So I recently watched... well suffered through... Space Warriors. And it got me thinking. Was it really so bad? I mean I loved Space Camp but that was before I grew up, moved to Huntsville and actually started working in the Space Program. Perhaps I loved Space Camp because I saw it when I was a kid and couldn't pick it apart on 1000 technical details and now I am just to grown up to enjoy a movie like this. Though I don't think so. I can pick apart Space Camp a good bit... but I still like it. I suppose the thing that gets me about this movie is there is no key critical 'swallow the blue pill' moment that gets you on board. I mean I will set aside the atrocious acting. I liked the original Highlander for gods sake, I can overlook some cheesy lines/delivery and awful special effects. But the setup here just doesn't jibe. Space Camp had two real moments you had to swallow. First was that they would ever let kids sit in an STS during a static test fire (heck not even sure a full up static fire like is depicted is even real...). Second, was that given such an event was some odd confluence of events could lead to the control team deciding launching was the only option to save the kids. The first is pretty easy movie fare... the second took some divine intervention courtesy of the AI robot in the original film trying to fulfill his friends wish. Swallow those two moments and the rest of the movie makes some sense and has some logic to it even in its absurdities. The initial bit was actual Space Camp, the post bits were 'how do we get out of this mess now that it happened'. Space Warriors??? Not so much.
I suppose the other thing that bothers me with Space Warriors vs Space Camp is the actual regression in movie magic thinking. Somehow in 27 years we go from a robot with intelligence and kids actually in space to a really expensive puppet in Robonaut (product placement for GM???) and kids running remote avatars from the ground. The kids taking the place of the adults in this film just does not work as well as the earlier Space Camps decision to generate an 'accident' that pushes the kids into an extreme situation where the only path is 'through to the end'. This is one case where I think Hollywood would really have been better off just remaking a movie instead of coming up with this steaming pile of dog poo. I'll hand some credit to Josh Lucas for trying to make something out of nothing, but as a coach of mine used to say, "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken S#!T".
It was fun to see stuff from Huntsville on the screen, including the ISS payload control room that I have spent so many hours in. And I will hand it to them for using a relatively realistic idea for putting station in danger (space debris hit).
Can't resist a few callouts on the sillyness:
BCC (back up control center) does use a control room in Huntsville. It does not use the one shown in the movie though that was an easy choice to make for movie making (the backup room is much less interesting looking). When activated it is staffed by the same people that operate the main MCC (Mission Control Center) FCR (Flight Control Room) in Houston. Communications with Station run through White Sands... so if BCC is activated it doesn't matter what happens in Houston with regards to station communications. Thats the whole point of having the BCC in the first place.
One of the key plot elements in the movie is the idea that the main character "Crunches the numbers" and comes up with information the adults don't have. My question isn't how he could be that smart, but what data was he crunching? Even if I suspend my disbelief for a moment on the issue of the kids taking over for the adults I am scratching my head as to how they would access station environmental data in the first place... or become so familiar back to front with station procedures? Where Space Camp used the massive ground support team and 'NASA' as a reason to believe how kids could be supported in an emergency (not to mention they had an astronaut with them) Space Warriors uses the "All adults are idiots and kids have to save everything" method of movie magic. Or put another way... The ground team role in Space Camp was in many ways less amazing than the real life Apollo 13 mission support effort. Space Warriors path is just complete and utter nonsense.
The random robotic EVA suits. I mean if the suits were there why wasn't the crew (or ground controllers) using them? Even if they where not using them to do their own repairs they could have been using them (or the crew EVA suits) as a source of life support... which brings me to the last thing I will bring up (though far far faaaaaarrrr from the last issue with this turd of a flick)...
What the hell was with having the crew be so damn passive in this? They damn near didn't even have them speak. Astronauts. In. Mortal. Peril. are apparently doing nothing to try and alter their own fate. For most of the rest of the stuff they gave reasons (bad and horrible ones... but reasons) for why the kids were taking over. They never really give a reason for the crew being on the sidelines in this story.
I mean really that is just scratching the surface with this one. If you are looking for fun space movies to watch with or for your kids (or the kid in you) then I'd highly recommend the '86 Space Camp, Space Cowboys, or even Mission to Mars over Space Warriors.
I normally hate chewing apart issues in movies without suggesting alternative solutions. Perhaps one day I will take a stab at this one, but right now all I can come up with is pretty much going back to the drawing board.
