Back in May of 2016 I watched 90 movies (released during the last 50 years) featuring at least one scene taking place in outer space. Yes, 90. In less than 3 weeks.
There was a reason for that – my master’s dissertation project. I wanted to study and present how films across genres chose to represent certain aspects of science fact. Whether these representations were accurate or not (or represented theoretical possibilities, like FTL technology), it’s interesting to see what choices might have been made as visual/narrative shortcuts (like FTL technology), and what choices might be made because it’s already a ‘fact’ in pop culture (like a human exploding when exposed to the vacuum of space…which is not true).
I then took the results of all this video watching (and note taking) and turned them into a short video series.
If you like space, like movies, and ever wondered how frequently spaceships explode, or people fall into black holes, or the four main ways movies get around the fact that space is bigger than you think it is (Nope – even bigger than that), check out some (or all) of the following.
Introduction
Episode 1: Gravity
Episode 2: Scale
Episode 3: ‘Holes’ (i.e. black holes and wormholes)
Episode 4: Death
JD Voyek 