SunSurge(2018 film)
SunSurge is a 2018 sci-fi animated film directed by director Uwe Boll, starring an ensemble cast of Narito Rabara, Michelle Rodriguez, Malik Jones, Ami Mizuno, Minako Aino, and Corey Burton, featuring a score from Veronica Cheng.
A joint production by Hyperion and Toei, and inspired by the Indra Seven episode Three Days, SunSurge won the awards for best picture, best animated feature, and best Sci-fi feature, along with a best actor win shared amongst the main cast.
Plot
In the year 2122, due to the presence of a q-ball particle, the Sun had started to contract, causing the Earth to start freezing. In a desperate attempt to prevent a new Ice Age, the United Nations assembles a motley crew of scientists and engineers on a secret, potentially deadly mission to jumpstart the sun by blasting it with radiation, destroying the q-ball. The team is led by Professor Awan (Narito Rabara), a brilliant yet troubled nuclear engineer haunted by memories of war. Accompanied by astronaut Camila Vasquez (Michelle Rodriguez), former bomber pilot Yuna Tamagusuku (Ami Mizuno), navigator Peter Johnson (Corey Burton) and engineer Aaden Smith (Malik Jones), the team sets aboard the Invictus on their mission to detonate a hydrogen bomb in the Sun’s atmosphere.
As the Invictus slingshots past Mercury, the solar shields get damaged by space debris. To fix the solar shields, Camila and Aaden volunteered to go on a spacewalk, with assistance from Tamagusuku and Awan. As the shiends are repaired and realigned, the origin of the space debris is revealed. The debris is shown to have come from another ship, the Indra, which had attempted a similar mission a decade prior, only to fail for unknown reasons. Reasoning that two bombs are better than one, Awan decides to commandeer the Indra to use its bomb as well as the one on the Invictus.
As the Invictus docks with the Indra, Camila, Aaden, Yuna, and Awan go through the airlock, only to discover that the Indra’s mainframe had been sabotaged, making bomb delivery impossible. Searching through the Indra, Awan and Aaden come across a series of logs made by the Indra’s captain, Kobayashi, which mentions the deaths of the crew from intense radiation. At the same time, Camila and Yuna come across the bodies of the crew in the solar room, with wounds that didn’t match up with what the logs said, triggering Camila’s PTSD, manifesting as a flashback to a failed rescue involving getting locked on the other side of an airlock.
Making their way back onto the Invictus, the airlock connecting both ships is sabotaged. In a spur-of-the-moment act, Camila kisses Yuna before shutting the airlock and detaching it from the Indra, leaving Vasquez to die in space.
With four crew members remaining, they decide what to do next. The plan later settles on shoving the Indra into the sun, before dropping its own bomb into the sun, where both bombs will explode. The problem is that the Indra’s thrusters are damaged beyond repair, so the Icarus has to pull the crippled Indra with it to make the plan work. Using the Invictus’ robot arm, Aaron holds onto the Indra as the way downIcarus makes its way to where the Invictus will drop the bombs into the Sun.
Suddenly, an explosion is heard, damaging the ship’s oxygen garden. Consulting the ship’s computer, the crew learn that the crew only have enough oxygen for four people to get to the sun, and that there is a fifth person on board. Splitting up, the crew try to find where the stowaway is, only for Yuna to find Aaden’s body, with a knife wound to the neck.
In the cockpit, Johnson radios the crew about the stowaway, managing to hold them off long enough for backup to arrive, but not before the stowaway damages the mainframe, disabling the autopilot and bomb controls. Awan and Yuna both arrive, to fend off the stowaway, who reveals herself to be a heavily scarred Kobayashi(Minako Aino). Kobayashi rants about the futility of the mission, the ineffectiveness of the bombs, and how she will save the world from mutually assured destruction, before launching herself at Awan. Johnson punches Kobayashi off of Awan, before he makes his way to the arm, and Awan to the bomb bay.
Kobayashi fights Johnson, who manages to release the Indra in time before Kobayashi stabs him in the neck, in the same place she stabbed Aaden. Making her way down, Kobayashi tries to confront Awan once more, only to be rebuked before Awan activates the manual bomb controls, sending both her and the bomb hurtling into the Sun. Seeing the ship turn, Kobayashi tries to go back to the cockpit via the lift, only to get kicked by Yuna. After a fight that leads into the observation room, Yuna strikes a debilitating blow against Kobayashi. In her dying breath, Kobayashi notes that the sun is dancing, as animation of a large solar flare plays to a now iconic piece by Veronica Cheng. In an ice covered Tokyo, Yuna’s wife looks up at the sun, as the sky starts turning blue.
Cast
Narito Rabara as Professor Awan, the leader of the Invictus crew and creator of the Hydrogen Bomb. Rabara described Awan as a Kirk-esque character: charismatic, but with her own demons and crippling guilt. Rabara consulted with multiple scientists, including fellow co-star Ami Mizuno, on how to properly portray a physician, as well as learning about Astrophysics, Astronomy, and Nuclear physics. Combining this with Rabara’s own extensive research on how people deal with guilt aided in Rabara’s most critically acclaimed performance of her career.
Michelle Rodriguez as Camilla Vasquez, a veteran astronaut and former Red Army combat engineer. Rodriguez’s portrayal of Vasquez as a veteran haunted by her actions in the past was informed by Rodriguez’s experiences in the Mexican Red Army, especially her involvement in the Phillipine Civil War in the 90s. This resulted in a compelling performance, which led to her best actor, shared with her co-stars
Ami Mizuno as Yuna Tamagusuku, a former bomber pilot and sole survivor of the Invictus crew. According to both Boll and Mizuno, Yuna’s arc is one of Break the Heart, aided by Mizuno’s own performance. This was also Mizuno’s debut as a lead actor, having previously cameoed in several other films as a minor character. This led to her win for best debut performance.
Malik Jones as Aaden Smith, the Invictus’ engineer. Playing against type, Malik played an engineer who could stay calm under pressure. According to Boll, most of his dialogue was ad-libbed, creating a memorable and funny character.
Corey Burton as Peter Johnson, the navigator of the Invictus. According to Burton, Boll wrote this role specifically for him, especially after watching his role in Super Galaxia 2. Initially, Burton wasn’t interested in the film, until a prototype clip was sent to him, synched to a demo tape by Veronica Cheng.
Minor cameos include Makoto Kino as Yuna’s wife, and Uwe Boll and Veronica Cheng’s as part of the dead crew.
Production
Origins
Uwe Boll was inspired by a comic he wrote as a child, inspired by the Indra 7 episode, Three Days.
-"SunSurge is special to me because it's based off a little comic book I wrote when I was 13. It was inspired by "Three Days", the Indra 7 episode where the crew has three days to stop a star from going supernova and destroying an entire galaxy. I showed it to my daughter Sophia and she said 'why don't you make this into a movie? This is awesome!' So even if it's not like my other films, I'm still putting a lot of myself into it."
The decision to make the film animated also stemmed from his comic, and his desire to bring it to life.
-"It's an animated film because I could never see my old drawings as anything but drawings! Animation is such an interesting medium. It's hard work, much harder than my usual production style, and there's completely different rules about what you can and can't do compared to working in live action. But it also gave us so much more freedom than working in live-action does. Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by just how much stuff me and the Hyperion and Toei staff had control over!"
During his stay in Miami, Boll heard Veronica Cheng performing at the Hammer nightclub. Inspired by that, he contacted Cheng to produce the soundtrack, who agreed to do it.
- “You could say that I was at least somewhat inspired by the old Hyperion shorts to sync music with the visuals. I wanted to do that, but with modern music! That, and Indra 7 was the first to have an electronic soundtrack, because why not? Besides, Cheng was really helpful, even ad-libbing the one line that became The line to repeat!”
Production
SunSurge was a joint production between the UASR’s Hyperion and Japan’s Toei, bringing with them some of the most talented animators on board. The comic book art style was requested by Boll, achieved through cel-shading and high contrast. Motion capture was used to give a more fluid motion to the characters, and a robot arm mockup from the Buran shuttle was motion captured for the film. The animators, voice actors, and composer all worked together to keep everything synced together. Production on the film took two years, with the voice actors doing motion capture for their characters.
Design
Boll heavily consulted with engineers and designers when making the ships seen in SunSurge, down to how two ships may dock. Apart from that, many elements had a zeerust vibe to them, mostly due to the 90s nostalgia at the time of production. One element that interested moviegoers was the oxygen garden, which was a proposed way of generating oxygen.
Music
Main article: Music of SunSurge
The biggest part of the film was the score. From beginning to end, the entire film was synced to the score. Made by Veronica Cheng, it is a synthwave score with 20 tracks, influenced by the scores of Star Trek and Indra 7.
Release and Reception
SunSurge opened in 280 theaters around the world, bringing in the equivalent of £12 million over its opening week in the AFS. Immediately after its opening week, the film was made available online on Peertube, with another version featuring commentary from Boll, Cheng, and the main cast.
In the TCI, the film was praised for its visuals, the score, and the performances of the main cast.
Critic Yuri Kim praised the film as Boll’s finest work, praising its visuals and storytelling, but criticizes it for wasting a few of its most compelling characters in favor of a twist.
In the AFS, it recieved more of a mixed review, with critics both praising the visuals, and blanching at the horror aspects and criticizing the short kiss in the middle.
SunSurge was given an NC-17 rating for violence in the FBU and Cuba, but an edited version was featured, which featured less gore overall, giving it an R rating. In spite of that, it remained available for free online.
The film was nominated for best animated feature, best sci-fi feature, best visuals, and best picture, of which it only lost best visuals to Bienvedinos a Valencia. It also has the distinction of having a shared best actor win, necessitating the category of best cast to be made for next year’s awards.