The final moments of Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity are hard to forget: Sandra Bullock as Dr. Ryan Stone stands alone on the seashore after crash-landing and swimming to safety. It's an image that helped Cuarón earn a 2014 Academy Award for Best Director, with Gravity raking in a total of seven Oscars.
Where does Stone end up after her landing on Earth? The final scene was filmed at Lake Powell, Arizona, which is a giant water reservoir on the Colorado river.
Dr. Ryan Stone ends up alone in space after her companion, Lieutenant Matt Kowalski, sacrifices himself to save her. Stone manages to make it back to Earth by using the Soyuz escape vessel and landing in a body of water, grateful to be alive.
The landing scene was filmed at Lake Powell, Arizona. Made on a production budget of $100 million, Gravity was shot digitally using Arri Alexa Classics cameras equipped with wide Arri Master Prime lenses. Most of the film is computer generated.
What happened to Ryan Stone's daughter in Gravity?
One day when she was driving home from work and listening to the radio, she got a call that informed her that her 4-year-old daughter slipped and fell at the playground, getting a head injury which killed her. On her daughter's death, Dr. Stone said: "That was it. It was the stupidest thing".
"We had an alternative ending in which after landing on Earth, Ryan will get back on her feet and as she's walking away Matt Kowalski falls from the sky and crashes her to death," he said. "And then cut to black. Create scroll in silence." Sandra Bullock played Ryan Stone in the movie, with George Clooney as Kowalski.
Gravity (2013): $20 million (P.S. It has been reported that George was not only paid $20 million for his acting work in this film, but he was also able to negotiate receiving a portion of the movie's profits as part of his contract.
He drifts away with hardly enough oxygen for a few more minutes. He accepts his fate and lets go, so that Sandra's character, Dr. Ryan Stone, can survive. In all likelihood, he went on to lose consciousness without oxygen, and slowly succumbed to carbon dioxide poisoning in his sleep.
"It is a piece of fiction." Therefore, some elements of the film such as the Shuttle missions and Tiangong station were merely artistic liberties. Garret Reisman, a former NASA Astronaut, noted that, "The pace and story was definitely engaging and I think it was the best use of the 3D IMAX medium to date.
Ryan Stone's escape from space takes her through a trial of fire, then water, only to emerge on a great unknown land—she had survived but it wasn't clear she had been saved. My take, however, is maybe just a pessimistic take on the events as they are shown.
There was a scuba diver on set at all times to make sure the actress wouldn't drown. The light box or Soyuz capsule were where most of Gravity were shot. However, both were relatively safe.
The film received 10 nominations at the 86th Academy Awards, the most nominations of 2014's ceremony tied with American Hustle. It went on to earn the most awards at the ceremony, winning seven including Best Director for Cuarón, Best Cinematography for Lubezki, Best Original Score for Price, and Best Visual Effects.
Eventually, Kowalski's messages stopped and Dr. Stone realized that he died due to a lack of oxygen from a combination of carbon dioxide poisoning and oxygen deprivation. Although she desperately attempted to get him to tell her a story, he did not respond.
Right as Stone was leaving the ISS, the debris field recircled the Earth and hit the space station causing an explosion that blasted the ISS in half while the debris tore the station to pieces. The remains of the ISS remained in orbit and presumably burned up after entering Earth's atmosphere.
I came on early in the development; Angelina wasn't even attached to it then.” The real problem, as Cuaron noted, was that Downey Jr was expected to use complicated technology to make the film, and it just wasn't something he was comfortable with.
Gravity was the eighth biggest box office hit of 2013, grossing about $723 million, and won seven of 10 Oscars it was nominated for in 2014, including a Best Director gong for Cuaron.
Most of Gravity is set in space, where obviously, they did not shoot. That was all shot in a studio in England. However, there was one scene shot at Lake Powell in Arizona. It was a fitting shooting location, as it's also the setting of the astronauts' landing scene in Planet of the Apes.
“Gravity” concludes with Sandra Bullock's character, Dr. Ryan Stone, returning to Earth and crash landing in a lake. Dr. Ryan sheds her spacesuit and swims to the surface, struggling at first to pick herself up on her feet but ultimately finding the strength to stand tall.
“The mystery of gravity is that it is an attractive force –it's actually very weak compared to the other three main forces, but while the others can be both positive and negative and cancel each other out, gravity is attractive, and therefore cumulative, with no way to cancel it out.
Stone is only able to regain faith after hallucinating Kowalski's return. The constantly shifting atmosphere in the film keeps the audience guessing if Stone will survive. The acclaimed performances by Bullock and Clooney only make it harder for audiences to not get attached to the plot of the film.
Why is Ryan brought down underwater by her space suit?
Just before the station disintegrates, she manages to board the Shenzhou capsule and uses it to achieve a safe EDL. The capsule then falls to the bottom of a lake and Ryan Stone has to get rid of her space suit to avoid drowning. She finally can swim to firm ground, safe and alive.
While attempting to return to the shuttle and open the airlock, he was killed after a chunk of debris which was the size of a softball pierced his helmet, tearing through his head and exposing him to the vacuum of outer space.
