4. Its Not Devoid Of In-Jokes
Hidden references have taken a bit of a knock of late. Joss Whedon recently came out and ranted about how he found them distracting from the story and Marvel buddy Kevin Feige was quick to back up his billion dollar investment when promoting Thor: The Dark World. Thankfully it seems the internet, with its rabid trivia loving, isn't as purist about the whole thing. Still, youd expect serious directors like Alfonso Cuarón would be above this, particularly when making a visceral film. And while he certainly doesn't pull a J.J. Abrams and ram as many references as possible in (we managed to fill two of these lists on Star Trek Into Darkness with plenty of overspill) theres still a nice amount of references to other films that get film obsessive likes me excited. You cant have missed Marvin The Martian floating out of the shuttle and you have to be a Pixar-phobe to have not seen the parallels with Wall-E when Bullock uses a fire extinguisher for propulsion. But there's other elements that had a clear sci-fi movie origin which Gravity took for its own; "Ive got a bad feeling about this", a mainstay of Star Wars, was repeated here to the point where it felt original and Stones Ripley-esque get-up felt natural within the constraints of the rebirth theme. One reference I half noticed when watching the film, but a scour of Gravity related chatter has yet to confirm, was Stone muttering Daisy, Daisy to herself when attempting to remove the parachute, consciously evoking 2001: A Space Odyssey. A rewatch it is.