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Sunshine
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Danny Boyle
Produced by	Andrew Macdonald
Written by	Alex Garland
Starring	Cillian Murphy Rose Byrne Cliff Curtis Chris Evans Troy Garity Hiroyuki Sanada Mark Strong Benedict Wong Michelle Yeoh
Music by	John Murphy Underworld
Cinematography	Alwin H. Kuchler
Editing by	Chris Gill
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release date(s)	6 April 2007 (UK) 20 July 2007 (USA)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	GB£20 million[1]
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Sunshine is a 2007 science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Alex Garland. The film follows a spaceship crew in the year 2057, played by an ensemble cast of Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong and Michelle Yeoh, who are tasked with reigniting Earth's dying sun. Fox Searchlight is distributing the film, which opened in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007.

In the year 2057, the Sun is failing, and the Icarus project has been formed with the intent of travelling to the sun and detonating a massive thermonuclear payload to re-ignite it. Seven years before the events of the film, the spacecraft Icarus I was launched but failed for reasons unknown. The film opens with its successor, Icarus II, en route to the star. All of Earth's fissile material was mined for the two Icarus ships, and life on Earth is doomed if the mission fails.

While passing Mercury, communications officer Harvey (Troy Garity) discovers the distress beacon of Icarus I. Physicist Capa (Cillian Murphy) is asked by Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) to decide whether to change course and approach Icarus I. After a risk assessment, Capa decides to rendezvous with the stricken vessel in order to acquire another payload and double their chances of ultimate success.

While programming their new course, navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) forgets to correct the heat shield's angle, causing an unknown level of damage. Kaneda and Capa go on a spacewalk to assess and repair damaged vents. Pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) rotates the shield to facilitate the repairs, but an unshielded antenna, vapourised by the sun, starts a massive fire by reflecting intense sunlight into the ship's oxygen garden. This causes the computer to begin automatically re-adjusting the shield back into a safer alignment. The crew override the process until Kaneda orders them to stop because of the fire hazard. Capa makes it back to the shield's underside, but Kaneda remains to make the mission-critical repairs. He succeeds, but is incinerated, leaving Harvey in command.

The crew use a substantial amount of their oxygen reserves extinguish the fire, making a return trip impossible unless oxygen can be recovered from the Icarus I. Psychiatrist Searle (Cliff Curtis) sedates Trey, assessing him a suicide risk.

Upon rendezvousing with Icarus I, Icarus II manoeuvres its shield to overlap that of the stricken vessel. The airlocks are coupled together and Capa, Harvey, Searle, and engineer Mace (Chris Evans) go aboard. Harvey finds the ship's garden thriving, which could provide oxygen desperately needed by Icarus II. Mace finds a video suggesting the crew of Icarus I abandoned their mission. Deferring to "God's will" under the leadership of Captain Pinbacker (Mark Strong), they destroyed their computer, rendering their bomb useless. Searle discovers they have immolated themselves in the unshielded observation room.

During the exploration of Icarus I, the airlocks inexplicably decouple, causing catastrophic damage to the mechanism so the two ships cannot be reconnected. Only metres from the Icarus II, it is be possible to cross the gap between the ships with an EVA but just one spacesuit is available on Icarus I. The four men argue over who should wear the suit - Harvey insists the mission needs a captain, but the others insist Capa, the only one who can deploy their nuclear payload, must survive. Mace points out that the crossing the 20 metre distance entails a risky but probably non-fatal exposure to the vacuum of space. The men without suits wrap themselves in scavenged insulation, but Searle points out that without the computer the airlock cannot be opened automatically and someone must remain behind to open the door, restarting the argument. Searle breaks the impasse, sacrificing himself by staying behind to manually open the hatch. Harvey and Mace cling to Capa's spacesuit when the hatch blows, but Harvey is knocked loose between the ships and freezes to death. Mace and Capa reach Icarus II and survive.

The surviving crew face a dilemma: with five breathers their oxygen reserves will not suffice even for a one-way mission, but enough oxygen remains for four. They decide that Trey must die; he is suicidal and must be who sabotaged the airlock. However, Mace finds Trey has already committed suicide.

The computer informs Capa that there are still five people on board. Capa discovers Captain Pinbacker, horribly burned and insane. Pinbacker, who decoupled the airlock, wounds Capa with a stolen medical bay scalpel, chases him into the airlock and traps Capa by sealing it manually. He murders botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), sabotages the computer, and chases Cassie into the payload section. Mace restores partial computer control but is fatally wounded in the process, making a dying entreaty to Capa by radio: deploy the payload and save the mission. Knowing the bomb must now be released and armed manually, Capa dons a spacesuit and destroys the airlock door, depressurizing Icarus II. He decouples the payload section, and struggles to leap aboard it before its boosters fire and destroy the now-lifeless Icarus II.

Inside the payload section Capa is attacked by Pinbacker, but escapes with Cassie’s help. Before the payload can be incinerated by the sun, Capa detonates the bomb.

On Earth, Capa’s sister watches his final message to them while her children build snowmen. Suddenly, the sky brightens, an indication of the mission's success - and revealing they were building snowmen in Sydney, Australia, a final emphasis of the scale of the disaster on Earth.

An ensemble cast of international actors was chosen for Sunshine to reflect both a democratic process and the international collaboration in saving the world

Director Danny Boyle chose to have an ensemble cast for Sunshine to encourage a more democratic process, similar to the ensemble cast in Alien. Boyle also chose to have the cast be international in order to reflect the mission's purpose "on behalf of all mankind".^[2] The space crew in the film also consisted of American/Asian nationality because of the filmmakers' belief that the American and Chinese space programs would be the most developed and economically empowered 50 years in the future.^[3] The director had also received advice that there would be advanced space programs with India and Brazil, but the advice was overlooked to avoid creating a cast that was too disparate.^[4] According to producer Andrew Macdonald, the actors were required to speak with American accents to target the U.S. audience as much as international audiences due to the budget level of the project.^[5]

To prepare the international actors for the film, Boyle had the cast undergo method acting.^[6] At the beginning of the film, the characters had been together for sixteen months, so Boyle desired to capture of a sense of togetherness among the actors by assigning them to live together. He also enrolled the cast members in space training and scuba diving, as well as watching films together,^[7] such as The Right Stuff (1983) and the documentary For All Mankind (1989).^[8] Boyle also took the cast on a tour of a nuclear submarine to comprehend claustrophobic living conditions. He also had the cast experience weightlessness in the zero G environment of an acrobatic plane.^[7] Cast members operated a Boeing 747 flight simulator and were introduced to futurologist Richard Seymour.^[9] The book Moondust by Andrew Smith, a collection of accounts of the men who had walked on the moon, was assigned reading to cast members.^[10] The book had been assigned by Boyle because it covered the psychological effect on the men that traveled to the moon. The director sought to manifest the effect by having the sun and its power influence the mindsets of the ship's crew.^[11]

• Cillian Murphy as Robert Capa: The physicist. Murphy described the character of Robert Capa as a silent character at the beginning who is apart from the group, and that Capa's sole understanding and operation of the bomb created "an effect on his demeanour and his dynamic within the group."^[12] Murphy worked with physicist Brian Cox to receive a better understanding of advanced physics for the role.^[13] The actor traveled to Geneva with Cox and toured CERN. Murphy also sought to understand how physicists functioned as humans, learning to copy their mannerisms.^[14] The actor also watched the thriller The Wages of Fear (1953) with Boyle to gain an understanding of the suspense in the film.^[15] Murphy said that being involved in the production of Sunshine had converted his spiritual belief from agnosticism to atheism, saying, "For me, the film ultimately is a battle between science and religion, or science instead of fundamentalism."^[16][14]

• Rose Byrne as Cassie: The pilot. Byrne was chosen by the director for her role in Troy (2004).^[17] Byrne described Cassie as the most emotional member of the crew, "[wearing] her heart on her sleeve". Byrne considered Cassie's role among to the crew was to possess an even temperament which helps her last the journey.^[18]

• Cliff Curtis as Searle: The physician and psych officer. The role of Searle was originally written to be a "slightly stiff" British character.^[18] Curtis was drawn to the role based on the script and also expressed interest in working with the director.^[19] Boyle was familiar with Curtis from Training Day (2001) and Whale Rider (2002),^[20] and Curtis's audition appealed to Boyle strongly enough to cast the actor as Searle.^[18] Curtis initially foresaw an esoteric approach for his character, but he later pursued a military and scientific approach based on the seriousness of the mission. The actor also compared Searle to the character of Pinbacker, noting their similarities and differences: "[Searle] would sacrifice those beliefs and views, his life, for the greater good, whereas Pinbacker, who's come to a place he believes is right, would sacrifice the world for his beliefs. They're two sides of the coin."^[19]

• Chris Evans as Mace: The engineer. Evans described his character Mace as one with a military family and background. Mace has a dry and morally uncomplicated personality. Said Evans, "[He] has a very level head which enables him to operate fairly coherently under pressure-filled situations."^[18]

• Troy Garity as Harvey: The communications officer and second-in-command. Garity's previous work was unknown to Boyle, but the director was impressed enough with the actor upon meeting him that he cast Garity. Garity described the character of Harvey as the only crew member who misses his family back home on Earth and attempts to hide the fact.^[18]

• Hiroyuki Sanada as Kaneda: The script was originally written to have an American be the captain of the spaceship, but after receiving advice from scientists and space experts, the nationality was changed to Japanese.^[21] Boyle saw Sanada in The Twilight Samurai (2002), and director Wong Kar-wai recommended the actor to Boyle when the latter sought someone to cast as the Asian captain of the ship.^[22] Sanada's character was originally called Kanada, but he asked Boyle to change the name to Kaneda, a more natural Japanese name. The character was Sanada's second English-language role in cinema, and Sanada learned different forms of English, depending on the circumstances. Sanada's base English language had a British dialect, and when the actor recited official statements as Kaneda, the dialect was official English. In communicating with other characters as Kaneda, Sanada spoke with an American English accent to reflect the fictional situation of the character training with the rest at NASA.^[21]

• Benedict Wong as Trey: The navigator. Boyle saw Wong in Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and sought to cast the actor in Sunshine. Wong's character, Trey, was a child prodigy who created a computer virus that brought down one-sixth of the world's computers. As a result, Trey is recruited into the space program so his genius could be applied more beneficially.^[18]

• Michelle Yeoh as Corazon: The biologist. Boyle first noticed Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997),^[18] and after seeing her again in a more dramatic role in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), the director sought to cast her.^[23] Yeoh was the first actor to be cast into the film, and she received the privilege of choosing her role among the story's crew. Yeoh described her character as more spiritual, explaining Corazon's background, "It's the Asian influence or that she's always constantly surrounded by organic things – she's very grounded and more down-to-earth."^[24]

• Mark Strong as Pinbacker: The captain of Icarus I, the previous failed attempt to reignite the sun. Pinbacker was inspired by the character Sgt. Pinback from Dark Star.^[25] The character's disfiguring burns were influenced by the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki Lauda.^[26] Boyle described the character of Pinbacker as a representation of fundamentalism, similar to the Taliban.^[27] The director also described the potentially unrealistic presence of Pinbacker as an example of something that breaks the pattern of realism, similar to his scene in Trainspotting (1996) in which Ewan McGregor's character dives into a toilet.^[28]

In March 2005, following the completion of Millions (2004),^[29] director Danny Boyle was briefly attached to direct 3000 Degrees, a Warner Bros. project about the 1999 Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire in Massachusetts, but due to opposition from surviving victims and firefighters, the project did not enter production. At the same time, Boyle received a script from screenwriter Alex Garland, who had paired with Boyle for The Beach (2000) and 28 Days Later (2002). Producer Andrew Macdonald, working with Boyle and Garland, pitched the script to 20th Century Fox, who was reluctant to finance the film based on its similarities to the 2002 remake Solaris, which performed dismally for the studio. The project was instead financed by Fox's specialized film unit Fox Searchlight Pictures. Since the preliminary budget at USD$40 million was too demanding for Fox Searchlight, Macdonald sought outside financing from British lottery funds, U.K. rebates, and outside investor Ingenious Film Partners.^[26] With financing in place, Boyle entered pre-production work for Sunshine, for which he planned to commence production by the following July.^[29] Since Boyle had previously worked with Fox Searchlight on 28 Days Later, the existing relationship permitted the director with freedom in production, working in a small studio.^[30]

Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, spent a second year preparing for production, filmed for three months, and spent a third full year editing and completing visual effects for Sunshine.^[20] After completion of filming for Sunshine, Boyle said that he would not revisit the science fiction genre, citing production as a spiritually exhausting experience.^[25] The director said making the film had conquered his fear of the difficulty encountered in producing a science fiction film, and that he would move on from the genre.^[31]

Screenwriter Alex Garland was inspired to write Sunshine based on scientific ideas about the heat death of the universe,^[33] specifically "an article projecting the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective," according to Garland.^[25] The article was from an American scientific periodical, and Garland had wondered about what would result from the sun's death.^[32] Garland brought the script to director Danny Boyle, who enthusiastically took up the project due to his long-time desire to direct a science fiction film in space.^[7] Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, creating 35 drafts in their experimenting.^[22]

The director also considered the story of Sunshine as an appropriate counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming, with the death of the sun being a threat.^[7] Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power.^[34] The director also described the film's villain as based on light, explaining, "That's quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness." The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths.^[35] To capture the dangers of the voyage in which the crew members went through, the director cited Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything as influential in "articulating the universe's power".^[36]

The story was also written in part to reflect the existing brilliance yet arrogance of real-life scientists when the film's scientists are presented with the crisis that threatens Earth.^[2] The time period of the story, 50 years in the future, was chosen to enable the level of technology to advance to the ability to travel to the sun, but to simultaneously keep a feel of familiarity for the audience. Scientific advisers, futurists, and people who developed products for the future were consulted to shape an idea of the future.^[7]

To shape the science of the film, Boyle and Garland hired scientist advisers, including NASA employees and astrophysicists.^[2] One physicist, Brian Cox of University of Manchester, was hired to advise the cast and crew after the director had seen Cox on the science TV series Horizon.^[37] The physicist gave regular lectures to the film's cast members about solar physics. Cox also advised the filmmakers to scale down the nuclear weapon in the film from the mass of the Moon to the size of Manhattan. In the film's backstory, a Q-Ball enters the Earth's sun and begins to eat it away. According to Cox, the sun would not be dense enough in real life to stop a Q-ball, but filmmakers took creative licensing in writing the backstory.^[33]

Boyle originally included romantic subplots,^[38] including a sex scene planned between the characters Capa (Murphy) and Cassie (Byrne) in the ship's oxygen garden.^[39] However, the director considered the attempt for relationships in space too "embarrassing" and excluded the subplots.^[38] Boyle further distanced the characters from possible relationships by ensuring that the cast members wore little to no make-up to avoid any romantic overtures.^[6] The director also avoided including humor in the script with the exception of a few gags, believing that humor was a difficult fit for the story.^[28] "You get intensity of experience in space movies but not joy. So there's not much room for comedy or sex - everything is waiting to destroy you," explained Boyle.^[40]

Filming for Sunshine took place at 3 Mills Studios in East London. An elaborate set was constructed, containing eight stages, 17 sets, and detailed models. The filmmakers employed three film units.^[5] Filming began on 23 August 2005,^[41] lasting for 15 weeks, with August and September being difficult months due to the heat and the cast's requirement to wear spacesuits for their roles.^[14] Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler chose to film in anamorphic format to capture a physical sense of the light. "We shot certain sequences in a very dark environment, which you get used to, so when the Sun plays a role, we wanted the audience to have a physical reaction to it," Kuchler said.^[42] Due to filming with the actors taking place on a stage, director Danny Boyle constructed live effects so the actors could realistically respond to computer-generated effects that were later implemented.^[43]

To increase the sense of claustrophobia in Sunshine, Boyle refused to cut back to scenes on Earth, a traditional technique in most films about the planet in jeopardy. The director also kept a sense of confinement in Sunshine by avoiding filming the primary ship, Icarus II, from the outside.^[9] He also attempted to avoid filming star field backgrounds, keeping the background pitch black, but was forced to keep stars in the background to keep a sense of movement.^[35]

A scene in a snow-covered park with three stone monoliths was a homage to a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The scene was filmed at a May day memorial in Stockholm, Sweden.^[44] Another scene that involved Stockholm was one of the closing moments of Sunshine. The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia was chosen by Boyle out of six monuments that he considered universally recognisable. The Opera House, according to the director, possessed a "heat-thing" that made the location his choice. The snowy territory of the final scene was shot in Stockholm, Sweden, and a composite shot was created combining Stockholm's background and the Sydney Opera House.^[7] A slightly different ending was shot after the original, but the alternate ending was not chosen as the director felt that it did not fit the film. The alternate ending became available on the DVD of Sunshine.^[4]

The claustrophobic environment in the film was inspired by Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981).^[5] Boyle also cited inevitable visual influences from science fiction films in space by Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris in 1972), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968), and Ridley Scott (Alien in 1979).^[45] Influences from other science fiction films also included Paul W. S. Anderson's Event Horizon (1997), John Carpenter's Dark Star (1974), and Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running (1971).^[25]

Capa (Cillian Murphy) wearing a gold spacesuit: the color scheme was chosen to deflect heat and radiation in the film, and the helmet was purposely designed to be a claustrophobic environment for the actors.

Filmmakers consulted NASA to design the scientific aspect of the film. Technical requirements for the ship were provided in order to be feasible. An oxygen garden was also recommended to provide oxygen for the ship and to enable a ship's crew to grow their own food rather than rely on pre-packaged food.^[11] Boyle met with a department within NASA that was focused on the psychology of deep-space travel, and the department advised the director that Earth routines like preparing one's own food, eating it, and cleaning up after were activities crucial to an astronaut's sanity.^[46]

The gold-leaf reflective shield in Sunshine was influenced by NASA's satellites that are sent out to deflect heat and radiation. Director Danny Boyle chose to design the space suits to be gold along these lines, despite encouragement to model the suits after the NASA design. The helmets of the film's suits were designed to have cameras mounted in them, which created a sense of claustrophobia useful for the actors in their performances.^[7] The helmets were also limited to a slit for visibility instead of a full-face visor as further consideration to protect the characters from radiation in space.^[35] According to Boyle, the funnel shape of the helmet was influenced by the character Kenny from South Park.^[7]

Boyle included "Icarus" in the name of the film's ship to continue a theme of bleakness, saying that no Americans would give their ship such an ill-fated name. According to the director, "They'd call it Spirit of Hope or Ship of Destiny. They'd call it something optimistic... in America they would sacrifice all plausibility, because there would be hope."^[47] The ship's exterior was designed to look like an oil tanker.^[26] The ship's interior was influenced by the design of a nuclear submarine that filmmakers had visited in Scotland, though the space was larger due to NASA's advice that smaller quarters would affect astronauts' sanity.^[20] The corpses of burn victims in the film were modeled on the Pompeii victims from the Mount Vesuvius eruption.^[26]

Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler provided an idea to render the interior of the ship in the colors of grey, blue, and green, with no reference to orange, red, or yellow. Scenes were intended to be shot inside the ship at long intervals, and when the shot changed to the outside, yellow-starved audiences would be "penetrated" by sunlight.^[22] The visual effects of the sunlight were based on photographs from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory project.^[48] Boyle also sought to pursue inexpensive methods in filming sequences involving actors and visual effects. In a scene in which a character falls into the sun, the actor was placed in a gantry, around which 20 men slid a rig of lights.^[49] In another scene in which a character dies in a dust storm, massive blasters propelled biodegradable dust at the actor in the director's attempt to have the computer-generated effects follow the actor instead of vice versa.^[40] Boyle commented on his approach to using effects, "There is part of our brain where we admire the effect, but we put it in a side compartment of our experience because you know there's no way an actor can live through that, or be there in that moment."^[49]

During the post-production process, Boyle hired one visual effects company, London's Moving Picture Co., to work on the film's 750 visual effects. The assignment of a single company was contrary to the industry trend of hiring multiple vendors to work on a film's effects. Boyle chose one company for ease of quality control, though the decision resulted in a prolonged post-production process.^[26]

When the film was mostly complete, director Danny Boyle provided the film to the band Underworld, who improvised a score for the film.^[6] Karl Hyde of Underworld was influenced by the music of avant garde composer György Ligeti, which had been used in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Lux Aeterna by Ligeti particularly influenced Hyde.^[25] When Underworld finished recording, the band sent its work to composer John Murphy, who completed the score, resulting in a hybrid between Underworld and Murphy.^[6] The band I Am Kloot also contributed to the score with the track Avenue of Hope.^[50]

Sunshine was originally slated for a theatrical release in October 2006, but the release was later changed to March 2007. The film was finally set to debut in April 2007.^[51] Sunshine made its world premiere at Fantasy Filmfest in Bochum, Germany on 23 March 2007.^[52] The film was commercially released in the home country of the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007, grossing £1,021,063 in 407 theatres for its opening weekend.^[53] The film also opened the same weekend in seven other markets, performing most strongly in Hong Kong (US$267,000), Taiwan (US$442,000) and Singapore (US$198,000).^[54] On the weekend of 13 April 2007, Sunshine opened in 22 more markets, garnering US$5.3 million for the weekend. Its French debut was the strongest with US$1.2 million in 380 theatres, but the film only had average performance in New Zealand (US$120,149 from 36 theatres), Switzerland (US$60,285 from 11 theatres) and Finland (US$42,745 from 15 theatres).^[55] The following weekend of 20 April 2007, the film expanded to 44 markets, garnering US$5.9 million for a total of US$18.6 million thus far, considered a disappointing amount. Sunshine had poor débuts in Spain (US$1 million), Germany (US$638,549), and Italy (US$453,000).^[56] By the end of April, Sunshine had opened to most markets, with the notable exception of the United States, for which a release date had yet to be established at the time.^[54] The film's theatrical run in the UK lasted twelve weeks, totaling £3,175,911.^[57]

The film was originally slated to be released in the United States in September 2007, but the release date was moved earlier to July 2007.^[58] Sunshine was released in the United States and Canada at select locations in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Toronto on 20 July 2007.^[59] Sunshine opened in 10 theaters in the United States and grossed US$242,964 over the opening weekend.^[60] The film was released everywhere else in the two countries the following weekend of 27 July 2007.^[59] In the film's first wide release weekend in the United States and Canada, Sunshine grossed US$1,262,996 in 461 theaters, ranking #13 at the weekend box office.^[61] As of 15 October 2007, The film has grossed US$3,675,753 in the United States and Canada and US$28,188,507 in other territories for a worldwide total of US$31,864,260.^[60]

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (August 2007)

The film received 75% positive reviews out of 138 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10 at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.^[62] Among the "Cream of the Crop" reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, 59% out of 30 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 6.4/10.^[63] On another aggregator, Metacritic, Sunshine received an average score of 64 out of 100 based on 34 reviews.^[64]

Critically, the film was moderately well received in the UK^[65][66] However one critic found the last reels disappointing, suggesting the switch to 'slasher movie' mode might have been inserted to appease teenage audiences.^[67]

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars and said "The [actors] are effective by trying not to be too effective; they almost all play professional astronaut/scientists, and not action-movie heroes," and also that the film "is strongest when it focuses on the sheer enormity of the mission and its consequences."^[68]

The film's scientific content has been criticized by specialists with arguments often found contradicted by statements pertaining to the film.^[69] For example, the science periodical New Scientist claimed that the nuclear weapon used by the crew would be woefully inadequate to reignite the dying Sun (billions would be required).^[70] The periodical found the film to be confusing and disappointing. Similarly, solar physicist Anjana Ahuja, a columnist for The Times, commented on the lack of source of artificial gravity onboard the spacecraft, claiming "Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy". Ahuja was, however, more positive about the psychological aspect of the film, joking that "the psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk".^[71]

The DVD for Sunshine was released in the United Kingdom on 27 August 2007. Extras include separate commentaries by Danny Boyle and Dr. Brian Cox, an alternative ending, eleven deleted scenes, web production diaries, and the short films Dad's Dead and Mole Hills.^[72] A Blu-Ray version was released in the UK in October of the same year. In the United States, Sunshine will be released on high-definition Blu-ray Disc and standard definition DVD on 8 January 2008.^[73]

• Official site
• Supplementary site
• Character backstories by screenwriter Alex Garland
• Official trailers at Apple.com
• Visual effects article at VFXWorld
• Sunshine at the Internet Movie Database
• Sunshine at All Movie Guide
• Sunshine at Rotten Tomatoes
• Sunshine at Metacritic