Movies - TV
Alex Garland Called In A Favor From NASA For The Science In Sunshine
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Setting a film 50 years in the future comes with its own unique set of challenges and the 2007 film "Sunshine" was no exception. Director Danny Boyle admits that he and writer Alex Garland fudged certain elements of the technology and that required some speculation. Despite the film's fantastical and metaphysical climax, Boyle and Garland wanted to start from a more realistic place, so they hired NASA consultants.
In an interview, Boyle had this to say: "At the end of the film, there's obviously no way a man could reach out his arm and touch the sun. But the beginning of the film is absolutely based in as rigid a realism as we could do. We consulted NASA about it, and had scientific advisors with us the whole time."
Boyle also admitted that as much as he loves scientific research and technological accuracy, he is more of a "right brain" kind of a person and will always put the story, characters, and filmmaking above 100% scientific accuracy. As he explained, “Ultimately, I had to be loyal to the story. I had no loyalty to the physics."