‘Passengers’ Has a ‘Very Compellingly Accurate Scene’ Showing What a Pool Could Look Like in Space
Passengers is a 2016 sci-fi action film starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. Despite its A-list cast and gripping storyline, Passengers received mixed reviews and performed underwhelmingly at the box office. But several years and many movies later, Passengers is still a hot topic among fans who appreciate sci-fi romances. Although filmmakers took artistic license with Passengers, they tried to keep certain scenes accurate. In a 2020 interview, former astronaut Chris Hadfield confirmed that an iconic scene — where Lawrence’s character swims in a pool when gravity is suddenly disrupted — is “very compellingly accurate.”
What is ‘Passengers’ about?
Passengers stars Jennifer Lawrence as journalist Aurora Lane and Chris Pratt as mechanical engineer James Preston. They’re passengers on a spacecraft carrying thousands of people to a new colony, but when the two awake from their slumber 90 years too early, they must find a way to coexist on the giant spacecraft. They eventually fall in love, and a sweet romance develops.
According to IMDb, the film received mixed reviews from critics when it premiered in December 2016. Still, most reviewers praised the actors’ work and the film for how it looked and felt like a sci-fi epic.
Passengers features several striking scenes, including one where Lawrence’s character goes swimming in a pool, only to experience what happens when the ship loses gravity.
What did astronaut Chris Hadfield say about the ‘Passengers’ pool scene?
The scene in question involves Aurora going for a swim in a large beautiful pool aboard the starship. As she’s killing time swimming laps, the ship’s gravity machine loses power, causing the water to rise. Aurora finds herself trapped inside a huge bubble that keeps growing. The scene is not only terrifying but also realistic, according to retired astronaut Chris Hadfield.
In a 2020 Vanity Fair interview, Hadfield discussed the Passengers pool scene, revealing why it’s quite realistic.
“What happens to water without gravity? Onboard the International Space Station, we played with water all the time,” Hadfield admitted. “You could squirt it and it would just float there in front of you. It naturally, with the surface tension, goes to a perfect ball. That’s the easiest shape for it to go to. So if you had a swimming pool, held in place by gravity, and then the gravity went away, the water would have some inertia as the ship slowed down, and it would slosh but then the water would almost look like a big blob slowly forming itself into a ball.”
Hadfield noted, “I think that’s quite well shown … That was a very compellingly accurate scene — assuming there’s a swimming pool on board a spaceship.”
The movie received praise for its production design
Hadfield isn’t the only person who loved the look and feel of Passengers. The film earned several Academy Award nominations, including nods for Best Production Design.
Though Passengers isn’t the biggest sci-fi epic to grace the screen, the story and visuals remain compelling. The movie inspires new fans who watch it for the first time on TV and viewers who remember the swell of excitement while experiencing it in theaters.
