Gravity was a good movie. And for a movie set in space, it's pretty realistic...ish. But it's orbital physics are terrible. Just terrible. I mean, most movies don't even try. Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars don't deal with orbital physics at all. Gravity tries, and gets it all wrong.

That really is the crux of the issue here. When a movie gets something so essential to the plot wrong, you rightfully dislike the makers for being so damn lazy and not bothering to do their homework.

When it's only tangentially related, we're far more forgiving.

It can even get downright dangerous when policymakers start getting their ideas from them. For example, shows like "24" that have suspects giving up accurate and truthful information under torture, when any expert in the field of interrogation knows it doesn't work that way.

> For example, shows like "24" that have suspects giving up accurate and truthful information under torture, when any expert in the field of interrogation knows it doesn't work that way.

There's a more insidious explanation for this specific case: Viewers are being conditioned to accept torture as a legitimate interrogation technique, at the direction of $AGENCY.

> When a movie gets something so essential to the plot wrong, you rightfully dislike the makers for being so damn lazy and not bothering to do their homework.

Actually, that's when I feel compelled to give it a pass. We watch movies all the time that start on a ridiculous assertion. Allowing one major mistake I have to let go, but in the beginning and service of the plot as a whole is okay with me, as long as most of the rest is done well. Having something that just plain seems wrong but without any reason beyond laziness is what really gets me.

For example, without allowing for the core problems of orbital physics of the debris and the relative distance and speed if different space stations, there is no movie. I found the rest of the movie enjoyable enough that I allow for those mistakes in service of the whole (in a similar way that I allow for a lot more in a superhero movie).

> ... Star Wars don't deal with orbital physics at all.

Except at the times when a ship is disabled in an attack, and then changes course and "sink" into the nearby planet.

But yeah, I do agree. It's much easier to watch that kind of atrocity in a movie that makes no effort to look realistic than it is to watch something like gravity.

That actually makes sense if you get rid of the assumption that they were in orbit in the first place.

Once you have cheap, powerful thrusters like starwars/startrek has (thrusters that can hold the mass of the whole ship against gravity in any direction, independent of the main engine), it makes little sense to actually bother going into orbit, unless you actually want to turn the thrusters off.

Instead, just pick a point on the planet and hover over it. Or pick a circular orbit-like path around the planet for maximum coverage. Just pick whatever position or path through space makes the most strategic sense.

If you have a ship operating like this, and it loses power to it's thrusters... then of course it will 'sink' into the nearest planet as gravity suddenly becomes the primary force acting on the ship.

I'm going for the very basic. The kind of which immediately destroys any suspension of disbelief I would have. Gravity was good enough in my book, and is also somewhat rescued by the way you could feel the vastness of space when watching it in 3D.

The protagonist-seeking-debris that ignores orbital mechanics pretty much destroyed my suspension of disbelief with Gravity.

I could suspend pretty well up until the point where the dude just had to nobly sacrifice himself for no reason. All I could see at that point was the emergency drama screenwriter shooting a blunderbuss filled with space station shrapnel into the unsuspecting back of the realistic physics consultant.

Why did they need a 2 stage rocket to get from earth to LEO and yet they had a lander that could both descend and ascend from an earth-similar gravity well in a single stage?

The earth rocket had a significantly larger payload than the lander. IIRC, the lander only carried a crew of ~3 people, whereas the earth rocket had to launch with a larger crew, life-support for an extended stay in space, and enough fuel to get to and from Jupiter.

edit: I forgot that they had another ship waiting for them in LEO already, so maybe the fuel point doesn't apply. But, it's still plausible that the earth rocket had to carry a much larger payload than the lander had to carry.

Conservation of fuel. Especially as the fuel for "classic" two stage rocket would be vastly cheaper than magic-fuel they used later in the movie.

Why everybody brings up this honestly stupidest ctiticism about the movie is beyond me. It's like you lack both imagination and understanding how space missions work.

Oh, don't mind that... How did they maintain acceleration around that planet near a black hole for 7 years? And who the hell would think that was a good idea? (Wouldn't it be passing under the ship nearly the speed of light, and thus every few seconds anyway?)