The latest trailer for 'Europa Report' is out!

'Europa Report' seems, on the face of it, to be standard science fiction fare: Crew of spaceship meet aliens, crew goes ‘cool’, aliens turn out to be carnivorous / infectious / flat out mean / all of the preceding.... violence ensues.

So why do I have an action man tent in my trousers over this?

1: The world they’re going to…

NO!

….isn’t Mars. Oh thank the gods of nerdiness! Seriously, if I'd learnt about space exploration from Hollywood, and I suspect a lot of people do, I might be left thinking that Mars was the only (non fictional) world in the universe that doomed space explorers were interested in.

YES! This is Europa, ocean moon of Jupiter. The white is the ice, covering the ocean. The yellow brown is.... well, we're not entirely sure.... it seems to come up along the cracks leading down to the ocean.

 

This lot of ill fated explorers are going to Europa, the second big moon out from Jupiter. It’s a real world, it has a real ocean under its ice. It’s a serious possibility for a place real alien life could exist, so it deserves the publicity.

2: The special effects look great AND…

….they look like they might be helping to tell the story, rather than replacing the story and then brutally gouging out the section of the viewer’s brain that knows what a story is.

Welcome to Europa. Nothing dangerous here, honest.

Tee hee.

3: A lot of people who actually work in the space industry were involved…..

… so hopefully the science in this science fiction story will be halfway plausible (I’m not saying the science in 'Pacific Rim' is going to be crap….. well, yes, actually I am). And it looks good so far on the trailer: Silence in space, gravity simulated by spinning sections of the spaceship, and a journey to Jupiter that takes years and is a big challenge to the crew in itself.

4: Understandable stuff is actually happening….

.....for some reason a lot of science fiction films where a big effort has been made with the science are either, (a) tepid hippie fantasies like ‘Red Planet’ or (b) something like ‘2001’ that seems determined to violently re-wire your brain with flashing lights.....

Seriously? You're telling me that this part of '2001' doesn't give you a migraine?

From what I’ve seen of ‘Europa report’ things will be happening at a faster than glacial pace, and there are no signs of attempted mind melting.
Decide for yourself: Here’s the trailer.....