6 Movie Characters Who Are Still Floating in Space
While Sandra Bullock tries to get back to Earth in Gravity, let’s remember the guys who are still out there.
Gravity is out this Friday, and we know from the trailer that Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are astronauts who end up in some pretty deep shit when they float away from their shuttle. Just in case there’s no happy ending, here are some people that might be able to keep them company out there. Warning: Spoilers for movies that came out several years ago ahead. Just sayin’.
Colonel Hawkins from Space Cowboys
Bio: In Space Cowboys, NASA needed to repair a satellite before it fell out of orbit and smashed into Earth, but rather than find a young, healthy crew to do the job, they got the four oldest farts they could find and shot them into space. Among them was Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Hawkins, a hotshot pilot during WWII who’s now a geezer with pancreatic cancer.
How He Ended Up There: Believe it or not, things can go wrong when you launch four rickety old men into the stratosphere who can barely work a VCR, much less a rocket ship. Because this is a heroic space mission, some equipment fails and inevitably, one poor sucker has to go outside and hit a button so everyone else can go home (we’ll be seeing this motif again, don’t you worry). Tommy Lee Jones volunteers since he’s a goner anyway, and after successfully performing the rescue, shoots himself to the moon, achieving his lifelong goal of a lunar landing (though we’re pretty sure his original dream involved a way to get back, too).
How He Probably Passed The Time: Pinochle, shuffleboard, other old guy stuff.
How Long He Might Have Lasted: Not very long – no guy that age can last more than a week without watching reruns of Quincy.
Bob from Despicable Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-S-AkUveoI
Bio: Bob was one of the adorable, gibberish-speaking, cross-dressing minions from Despicable Me.
How He Ended Up There: He was given an anti-gravity serum by Dr. Nefario, who absent-mindedly left a window open, causing poor Bob to float out of our atmosphere.
How He Probably Passed The Time: Minions are normally a happy, fun-loving bunch, but they seem to rely heavily on social interaction. We’re guessing that without other minions to play with, Bob would have slipped into a severe depression.
How Long He Might Have Lasted: After a few weeks of floating and growing more depressed, Bob likely took his own life by swimming into the sun. So, y’know, at least he would’ve been warm.
Lilly Poison from Men in Black III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQPE3IOAbk
Bio: Lilly Poison was the girlfriend of Boris the Animal – the Men in Black’s most dangerous enemy – who had been in a secret prison on the moon since 1969. During a visit, Lilly showed up with a cake that had some kind of alien spider-beast thing in it, which busted Boris out of his chains.
How She Ended Up There: During their escape, Boris shoots a hole in the ceiling of the prison, causing all of the guards to be sucked into space. Due to not having spider-clawed feet, Lilly ends up there too.
How She Probably Passed The Time: She presumably spent her remaining minutes deleting all of the Facebook photos of her and Boris together.
How Long She Might Have Lasted: By the looks of her dress, she seemed like she was used to surviving without oxygen, so she probably lasted a while.
Hugo Drax from Moonraker
Bio: Drax was a typical Bond villain, complete with a ludicrous plot to take over Earth and a tiny, evil goatee. His dastardly plan was to orbit the planet for a few years with a group of genetically superior buddies, while deadly toxins down below killed the entire human race.
How He Ended Up There: Somehow, James Bond learns of Drax’s evil plan (now we think about it, it was probably when Drax captured Bond and told him every last detail). Accompanied by the awesomely named Holly Goodhead, Bond infiltrates Drax’s space station and shoots him in the heart with a poison dart. Then, just to be extra, extra sure he was dead, he threw him out of an airlock.
How He Probably Passed The Time: Clutching his chest, howling, “Boooooond!”
How Long He Might Have Lasted: About 10 seconds. Poison dart, remember?
The Alien Queen from Aliens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp7SNoYOQmY
Bio: The Alien Queen was living large until she crossed paths with the most badass lady in the galaxy, Ellen Ripley, who turned her flamethrower on all the Queen’s babies then high-tailed it off the planet. Not being one to take that kind of shit lightly, the Queen stowed away on Ripley’s ship so they could duke it out with some old fashioned mech-suit-on-xenomorph fisticuffs.
How She Ended Up There: During the fight, Ripley pushes her out of an airlock, which is also how she killed the alien in the first movie. You’d think they’d learn to steer clear of those things.
How She Probably Passed The Time: Pointlessly impregnating space debris.
How Long She Might Have Lasted: Probably quite a while – the alien from the first movie seemed to be surviving in space just fine until Ripley incinerated it with her ship’s booster rockets.
Harry Stamper from Armageddon
Bio: When an asteroid came hurtling towards Earth, NASA gathered their best astronauts, and an oil driller named Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) to save the planet (that’s right, environmentalists, an oil driller SAVED the planet. Weren’t expecting that, were you?)
How He Ended Up There: NASA’s plan was to drill a hole into the center of the asteroid and drop an atomic bomb in there, but the equipment failed and Harry Stamper had to manually blow up the A-Bomb. Now, being blown up by an atomic device is not exactly the same as ending up floating in space, but come on – this man surfed a fighter jet in Die Hard 4, do you really think one little atomic bomb could take him down?
How He Probably Passed The Time: Fighting aliens; kicking through windows with bare feet; other badass stuff.
How Long He Might Have Lasted: Let’s see, Armageddon came out 15 years ago. He’s had no food, no water, and no oxygen since then, plus he was reduced to his component molecules by a nuclear blast. But he is Bruce Willis, so he’s probably still doing just fine.
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