Sunshine (2007)

David: Science fiction has been crowded from our movie screens by a plethora of comic strip adaptation. Sunshine raised the flag for serious sci-fi cinema in a very lean decade. It recalls Kubrick’s 2001 in positing space as a spiritual destination, with the sun, the source and nurturer of life, not unlike a god to its hapless progeny, who are on a precarious mission to keep its dying light alive. In the end one of Sunshine’s revealed truths is that a film cannot transcend its script. Much vision and beauty unravels as the story switches genres and loses its way in the third act. But for all that it stands tall, because it dared to dream.

Jules: Saving the world is often an extremely external affair: places, (often generic) people, and objects relating in a way that either guarantees or negates an apocalypse. Here, an internal story is attempted, where beliefs, perceptions, and personalities are the focus.