Passengers (2016)

[methodwriter85]

On 5/31/2017 at 11:58 PM, slf said:

It's not that deep, tho. That may be the movie they wanted to make but it's not the movie they made. The movie they made starred two people far more attractive than the average person. The woman is fit and younger than the man, as Hollywood requires, and they're both white 'cause that's important, too. He picks her out, doesn't just randomly wake someone. And wouldn't ya know: she likes him. What are the odds? He didn't wake another human in a fit of desperation, he basically picked out a mate. That's different. And the movie wants us to root for their romance. The movie is not exploring deep themes. Frankly, his "madness" feels more like an excuse to justify what he does rather than something the film actually examines. 

Petty much nail the head on what's wrong with the movie. It wants to explore this deep moral dilemma, but it really just wants to be a fun romantic romp in the end.

[Schweedie]

On 2017-06-01 at 5:58 AM, slf said:

It's not that deep, tho. That may be the movie they wanted to make but it's not the movie they made. The movie they made starred two people far more attractive than the average person. The woman is fit and younger than the man, as Hollywood requires, and they're both white 'cause that's important, too. He picks her out, doesn't just randomly wake someone. And wouldn't ya know: she likes him. What are the odds? He didn't wake another human in a fit of desperation, he basically picked out a mate. That's different. And the movie wants us to root for their romance. The movie is not exploring deep themes. Frankly, his "madness" feels more like an excuse to justify what he does rather than something the film actually examines. 

Precisely, in particular the bolded. To me, that excerpt just describes what the movie could have been if it had done some things differently, not what it actually did. Someone in this thread said earlier that it would've been interesting if Jim had died, and the movie had ended with Aurora facing the same choice he did. That would've been a way for them to ask, "What if you were the one drowning?" But by just making it into a typical love story, they failed at that.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Hollywood always wants us to believe in men having 'love at first sight' as long as that woman is young, blonde, thin, beautiful.  LOL.  

[revbfc]

If the two hadn't gotten back together at the end, I would have liked this movie much more.  I'm fine with an exploration of the dark places desperate loneliness will take one, but having a happy ending was a poor choice.  Save the ship?  Sure!  Put Aurora back in hybernation and die alone? Sure!  Have Jim die and Aurora continue the cycle by waking up another passenger?  Fine.  There were so many ways to save this movie and they chose an ending that hurt it the most.  OK, not "the most."  If the ending had revealed there were a few generations of inbred kids, THAT would have been worse.

 

Also:  why was Andy Garcia even in this movie?  Did he have more scenes that were cut?  Having him show up for ten seconds seemed like a waste.

[snickers]

Saw this tonight-I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I knew what the twist was because the very early synopsis on it revealed it. I think the biggest mistake the studio made was when they marketed this turning that aspect of it into a twist.  I think what would have redeemed the ending and maybe in turn would have won the viewers back instead of going the "happy" ending route she did go back into hibernation and showed him visiting her pod, growing old, having drinks with Arthur etc. and then she arrive on homestead II and watch a video he leave for her and she then begins her "new life". Apparently an alternate ending was that during the repair of the ship all of the pods accidentally eject and I guess once the ship lands on homestead II only Jim and auroras descendents come off? Thank god they didn't go that route!  The ship though was very cool it reminded me of a cruise ship only in space lol. And for those who want to see Pratt and Lawrence again on screen, I'm sure it'll happen again-neither one is hurting for work these days. 

[rmontro]

On 7/5/2017 at 11:20 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

Hollywood always wants us to believe in men having 'love at first sight' as long as that woman is young, blonde, thin, beautiful.  LOL.  

Well, it doesn't hurt lol.

Regarding the "twist" (if you can call it that), I thought the film did a good job of showing how much Chris Pratt's character did NOT want to wake her, and knew how wrong it was.  He just got to the point where he was so lonely he couldn't help himself.  People don't always do the right thing.  I mean he probably debated about it for over a year.  And in the end, when he finds the chance, he offers to put her back and live out the rest of his life alone.  I wonder if people would have been so "sickened" by it, if the genders were reversed, if it were JLaw that woke Pratt up.  

In fact, at one point I thought that they were going to kill Pratt off, and end the movie by showing us JLaw waking up another passenger, giving in to the temptation.

[Wiendish Fitch]

6 hours ago, rmontro said:

 

In fact, at one point I thought that they were going to kill Pratt off, and end the movie by showing us JLaw waking up another passenger, giving in to the temptation.

I would have preferred that ending; it's horror tinged with devastating sadness, reminiscent of the best Twilight Zone episodes.

[Which Tyler]

Agreed with the last few, it would have been far better (to me) if we'd seen this movie from JLaw's perspective, with Pratt dying, and her going through all the same emotions and decisions, possibly played alongside flashbacks of Pratt doing much the same, having similar conversations with Sheen etc etc

[Matt K]

I saw the last half of this movie (from right before Lawrence learns she was woken up on purpose) and it was bad.  Honestly, anything that would have given her character some sort of agency would have been nice but I'm not sure there's much saving this plot (except turning it into a straight psychological thriller).  That said, Lawrence Fishburne was pretty good in his brief role. 

[rmontro]

5 minutes ago, Matt K said:

 I'm not sure there's much saving this plot (except turning it into a straight psychological thriller).

Everyone agrees that what he did was wrong, even horrific, including everyone in the movie.  But I think the idea is to put yourself into the characters predicament.  Is everyone here really so certain that they would do the right thing, and live out their entire lives out in loneliness rather than wake someone up, even if you knew it was wrong?  I'm not so sure people are that perfect.  And if you were woken up, you don't think you'd ever find comfort in the company of the other person?  I mean there's no one else to talk to.  What Pratt did was terrible, but under the circumstances, I'm not so sure that it was unforgivable.  It's not like he just decided to stalk somebody, he didn't ask to be in his situation.  I think what he did shows more about human weakness than about what a creep he was.

[Matt K]

12 minutes ago, rmontro said:

Everyone agrees that what he did was wrong, even horrific, including everyone in the movie.  But I think the idea is to put yourself into the characters predicament.  Is everyone here really so certain that they would do the right thing, and live out their entire lives out in loneliness rather than wake someone up, even if you knew it was wrong?  I'm not so sure people are that perfect.  And if you were woken up, you don't think you'd ever find comfort in the company of the other person?  I mean there's no one else to talk to.  What Pratt did was terrible, but under the circumstances, I'm not so sure that it was unforgivable.  It's not like he just decided to stalk somebody, he didn't ask to be in his situation.  I think what he did shows more about human weakness than about what a creep he was.

The real problem is how little agency Jlaw's character has.  She gets upset and then that's quickly glossed over and then at the end she's in love with him.  That's a huge issue and fatal flaw.  In fact we mostly see the movie from Pratt's perspective (at least the half I saw which was the part that was problematic).  A Psych Thriller is the only real way this works.  We get JLaw's perspective and you can even have Pratt die (or she kills him) and then end with her months/years later considering waking someone else up.  But the movie we got is pretty garbage (the agency issue is the major flaw but there's other issues with the plot).

[rmontro]

30 minutes ago, Matt K said:

The real problem is how little agency Jlaw's character has.  She gets upset and then that's quickly glossed over and then at the end she's in love with him. 

I don't think it was quickly glossed over.  They gave a montage of her avoiding him and staying angry, that suggested a good deal of time had passed.  She was still angry with him when Fishburne's character woke up.  That was somewhere past the two year mark.  The fact that she was in love with him at the end, well, I would have preferred the ending I suggested.  I thought the movie was kind of dull in parts, but I don't think it was garbage.  I think it was thought provoking.

Maybe she couldn't, in good conscience, go back to sleep and leave him alone.  And from there, anything could happen, they rekindled their romance.  She DID like the guy, until she found out what she did.  Again, what he did was wrong, but in the circumstances he was in, I don't think it was unforgivable.  Especially since he later presented her with the opportunity to go back to sleep and get her old life back.  I don't think anyone could say for sure what they would do until they were put in that place.

[snickers]

^i agree with this.....I think the studio  and/or writers thought giving her the chance to go back to sleep would redeem him, but it backfired, they should have presceened it to a test audience and done a reshoot if necessary. I mean you think they would have wanted it to be more successful.

[GreekGeek]

I finally caught up with this, watching it on a transatlantic flight. Seeing it under those circumstances made it a unique experience; who can complain about seven hours in a slightly cramped seat when you know that the plan was to awaken people four months before reaching the destination? It was amusing to compare the disembodied voices with those of the airline personnel, and to see the commonalities with today's plane flights and cruises. I found the movie much less interesting once Aurora entered the picture.

Now to the central premise. I found it annoying, for many of the reasons mentioned above.

Quote

Hollywood always wants us to believe in men having 'love at first sight' as long as that woman is young, blonde, thin, beautiful.  LOL. 

Agreed. If Jim had just wanted to ease his loneliness, any other human would probably have met that need. Instead he chose someone who not only seemed interesting, but was Hollywood hot. What would have happened if the "companion" had also been awakened by accident and were older, or fatter, or of a different race, or heck, another man? It would have been interesting to test the theory that if you put any two people on a desert island, they will eventually love each other. 

Another thing occurred to me. Wouldn't Jim and Aurora eventually become horribly bored with each other? I know, they had a Very Special Bond, but we're talking decades in an admittedly large enclosed area with no other people. When they had each heard the other's stories a few dozen times and sex lost its attraction, then what? The facilities weren't expected to keep people entertained for more than a few months, and didn't seem particularly stimulating intellectually. Could they access books, either electronically or via an onboard library, at least? Would they eventually want to wake up a few other folks to be their friends? Unless one committed suicide when the other eventually died of natural causes, either Jim or Aurora still could have faced years alone. Too bad technology figured out interplanetary travel before discovering a cure for aging!

[rmontro]

On 7/23/2017 at 6:10 AM, GreekGeek said:

If Jim had just wanted to ease his loneliness, any other human would probably have met that need. Instead he chose someone who not only seemed interesting, but was Hollywood hot. What would have happened if the "companion" had also been awakened by accident and were older, or fatter, or of a different race, or heck, another man? It would have been interesting to test the theory that if you put any two people on a desert island, they will eventually love each other. 

I'm not sure that's fair.  This is a Hollywood movie after all, of course the people in it are going to be attractive.  JLaw was clearly into jogging, and Chris Pratt was obviously still on some sort of Star Lord workout.

As for getting bored with each other after awhile, again, it's Hollywood.  

What I think would have been interesting is if Pratt had woken her up just so he could get access to the Gold level breakfast  :)

[absnow54]

Apparently an alternate ending was that during the repair of the ship all of the pods accidentally eject and I guess once the ship lands on homestead II only Jim and auroras descendents come off?

In the alternate version of the script I read, the ship was also carrying hundreds of frozen embryos, and the damage to the ship caused them to start to thaw or something, so Jim and Aurora end up incubating them (I think they had special incubator chambers... or else that would be a lot of babies for Aurora to carry.) So by the time the ship arrives, it's full of multiple generations of families who have been living on the ship for 90 years.

[GreekGeek]

15 hours ago, rmontro said:

I'm not sure that's fair.  This is a Hollywood movie after all, of course the people in it are going to be attractive.  JLaw was clearly into jogging, and Chris Pratt was obviously still on some sort of Star Lord workout.

As for getting bored with each other after awhile, again, it's Hollywood.  

What I think would have been interesting is if Pratt had woken her up just so he could get access to the Gold level breakfast  :)

Fair enough. But once in a while, it would be nice to get something other than the conventional Hollywood characters and plot. Many of the alternate scenarios posted here sound much more interesting.

[Hanahope]

Just watched last night.

So we've invented interplanatory travel and hibernation chambers, yet messages still took 19+ years?  Really?  I kindof found that hard to believe.  At first I thought it was just because CP was a "low level" passenger, but apparently neither JL, nor LF could do anything faster.

I presumed that with all that tech, women also obtained full control of their bodies to avoid being pregnant, since there was never any discussion between the two about JL getting pregnant or what would happen if they had kids, and apparently they didn't.  

I get the moral delimma CP had about waking JL's character, but LF was right, a drowning man will grab ahold of whatever he could to try and stop.  And obviously, but for CP's waking JL, everyone would have died.  And when she realized that she could be left alone for years, she did whatever she could to stop her own drowning.

I would imagine with the auto-doc they had, and LF's passcode, they both lived to quite an old age.

[Which Tyler]

the answer to that one is pretty simple.

Faster than light travel breaks the laws of physics; interplanatory travel and hibernation chambers don't

[VCRTracking]

Jennifer Lawrence Responds to ‘Passengers’ Criticism: ‘I’m Disappointed in Myself’

[memememe76]

Not sure if she meant the film starting with her waking up, at the same time as Pratt or with Pratt already awake. 

I liked the movie. I didn't have a problem with the premise. It is a What If, it is something I would not really know what I would have done. If they woke up at the same time, where would be the tension? It would really be a romcom in space. If we didn't see Pratt alone those first 30 minutes or so, I would likely have seen that character as more menacing. But in either case, it would be a lot more black and white.

I liked that the future wasn't so awful and dark. It seemed kinda pleasant. Sure, a big problem occurred, but I could see something like that happening right now. It only gets boring when they start saving the ship and the galaxy, blah blah. And the ending was very abrupt.

[Spartan Girl]

So this was on Starz free weekend and my mom talked me into watching it with her.

I still think what Chris Pratt's character did was fucked up, and I agree with those that thought the movie would have been better if they had explored that moral dilemma further. But I will concede that it might be hard to judge without being in that situation myself; when I said that I would have killed myself than put someone else through that, Mom just raised her eyebrows and was all, "Really?" 

Had it not been for that plot element, and if Chris and Jennifer really had been both woken up accidentally like the trailer let us think, I might have liked this movie better. The special effects were cool and they did have chemistry.

But I just really can't get over the messed up romance.

[Chaos Theory]

I was on bus when this played so I didnt really have an option but to watch.  Anywho Besides the obvious red flag.  This wasn’t really a horrible movie.  From the weird reviews I expected a train wreck.  It has its moments of real heart mixed in with problematic moments.    I did like how Aurora allowed to be angry for a time instead of just  shaking it off.   Her anger was given merit.    She might have been angry for a lot longer except the ship kept breaking down.  Still I get why people are annoyed with the plot.  Guy ducks up and still gets the girl.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Chaos Theory