If there’s one thing I’ve learned about space from the movies, it’s that it’s terrible. Sure, it doesn’t seem so bad in the Stars Trek and Wars, but basically every other space movie to arrive in my lifetime has come bearing the message: Space: Don’t go there! From chestbusters to evil Sam Neill to asteroids to getting burnt to a crisp by the sun to plain old mechanical failure to delusions and killer aliens (Alien and otherwise) to that part in Lost in Space where they have to escape in a chest freezer, the message is quite clear. It’s bad out there. Don’t go.
Here to further cement this message is the trailer for Slingshot, which finds Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne, and Tomer Capone in a spaceship on a mission to Titan. As the summary explains, “As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality.”
They’ve been in hibernation and the hibernation drugs, naturally, have some unpleasant side effects. One might wonder why the space-masters would give said drugs to said astronauts. One might also wonder what’s really going on here; the trailer hits such familiar beats that an optimist might assume that it’s hiding something. [ed note: In Event Horizon, no one can hear you Solaris…]
Slingshot also features The Walking Dead’s David Morrissey and Into the Badlands’ Emily Beecham. It’s directed by Mikael Håfström (Bloodline) from a screenplay by R. Scott Adams (Donner Pass) and Nathan Parker (The Underground Railroad).
Go to space with them—if you dare—in theaters August 30th.
