(no subject)

[skygiants]

Although I'm aware it's a beloved trope, I'm not sure I would actually describe most of the space fiction I've experienced as 'found family in space'. Coworkers in space is fine! Office friendships in space! Professional space working relationships!

The new film Space Sweepers, however, is the exception that proves this rule. The plot of Space Sweepers is "a crew of angry misfits suffering under crushing debt and capitalism accidentally adopt a daughter and as a side benefit save the Earth from Even Eviller Elon Musk," and it is in fact, I would say, the platonic ideal of found family in space!



Clockwise starting from Kim Tae-ri in sunglasses, we've got:

Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri), the fearsome and foul-mouthed owner of the crew's tricked-out space garbage collection vehicle; captainspreads like a champion, rolls a natural 20 on all her intimidation rolls, gets thirty brief seconds of tragic backstory in which the filmmakers rush to cram in as many Cool Points as they POSSIBLY can. devastatingly hot! invented a talking gun!!

Bubs the robot (Yoo Hae-jin), most frequently in possession of the crew's single collective braincell; looking forward to inheriting the ship when they all succumb to debt and starve. A style icon with quietly emphasized gender feelings that I did not expect from this film about space trash!

Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), the muscle; former gangster, never seen without his machete, goes from zero to dad in less time than it takes to say "let's sell this adorable baby robot to the mafia!"

Kim Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), the saddest and most protagonist-y member of the crew and also the most stressed about all the money they are constantly doing the opposite of making, for Tragic Backstory reasons; opened his heart to an adorable child once before and is NOT ready to love again, but sometimes fate has decreed that you are GOING to be a found family in space and there is just Nothing You Can Do About It

Some other facts of note about this film:

- contains absolutely no romantic subplots, explicit or hinted, between any of the leads; one pining side character sings self-written ballads to Captain Jang over the radio but honestly who could blame him for this, have you seen Captain Jang
- Richard Armitage is there as Even Eviller Elon Musk and he is doing his level best to chew all the scenery he is given to make up for the fact that none of his scenes a.) have an adorable child in them or b.) make any sense
- if you have a question about how any of the science works: nanobots did it, it's fine, you don't need to know, HEY LOOK OVER THERE IT'S AN EXPLOSION

Comments

[china_shop]

This sounds amazing! Especially the robot. *adds to Netflix queue* :-)

[skygiants]

I love this robot so much!!!

[sovay]

A style icon with quietly emphasized gender feelings that I did not expect from this film about space trash!

May I ask?

(I regret not knowing about this movie in time for our marathon.)

[skygiants]

rot13 for full-film spoilers just in case! Jr xabj sebz gur ortvaavat gung Ohof (jubfr ibvpr npgbe vf znyr) vf fnivat hc sbe n fxva tensg gb trg n zber uhznabvq-naqebvq nccrnenapr, ohg abg nal qrgnvyf va cnegvphyne; nobhg unysjnl guebhtu gur svyz jr trg n fprar va juvpu Ohof naq gur xvq ner cynlvat nebhaq jvgu znxrhc, naq gur xvq pnyyf Ohof 'haav' (n Xberna 'ovt-fvfgre' raqrnezrag/ubabevsvp) naq Ohof vf dhvrgyl qryvtugrq; va gur svany fprar, Ohof, abj cynlrq ol n Xberna npgerff ohg jvgu gur fnzr ibvpr npgbe, unf tbggra ure fxva tensg, naq vf nfxvat gur xvq gb uryc ure cvpx bhg n qvssrerag negvsvpvny ibvpr (gur xvq: "V yvxr ubj lbh fbhaq evtug abj"; Ohof: "Whfg cvpx bar orpnhfr V'z trggvat fvpx bs gur bar V'ir tbg.")

Also, I really like that Bubs' outfits throughout the film are, like, colorful bathrobes and fun sweatshirts -- stuff that's bright and self-expressive, and looks like some very familiar trends in queer fashion for people who aren't necessarily living in their ideal body but nonetheless want to have fun with their outfits, you know?

[sovay]

rot13 for full-film spoilers just in case!

That's really cool!

[edit] Vg'f nyfb avpryl sberfunqbjrq va gung rneyl va gur svyz, Ohof vf fpebyyvat guebhtu n fperra fubjvat jbzra'f snprf naq pbzcynvavat nobhg ubj zhpu gurl nyy pbfg, juvpu ybbxf ng gur gvzr yvxr fbzr xvaq bs cbea wbxr naq va uvaqfvtug vf boivbhfyl Ohof lrneavat bire ure fghcvq rkcrafvir fxva tensgf. Va juvpu fur ybbxf nccebcevngryl snagnfgvp.

and looks like some very familiar trends in queer fashion for people who aren't necessarily living in their ideal body but nonetheless want to have fun with their outfits, you know?

Yeah.

[goodbyebird]

Nice. I'll keep my eye on this one.

[skygiants]

It was extremely fun!

[dolorosa_12]

This. Sounds. Amazing.

On the strength of this review, we have immediately added it to our Netflix queue.

[skygiants]

I hope you enjoy! :D

[shadaras]

god I'm so excited for when I watch this; I've got Plans to watch with my cdrama-viewing friend in like a week and a half (as a break between NiF and Guardian). :3 Everything I hear about it makes me more delighted by it conceptually.

[skygiants]

We ended up watching it twice this week with two different groups of people and ZERO regrets, it was just as much fun the second time!

[shadaras]

That's wonderful to hear! :D

[cinaed]

I just watched this yesterday! I also really enjoyed the way they went "it's the future, universal translators mean people can understand each other, so let's let everyone speak in their own language" on top of everything else! And yes, adored what they did with Bubs. Bubs and Captain Jang's weird friendship was one of my favorite things.

And agreed on Pierre. Who wouldn't sing romantic ballads at her at any given opportunity?

Sure, the science makes NO sense, but that wasn't what I was here for, haha.

[skygiants]

Yeah I LOVED the language stuff! I saw some stuff on Tumblr about the translation of Karum's creole in particular which was really neat.

[cofax7]

wasn't it fun! The science and finances make no sense (bcz who would waste cash sending humans to space to be grunt labor when you can build robots that need no food/air/water), but it's so entertaining.

I would like an entire movie about Capt Jang, though: I thought she was underwritten compared to the rest of the crew.

[skygiants]

I would love a whole movie about Captain Jang but I also honestly deeply enjoyed how much everything about her was designed absolutely without shame or mitigation to be As Cool As Possible, No Psychological Explanation Required in a very sort of classic space hero way ... like thirty years ago this role would have been played by Harrison Ford with absolutely no changes, you know?

[seekingferret]

I'm a simple man. If you show me space harpoon fights I will be happy.

[skygiants]

This movie certainly does do that!

[aberration]

I have a kind of random question - is this movie particularly ultra-violent and/or gory?

[skygiants]

There's a fair bit of shooting-explosions-body-on-the-floor type stuff, and one knock-down drag-out physical fight sequence, but as far as I remember it's not particularly gory at all -- not very much onscreen blood, people get shot but the camera doesn't linger.

[derridian]

I tried this movie because the Netflix trailer thing promised a whole found family storyline but then the first 10 or 15 minutes was all just explosions and posturing and all the tropes and characteristics that I’m just so very tired of so I noped out. You’re making it sound like maybe it’s worth another try, so my question is how far into the movie do you have to get before it starts being about found family? Also do you think I can just skip straight to that bit without missing too much? (I don’t particularly care about backstory for any of the characters I saw.)

[skygiants]

Not much further! They acquire the kid at about [checks] 22 minutes in and from then on the crew start falling for her like dominos. Definitely think you could skip there if you wanted -- you've already seen the intros of the side characters that will be relevant later and also the first time we watched genarti walked in literally halfway through the film and had a great time!

[dhampyresa]

This sounds great!

[skygiants]

It was extremely fun!

[larryhammer]

Sold. In queue.

[skygiants]

I hope you enjoy it! (If you haven't already watched by now.)

[larryhammer]

Pfft! The campground had no cell service.

[pengwern]

This looks incredible :000

[skygiants]

It was truly a delight!

[lirazel]

It's a loooong movie! I've watched about 30-45 minutes so far and I will definitely keep watching because I love the characters (THAT CAST) but the worldbuilding is kind of overwhelming both story-wise (I don't understand anything that's going on!) and visually, so this:

if you have a question about how any of the science works: nanobots did it, it's fine, you don't need to know, HEY LOOK OVER THERE IT'S AN EXPLOSION

makes me feel better!

(Also, it's weird having our werewolf boy be a dad. When did he get old enough to do that?)

[trent_goulding]

Now imagine him as a Mafia consigliere! (i.e. Vincenzo just started streaming on Netflix. It's fun so far, more dark comedy than I was expecting...)

[lirazel]

That's such an interesting career decision for him! I'm sure he's doing a great job with it, though.

[skygiants]

That's another one I'm very curious to try!

[trent_goulding]

Not gonna lie, through four episodes, I'm enjoying it an awful lot.

[skygiants]

lol yeah I watched it the first time around .... very tipsy (I had just come off a virtual cocktail class with my parents) so I did not even bother tracking the worldbuilding, just had a great time watching an adorable child win over the entire crew one after another. It's fine! It's an emotional arc!

(I actually never saw him as a werewolf but my impression of him in SKKS was very formative and it is deeply wild seeing him play a dad!)

[trent_goulding]

I enjoyed this a lot, and will just add:

1) The adorable moppet who is An Important Plot Point is seriously packing absolutely lethal levels of Cuteness; and

2) This is only the second thing I've seen Kim Tae-ri in, and she was of course awesome, and also very very different in style and class-markers from Go Ae-shin (Mr. Sunshine), while being completely in synch with Go Ae-shin's desire and willingness to just shoot them as needs shootin'.

[skygiants]

Kim Tae-ri really seems to gravitate to roles where she has a +20 intimidation score and an intense relationship with heavy weaponry and I really respect that about her. (I saw some quote or another of Richard Armitage where he's like "I would like to die and be reborn as Kim Tae-ri" and honestly: wouldn't we all.)

[schneefink]

I put this on my list when you mentioned it and now, two and a half years ago, finally got around to watching it and I enjoyed it a lot! Thanks for the rec. Captain Jang has so many Cool Points :D