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epitome of incomprehensibility
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...who plays a bit part in the spacecraft's staff. A minor astronaut, I was an afterthought: the directors were looking at the background technician characters and one said, "Lots of men here. Let's make that one a woman."
They already had the sexy one and the strong one, so I'm the shy one.
I steal the show in exactly one scene. There's a shudder through the spaceship and everyone flails about. A blow as if gravity has returned. People grab at the air, dislodged from their tasks and their balance. What's hit us? I happen to be holding a wrench, so I can latch on to an instrument panel and read a screen. My eyes widen, but I try to keep under control. What is it, what is it? the others clamour. "What's the prognosis, doc?" asks the jokey guy who has his helmet strapped slightly wrong. (He's the one with more hands-on experience, but I have a doctorate in something and he doesn't.)
I blink. Push my glasses up. Return his tone. "Looks like we're fucked...and not in a sexual way."
The looks on their faces! The designated pretty woman mouths What? to the chiseled lead man. The strong woman, the one I'd consider prettier, rushes to check another part of the instrument panel: she's on the hunt for the problem, to genre-savvy to observe the witty-dialogue pause. For a moment there's amusement that the quiet one just swore in the face of death, and then, a moment later, there's the face of that death.
Either it has alien eyes or bullets that look like eyes. Either it attacks from space or from earth. Both ways it's a metaphor for our human lack of cooperation, plus an excuse for fast-paced action scenes.
Not all of us will survive the ride back. I probably will, and the lead couple definitely will - the directors' idea isn't to kill a MAIN-main character or a side-SIDE one, just someone in the well-liked friend slot...probably the jokey guy.
I won't be so involved with the action part, but they might reward my effort and f-word with a suggested romance: tragic with Jokey Guy (he's going to die, I tell you) or blink-and-you-miss-it with Strong Woman.
...
Trivia for the extended edition: did you know Dahlia Wetherby was supposed to be bi? And her PhD was in electrical engineering? Someone offscreen questions me: do you really have a PhD?
When I laugh, I look like a bit like Miranda Otto who played Eowyn, or at least that's what I think when I'm watching it later. I was younger then. Prettier.
But then I'm embarrassed and I switch it off. What did I answer? Something with "no" in it, obviously, but it seemed too self-effacing. Where this movie is concerned, I don't want to watch my mouth form words that the directors didn't write. At least THEY gave me a moment of pretend confidence.
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