"Another" in the sense that it wasn't the only one in the movie. The most obvious two rebirth metaphors are the pod scene and emerging from the water scene. They are obvious and heavy handed. There were also other scenes where Ryan is arguably portrayed as an infant of sorts, but these were handled with a lot more subtlety.
Don't know what you mean by the "pod scene".
For me, the two main ones are the fetus scene in question, and the emerging from the water scene. Both are needed. The former is sort of her in the beginning stages of her emotional transformation. Still in the womb, so to speak. The rest of the movie is her being delivered, painfully. She comes to terms with her sorrow, and finds the desire to live. The latter (water scene) is the bookend to the other scene. She emerges from the water like a newborn from amniotic fluid. Seeing her stand and take her first steps is deeply moving.
Again, both scenes are needed. If they were more subtle they would be nonexistent for the average movie goer. Personally, I think this movie found the sweet spot for the metaphors, between not apparent and obvious.
Yes it is overly harsh, mainly because you're not in a position to comment on how the Australian audience of which I was a part responded to it.
That's why I said "I would venture to say". I'm being a bit presumptuous about a culture I don't fully understand. However, I would be surprised if there weren't people in that theater that would have preferred to experience the ending with the directors intent.
Pretty much a dream ending yes. I was afraid of that.
Yeah, thank god that didn't happen.
deleted my post for an update. This guy reckons there is something majorly wrong with that scene:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/...d-a-writer-at-the-movies.html?smid=tw-nytimes
...and pity this astrophysicist, for whom too much knowledge must've really buggered up his cinematic experience
https://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/...t-tweeting-about-its-scientific-inaccuracies/
I'm happy to be largely ignorant of all things space-related, so these things didn't bother me
Things like the Hubble and ISS being in different orbits don't bother me. I'm a layman so I didn't need to suspend disbelief on my first viewing. And even after hearing about the "error", I'm not bothered. It's the kind of compression that happens all the time in movies for the sake of plot.
The only scene that bothers me is when Kowalski disconnects his tether. As a layman, it just looks goofy. The rules of movement in space as presented within the movie seems to be broken, and it's a distraction. Unless I can settle on a way justify what I see in that scene it bumps it down from 5 stars to 4 1/2. It's too I mportant of a scene to do it in such a distracting way.