own food rather than rely completely on pre-packaged sustenance. Boyle met with a department within NASA that was focused on the psychology of deep-space travel, and they advised the director that regular Earth routines like preparing one's own food, enjoying its consumption and cleaning up afterwards are activities crucial to an astronaut's sanity.
The gold-leaf shielding in Sunshine was influenced by NASA satellite designs for deflecting heat and other forms of radiant energy. Director Danny Boyle
designed the gold-colored space suits along these lines despite persistent encouragement to model them after the NASA template. The helmets were designed to have cameras mounted in them. This further enhanced a sense of claustrophobia useful to the actors in delivering more heartfelt performances. The helmets were also limited to a horizontal slit for visibility instead of a full-face visor as further consideration toward protecting the characters from the ambient radiation of outer space. According to Boyle, the funnel shape of the helmet was influenced by the character Kenny
from South Park
.
Boyle included "Icarus
" in the name of the ship to continue a theme of bleakness, opining that no American would give their craft such an ill-fated
name. According to the director, "They'd call it Spirit of Hope or Ship of Destiny. They'd call it something optimistic... in America they would sacrifice all plausibility, because there would be hope." The ship's exterior was designed to look like an oil tanker. The ship's interior was influenced by the design of a nuclear submarine that filmmakers had visited in Scotland, though the space was larger due to NASA's advice that smaller quarters would adversely affect the crewmembers' sanity. The corpses of burn victims in the film were modeled on the Pompeii
victims from the Mount Vesuvius eruption.
project. Boyle also sought to pursue inexpensive methods in filming sequences involving actors and visual effects. In a scene where Cillian Murphy's character dreams of falling into the sun, the actor was placed in a gantry around which 20 assistants rotated an assembly of bright lights.
In another scene in which a character dies from solar exposure among the ashes from cremated bodies, massive wind turbines propelled biodegradable dust at the actor in the director's attempt to have the computer-generated effects follow the actor instead of vice versa. Boyle commented on his approach to using effects, "There is part of our brain where we admire the effect, but we put it in a side compartment of our experience because you know there's no way an actor can live through that, or be there in that moment." During the post-production process, Boyle hired one visual effects company, London's Moving Picture Company
, to work on the film's 750 visual effects. The assignment of a single company was contrary to the industry trend of hiring multiple vendors to work on a film's effects. Boyle chose one company for ease of quality control, though the decision resulted in a prolonged post-production process.
provided the footage to the band Underworld
, who improvised a score. Karl Hyde of Underworld was influenced by the music of avant garde composer György Ligeti
which had been used in Stanley Kubrick
's 2001: A Space Odyssey
(1968). Lux Aeterna
by Ligeti particularly influenced Hyde. When Underworld finished recording the band sent its work to composer John Murphy
, who completed the score, resulting in a hybrid between Underworld and Murphy. The band I Am Kloot
also contributed to the score with the track "Avenue of Hope".
Despite high praise for the score from fans of the film a soundtrack was significantly delayed. This was partly due to 'disputes' between the lawyers of Underworld and Fox Searchlight. Although not available close to the film's debut, a soundtrack was still widely expected to be eventually released, until the film's producer Andrew Macdonald
stated in a fansite interview that the soundtrack was "stuck" and that there were "no plans to release" it.
The soundtrack was finally released on iTunes USA on November 25, 2008.
, Germany
on 23 March 2007. The film was released commercially in the home country of the United Kingdom
on 6th April 2007, taking £1,021,063 in 407 cinemas for its opening weekend.
The film also opened the same weekend in seven other markets, performing most strongly in Hong Kong
(US$267,000), Taiwan
(US$442,000) and Singapore
(US$198,000). On the weekend of 13 April 2007, Sunshine opened in 22 more markets, garnering US$5.3 million for the weekend. Its French
debut was the strongest with US$1.2 million in 380 theatres, but the film only had average performance in New Zealand
(US$120,149 from 36 theatres), Switzerland
(US$60,285 from 11 theatres) and Finland
(US$42,745 from 15 theatres).
The following weekend of 20 April 2007, the film expanded to 44 markets, garnering US$5.9 million for a total of US$18.6 million thus far, considered a disappointing amount. Sunshine had poor debuts in Spain
(US$1 million), Germany (US$638,549), and Italy
(US$453,000). By the end of April, Sunshine had opened to most markets, with the notable exception of the United States
, for which a release date had yet to be established at the time. The film's theatrical run in the UK lasted twelve weeks, totaling £3,175,911.
The film was originally slated to be released in the United States in September 2007, but the release date was moved earlier to July 2007. Sunshine was released in the United States and Canada
at select locations in Los Angeles
, New York City
, Chicago
, San Francisco, Boston
, and Toronto
on 20 July 2007. Sunshine opened in 10 cinemas in the United States and took US$242,964 over the opening weekend.
The film was released everywhere else in the two countries the following weekend of 27th July 2007. In the film's first wide release weekend in the United States and Canada, Sunshine took US$1,262,996 in 461 theatres, ranking no. 13 at the weekend box office. In its theatrical run, the film took US$3,675,753 in the United States and Canada and US$28,342,050 in other territories for a worldwide total of US$32,017,803; the film's budget reportedly was US$40 million.
with an average rating of 6.8/10. On another aggregator, Metacritic
, Sunshine received an average score of 64 out of 100 based on 34 reviews.
Critically, the film was moderately well received in the UK. However, many found the last reels disappointing, with one critic suggesting the switch to 'slasher movie
' mode might have been inserted to appease teenage audiences.
Film critic Roger Ebert
gave the film three stars out of four and said that "the [actors] are effective by trying not to be too effective; they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes," and also that the film "is strongest when it focuses on the sheer enormity of the mission and its consequences."
served as the film's scientific advisor, though he noted in the DVD commentary that several inaccuracies were permitted to allow for plot. He also dismissed criticisms of the film by scientists: "Sunshine is not a documentary. It's trying to just, in an hour and forty minutes, get across a feeling of what it's like - not only to be a scientist, because obviously there's much more in it than that. So, I found it interesting to watch the kind of people that get upset because the gravity is wrong."
Slow motion during weightlessness
was inaccurately portrayed; the director had discovered this when riding the Vomit Comet
, but he kept the slow motion to meet audiences' expectations. The film's premise of the sun dying out is also inaccurate, since the sun is estimated to die out in five billion years' time, after becoming a red giant and not by a gradual decline in brightness. Part of the film's back-story included the sun's death being caused by a Q-ball
caught in the solar body, but realistically, the sun would not be dense enough to trap a Q-ball. Another purposeful inaccuracy was the "whooshing" of the ship despite the vacuum - Cox later mentioned in the BBC's Stargazing Live
programme in January 2011 that this was simply because without accompanying sound, the CGI shots seemed "cheap". Mercury's orbit was also pictured at many times its actual rate.
When the crew use the airlocks to move between ships without space suits, one of the crew members claims the temperature outside is -273 C, which is absolute zero
. Not only is this incorrect, as the temperature in outer space is slightly higher: -270 C, but orbiting the planet of Mercury behind a heatshield as close as they are, the temperature would be higher than -173 C.
The film's scientific content has been criticized by specialists with arguments often found contradicted by statements pertaining to the film. For example, the science periodical New Scientist
claimed that the nuclear device (stellar bomb) used by the crew would be woefully inadequate to reignite the dying sun (billions of such devices would be required). The periodical found the film to be confusing and disappointing. Although some argue the 'stellar bomb' may have been an unknown type of advanced technology, the film specifically states it they have used 'all of Earth's fissile material' and the description of how the bomb works involved atoms 'becoming two' - i.e. fission. Similarly, solar physicist
Anjana Ahuja
, a columnist for The Times
, commented on the lack of source of artificial gravity onboard the spacecraft, claiming "Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy". Ahuja was, however, more positive about the psychological aspect of the film, joking that "the psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk
".
for Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom
on 27 August 2007. Extras include separate commentaries by Danny Boyle and Prof. Brian Cox, an alternative ending, 11 deleted scenes, web production diaries, and the short films Dad's Dead
and Mole Hills. A Blu-ray
version was released in the UK in October of the same year. In the United States
, Sunshine was released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc and standard definition DVD on 8 January 2008. As of February 17, 2008, Sunshine has grossed $15.83 million in rental sales.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
directed by Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
and written by Alex Garland
Alex Garland
Alexander Medawar "Alex" Garland is a British novelist and screenwriter.-Early life:Garland was born in London, England, the son of psychoanalyst Caroline and political cartoonist Nicholas Garland. His maternal grandparents were zoologist Peter Medawar and author Jean Medawar...
about the crew of a spacecraft on a dangerous mission to the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. In 2057, with the Earth in peril from the dying Sun, the crew is sent to reignite the Sun with a massive stellar bomb with the mass equivalent to Manhattan Island. The crew is made up of an ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
consisting of Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal....
, Chris Evans
Chris Evans (actor)
Christopher Robert "Chris" Evans is an American actor. He played Cary Baston on the television series Opposite Sex, and transitioned to a film career, starring in several hits, including Not Another Teen Movie , Fierce People , Fantastic Four, sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer , and...
, Rose Byrne
Rose Byrne
Mary Rose Byrne is an Australian actress.Byrne made her screen debut in 1994 with a small role in the film Dallas Doll...
, Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s....
, Cliff Curtis
Cliff Curtis
Clifford Vivian Devon "Cliff" Curtis is a New Zealand actor who has had major roles in film, including The Piano, Whale Rider, and Blow, and most recently has appeared in NBC's television series Trauma. He is also co-owner of independent film production company Whenua Films...
, Troy Garity
Troy Garity
Troy Garity is an American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Barry Winchell in the 2003 television movie Soldier's Girl, but may be best known for his role as Isaac Rosenberg in the Barbershop films.-Early life and...
, Hiroyuki Sanada
Hiroyuki Sanada
is a Japanese actor.-Life and career:Sanada was born in Tokyo. Originally aiming to be an action star, starting with shorinji kempo, he eventually took up Kyokushin kaikan Sanada began training at age 11 with actor and martial arts star Sonny Chiba's Japan Action Club where he developed good...
, Benedict Wong
Benedict Wong
Benedict Wong is an English actor and comedian.Wong was born in Manchester and attended school in Salford. His first role was in a 1993 BBC Radio play called Kai Mei Sauce, written by Kevin Wong. He appeared alongside Sean Lock in the situation comedy 15 Storeys High, and as Dr. Franklin Fu in the...
, Chipo Chung
Chipo Chung
Chipo Chung is a Tanzanian-born actress raised in Zimbabwe. She currently lives in London.-Background:Chipo Chung was born as a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is half-Zimbabwean and half-Chinese. She spent her first two years in refugee camps in Mozambique with thousands of young people...
, and Mark Strong
Mark Strong
Mark Strong is an English actor, with a body of work in both films and television. He has performed in films as varied as Body of Lies, Syriana, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla, Stardust, and Kick-Ass...
.
The script was based on a scientific back-story
Back-story
A back-story, background story, or backstory is the literary device of a narrative chronologically earlier than, and related to, a narrative of primary interest. Generally, it is the history of characters or other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start...
that took the characters on a psychological journey. The director cast a group of international actors for the film, and had the actors live together and learn about topics related to their roles, as a form of method acting
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
. To have the actors realistically react to visual effects that would be implemented in post-production, the filmmakers constructed live sets to serve as cues.
Previous science fiction films that Boyle cited as influences included Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
, the 1972 Tarkovsky's Solaris
Solaris (1972 film)
Solaris is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris , directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to...
, and the 1979 science-fiction horror film Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
. Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on 6 April 2007 and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on 20 July 2007. The film took £3.2 million in the UK over twelve weeks, and in the USA it was placed no. 13 in the box office on the first weekend of its wide release. With a budget of US$40 million, it ultimately grossed almost US$32 million worldwide.
Plot
In 2057, the failure of the Earth's SunSun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
threatens life on the planet, compelling humanity to send a spacecraft that carries a stellar bomb payload intended to re-ignite it. The first spacecraft with the payload, the Icarus I, was lost seven years previously for reasons unknown, having failed in its mission. A second spacecraft with a new payload, the Icarus II, is sent to the Sun in a final attempt, as the Earth has been exhausted of the materials necessary to make the bomb.
The design of the Icarus spacecraft, displayed in the opening shots of the movie, incorporates a massive heat shield made of many small positionable mirrors in an umbrella shape at the front of the vessel. This shield protects the relatively fragile main hull of the Icarus craft from the intense radiation and superheated particles of the solar wind
Solar wind
The solar wind is a stream of charged particles ejected from the upper atmosphere of the Sun. It mostly consists of electrons and protons with energies usually between 1.5 and 10 keV. The stream of particles varies in temperature and speed over time...
, which at such close proximity to the Sun can dissolve most materials near-instantaneously. The stellar bomb is located just behind the heat shield, with the remainder of the ship, including the engines, living quarters, oxygen garden, computer core, and other structure behind a second, smaller heat shield. This second shield will be used as both protection and a solar sail
Solar sail
Solar sails are a form of spacecraft propulsion using the radiation pressure of light from a star or laser to push enormous ultra-thin mirrors to high speeds....
during the return trip, after the payload is deployed into the Sun taking the larger shield with it.
As the movie opens, the Icarus II is passing into the "dead zone", beyond which the radio communications of the crew back to Earth are lost in the solar wind. Mission Physicist Capa records a last-minute message to send back to his parents on Earth, while psychiatrist Searle views the Sun's filtered light on the ship's solar observation deck, pushing the limits of the computer's safety protocols to view as much light as is allowed.
When the Icarus II passes Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
on its way to the Sun, communications officer Harvey discovers the distress beacon
Beacon
A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location.Beacons can also be combined with semaphoric or other indicators to provide important information, such as the status of an airport, by the colour and rotational pattern of its airport beacon, or of...
of Icarus I. Capa is asked by Captain Kaneda to decide whether to change course and approach Icarus I. Capa runs a simulation of the bomb's deployment and detonation, which like all previous runs is inconclusive due to the unpredictable variables inherent in the physics inside a gravity well
Gravity well
A gravity well or gravitational well is a conceptual model of the gravitational field surrounding a body in space. The more massive the body the deeper and more extensive the gravity well associated with it. The Sun has a far-reaching and deep gravity well. Asteroids and small moons have much...
. After a risk assessment
Risk assessment
Risk assessment is a step in a risk management procedure. Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat...
, Capa decides to rendezvous
Space rendezvous
A space rendezvous is an orbital maneuver during which two spacecraft, one of which is often a space station, arrive at the same orbit and approach to a very close distance . Rendezvous requires a precise match of the orbital velocities of the two spacecraft, allowing them to remain at a constant...
with the stricken vessel in order to acquire its payload, hopefully doubling their chances of success.
In planning the new course, navigator Trey forgets to realign the heat shield to match the new trajectory, which results in damage to some of the mirrors on the heat shield, putting the spacecraft and mission at risk. Kaneda and Capa embark on a spacewalk to make repairs while the ship is angled to shelter the damaged portion of the shield, but an unintended automatic override by the ship's computer puts the two men at risk of fatal solar exposure. Capa escapes to shelter behind the shield while Kaneda completes the vital repairs. Unable to reach safety before the shields are completely exposed to full sunlight, he turns back and stares at the Sun as the solar wind consumes him. The incident that caused the override turns out to be a fire in the ship's oxygen garden, started by sunlight reflected from an exposed part of the ship. The fire both totally destroys the garden and dangerously depletes the oxygen levels, making a return trip impossible. Trey blames himself for the losses due to his neglect, and Searle sedates him, assessing him as a suicide risk.
The Icarus II makes rendezvous with the Icarus I, and the lost spacecraft is explored by four men of the crew: Harvey, Capa, Searle, and engineer Mace. While the Icarus I has a functional oxygen garden, the ship's operational computer is found to be sabotaged, rendering delivery of the payload impossible. Mace finds a video left behind by Captain Pinbacker, an extremely religious man, who states the mission was purposely abandoned, thinking it was the "will of God" that humanity should die. The crew of Icarus I is found dead in the solar observation room, having been exposed to unshielded rays of sunlight. During the group's exploration, the airlocks inexplicably decouple, damaging the Icarus Is airlock and stranding the crew members on the derelict spacecraft. In a risky move, Searle stays behind to jettison the three men using the coordinated vacuuming of the airlock to propel them to the airlock of the Icarus II. Harvey is knocked into space and quickly freezes to death in the near-absolute zero
Absolute zero
Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature at which entropy reaches its minimum value. The laws of thermodynamics state that absolute zero cannot be reached using only thermodynamic means....
temperatures of space, while Searle, trapped on the Icarus I, submits himself to the same fate as the original crew in the observation room, exposing himself to the full light of the Sun.
Five remain on the Icarus II: Capa, Mace, Trey, Cassie, and Corazon. The survivors check the Icarus activity file and discover that someone must have manually decoupled the airlock as there was no hardware failure. While Trey — now the prime suspect for sabotaging the airlock — is elsewhere, the four other crew members discuss that the remaining oxygen reserves would only allow them to reach the Sun to deliver the payload if there were only four people. Everyone except Cassie decides Trey must be killed, but when they go to Trey, they find he has apparently committed suicide. During a final inspection some nineteen hours before the delivery point, Capa discovers with surprise from the spacecraft's computer that even without Trey the reserves will not last long enough to deploy, because of an unaccounted-for fifth person on the spacecraft. He discovers that Pinbacker is still alive and has made his way into the Icarus II observation room, having sneaked aboard and decoupled the ship from the Icarus I. He is very badly burned because of repeated exposures to the Sun. He slashes Capa with a scalpel and seals him in an airlock.
Pinbacker attempts to sabotage the spacecraft so that it will not complete its mission, removing the Icarus mainframe computer stack from its sub-zero coolant bath, and attacking the other crew members, killing Corazon in the oxygen garden. Mace attempts to undo Pinbacker's sabotage, but is trapped in the coolant reservoir and freezes to death there. Capa, trapped in the airlock, manages to blow the airlock door off, completely decompressing most of Icarus II. He makes his way to the computer core and manually uncouples the bomb from the rest of the spacecraft. Capa then travels to the airlock and jumps the distance to the payload, reaching it just as the boosters ignite. This sends the bomb out of solar orbit and into the Sun's corona, which burns up the remains of Icarus II as Capa enters the payload's airlock. He finds Cassie in the payload section, having been pursued there by Pinbacker. Pinbacker attempts to drop Capa off a precipice within the bomb, but Cassie grabs on to Capa, their combined weight peels the skin off Pinbacker's arm and they fall but the changing gravitational pull of the Sun arrests their fall down the cliff. Capa triggers the bomb in time to re-ignite the Sun. With the sparks of the stellar bomb multiplying, Capa watches the inner surface of the Sun burst through one wall of the payload capsule, as space and time break down, owing to the Sun's immense gravity field. He reaches out and touches it, smiling blissfully.
On Earth, Capa's sister reviews her brother's last message on video while her children build snowmen. Suddenly, the sky brightens, an indication of the mission's success. The final scene reveals that they were building snowmen on the frozen harbour near the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
.
Cast
- Cillian MurphyCillian MurphyCillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal....
as Robert Capa:- The physicist who operates the massive star-bomb device. Murphy described the character of Capa as a silent outsider, which was due to the fact that only Capa understood the operation and true scale of the star bomb. Murphy worked with physicist Brian CoxBrian Cox (physicist)Brian Edward Cox, OBE , is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at...
to learn about advanced physics, touring the CERNCERNThe European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
facility and learning to copy physicists' mannerisms. The actor also studied the thriller The Wages of Fear (1953) with Boyle to gain an understanding of the type of suspense that Boyle wanted to create in the film. Murphy claims that his involvement in the film caused him to change his views on religion from agnosticismAgnosticismAgnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
to atheismAtheismAtheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
.
- The physicist who operates the massive star-bomb device. Murphy described the character of Capa as a silent outsider, which was due to the fact that only Capa understood the operation and true scale of the star bomb. Murphy worked with physicist Brian Cox
- Chris EvansChris Evans (actor)Christopher Robert "Chris" Evans is an American actor. He played Cary Baston on the television series Opposite Sex, and transitioned to a film career, starring in several hits, including Not Another Teen Movie , Fierce People , Fantastic Four, sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer , and...
as Mace:- The engineer. Evans described his character Mace as one with a military family and background. Mace has a dry and morally uncomplicated personality. Said Evans, "[He] has a very level head which enables him to operate fairly coherently under pressure-filled situations."
- Rose ByrneRose ByrneMary Rose Byrne is an Australian actress.Byrne made her screen debut in 1994 with a small role in the film Dallas Doll...
as Cassie:- The space vessel's pilot. Byrne was chosen by the director for her role in TroyTroy (film)Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
(2004). Byrne described Cassie as the most emotional member of the crew, "[wearing] her heart on her sleeve". Byrne considered Cassie's role among the crew was to possess an even temperament which helps her last the journey.
- The space vessel's pilot. Byrne was chosen by the director for her role in Troy
- Michelle YeohMichelle YeohMichelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian Chinese actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s....
as Corazon:- The biologist who takes care of the ship's "oxygen garden". Boyle cast Yeoh based on her performance in Tomorrow Never DiesTomorrow Never DiesTomorrow Never Dies is the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Bruce Feirstein wrote the screenplay, and it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It follows Bond as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering...
(1997), and Memoirs of a GeishaMemoirs of a Geisha (film)Memoirs of a Geisha is a 2005 film adaptation of the novel of the same name, produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Spyglass Entertainment and by Douglas Wick's Red Wagon Productions. It was directed by Rob Marshall. It was released in the United States on December 9, 2005 by...
(2005). Yeoh described her character as more spiritual, explaining Corazon's background, as an "Asian influence or that she's always constantly surrounded by organic things – she's very grounded and more down-to-earth."
- The biologist who takes care of the ship's "oxygen garden". Boyle cast Yeoh based on her performance in Tomorrow Never Dies
- Cliff CurtisCliff CurtisClifford Vivian Devon "Cliff" Curtis is a New Zealand actor who has had major roles in film, including The Piano, Whale Rider, and Blow, and most recently has appeared in NBC's television series Trauma. He is also co-owner of independent film production company Whenua Films...
as Searle:- The ship's doctor and psychological officer. He is obsessed with the Sun and how it looks like when staring at it without any type of protection. The role of Searle was originally written to be a "slightly stiff" British character. Curtis was drawn to the role based on the script and also expressed interest in working with the director. Boyle was familiar with Curtis from Training DayTraining DayTraining Day is a 2001 crime drama film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer, starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The film follows two LAPD narcotics detectives over a 24-hour period in the gang neighborhoods of South and East Los Angeles.The film was a box office success and...
(2001) and Whale Rider (2002), and Curtis's audition appealed to Boyle strongly enough to cast the actor as Searle. Curtis initially foresaw an esoteric approach for his character, but he later pursued a military and scientific approach based on the seriousness of the mission. The actor also compared Searle to the character of Pinbacker, noting their similarities and differences: "[Searle] would sacrifice those beliefs and views, his life, for the greater good, whereas Pinbacker, who's come to a place he believes is right, would sacrifice the world for his beliefs. They're two sides of the same coin."
- The ship's doctor and psychological officer. He is obsessed with the Sun and how it looks like when staring at it without any type of protection. The role of Searle was originally written to be a "slightly stiff" British character. Curtis was drawn to the role based on the script and also expressed interest in working with the director. Boyle was familiar with Curtis from Training Day
- Troy GarityTroy GarityTroy Garity is an American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Barry Winchell in the 2003 television movie Soldier's Girl, but may be best known for his role as Isaac Rosenberg in the Barbershop films.-Early life and...
as Harvey:- The communications officer and second-in-command. He is also the only crew member to be homesick. Garity's previous work was unknown to Boyle, but the director was impressed enough with the actor upon meeting him that he cast Garity. Garity described the character of Harvey as the only crew member who misses his family back home on Earth and attempts to hide the fact.
- Hiroyuki SanadaHiroyuki Sanadais a Japanese actor.-Life and career:Sanada was born in Tokyo. Originally aiming to be an action star, starting with shorinji kempo, he eventually took up Kyokushin kaikan Sanada began training at age 11 with actor and martial arts star Sonny Chiba's Japan Action Club where he developed good...
as Kaneda:- The ship's captain. The script originally had an American captain, but scientists and space experts persuaded Boyle to change the nationality to Japanese. Boyle saw Sanada in The Twilight SamuraiThe Twilight SamuraiThe Twilight Samurai or is a 2002 Japanese film directed by Yoji Yamada. Set in mid-19th century Japan, a few years before the Meiji Restoration, it follows the life of Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai employed as a bureaucrat. Poor, but not destitute, he still manages to lead a content and...
(2002), and director Wong Kar-waiWong Kar-waiWong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...
recommended the actor to Boyle when the latter sought someone to cast as the Asian captain of the ship. Sanada's character was originally called Kanada, but he asked Boyle to change the name to Kaneda, a more natural Japanese name. The character was Sanada's second English-language role in cinema, and Sanada learned different forms of English, depending on the circumstances. Sanada's base English language had a British dialect, and when the actor recited official statements as Kaneda, the dialect was official English. In communicating with other characters as Kaneda, Sanada spoke with an American English accent to reflect the fictional situation of the character training with the rest at NASA.
- The ship's captain. The script originally had an American captain, but scientists and space experts persuaded Boyle to change the nationality to Japanese. Boyle saw Sanada in The Twilight Samurai
- Benedict WongBenedict WongBenedict Wong is an English actor and comedian.Wong was born in Manchester and attended school in Salford. His first role was in a 1993 BBC Radio play called Kai Mei Sauce, written by Kevin Wong. He appeared alongside Sean Lock in the situation comedy 15 Storeys High, and as Dr. Franklin Fu in the...
as Trey:- The navigator. Boyle saw Wong in Dirty Pretty ThingsDirty Pretty Things (film)Dirty Pretty Things is a 2002 film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Steven Knight, a drama about two illegal immigrants in London...
(2002). Wong's character, Trey, was a child prodigy who created a computer virus that brought down one-sixth of the world's computers. As a result, Trey is recruited into the space program so his genius could be applied more beneficially.
- The navigator. Boyle saw Wong in Dirty Pretty Things
- Chipo ChungChipo ChungChipo Chung is a Tanzanian-born actress raised in Zimbabwe. She currently lives in London.-Background:Chipo Chung was born as a refugee in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is half-Zimbabwean and half-Chinese. She spent her first two years in refugee camps in Mozambique with thousands of young people...
as the voice of Icarus:- The on-board computer of the spacecraft Icarus II possesses a "natural-language" communication interface, allowing the crew to ask questions, give orders, and receive status updates and warnings verbally, as if they were talking to a human. Indeed, the ship itself is a major character in the movie. This was Chung's first named film role.
- Mark StrongMark StrongMark Strong is an English actor, with a body of work in both films and television. He has performed in films as varied as Body of Lies, Syriana, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla, Stardust, and Kick-Ass...
as Pinbacker:- The insane captain of Icarus I, the first ship that was sent to reignite the Sun. Pinbacker was inspired by the character of Sergeant Pinback from Dark StarDark Star (film)Dark Star is a 1974 American comedic science fiction motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon.-Backstory and plot:...
. The character's disfiguring burns were influenced by the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki LaudaNiki LaudaAndreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda is an Austrian former Formula One racing driver and three-time F1 World Champion. More recently an aviation entrepreneur, he has founded and run two airlines and was manager of the Jaguar Formula One racing team for two years.- Early years in racing :Born in Vienna,...
. Boyle described the character of Pinbacker as a representation of fundamentalism. The director also described the potentially unrealistic presence of Pinbacker as an example of something that breaks the pattern of realism, similar to his scene in TrainspottingTrainspotting (film)Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...
(1996) in which Ewan McGregorEwan McGregorEwan Gordon McGregor is a Scottish actor. He has had success in mainstream, indie, and art house films. McGregor is perhaps best known for his roles as heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama Trainspotting , young Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy , and poet Christian in the...
's character dives into a toilet.
- The insane captain of Icarus I, the first ship that was sent to reignite the Sun. Pinbacker was inspired by the character of Sergeant Pinback from Dark Star
Production
In March 2005, following the completion of MillionsMillions
Millions is a 2004 British comedy-drama film, directed by Academy Award–winning director Danny Boyle, and starring Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, and James Nesbitt. The screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted his novel while the film was in the process of being made...
(2004), director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
was briefly attached to direct 3000 Degrees, a Warner Bros. project about the 1999 Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire
Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire
The Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire was a fire that began on December 3, 1999, in Worcester, Massachusetts. It started when two homeless and mentally disabled people, Thomas Levesque and Julie Ann Barnes, who were living inside the warehouse, knocked over a candle after an argument earlier in...
in Massachusetts, but due to opposition from surviving victims and firefighters, the project did not enter production. At the same time, Boyle received a script from screenwriter Alex Garland
Alex Garland
Alexander Medawar "Alex" Garland is a British novelist and screenwriter.-Early life:Garland was born in London, England, the son of psychoanalyst Caroline and political cartoonist Nicholas Garland. His maternal grandparents were zoologist Peter Medawar and author Jean Medawar...
, who had paired with Boyle for The Beach
The Beach (film)
The Beach is a 2000 adventure drama film directed by Danny Boyle and based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Alex Garland, which was adapted for the film by John Hodge. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and features Tilda Swinton, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen and Guillaume Canet...
(2000) and 28 Days Later
28 Days Later
28 Days Later is an acclaimed 2002 British horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland, and the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston...
(2002). Producer Andrew Macdonald
Andrew Macdonald (producer)
Andrew Macdonald is a Scottish film producer, best known for his collaborations with screenwriter John Hodge and director Danny Boyle, including Shallow Grave , Trainspotting and 28 Days Later ....
, working with Boyle and Garland, pitched the script to 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, who were reluctant to finance the film based on its similarities to the 2002 remake Solaris
Solaris (2002 film)
Solaris is a 2002 science fiction film and psychological drama directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone...
, which performed dismally for the studio. The project was instead financed by Fox's specialized film unit Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Searchlight Pictures, established in 1998, is a film division of Fox Filmed Entertainment alongside the larger Fox studio 20th Century Fox...
. Since the preliminary budget at US$40 million was too demanding for Fox Searchlight, Macdonald sought outside financing from British lottery funds, U.K. rebates, and outside investor Ingenious Film Partners. With financing in place, Boyle entered pre-production work for Sunshine, for which he planned to commence production by the following July. Since Boyle had previously worked with Fox Searchlight on 28 Days Later, the existing relationship permitted the director with freedom in production, working in a small studio.
Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, spent a second year preparing for production, filmed for three months, and spent a third full year editing and completing visual effects for Sunshine. After completion of filming for Sunshine, Boyle said that he would not revisit the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
genre, citing production as a spiritually exhausting experience. The director said making the film had conquered his fear of the difficulty encountered in producing a science fiction film, and that he would move on from the genre.
Writing
Screenwriter Alex GarlandAlex Garland
Alexander Medawar "Alex" Garland is a British novelist and screenwriter.-Early life:Garland was born in London, England, the son of psychoanalyst Caroline and political cartoonist Nicholas Garland. His maternal grandparents were zoologist Peter Medawar and author Jean Medawar...
was inspired to write Sunshine based on scientific ideas about the heat death of the universe
Heat death of the universe
The heat death of the universe is a suggested ultimate fate of the universe, in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain motion or life. Heat death does not imply any particular absolute temperature; it only requires that...
, specifically "an article projecting the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective," according to Garland. The article was from an American scientific periodical, and Garland had wondered about what would result from the Sun's death. Garland brought the script to director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, who enthusiastically took up the project due to his long-time desire to direct a science fiction film in space. Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, creating 35 drafts in their experimenting.
The director (Danny Boyle) also considered the story of Sunshine as a counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, with the death of the Sun being a threat. Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the Sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the Sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power. The director also described the film's villain as based on light, explaining, "That's quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness." The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths. To capture the dangers of the voyage that the crew members went through, the director cited Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
's A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything
A Short History of Nearly Everything is a popular science book by American author Bill Bryson that explains some areas of science, using a style of language which aims to be more accessible to the general public than many other books dedicated to the subject...
as influential in "articulating the universe's power".
The story was also written in part to reflect the brilliance and "necessary arrogance" of real-life science when the world's scientists are presented with the crisis that threatens Earth. The time period of the story, 50 years in the future, was chosen to enable the level of technology to advance to the ability to travel to the Sun, but to simultaneously keep a feel of familiarity for the audience. Scientific advisers, futurists, and people who developed products for the future were consulted to shape an idea of the future.
To shape the science of the film, Boyle and Garland hired scientist advisers, including NASA employees and astrophysicists. One physicist, Brian Cox
Brian Cox (physicist)
Brian Edward Cox, OBE , is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at...
of University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...
, was hired to advise the cast and crew after the director had seen Cox on the science TV series Horizon. The physicist gave regular lectures to the film's cast members about solar physics. Cox also advised the filmmakers to scale down the nuclear device in the film from the mass of the Moon to the size of Manhattan. In the film's backstory, a Q-Ball
Q-Ball
In theoretical physics, Q-ball refers to a type of non-topological soliton. A soliton is a localized field configuration that is stable—it cannot spread out and dissipate. In the case of a non-topological soliton, the stability is guaranteed by a conserved charge: the soliton has lower energy per...
enters the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's Sun and begins to eat it away. According to Cox, the Sun would not be dense enough in real life to stop a Q-ball, but filmmakers took creative licence
Artistic license
Artistic licence is a colloquial term, sometimes euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist to improve a piece of...
in writing the backstory.
Boyle originally included romantic subplots, including a sex scene
Sex in space
Sex in space refers to sexual activity in the weightlessness and/or extreme environments of outer space. Usually only human sexual activity is considered...
planned between the characters Capa (Murphy) and Cassie (Byrne) in the ship's oxygen garden. However, the director considered the attempt for relationships in space too "embarrassing" and excluded the subplots. Boyle further distanced the characters from possible relationships by ensuring that the cast members wore little to no make-up to avoid any romantic overtures. The director also avoided including humor in the script with the exception of a few gags, believing that humor was a difficult fit for the story. "You get intensity of experience in space movies but not joy. So there's not much room for comedy or sex - everything is waiting to destroy you," explained Boyle.
Casting
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
chose to have an ensemble cast
Ensemble cast
An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...
for Sunshine to encourage a more democratic process, similar to the ensemble cast in Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
. Boyle also chose to have the cast be international in order to reflect the mission's purpose "on behalf of all mankind". The space crew in the film also consisted of American/Asian nationality because of the filmmakers' belief that the American
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
and Chinese space program
Chinese space program
The space program of the People's Republic of China is directed by the China National Space Administration . Its technological roots can be traced back to the late 1950s, when the People's Republic began a rudimentary ballistic missile program in response to perceived American threats...
s would be the most developed and economically empowered 50 years in the future. The director had also received advice that there would be advanced space programs with India and Brazil, but the advice was overlooked to avoid creating a cast that was too disparate. According to producer Andrew Macdonald
Andrew Macdonald (producer)
Andrew Macdonald is a Scottish film producer, best known for his collaborations with screenwriter John Hodge and director Danny Boyle, including Shallow Grave , Trainspotting and 28 Days Later ....
, the actors were required to speak with American accents to target the U.S. audience as much as international audiences due to the budget level of the project.
To prepare the international actors for the film, Boyle had the cast undergo method acting
Method acting
Method acting is a phrase that loosely refers to a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and emotions of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances...
. At the beginning of the film, the characters had been together for sixteen months, so Boyle desired to capture a sense of togetherness among the actors by assigning them to live together. He also enrolled the cast members in space training and scuba diving, as well as watching films together, such as The Right Stuff (1983) and the documentary For All Mankind
For All Mankind
For All Mankind is a 1989 documentary film documenting the Apollo missions of NASA. It was directed by Al Reinert.Music for the film was originally composed in 1983 by Brian Eno and released as an album entitled Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks...
(1989). Boyle also took the cast on a tour of a nuclear submarine
Nuclear submarine
A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor . The performance advantages of nuclear submarines over "conventional" submarines are considerable: nuclear propulsion, being completely independent of air, frees the submarine from the need to surface frequently, as is necessary for...
to comprehend claustrophobic living conditions. He also had the cast experience weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
in the zero G environment of an acrobatic plane.
Cast members operated a Boeing 747
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...
flight simulator
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...
and were introduced to futurologist Richard Seymour. The book Moondust by Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith (author)
Andrew Smith is a British author. He is the author of Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, which tells the story of the twelve U.S. astronauts who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972....
, a collection of accounts of the men who had walked on the moon, was required reading for cast members. The book had been assigned by Boyle because it described the lasting psychological changes experienced by that particular group of astronauts. The director sought to manifest the effect by showing the Sun's awesome, radiant power influencing the psyches of the ship's crew.
Filming
Filming for Sunshine took place at 3 Mills Studios in east London. An elaborate set was constructed, containing eight stages, 17 sets, and detailed models. The filmmakers employed three film units.Filming began on 23 August 2005, lasting for 15 weeks, with August and September being difficult months due to the heat and the cast's requirement to wear spacesuits for their roles. Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler chose to film in anamorphic format
Anamorphic format
Anamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
to capture a physical sense of the light. "We shot certain sequences in a very dark environment, which you get used to, so when the Sun plays a role, we wanted the audience to have a physical reaction to it," Kuchler said. Due to filming with the actors taking place on a stage, director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
constructed live effects so the actors could realistically respond to computer-generated effects that were later implemented.
To increase the feeling of claustrophobia
Claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is the fear of having no escape and being closed in small spaces or rooms...
in Sunshine, Boyle refused to cut back to scenes on Earth, a traditional technique in most films about the planet in jeopardy. The director also maintained an atmosphere of confinement in Sunshine by avoiding filming the primary ship, Icarus II, from the outside. He also attempted to avoid filming star field backgrounds, keeping the ship's exterior pitch black, but he was ultimately compelled to show stars outside the spacecraft to help convey a sense of the ship's movement.
A scene in a snow-covered park with three stone monoliths was a homage to a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
. The scene was filmed at a May Day memorial in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. The Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
was chosen by Boyle out of six monuments that he considered universally recognisable. The Opera House, according to the director, possessed a "heat-thing" quality that decided it as his choice for a final establishing shot on Earth.
The snowy territory of the final scene was shot in Stockholm, Sweden, and a composite shot was created combining Stockholm's background and the Sydney Opera House. A slightly different ending was shot after the original but was not chosen as the director felt that it did not fit the film. The alternate ending became available on the DVD of Sunshine.
Design
The presspack says that the claustrophobic environment in the film was inspired by Wolfgang PetersenWolfgang Petersen
Wolfgang Petersen is a German film director and screenwriter. His films include The NeverEnding Story, Enemy Mine, Outbreak, In the Line of Fire, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm, Troy, and Poseidon...
's Das Boot
Das Boot
Das Boot is a 1981 German epic war film written and directed by Wolfgang Petersen, produced by Günter Rohrbach, and starring Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, and Klaus Wennemann...
(1981). Boyle also cited inevitable visual influences from science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
s in space by Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
(Solaris
Solaris (1972 film)
Solaris is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris , directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to...
in 1972), Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
(2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
in 1968), and Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
(Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
in 1979). Influences from other science fiction films also included Paul W. S. Anderson
Paul W. S. Anderson
Paul William Scott Anderson , also known as Paul W. S. Anderson or Paul Anderson, is an English film director who regularly works in science fiction movies and video game adaptations.-Life and career:...
's Event Horizon
Event Horizon (film)
Event Horizon is a 1997 science fantasy horror film. The screenplay was written by Philip Eisner and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The film stars Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill...
(1997), John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
's Dark Star
Dark Star (film)
Dark Star is a 1974 American comedic science fiction motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon.-Backstory and plot:...
(1974), and Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...
's Silent Running
Silent Running
Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed science fiction film starring Bruce Dern and directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on such science fiction films as 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Andromeda Strain.-Plot summary:Silent Running depicts a...
(1971).
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
in designing the scientific aspects of the film. Technical specifications for the ship were provided in order to make it more realistic. An oxygen garden was also recommended to provide oxygen for the ship and to enable the crew to grow their own food rather than rely completely on pre-packaged sustenance. Boyle met with a department within NASA that was focused on the psychology of deep-space travel, and they advised the director that regular Earth routines like preparing one's own food, enjoying its consumption and cleaning up afterwards are activities crucial to an astronaut's sanity.
The gold-leaf shielding in Sunshine was influenced by NASA satellite designs for deflecting heat and other forms of radiant energy. Director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
designed the gold-colored space suits along these lines despite persistent encouragement to model them after the NASA template. The helmets were designed to have cameras mounted in them. This further enhanced a sense of claustrophobia useful to the actors in delivering more heartfelt performances. The helmets were also limited to a horizontal slit for visibility instead of a full-face visor as further consideration toward protecting the characters from the ambient radiation of outer space. According to Boyle, the funnel shape of the helmet was influenced by the character Kenny
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
from South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
.
Boyle included "Icarus
Icarus
-Space and astronomy:* Icarus , on the Moon* Icarus , a planetary science journal* 1566 Icarus, an asteroid* IKAROS, a interplanetary unmanned spacecraft...
" in the name of the ship to continue a theme of bleakness, opining that no American would give their craft such an ill-fated
Destiny
Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...
name. According to the director, "They'd call it Spirit of Hope or Ship of Destiny. They'd call it something optimistic... in America they would sacrifice all plausibility, because there would be hope." The ship's exterior was designed to look like an oil tanker. The ship's interior was influenced by the design of a nuclear submarine that filmmakers had visited in Scotland, though the space was larger due to NASA's advice that smaller quarters would adversely affect the crewmembers' sanity. The corpses of burn victims in the film were modeled on the Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
victims from the Mount Vesuvius eruption.
Visual effects
Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler provided an idea to render the interior of the ship in the colours of grey, blue, and green, with no reference to orange, red, or yellow. Scenes were intended to be shot inside the ship at long intervals, and when the shot changed to the outside, yellow-starved audiences would be "penetrated" by sunlight. The visual effects of the sunlight were based on photographs from the Solar and Heliospheric ObservatorySolar and Heliospheric Observatory
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory is a spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and has discovered over 2100 comets. It began normal operations in May...
project. Boyle also sought to pursue inexpensive methods in filming sequences involving actors and visual effects. In a scene where Cillian Murphy's character dreams of falling into the sun, the actor was placed in a gantry around which 20 assistants rotated an assembly of bright lights.
In another scene in which a character dies from solar exposure among the ashes from cremated bodies, massive wind turbines propelled biodegradable dust at the actor in the director's attempt to have the computer-generated effects follow the actor instead of vice versa. Boyle commented on his approach to using effects, "There is part of our brain where we admire the effect, but we put it in a side compartment of our experience because you know there's no way an actor can live through that, or be there in that moment." During the post-production process, Boyle hired one visual effects company, London's Moving Picture Company
Moving Picture Company
The Moving Picture Company is a post production facility creating digital visual effects and computer animation for feature films, commercials, music videos and television...
, to work on the film's 750 visual effects. The assignment of a single company was contrary to the industry trend of hiring multiple vendors to work on a film's effects. Boyle chose one company for ease of quality control, though the decision resulted in a prolonged post-production process.
Score
When the film was mostly complete, director Danny BoyleDanny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
provided the footage to the band Underworld
Underworld (band)
Underworld are a British electronic group, and principal name under which duo Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have recorded together since 1980.- Early years: 1979–1986 :...
, who improvised a score. Karl Hyde of Underworld was influenced by the music of avant garde composer György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
which had been used in Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(1968). Lux Aeterna
Lux Aeterna (György Ligeti)
Lux Aeterna is a piece for 16 solo singers, written by György Ligeti in 1966. It is most famous for its use in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey....
by Ligeti particularly influenced Hyde. When Underworld finished recording the band sent its work to composer John Murphy
John Murphy (composer)
John Murphy is an English film composer. He is a self taught multi-instrumental musician who began his career in the 1980s working notably with The Lotus Eaters, Thomas Lang and Claudia Brücken....
, who completed the score, resulting in a hybrid between Underworld and Murphy. The band I Am Kloot
I Am Kloot
I Am Kloot are an English band formed in Manchester, in 1999 by John Bramwell , Peter Jobson and Andy Hargreaves .-History:...
also contributed to the score with the track "Avenue of Hope".
Despite high praise for the score from fans of the film a soundtrack was significantly delayed. This was partly due to 'disputes' between the lawyers of Underworld and Fox Searchlight. Although not available close to the film's debut, a soundtrack was still widely expected to be eventually released, until the film's producer Andrew Macdonald
Andrew Macdonald (producer)
Andrew Macdonald is a Scottish film producer, best known for his collaborations with screenwriter John Hodge and director Danny Boyle, including Shallow Grave , Trainspotting and 28 Days Later ....
stated in a fansite interview that the soundtrack was "stuck" and that there were "no plans to release" it.
The soundtrack was finally released on iTunes USA on November 25, 2008.
Box office performance
Sunshine was originally slated for a theatrical release in October 2006, but the release was later changed to March 2007. The film was finally set to debut in April 2007. Sunshine made its world premiere at Fantasy Filmfest in BochumBochum
Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on 23 March 2007. The film was released commercially in the home country of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on 6th April 2007, taking £1,021,063 in 407 cinemas for its opening weekend.
The film also opened the same weekend in seven other markets, performing most strongly in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
(US$267,000), Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
(US$442,000) and Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
(US$198,000). On the weekend of 13 April 2007, Sunshine opened in 22 more markets, garnering US$5.3 million for the weekend. Its French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
debut was the strongest with US$1.2 million in 380 theatres, but the film only had average performance in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
(US$120,149 from 36 theatres), Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
(US$60,285 from 11 theatres) and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
(US$42,745 from 15 theatres).
The following weekend of 20 April 2007, the film expanded to 44 markets, garnering US$5.9 million for a total of US$18.6 million thus far, considered a disappointing amount. Sunshine had poor debuts in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
(US$1 million), Germany (US$638,549), and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(US$453,000). By the end of April, Sunshine had opened to most markets, with the notable exception of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, for which a release date had yet to be established at the time. The film's theatrical run in the UK lasted twelve weeks, totaling £3,175,911.
The film was originally slated to be released in the United States in September 2007, but the release date was moved earlier to July 2007. Sunshine was released in the United States and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
at select locations in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, San Francisco, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
on 20 July 2007. Sunshine opened in 10 cinemas in the United States and took US$242,964 over the opening weekend.
The film was released everywhere else in the two countries the following weekend of 27th July 2007. In the film's first wide release weekend in the United States and Canada, Sunshine took US$1,262,996 in 461 theatres, ranking no. 13 at the weekend box office. In its theatrical run, the film took US$3,675,753 in the United States and Canada and US$28,342,050 in other territories for a worldwide total of US$32,017,803; the film's budget reportedly was US$40 million.
Critical reception
The film currently holds a 75% positive rating out of 162 reviews at the movie review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
with an average rating of 6.8/10. On another aggregator, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, Sunshine received an average score of 64 out of 100 based on 34 reviews.
Critically, the film was moderately well received in the UK. However, many found the last reels disappointing, with one critic suggesting the switch to 'slasher movie
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...
' mode might have been inserted to appease teenage audiences.
Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film three stars out of four and said that "the [actors] are effective by trying not to be too effective; they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes," and also that the film "is strongest when it focuses on the sheer enormity of the mission and its consequences."
Scientific accuracy
Professor Brian CoxBrian Cox (physicist)
Brian Edward Cox, OBE , is a British particle physicist, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the High Energy Physics group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at...
served as the film's scientific advisor, though he noted in the DVD commentary that several inaccuracies were permitted to allow for plot. He also dismissed criticisms of the film by scientists: "Sunshine is not a documentary. It's trying to just, in an hour and forty minutes, get across a feeling of what it's like - not only to be a scientist, because obviously there's much more in it than that. So, I found it interesting to watch the kind of people that get upset because the gravity is wrong."
Slow motion during weightlessness
Weightlessness
Weightlessness is the condition that exists for an object or person when they experience little or no acceleration except the acceleration that defines their inertial trajectory, or the trajectory of pure free-fall...
was inaccurately portrayed; the director had discovered this when riding the Vomit Comet
Vomit Comet
A Reduced Gravity Aircraft is a type of fixed-wing aircraft that briefly provides a nearly weightless environment in which to train astronauts, conduct research and film motion pictures....
, but he kept the slow motion to meet audiences' expectations. The film's premise of the sun dying out is also inaccurate, since the sun is estimated to die out in five billion years' time, after becoming a red giant and not by a gradual decline in brightness. Part of the film's back-story included the sun's death being caused by a Q-ball
Q-Ball
In theoretical physics, Q-ball refers to a type of non-topological soliton. A soliton is a localized field configuration that is stable—it cannot spread out and dissipate. In the case of a non-topological soliton, the stability is guaranteed by a conserved charge: the soliton has lower energy per...
caught in the solar body, but realistically, the sun would not be dense enough to trap a Q-ball. Another purposeful inaccuracy was the "whooshing" of the ship despite the vacuum - Cox later mentioned in the BBC's Stargazing Live
Stargazing Live
Stargazing Live is a live television programme that was broadcast in 2011 for three evenings on BBC Two in the United Kingdom between 3 and 5 January, and will be returning in 2012 on 16-18 January. In 2011 it featured scientist and TV presenter Brian Cox, comedian and amateur astronomer Dara Ó...
programme in January 2011 that this was simply because without accompanying sound, the CGI shots seemed "cheap". Mercury's orbit was also pictured at many times its actual rate.
When the crew use the airlocks to move between ships without space suits, one of the crew members claims the temperature outside is -273 C, which is absolute zero
Absolute zero
Absolute zero is the theoretical temperature at which entropy reaches its minimum value. The laws of thermodynamics state that absolute zero cannot be reached using only thermodynamic means....
. Not only is this incorrect, as the temperature in outer space is slightly higher: -270 C, but orbiting the planet of Mercury behind a heatshield as close as they are, the temperature would be higher than -173 C.
The film's scientific content has been criticized by specialists with arguments often found contradicted by statements pertaining to the film. For example, the science periodical New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
claimed that the nuclear device (stellar bomb) used by the crew would be woefully inadequate to reignite the dying sun (billions of such devices would be required). The periodical found the film to be confusing and disappointing. Although some argue the 'stellar bomb' may have been an unknown type of advanced technology, the film specifically states it they have used 'all of Earth's fissile material' and the description of how the bomb works involved atoms 'becoming two' - i.e. fission. Similarly, solar physicist
Solar physics
For the physics journal, see Solar Physics Solar physics is the study of our Sun. It is a branch of astrophysics that specializes in exploiting and explaining the detailed measurements that are possible only for our closest star...
Anjana Ahuja
Anjana Ahuja
Anjana Ahuja is a British Indian science journalist and columnist for The Times. Ahuja read physics at Imperial College London, followed by a postgraduate course in space physics during which she worked on data about the Sun's magnetic field from the Ulysses probe.After receiving her PhD in 1994,...
, a columnist for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, commented on the lack of source of artificial gravity onboard the spacecraft, claiming "Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy". Ahuja was, however, more positive about the psychological aspect of the film, joking that "the psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk
Sex in space
Sex in space refers to sexual activity in the weightlessness and/or extreme environments of outer space. Usually only human sexual activity is considered...
".
Home media
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
for Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on 27 August 2007. Extras include separate commentaries by Danny Boyle and Prof. Brian Cox, an alternative ending, 11 deleted scenes, web production diaries, and the short films Dad's Dead
Dad's Dead
Dad's Dead is a seven minute award winning film written and directed by Chris Shepherd, commissioned by animate!. Since its first transmission on Channel 4, in 2003, the film has achieved a cult status...
and Mole Hills. A Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
version was released in the UK in October of the same year. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Sunshine was released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc and standard definition DVD on 8 January 2008. As of February 17, 2008, Sunshine has grossed $15.83 million in rental sales.
Awards and nominations
| Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Award | Category | Name | Outcome |
| British Independent Film Awards British Independent Film Awards 2007 The 10th British Independent Film Awards, held in November 2007 at the Roundhouse in Camden, London, honoured the best British independent films of 2007.-Winners:*Best British Independent Film:**Control*Best Director:**Anton Corbijn - Control... |
Best Technical Achievement | Mark Tildesley Mark Tildesley Mark Tildesley is a British designer and director. After graduating from the London College of Printing, earned a First Class BA Honours from the Wimbledon School of Art under the direction of .... |
|
| Best Actor | Cillian Murphy Cillian Murphy Cillian Murphy is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and distinctive blue eyes and general sex appeal.... |
||
| Empire Awards Empire Awards An Empire Award is an accolade bestowed by Empire, Britain's biggest selling film magazine, to recognize excellence of professionals in the locale and global film industry. The awards are voted for by readers of the magazine and in an annual ceremony, the Empire Awards, the winners are presented... |
Best British Film | ||
| Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy | |||
| Irish Film and Television Awards | Best Actor in a Lead Role in a Feature Film | Cillian Murphy | |
| London Critics Circle Film Awards London Film Critics Circle Awards 2007 The 28th Critics' Circle Awards, given by the London Film Critics Circle in February 2008, honoured the best in film for 2007.-Actor of the Year:Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood *Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah... |
British Director of the Year | Danny Boyle Danny Boyle Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director... |
|
| Satellite Awards Satellite Awards 2007 The 12th Satellite Awards, honoring the best in film- and televisionmaking in 2007, were given on 16 December 2007.-Film: Best Actor – Drama* Viggo Mortensen – Eastern Promises**Christian Bale – Rescue Dawn... |
Best Art Direction and Production Design Satellite Award for Best Art Direction and Production Design The Satellite Award for Best Art Direction is one the annual awards given by the International Press Academy.- 1990s :Best Art Direction:*1996: Romeo + Juliet**The English Patient**Evita**Hamlet... |
Mark Tildesley, Gary Freeman Gary Freeman Gary Freeman is the name of:*Gary Freeman , sculptor from Indianapolis, Indiana*Gary Freeman , NBA player in 1970*Gary Freeman , New Zealand rugby league player... , Stephen Morahan, Denis Schnegg |
|
| Saturn Awards 34th Saturn Awards The 34th Saturn Awards, honoring the best in science fiction, fantasy and horror film and television in 2007 were presented on June 24, 2008 in Universal City Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, California.Below is a complete list of nominees and winners... |
Best Science Fiction Film Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film The Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film is a Saturn Award given to the best film in the science fiction genre by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.-Winners:-External links:*... |
||
External links
- Visual effects article at VFXWorld