Slingshot (2024): Crew Mentally Destroyed In Space

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Space is the rock of the sci fi genre so for sure captivate many eyes the moment a movie is about space, it has always been a mystery about what is out there and has invited mankind for exploration, its an instinct, but its hard to measure how vast the universe is when we have to measure it against human imagination. On the upcoming movie both human brain will be a big factor of whats going to happen, confine movies have always been a gamble. On 2024 there were two movies with related scenario, the first I.S.S that had a great concept although execution was very bad because of how much the movie relay on the actors skills and then we had Spaceman that had slightly better results. Mikael Hafstrom’s newest project with Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Emily Beecham will send the audience to the outskirts of the solar system and into the minds of people who have to spend years in space. The story focus on a team of three astronauts who are on a very dangerous mission to the moon of Saturn called Titan and their psychological reactions to loneliness and isolation, by combining the elements of space action and psychological pressure, this movie has the potential to become one of the movies that make the audience think a bit more about human nature in the conditions of space confinement.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12616480/
• Platform: Theaters
• Release: August 30, 2024

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Deep Space Plot

e protagonist of the movie is John role played by Casey Affleck, an astronaut who begins to have more and more problems with orientation in reality as the days pass once they wake up after been a hibernation stage. The story focuses on a final, crucial, and dangerous maneuver called the "slingshot" which will either take their spaceship to the intended location or bury it in the black deep of space, a maneuver that in theory is possible an has been used to generate action and tension during the movie on a lot of space films when it comes to go very far away from Earth, slingshot serve as a booster based on certain object gravity like the moon or a planet. This high risk situation creates an interesting psychological tension that adds another layer of pressure to the crew beyond the space dangers, but been realistic you already up there far away with little options to make it back, you just need to send it.

Billy Tangen plays a character of Bill Paxton who is possibly a crew member while Laurence Fishburne playing the role of Captain Franks, as the leader of the mission. The relationship between the crew members start to deteriorate as they start to suffer secondary effects from the drug they use to get into hibernation and many other obvious factors like confinement, starting up a conflict that generate the fear of what if they don't make it. From the trailer it also looks like their ship starts to have some malfunctions or even been attacked, but are all this effects of their low mental health at this point on the trip?

Psychological Aspects

Psychological aspects on action and horror movies is such a powerful aspect of the movie that can replace any of the two on its own but I think it demands a lot more for the actors probably why some films do not put that much emphasis on it, the best example that I keep mention is The First Omen (2024) a movie that basically replace complement horror with psychological aspect.

When you talk action on space everyone talks about 1v1 fights or space ships war, Slingshot tries to show how the characters are affected psychologically by the conditions and isolation of space travel, the most interesting subject of the movie is the use of a drug that puts the human body into hibernation, which has a rather drastic side effects that contributes a lot to the mental state decline of the main character John.

Periodically there are segments of John’s mission where its hard for him the distinctions between what is real and what is imagined are obscured, keep this effect coming up during the film is not an easy thing to do as after every scene they will have to set the bar higher, making it look how the subject slowly falls into dementia, this gives the audience a small peek of the horror it will generate for the tribulation.

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Behind the Scenes

The Cast

The main cast of the film includes a number of actors with remarkable performances on their resume, headed by Casey Affleck who won an Academy Award for the role in the film "Manchester by the Sea (2016)". Affleck has acted in psychological thrillers like Gone Baby Gone and making him a proper candidate for this mind bending space movie. Next to Affleck is the experienced Laurence Fishburne who is mostly known for his work in the Matrix series as Morpheus. Fishburne who has already appeared in the sci-fi movies such as Event Horizon (1997) gives credibility to the space aspect of the movie. Next on the cast is Emily Beecham who received the Best Actress award at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival for her performance in "Little Joe". The cast is completed by Tomer Capon who appeared in the superhero TV show The Boys and David Morrissey known for the role of The Governor in the TV show The Walking Dead. Morrissey’s experience in suspenseful survival series may come in handy on this space survival film.

The film’s cast has experience in science fiction, psychological and intense drama, should help to add depth and some sort of realism to their characters. Some of the cast has previously work together and their chemistry will likely boost up the psychological aspect of the story which could turn Slingshot into a sci-fi movie that focuses on the human mind when in captivity.

This might be the second time that Affleck play a complex character who have personal issues like in The Killer Inside Me (2010) will be brought into play as his character struggles with the loneliness of space. Fishburne who played the roles in Apocalypse Now (1979) and Akeelah and the Bee (2006) could bring the much needed stability and guide the crew through their issues at space, after all he plays the role of captain in charge of the small crew.

Production Details

Mikael Hafstrom is the director of the film, he is a Swedish director who has worked in a variety of films ranging from crime, action, drama, and horror, some of them well known hits like 1408 (2007), Evil (2003) and The Rite (2011), he has specialized in psychological aspects of this films. His big hit was the 2003 hit "Evil" being the movie that was nominated for the academy award for Best Foreign language film, I remember watching it back in the day when I was starting to get into foreign movies, watching them with subs. From the movies I mention there is one that has a good amount of screen time on confine space, thats 1408, this experience could help the director create a movie that basically happens whithin very few spaces, this probably also makes him a suitable director for this psychological space thriller.

The film was produced mainly in Korda Studios and other shooting spots in Budapest, Hungary, this choice of location possibly offered the production excellent facilities as well as various environments to realistically develop a futuristic look for the film.

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Themes and Messages

Ambition, Discovery and Perseverance

There are moments and places on Earth where you trully start to discover who people truly are, I guess space is no different, the film proves the impoartance of the invinsible spirit with each of us as the crew keeps pushing. This might make the audience consider the necessity of continuing the struggle under unfavorable conditions as the crew of the ship starts to expirience. As the focus of the story is the loneliness and what it does to a person, and the significance of those who we love, makes the audience think how they would feel under such conditions with a bigger target in front of them and the ambition to achieve it, its the case of reaching the crew destin.

In a premature view of the film many we could compare it to other traditional sci-fi psychological thrillers such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" or more modern ones like "Ad Astra" or "Gravity", all movies where the crew has been struggling with confine spaces within the ship on a long mission but with a goal in mind. This makes me a bit skeptical that it focus too much on this aspects and there is no side stories, the best that could happen is that the director and script could come up with a new approach or new strategy of narrating the story to make a difference in the industry that had many of this type of productions in the past.

A film with a lot of potential based on every aspect from cast, directory and story although they need something special about it, probably divide it into chapters to make it more dramatic and separate the stages as the main character mental health goes down to the drain, other than that to be honest I don't see anything special about it but the fact that the cast is a good selection makes me hope this could be a good one time watch movie, not so sure if it would better for it to debut as a streaming movie or theatrical release.

The film seem to claim that it will show more than just the farthest corners of the solar system but the farthest corners of the human mind, mixing themes like loneliness, desire and perseverance. Great visuals of space will come up handy to keep the audience entertain and deviate from the characters for a moment and expand he scenario where the movie happens, will Slingshot (2024) become a hit? I'm not so sure about it because its a film develop on a small space and those are hard to develop, most failed but once it comes out to stream I will watch it.

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