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Gravity: Can Film Ever Get the Science Right?
dryriver writes in with a story lamenting the lack of accurate science in movies. "The relationship between science and science fiction has always been tempestuous. Gravity focuses on two astronauts stranded in space after the destruction of their space shuttle. Since Gravity's US release (it comes to the UK in November) many critics have praised the film for its scientific accuracy. But noted astrophysicist Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, had several issues with the accuracy of Gravity's portrayal of space. Through a series of posts on Twitter, Tyson — who later emphasized that he 'enjoyed the film very much' — highlighted various errors. He noted the Hubble space telescope (orbiting at 350 miles above sea level), the International Space Station (at 250 miles), and a Chinese space station could never be in line of sight of one another. On top of that, most satellites orbit west to east, yet in the film the satellite debris was seen drifting east to west. Tyson also noted how Sandra Bullock's hair did not float freely as it would in zero-gravity. This is arguably not so much an error in physics, but a reflection of the limitations of cinematic technology to accurately portray actors in zero-gravity. That is, of course, without sending them into space for the duration of the film. The Michael Bay film Armageddon is known for its woeful number of inaccuracies, from the space shuttles separating their rocket boosters and fuel tanks in close proximity to each other (risking a collision) and to objects falling on to the asteroid under a gravitational pull seemingly as strong as the Earth's. More than one interested observer tried to work out how big the bomb would have to be to blow up an asteroid in the way demanded in the movie. Answer: Very big indeed. Nasa is reported to have even used Armageddon as part of a test within their training program, asking candidates to identify all the scientific impossibilities within the film."
That is, of course, without sending them into space for the duration of the film.
That doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
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Sandra to be exact.
"My pet peeve is inertia," says Trollope. "There are many good reasons for keeping your engines on in space, but 'maintaining speed' is not one of them. If you turn your engines off, you don't stop."
I have *years* of experience watching Star Trek to know that isn't true. Indeed, the only thing inertia can do for space travel is keeping horrid shows about it from being cancelled.
Have you read my journal today?
Shows like B5 got physics quite right when it came to Starfuries, but were purposefully ambiguous in other respects.
Sometimes "rule of drama" wins out, and it's understandable. There's no excuse, however, to bad physics becoming a pivotal plot point (I don't think I need to list any examples here).
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
Long answer: Gravity is about as close as Hollywood's *ever* come to doing it right, and will probably be as close as anyone's ever going to get, until the day you can actually shoot your movie in space itself.
But by then it'll probably be a reality TV show -- "the real housewives of the moon", or something like that....
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If they got the science perfectly right, there would be no film. What they got wrong doesn't beggar belief, the way Armageddon does. Of all the problems this film has, the one that bothers me most is casting. I'd love to go see this in IMAX 3D, but I don't know if I can sit through 90 minutes of Cloony and Bullock.
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I now understand how my dad (A Boeing inspector for many years) felt when watching movies with airplanes... pointing out that they took off in a 737, but the landing scene shows a 757!
I still recall how annoying it was to have such things pointed out all the time... So I try and keep my mouth shut during shows.
Imagine what it must be like for a real medical doctor to watch 'House', or a real serial killer to watch 'Dexter'.
George Clooney talking for hours with a woman his age?
Pure Fantasy.
Going into a theatre to watch any science fiction film implies a tacit agreement that what will be seen may or may not reflect our best scientific knowledge and conjecture. That's the whole point: entertainment. If you're into cinematic kitsch it is especially entertaining to see films that get the science very, very wrong, and you don't come out thinking that you just watched an episode of Nova that you could have watched at home.
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...focuses on spoilers regarding a movie about space.
Tyson also noted how Sandra Bullock's hair did not float freely as it would in zero-gravity. This is arguably not so much an error in physics, but a reflection of the limitations of cinematic technology to accurately portray actors in zero-gravity.
More like Hollywood isn't interested in mussing an actress's hair. Pepper Potts fell into an inferno, and the wonder drug not only healed her, but grew her hair back with the same haircut and combed it.
If you want to go see a movie, expecting to see accurate science or other reflections of reality shouldn't be one of your motives.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Would you watch a Rocky movie if the boxing were as boring and silly-looking as a real professional boxing match (with most of the opponents time spent hugging each other)? Would you watch Mythbusters if they sent out all their results for months of peer-review? Would you watch House of Cards if almost of of the Senator's free time were spent at boring fundraiser dinners?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Guns in movies never run out of bullets, which is okay because only a headshot is actually lethal. People only very rarely obese or old or ugly. Perhaps as a consequence, they're always having sex. Lawyers make dramatic moving speeches most of the time and rarely do boring paperwork, and cops do almost every other part of the legal system.
Anything more technical than that is bound to be even more unrealistic in movies. Hair floating is pretty trivial. Just pretend a wizard did it if it bothers you that much. Otherwise, applaud movies that do more ACCURATELY than usual.
Tyson is correct in every point he makes but he's missing the point. This was first and foremost a good, stunning movie. While I noted science quibbles in passing, it was hard to be preoccupied with them because I was fully engaged with the film. I do my worst nitpicking when I'm in hate with a film for wasting my damn time.
There's no sound in space. They stuck with that. I'm impressed so much by that one detail. What's more, read up on the notes the studio gave the director about things they wanted to see. They wanted flashbacks to Earth, they wanted Russians deliberately shooting missiles at the survivors and other silliness.
How would I rate the realism of this movie? It looks real-ish. Apollo 13 is hardcore real, only strained interpersonal dynamics were hammed up from what actually happened. But Gravity is a damned good film.
The only physics bit that bugged me was the tether scene. Spoilerish. Two astronauts tied together falling past a structure, once one of them grabs on and withstands the shock of the other astronaut snapping the tether taut, he should rebound back towards the secured astronaut, not dangle as if still being pulled by gravity. This would not be the case if, say, they were on a rotating structure or on a rocket making a significant burn but neither is the case.
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It's entertainment. Not real life. Not a NASA training video for what to do in case of an emergency. They don't have to get every last detail right in order for the movie to be successful both from a entertainment stand point as well as a general scientific standpoint. Sure Bullock's hair may not float right, or the debris drift away in the right direction. But neither are critical to the effectiveness of telling the story. Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy it.
A review from astronaut and engineer. Basically the artistic effect was great, but physics wrong.
Take a look at Les Misérables. The film is goes south very quickly at the end.
After Jean Valjean becomes wealthy why did he become mayor? He was still a wanted man after all. That was a stupid risk to take.
Why after escaping and saving Cosette why did he still stay in France? He seemed to have access to much wealth so why not go to Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, or Canada? I mean how stupid was this man?
Simple... It would have made for a terrible story.
Most if not all the "errors" in Gravity were to make a good story.
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Listen, I'll be the first to point out or notice glaringly dumb science inaccuracies in films, but going after Gravity on this count is pretty ridiculous given that the filmmakers knew *exactly* what they were fudging into order to, you know, giving us two hours of decent thrills instead of 2 minutes of, OK they're all dead now, or 2 hours of them drifting in space dying of asphyxiation. It's fine to point out the inaccuracies in order to inform people about the actual facts, but implying they somehow should have gotten it absolutely right is dumb, and really, the hair not floating? Come one, suspension of disbelief anyone? Besides, who's to say in the universe of the film that all 3 stations weren't in the same orbit very close to each other from some inexplicably crazy reason. :) That's really the only way they would have had a chance of survival, or at least tell a compelling story in that circumstance. And either space shuttle was still in service in that universe or it took place in the years it was in service (gasp movies can show things that aren't happening right now?). To me the silliest things were the Chinese station somehow being knocked into such a lower orbit that it was starting to immediately deorbit, but I see where they wanted to introduce yet another against the clock obstacle, and Clooney have to let go to save Bullock.
It's pretty much impossible to do a space disaster film with anything close to modern technology. It basically boils down to "Everything works exactly as planned or you die." Yes, we have Apollo 13 but most disaster scenarios are going to be more like Challenger and Columbia.
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Film at 11.
Most of the westerns I have seen have no trouble getting the science right. Nor, for that matter, do romantic comedies or crime dramas.
The difference, of course, is that everyone is fairly familiar with the physics of bullets and the fluid dynamics of smoke in the wind. Once space travel reaches that level of penetration, the movies will have no trouble getting it right too.
Almost all science fiction in the history of science fiction goes so far as to flat out make up extra laws of physics to keep the story going. There are even famous hard sci-fi novels that implement impossible technologies for the sake of the plot. Science fiction is fantasy, consequently the science itself is often fictional. In the face of that, a few minor transgressions are nothing and there was no way to move the plot along in an entertaining Hollywood style fashion without these mistakes. This is an average movie for average people, as are most and we should be glad that average people find space interesting enough to see the movie at all.
Can we please stop fact-checking the movies?
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This is why nobody ever invites Neil deGrasse Tyson to the movies. It was a great movie. If your biggest quibble is that they made navigation line of sight to avoid tedious scenes full of calculating orbital mechanics, you're a killjoy.
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I don't think Gravity falls under the category science fiction. If I was to make a movie about a fictional accident in a fictional submarine, would that be science fiction? People can make movies about space now and it doesn't have to be considered science fiction if all of the technology is contemporary.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I don't so much mind a work of fiction bending science to align the story. That's what fiction does.
I'm much more bothered by science adding fiction to their work by providing an 'Artist Rendition" of a planet that might be like Earth. NASA sees a reddish speck near a star and suddenly the article has a picture of terrain, instead of a picture of a speck. That is a crime.
These science in fiction dicks need to stop picking on the wrong people.
Thank you for listening.
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No. It's movie - the best they can do is try. I'm less worried about ABSOLUTE scientific authenticity in movies than I am bored by hearing about another self-aggrandizing "photo-op" piece by Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Seriously? Nobody is going to cite 2001 as being probably the most accurate film for space travel...ever?
No noise in the vacuum of space?
Bowman's head not exploding when he has to blast himself into Discovery's airlock?
The fact Discovery has an area that rotates fast enough to simulate 1G for the sleeping crew as well as Bowman and Poole to keep from losing bone mass?
The trip from Earth to the space station (the latter of which had to rotate to also simulate 1G)?
Lensed in England by Stanley Kubrick, and still pretty damned accurate, especially since this was Arthur C. Clarke's work we're talking about here.
> On top of that, most satellites orbit west to east, yet in the film the satellite debris was seen drifting
> east to west.
Haven't seen the movie (yet) so I can't comment on the exact scenario, but, wouldn't debris be moving "east to west" if you were moving west to east faster* than it was?
Of course, if you are at the space station when it is destroyed.... given that each orbit is uniquely defined as a function of velocity and radial distance (before anyone forgets: velocity is a vector quantity, so this works, speed is a scalar - not enough info) then you really shouldn't ever see the debris it creates, as its going to be in such a similar orbit that it will take a very long time to either lap or be lapped by it.... in fact, oddly enough, lower orbits are slower and have shorter orbital periods so anything thrown off against the orbital direction should actually lap you before things tossed in that direction, which will move to slightly higher, faster,and longer orbits.
And yes, I have played way too much KSP recently.
* Locally faster anyway, or having larger angular velocity at the intersection point of the orbit might be the most accurate way of saying it
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Why don't they make more movies with space realism?"
"Damn, that *space realism movie* had some minor/moderate inaccuracies... I was really disappointed [that they didn't spend 500 million on production cost to really film he whole movie in microgravity]."
For space sake... there seems to be no way to please certain people.
If you are a NASA, space-science, space-exploration supporter: There is a time to be scientifically brutal and honest, and a time to sell cars (to borrow the phrase from Steven Spielberg, among others). When something like Gravity gets made, spend 95+% of time lauding the good aspects of the film... less time preening your own scientific ego about how much you know about space.
for going to the movies with Dr. Sheldon Cooper!
OK, I saw the movie, it is awesome in the true sense of the word awe, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The special effects are great, the story line simple and engaging. The the effects, especially the interior shots, are very detailed and the few technical issues didn't pull me out of the film to a large degree. While Tyson's comments are correct I think the link below from Bad Astronomer is a more interesting and full description of the issues: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie_review_gravity.html
These views express my own personal opinions, not those of the other voices in my head
"This construction would not be physically possible in real life," Neil deGrasse Tyson grumbled, as he slid to square 5 in Chutes & Ladders. (credited to @drewtoothpaste)
We'll "sequester" their oxygen at an inopportune time.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't mind a little bit of 'this would not happen like that' for fun, but don't obsess over it. It was a great film, fun to watch and a little different then what we have seen recently. So the space junk would not have spread in the exact same way, but would it have been a thrill ride if we had to wait days for it to happen?
Funny you should mention hearing explosions in space given how this movie starts...
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It was in the future however, and involved stuff that does not currently exist.
For instance, there's a Chinese space station in the film which appears to be on the same scale as the ISS. The mission they're on was also STS-157, which, if we assumed that we magically pulled the shuttles out of retirement and put them back on the schedule of launches we had before, would put them at least a decade in the future.
One thing that bothered me was the name of the space shuttle in the film: Explorer. That name has already been taken by a non-functional space shuttle mockup that was on display at KSC for years, but was moved to Houston as a consolation gift when all of the shuttles were distributed elsewhere.
Anyway, yeah, it walks a fine line between science fiction and just plain old fiction, but the fact that it's in the future and in space kinda push it more in the science fiction direction for most people.
Sandra Bullock was interviewed on the Daily Show. I believe she said that they were originally going to actually shoot in zero-g (via a plane doing parabolic arcs I think), but very late in the game, they decided to do something else. I think that the Apollo movie with Tom Hanks did this.
But seriously, so many movies could have been great if they had just paid attention to some detail or other, such as realism, or having a better script. I'm always amazed at how much money they can throw at a movie, how many people they hire to do a movie, and then utterly fail to fix the broken parts. Like when they have hundreds of CGI guys working on pretty crap, but fail to have good dialogue or a decent plot, etc. Hire some people who know what they're doing, and then *listen* to them. Shit, start hiring Mr. Tyson before you release the movie, instead of having him pick it apart afterwards. Hell, do some research on the web to find out which direction the Earth rotates, which direction satellites go, where they are in orbit, etc.
It's a movie, get over it. The scientific community doesn't seem to get upset with movies about vampires or zombies or Hogwarts or Middle Earth, but for some reason if it's about the real world, it has to be 100% accurate. It's a movie, get over it.
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These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
That would make pouring hot grits down her pants difficult - (B) determining "down" in zero-G is an issue, and (A) being naked, she wouldn't have pants available.
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Almost everything on the list is adequately explained in the books.
it would be a documentary. (That does not mean that a documentary gets it right.) The story and how it looks is what makes a good movie, not if you see something fit for the goofs section on IMDb.
Movies are not real life. News at 11.
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I saw a list of science problems for 2001. It's pretty short, as I recall, and cements 2001 as the benchmark for scientific realism in movies. As I recall, Apollo 13 was good enough to impress the astronauts who had been in that mission.
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Science Fiction is a sub-genre of Speculative Fiction. The idea is to twist a few things from reality and then make a story about it. With SciFi, those twists are usually related to technology or science (speculating on what might happen in the future at technology develops, for example). Fantasy is another sub-genre, where the twists are more supernatural. Of course, I'm making broad generalizations here, but the concept should be about right. All fiction is speculative to some extent, of course, but Speculative Fiction tends to alter something rather fundamental about reality.
So, ask yourself ... what exactly did Gravity speculate about with science or technology? "What if we hadn't shut down the Shuttle program" might work, but hardly seems to be enough to separate it into Science Fiction rather than just Fiction.
As an author establishes a new reality, the audience must suspend their disbelief to accept it. I have a theory that the closer the new reality matches real life experience, the less willing the audience needs to be (and the less willing they will be). Thus, Gravity needs to be much more faithful to science than, say Star Wars.
Slightly longer answer: people want stories, not dry factual events. I have yet to read a science fiction story that didn't stretch the truth, but the critical thing was that if most of the science was still good then it was okay. 'Gravity' stretched the truth: orbits weren't right, the debris field wouldn't have been like that. "Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story" (to quote Mr Chopper Read). If it was factual it would be less dramatic, more cerebral, if they lost all their oxygen or suffered damage to heat shield on the shuttle etc etc, then what would the story be? Slowly dieing of oxygen starvation? Sacrifice someone? Still wouldn't solve anything. Okay in a short story like "The Cold Equations" but in a movie? Nah, bollocks. I liked 'Gravity', everyone should just take a few deep breaths and settle down.
Bitter and proud of it.
...is called a documentary.
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Now, we have fucking Science in Movies Nazi. It's a fucking show. Shove the popcorn in your face and shut the fuck up.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It includes science and is fiction, but is not science fiction.
[CAUTION: POSSIBLE SPOILERS]
I've seen the shuttle in person (piggybacked on a 747). It is fucking huge. I've not seen the ISS up close, but I understand the solar arrays are massive. Given that, was it just me or was the size scale off on the shuttle/ISS renderings in this movie? Especially when they were working near the bay of the shuttle just as the swarm of debris approached, as well as when they were in front of the ship peering in at the destruction and the dead crew. It all just seemed so small to me.
I'm thinking maybe this was a device used by the director in order to provide some sort of balance on-screen: Had actual scale been used, all you'd ever see was shuttle or ISS, with no space in the background.
A habitually unshod foot develops a thick sole. This is true of Hobbit feet as well as Mannish feet like those of Jeff Poppen. In what way is washing your feet before entering not enough?
Of course, Tyson also promoted the idea that Pluto wasn't a planet, so what does he know?
He knows how to be mentioned in and by the press. Might even be supra PhD level in that field of study. (-1 Flamebait/Troll in 3...2...1...)
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Even if you were on the other side of the planet, the winds would be upward of 2000 mph, with an over pressure of 276 psi. The sound would be 126 dB, and you would experience an earthquake of 13.6 richter. Blowing up something that big doesn't help - it's still 9x10^20 kg of rock falling on the earth, basically all at once. So, even if the Armageddon asteroid was blown up into a million pieces, it would still mean DOOM.
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This is why nobody ever invites Neil deGrasse Tyson to the movies. It was a great movie. If your biggest quibble is that they made navigation line of sight to avoid tedious scenes full of calculating orbital mechanics, you're a killjoy.
The "cool kids" are overrated. The drama of having to calculate orbital mechanics by yourself without NASA would be far more interesting than watching the astronaut who crashed the Soyuz landing in the simulator multiple times struggle to remember which button to press to disconnect from the space station, but be inexplicably fantastic at manually firing thrusters just right to avoid colliding to said station while tethered to it by a tangled parachute all the while going through rapid rotations induced by collision with a debris field. Then we get to watch the actual landing procedure that she consistently failed in the simulation be performed entirely automated by the computers of a Chinese capsule that supposedly uses the exact same procedure as the Soyuz. Which apparently involves pressing all of 1 button, and works even if you mistakenly press a few wrong ones by mistake first. It'll just beep at you if you do that. This completely automated, flawless landing will happen even though the capsules computers are shown bugging up and catching on fire during re-entry.
I think it's pretty sad that what passes for "scientific accuracy" is that there was no sound in space, while completely ignoring the more important things like the ability to see the ISS from Hubble and to match orbits with it relatively quickly via the thrusters of the MMU. Then when you bring into question the scientific plausibility of the debris field that is responsible for the disaster in the movie, you're said to be "nitpicking" said "scientifically accurate" movie.
I had more fun watching Armageddon. At least it didn't pretend to be anything other than action movie in space, which is all Gravity really was.
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When Mr astronaut is about to let go of the rope to save Miss Astronaut, they're currently moving at the same velocity, since they're joined by their tether, why does he accelerate away when he cuts the cord?
Screw Dr Tyson.
That the guy that is bitching about a movie called Gravity got much of his popularity by whoring up black holes and giving a rather misleading view of the gravity of that object. (I mean how many realize the gravitation influence of a stellar mass black hole is actually less significant than the star that created it? If you listen to Tyson you problem wouldn't know that.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The first half of the post was on topic and interesting, but then suddenly devolved into a critique about Armageddon!? I would have liked to have read more feedback about the inaccuracies (or inaccuracies) in Gravity.
Those are usually accurate! :P
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There's still a fair bit of fiction in Apollo 13, such as some of the conflict between the astronauts.
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Having actually had to calculate intercept orbits without benefit of a computer to do the heavy lifting, I assure you that it would not have improved the movie. Takes about half an hour, assuming that all of your information is accurate.
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I can live with the fact that SciFi like Gravity gets a few details wrong. For instance, having Sandra Bullock's hair floating around her head in a Medusa-like fashion the whole time might have been needlessly distracting. I am bothered, however, when a fundamental plot device defies the laws of physics.
Objects in (circular) orbits do so at a particular altitude proportional to their velocity. Decreasing or increasing their velocity would move them into a higher or lower orbit. In Gravity, a cloud of debris is circling the Earth at the same altitude as George and Sandra's spacecraft, but travelling at a much higher velocity. So much higher that it completely "laps" them, going past and them coming around again every 90 minutes. This repeated passing of the faster-moving debris cloud in the same orbit as Sandra Bullock is the key element in Gravity's plot, yet is completely impossible.
I am very familiar with who he is. I also hold a degree in Physics. At the same time, I recognize the difference between a film made for entertainment purposes, and a film made for educational purposes. Gravity was the former, and I choose to evaluate it for what it is. Likewise, I don't criticize my cat because she can't repair a motorcycle, and hopefully she doesn't criticize me because I'm bad at catching mice.
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I remember watching stargate (the movie): they send a robot which sends a beacon signal through a warp gate and then they immediately receive a signal saying that the robot is 10 light-years away, instead of having to wait 10 years..
Even though I didn't care about 'scientific realism' in the movie, my brain told me 'this is wrong' and it "took me out" of the movie, so scientific realism isn't a big issue unless it kills your enjoyement of the movie..
Science Fiction is a sub-genre of Speculative Fiction. The idea is to twist a few things from reality and then make a story about it. With SciFi, those twists are usually related to technology or science (speculating on what might happen in the future at technology develops, for example). Fantasy is another sub-genre, where the twists are more supernatural. Of course, I'm making broad generalizations here, but the concept should be about right. All fiction is speculative to some extent, of course, but Speculative Fiction tends to alter something rather fundamental about reality.
So, ask yourself ... what exactly did Gravity speculate about with science or technology? "What if we hadn't shut down the Shuttle program" might work, but hardly seems to be enough to separate it into Science Fiction rather than just Fiction.
As an author establishes a new reality, the audience must suspend their disbelief to accept it. I have a theory that the closer the new reality matches real life experience, the less willing the audience needs to be (and the less willing they will be). Thus, Gravity needs to be much more faithful to science than, say Star Wars.
What if every spacecraft (and jetpack) always had just enough delta-V to change into any orbit you wanted?
But to be honest, I agree with you.
I think the issue is that people think "Science Fiction" means "a fictional work that contains science". No wonder people are so confused about science after watching Star Trek.
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Honestly, good science rarely makes good entertainment. Have you watched the NASA channel? While I did watch it back when I had cable, I found it tedious and boring... and that's actually pretty much what space is really like. Tedious, boring and procedural. And that's really how you want it to be; if you have "exciting" stuff happen in space then you're quite likely going to die.
I enjoyed the hell out of Gravity. While it was definitely Hollywood, it was less Hollywood than most movies these days. And the story while linear and mostly predictable pretty much had me on the edge of my seat all the way through. There were certainly a few moments where I found the science to be abominable; hell in the first 5 minutes I could pick out at least 5 major oversights and flaws... and that was even before the debris cloud. But the story was good enough and the acting was good enough that I overlooked it and just enjoyed the hell out of the movie.
And while much of it was hinted to be in "our universe", much of it was really "alternate universe" in that the space shuttle program continued and had new ones built... the Tiangong is more than just two or three Soyuz and Salyut rip-offs strung together in LEO... new advances in the MMU-style program have produced a jetpack that's more capable and has a LOT more fuel than the MMU etc. There was little that was really glaringly bad in my opinion and I could point at them as niggles rather than out and out hanging offences!
Let me put it this way; if you enjoyed The Right Stuff (which I did and still do, immensely) then you'll probably enjoy Gravity. They are both about as scientifically and historically accurate as each other!
Having actually had to calculate intercept orbits without benefit of a computer to do the heavy lifting, I assure you that it would not have improved the movie. Takes about half an hour, assuming that all of your information is accurate.
I've never *had* to do such a thing, but I've attempted to do it for fun while playing with Orbiter (and messed it up somewhere along the line, because it didn't really get me to the orbit I wanted). I'm aware of the amount of work involved at least. The benefit of a movie is that you don't have to show them working through the calculation for half an hour. The tension would be in finding ways to get the accurate information they needed, and then you could time-warp the calculation away.
Part of the gimmick (and it was a gimmick) of Gravity, is that the entire movie takes place in zero-G. If they had other characters in it, such as mission control on Earth trying to figure out how to regain communications, or people in the ISS or Chinese station before they bailed, they could easily cut to those other characters while the main ones perform the computation.
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Movies seldom get anything right. They butcher stories adapted from books, get science wrong, whatever fancy strikes the director as a good idea to sell a movie is OK. Why are the early James Bond movies better than the last dozen? Because the early ones tried to follow a book, not adding to or changing the story. Movies now much have a chase scene, with physics defying action in the first 5 minutes, because the market is young males raised on video games. Disgusting.