Directed by Clint Eastwood, starring Clint Eastwood, Courtney B. Vance, Donald Sutherland, James Cromwell, James Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Tommy Lee Jones (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
During the countdown to liftoff, the main engines are fired at T minus seven seconds. In reality, they are fired at T minus three seconds. [The SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engine)DO ignite at T-6.7 sec to allow them to be at full operating power (all 3 greater than 90% thrust) before the onboard computers will ignite the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters)at T-0.]
As the shuttle approches Ikon, their rader activates the on-board systems. But they are in space. Radar is a sound based system and sound doesn't travel in space. [Um, no, might want to check your facts there. Radar uses electromagnetic waves, which travel perfectly well in space. You're confusing it with sonar, which uses sound.]
Corrected by Tailkinker
In the scene where Frank confronts Gerson in his office about not sending them into space, you can clearly see that the second hand on the clock in the background is not moving. [Maybe the battery in the clock is dead. Happens often enough.]
When Clint is out of the shuttle, you can see a reflection of the Earth in the visor. On the outer shots you can tell he's at a fairly low altitude in comparision to the distances reached be Apollo. Yet, you can see the whole Earth in the visor - he is far too close to be having reflections of the complete Earth. [The visors on the helmets are convex, thus, "objects in mirror are larger than they appear".]
If the satellite is that dangerous, why not just shoot it down with a tactical nuclear missile? It would destroy the satellite and its missiles and 1000 miles up is more than enough to ensure that radioactive fallout would not re-enter the atmosphere. Or better yet, strap a nuclear device to the side and blow it up by remote instead of going to all the trouble to disarm it. The satellite doesn't react to physical contact, only radar. [How many other satellites, worth billions of dollars, would be destroyed by the EMP? What would effect the loss of communication satellites have on the world's economy? Loss of weather satellites? Loss of spy satellites?]
Corrected by Rlvlk
The Russian satellite was said to be 1,000 miles up. They should have known it wasn't a communications satellite because they are 23,500 miles up in geosynchronous orbit. [It makes perfect sense to put a comsat in geosynchronous orbit. In fact, the Russians are the only people who don't: their Molniya series of communications satellites have very eccentric orbits with an apogee of around 25,000 miles and a perigee of around 150 miles (this is to allow one satellite to cover all of the USSR/Russia at once). See http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/spx470.html.
So it would be reasonable to find a Russian communications satellite at either distance. Whether or not an unmodified space shuttle can reach an orbit of either 1000 miles or 23,000 miles is another question since most US space missions have orbits of less than 300 miles.]
In the final scene we see the wreckage of IKON on the moon and Tommy Lee Jones' body propped up against a rock, where he has supposedly dragged himself. In reality his spacesuit's air supply would have run out long before he ever reached the Moon. [When Hawk first makes the decision to fly to the moon, he says "I'm going to need all the extra O2 modules you've got. Even if they couldn't load the spacesuit with oxygen, they could have put even more modules on IKON. There would have been plenty of oxygen to get him to the moon, as extra O2 is always sent up on missions in the event of an emergency EVA.]
When Eastwood leaves the cabin in his space suit, he fails to close the airlock hatch door and proceeds to the MMU station, yet when Sutherland comes out the door it has been closed. Eastwood is the only one who could close the door as the others would have no way of accessing the hatch into the shuttle bay. [As Frank exits the spacecraft, the secondary airlock door opens itself, as it controlled by actuators. Therefore, the door likely closed itself, or was closed by the crew, while the camera was focused on Frank and the MMU.]
Bless his soul. Tommy Lee Jones has sacrificed his life in order to get the dodgy Russian satellite to crash on the moon. Rather than disintegrate on impact (as it should) you can see big bits of the satellite on the moon's surface AND the dead astronaut sitting against a rock. [Now, why would the satellite disintegrate? The moon has no atmosphere. If the satellite really DID make it to the moon (a highy, highy unlikely event), parts of the satellite would be on the moon's surface.]
When the team is preparing for Blast off they all pull down their visors prior to launch. Before the visor is pulled down Jerry doesn't have his sunglasses on, yet immediately after he pulls his visor down they're on his face. [Jerry's sunglasses are on the whole time, his face is just blocked by Tank's arm during the shot where they're pulling down their visors. (It may take viewing the shot frame by frame, possibly with a "zoom" option on, but the glasses can be seen for a brief moment over Tank's arm.)]
In the first mess hall scene, Eastwood has his ID card but after the young astronaut team sends them drinks the ID card is gone but is seen again in the next shot. [The ID is on a chain around Clint's neck. It's not visible because James Garner's shoulder is blocking Clint, but that doesn't mean the ID is no longer there.]
Corrected by ChiChi
The Junior Astronaut pulls a plug on the dodgy Russian satellite and explosion follows following which the shuttle is hit by debris. There is a small fire in the shuttle. The smoke goes up. As the shuttle is supposed to be in weightlessness this means smoke will hover around the fire rather than go up (the fire could in theory extinguish itself due to carbon dioxide building up near it as well (which would normally go down to the floor as it is heavier than air) (for the physicists amongst us: that's why a candle can't burn in weightlessness). [Candles burn just fine in zero-G. See:http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/combustion/cfm/mir_results.htm]
So what if the shuttle loses power? Once you re-enter the atmosphere safely, the shuttle does have ejection seats. Granted ejecting at those speeds is dangerous, but it beats the chances an unplanned, manual descent gives. [In a report delivered to NASA on March 25, 2003, the Aerospac Safety Advisory Panel called on NASA, among other things, "...to renew efforts to develop and install space shuttle ejection systems or to report back to the committee on why such equipment is impossible to put on the spacecraft." There are no ejection seats on the shuttle.]
Have you ever heard of them re-naming a shuttle based on the first team that flies it? [Eastwood refused to do the mission if he didn't get his team and the shuttle name.]
Corrected by Grumpy Scot
Frank is told by that guy (can't remember his name) that Hawk didn't pass his physical and has cancer. However, later on, the lady with the dark hair says that Hawk passed his physical even with the cancer and can still go into space. Make sense? Nope. [The implication is that Hawk *could* be disqualified on the basis of his cancer, but seeing as he is otherwise healthy and capable, they can still let him fly on the mission.]
When they first go EVA to look at the satellite, Eastwood goes into the Shuttle cargo bay to put on his Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU). He goes outside without being tethered. That never happens in space; if he lets go, he'll drift away, and the pilot would have to waste fuel and time retrieving him. [With the MMU astronauts don't have to be tethered because of its small rockets can maneuver tether free. The tether can get in the way and wrap around things.]
To save the day, Hawk decides to stay with the IKON as he blows it out of harm's way using the onboard rockets. If Hawk was the only available pilot (the other got knocked out), how could Eastwood fly the shuttle? We never saw him in a simulator or piloting anything! [True, he wasn't shown piloting anything, but it was said at other times in the movie that he was a pilot. For example, in the scene where he's introducing the guys to Marcia Gay Harden, he says Hawk is "the best pilot the Air Force ever had, next to me."]
You may also like: The Next Best Thing | Homer & Eddie | Freaky Friday (2003) | Kill Me Later | The Last Waltz
 StumbleUpon
|
 Slashdot
|
 Facebook
|
 Delicious
|
 reddit
|