The Cold Equations

I was a fan of the original short story, having read it many years ago. This 'movie version' does go a little further with the story, however I think it stayed true to the original intent. I liked the acting and thought it was a worthwhile watch.

The acting and special effects were decent, and it brings up that age old question of sacrificing one life for the lives of many. This type of story is similar to the short stories told on The Outer Limits.

7/10

I thought this was a wonderful movie. Granted the effects are pretty bad and the cinematography was horrible, probably due to a very small budget. However, if you dig through all of that, you'll find a wonderful story line and amazing acting talent. Poppy Montgomery and Bill Campbell make the story come alive in this interesting tale of the human reaction to major life decisions when options run out(trapped in a spaceship). You just have to watch it to appreciate it. Onboard a mercy mission to a sick planet a pilot, played by Campbell, is forced to choose between a stowaway, Montgomery, and the medicine that will save the planet. I haven't read the book, but I will now to compare. But as far as the movie is concerned it rocked.

I haven't read the story of which other users are bemoaning the destruction so I didn't go into this feature with any preconceptions. I still didn't like it.

The central -- and undoubtedly short -- story in this movie is good: How do you cope with an inevitable death? How do you cope if you're the agent of that death? The recipient? When this movie followed that small, tight core it was good. When it strayed from that core, delving into "corporations (and/or bureaucracies) are evil" territory (with a smidgeon of a Messiah complex thrown in for no good reason), it was bad.

In the end I found the time I spent watching this movie to be wasted.

Nice to see a show that sticks pretty closely to the original story -- one of Ben Bova's discoveries when he took over at Analog from John Campbell, if I remember rightly.

However, I recall that the original story did not have the odd subplot about the corporation and the fungus quite the way the movie showed it. This seems to be a by-product of the times in which the film was made, when there had to be a "bad guy" to blame. (Other comments here are more harsh about the story treatment, perhaps with cause, but it's very difficult to turn most short stories into films -- take a look at "Enemy Mine" for example.)

The printed story in this case had more pathos, because of the implacability of the Cold Equations -- simple laws of physics and nature that none of the characters could overcome. No corporation needs to be blamed; the story tells clearly of the danger of innocence and naivety in the face of a universe which neither knows of nor heeds the actions of puny individual human beings.

When I first read the story, it was very reminiscent of Robert Heinlein (two of his lunar stories) and Arthur C. Clarke. Worth looking up -- I don't know if it's been anthologized, but the original was published in the early 70s in Analog.