Gravity Dvd

Gravity is a 2013 science fiction thriller film directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who also co-wrote, co-edited and produced the film. It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as American astronauts who are stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their Space Shuttle, and attempt to return to Earth.

Cuarón wrote the screenplay with his son Jonás and attempted to develop the film at Universal Pictures. Later, the distribution rights were acquired by Warner Bros. Pictures. David Heyman, who previously worked with Cuarón on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), produced the film with him. Gravity was produced entirely in the United Kingdom, where British visual effects company Framestore spent more than three years creating most of the film’s visual effects, which make up over 80 of its 91 minutes.

Plot

The Space Shuttle Explorer, commanded by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, is in Earth orbit to service the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Dr. Ryan Stone is aboard on her first space mission, her job being to perform a set of hardware upgrades on the Hubble. During a spacewalk, Mission Control in Houston warns Explorer’s crew about a rapidly-expanding cloud of space debris caused by the Russians shooting down a presumed defunct spy satellite (see Kessler syndrome), and order the crew to return to Earth immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly thereafter as more communication satellites are knocked out by the debris.

High-speed debris strikes the Explorer and Hubble, tearing Stone from the shuttle and leaving her tumbling through space. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), rescues Stone, and they return to the Explorer, soon discovering that the Shuttle has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. Stone and Kowalski decide to use the MMU to reach the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit about 1,450 km (900 mi) away, Kowalski estimating that they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again.

On their way to the ISS, the two discuss Stone’s home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the station, they see that the ISS’s crew has evacuated using one of its two Soyuz spacecraft, the remaining Soyuz’s parachute having been accidentally deployed in space rendering it unable to return to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Tiangong space station, 100 km (60 mi) away, in order to board the Shenzhou spacecraft to return safely to Earth. Out of air and maneuvering fuel, the two try to grab onto the ISS; the duo’s tether snaps on one of the station’s solar panels. Stone’s leg gets entangled in the Soyuz’s parachute cords and she grabs a strap on Kowalski’s suit, but it soon becomes clear that the cords will not support them both. Despite Stone’s protests, Kowalski detaches himself from the tether to save her from drifting away with him. Stone is pulled back towards the ISS, while Kowalski floats away.

Stone enters the space station via the airlock of the Pirs module. She cannot re-establish communication with Kowalski nor Earth and concludes that she is now the sole survivor. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, forcing her to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers the Soyuz away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers snag, preventing the spacecraft from leaving; Stone performs a spacewalk to cut the cables, succeeding just as the debris field returns, destroying the station. Stone angles the Soyuz towards Tiangong, but soon discovers that the Soyuz’s engine has no fuel.

After an attempt at radio communication with an Inuk on Earth, Stone resigns herself to her fate and shuts down the cabin’s oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, Kowalski seemingly enters the capsule; scolding her for giving up, he tells her to rig the Soyuz’s soft landing rockets to propel the capsule toward Tiangong, before himself disappearing. Realizing Kowalski’s appearance was a hallucination, Stone regains the will to go on, restoring the spacecraft’s oxygen flow and rigging the landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong.

Unable to dock with Tiangong, Stone ejects herself from the Soyuz and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to the rapidly deorbiting Tiangong. Stone manages to enter Tiangong’s Shenzhou capsule just as the station enters the upper atmosphere, undocking the capsule just in time.

The Shenzhou capsule re-enters the atmosphere successfully despite sustaining debris damage during its descent, and lands in a lake. Radio communication from Houston informs Stone that she has been tracked on radar and that rescue crews are on their way. Stone opens the hatch but is unable to exit due to water rushing in. She takes a deep breath and holds it until the capsule sinks, allowing her to swim through the hatch. She sheds her Sokol space suit that is weighing her down and crawls onto the beach, before standing up triumphantly, having survived the worst disaster in the history of space travel.

Cast

Sandra Bullock
George Clooney
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney
Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer and mission specialist who is on her first space mission.According to Cuarón, Stone is “a character who lives in her own bubble”, and in the film “she’s trapped in her space suit.” Bullock’s role was extremely demanding and daunting. For the part she spent long hours by herself being whipped around a sound stage with nothing but hundreds of cameras for company. She called the experience “lonely” and said there was “frustrating, painful isolation” on set, but in the best way, and described her working day on the shoot as a “morose headspace”. She was cast in 2010, just a few months after finalizing her divorce from Jesse James. The Hollywood Reporter estimated that Bullock would earn at least $70 million based on theatrical returns alone for the film.