In reality space is a silent vacuum, but most films set in space have some amount of sound in them to keep the movie from feeling empty. Last year's Gravity was pretty realistic in terms of giving us some complete silence, but it still had a score throughout the film to keep things moving and keep us feeling tense.
But if you were hoping to see a more realistic version of the film, you're in luck. According to The Film Stage, Warner Bros. is releasing a "Diamond Luxe Edition" of the movie on blu-ray which will include a special feature that plays the movie without the score. This will allow audiences to “experience the film without music for a surprising cinematic experiment.”
This will help create more of a feeling of silence and isolation, which could be effective for a movie about just two characters stranded in space. Some critics complained that the score in Gravity was too overpowering, and so this cut will definitely be an interesting experiment to see how a movie functions almost completely silently, except with a whole lot of Sandra Bullock breathing.
It seems that it was difficult enough to make Gravity without any sound effects let alone without a score. According to The Guardian, Warner Bros. forced director Alfonso Cuarón to include sound effects in the trailers for Gravity despite not being in the film itself, probably worried that audiences would feel intimidated by a movie with just two actors and almost no sound.
While it's definitely going to be interesting to see the movie totally silently, there's always the risk that this could just make the movie boring. The Academy Award winning score by Steven Price really helped play up the intensity of some scenes that otherwise could feel kind of dull.
So will the "silent space" version become the true version to watch Gravity? Probably not, and it will most likely be more of an interesting experiment for hardcore fans than something to watch as the first experience of the movie. In other words, this will probably be a fun bonus feature more than a new cut that improves on the original.
The Diamond Luxe Edition blu-ray of Gravity will be released on February 10th, 2015.
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