The Cold Equations (1996)
Lieutenant John Barton is sent on a special mission to deliver a special vaccine to a distant mining colony. He is infuriated to find Lee, a stowaway aboard his spacecraft. Barton has only enough fuel to carry himself and his precious cargo, and Lee's added weight insures that they will crash if she stays on board. They have gone too far to turn back, and Barton's superiors make it clear: the mission takes precedence and Lee has to be dumped into space. But she won't go quietly.
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Waste of time
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
The acting in this movie is really good.
THE COLD EQUATIONS is a low rent science fiction B-movie of the 1990s. It's also a TV movie, so don't go in expecting anything original or out of the ordinary here. The story is about a space crew who discover a female stowaway on board, whose presence means that they won't have enough fuel to complete their mission. The guys at base order the captain to jettison her, and the story goes from there. This is more of a morality play than a thriller, and very little happens other than having two characters in a single enclosed location arguing throughout. It's quite interminable, in fact, cheap and tacky with actors who fail to impress. Even the late-stage appearance of PERRY MASON star William R. Moses can't lift things from the doldrums.
It took a little while to warm to this film but once the real drama began to unfold I was hooked. The lead characters are believable and there is some good acting on show from the lead actors. Don't watch this expecting great effects or stunning cinematography but those things are not needed for most of the film's length. Its a play set in a spacecraft. A drama that engages the intellect as well as the emotions, as one would expect from a film based on classic 50s sci fi. ------SPOILERS below------ Although the main story is about the coldness of space and the physical laws that make it, the tone only hinted at this..if only Tarkovsky could have had a go at it.. The developing relationship between the two main characters is the films strength. But its weakness is that the bad corporation story feels tagged on- there either needed to be more of it or none of it. The cutaways to the courtroom and back to the drama work well. Unfortunately the final scene felt a little lame.
The comments of others who have read the story have disapproved of the movie and I understand that. But if you are a fan of science fiction, I think you have to be grateful for this movie. I saw the movie before I read the story and I was blown away. How rare is it for a movie to actually include math and physics--correct physics? This movie could even be used to teach things like acceleration, mass, and energy conservation. I also think the actors did a good job. Montgomery not only sold the terror of impending death in the vacuum of space, but she also sold me on her determination to sacrifice herself. Understanding that it is a low-budget (I believe made for the SciFi Channel) movie, I appreciate it. I hope more good science fiction stories are made into movies, as faithfully as possible.
This film is the third, and worst, adaptation of one of the best SF shorts I have ever read.The original story had some very clear messages: People are responsible for their actions and there are consequences; Life isn't fair; Neither is death; Sometimes, one has to make tough choices.Unfortunately, by the time Geiger and Burger got through with it, it had become an overly long, rambling true love in space soap opera.The short story generated a good bit of controversy when it was published in 1954.I can't recommend this film to anyone who has read Tom Godwin's story.