Product Description

An astrophysicist has made a cataclysmic discovery: the sun is set to explode bringing about the end of civilization. As a team of fellow scientists race against time to stop his predictions from coming true the world is already becoming a whirling inferno out of control. Studio: Platinum Disc Llc Release Date: 08/29/2006 Starring: Luke Perry Emma Samms Run time: 175 minutes Rating: Pg13

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84391 in DVD
• Brand: ECHO BRIDGE HOME ENT.
• Released on: 2006-01-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 172 minutes

Features

• SUPERNOVA (DVD MOVIE)

Customer Reviews

Don't worry - it's not the end of the world!
This time, the sun is our enemy. The very thing that nourishes life on this planet becomes the potential instrument to end all life as we know it. A piece of a planet that has been traveling thru space for millions of years collides with the sun. The result is sunspots run amok.

The title of the film is an attention-grabber, to be sure, but it's mis-leading on a couple of counts. First of all, during the film a young astronomer tells a reporter that the sun "will expand until it envelops the inner solar system, including Earth. This is known as a Supernova." This is fudged science in a couple of different ways. First off, a Supernova is when a star blows up (with the magnitude of something like a trillion trillion trillion times the force of the combined nuclear arsenal of all the world's militaries, I might add).

Secondly, the fact that the sun will someday expand and engulf the inner solar system is TRUE. Of course, it will be something like 5 billion years down the road. It will happen after the hydrogen fuel is used up & the sun will begin burning helium instead.

The biggest problem I have with the movie writers inserting this scenario into the movie is that they seemed to just "throw it in" without much of a cogent reason to do so. The focus of the film was on these huge sunspots that were wreaking havoc with electronics, with some nasty expulsed "fireballs" from the sun hitting the earth. They talked of fearing one of these fireballs would shear off the atmosphere. It is not in debate that if something went awry with the sun ever so slightly, it could lead to the destruction of the earth. Their "throwing in" the bit about the sun's expansion was simply superfluous.

Third, our sun will never, ever go Supernova (i.e.: blow up) because it is simply too small. It doesn't have enough mass for the reaction to occur. After it expands to being the size of a small red giant (or so?) it will then shrink & end its life as a brown dwarf star. Only big bad stars go Supernova - not our beloved sun!

For what it is, this is a pretty good end-of-the-world movie. To be sure, the movie paints with a VERY wide brush. It tries to give you the reaction of people from many different walks of life in a situation where the earth itself only has a week or so left to live. Some may tire of the attention given to some of the subplots, including one in particular that is almost another story all by itself.

Still, I did like some of the introspective, "this is it" moments where the characters reflected on all that they had left un-done in life. However, I should give fair warning that there are also some un-anticipated disturbing scenes of violence against women. Just so you know going in.....

The cast is pretty good, featuring the lovely Tia Carrere and Luke Perry. This is one of the very few times I've seen Perry since he graduated from BEVERLY HILLS 90210. It's also quite a different role for Perry to portray a braniac astrophysicist, but he pulls it off quite well.

These days, there is one thing more horrifying than the sun throwing a solar temper-tantrum which may squelch life on earth. What's that? you ask. Well, it's having the Bush administration in-charge of such a crisis situation. If they re-made the movie today they could add on that little tidbit. That alone would make the movie scarier than HALLOWEEN and have crowds running in a panic from the theatres in throngs!

A fantastic Si Fi movie for all real lovers of great movies
The movie was excellent. This is a great movie for SI FI lovers. I would definitely recommend it to all.