Orbiter – the Movie

I don’t often critique movies,

But this one?

Oh boy!

I can see the pitch meetings now.

“It’s a mashup of Left Behind and Gravity! Without Nicolas Cage or Sandra Bullock, It’s a “faith-based” spaaaaace adventure! It’s sure to bring all the Science Fiction nerds and born again Christians back to the theater again and again! It can’t miss!”

“WTF is a “faith-based” movie anyway?” I asked.

Lucky for me  the web page has this nifty answer.

The “faith-based” movie genre is the new success market in the U.S. and in many areas of the world. To be sure, it requires knowledge of the audience base from an inside perspective, and with sincerity and belief.

Really? “it requires knowledge of the audience?” Like they should be fluent in English? Have some foreknowledge of western culture and know a little bit about Science Fiction?

Ah – no silly person!

You have to believe….. in Jesus!

Frankly, having a prerequisite belief of JESUS in spaaaace seems to be asking a bit much.

But this is OrbiTer ™, the movie. Not to be confused with Orbiter the open source space simulation program. OrbiTer ™ is the brainchild of filmmaker David Rosler. He did some storyboard work on The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. He directed “Saturday Morning ” (which seemed to be a C grade comedy direct to DVD.) Something called The First Men on the Moon and the animated “Everyone’s Hero.” (Although he doesn’t seem to actually appear in the credits.)

Don’t worry about not hearing about any of these. I’ve never heard of them either, with the exception of Galaxy Rangers. That one I pretty much ignored because cartoons of people on robot horses is kind of a non-starter.

Now he’s working on his magnum opus. A film that is sure to bring all the nerds –
TO JESUS – in spaaaaace no-less!

OrbiTer ™ is little more than a trailer at this point. Actually far less than a trailer. He’s got a couple of actors working in green-screen sets with photos of the International Space Station plastered in the background. Some awful looking CGI of people in space suits paddling around like they were in a swimming pool. Actors discussing their Bibles on the ISS with lots of CGI junk spinning in the background. Closeups of the evil and probably atheist Russians. CGI of the ISS burning (in spaaaace!) Newsreel footage of North Korean troops and armored personnel carriers. More fire in space. More CGI of people firing guns in space and other absurd things.

It’s not very impressive frankly. What’s even less impressive is the general plot, which like I said seems to be an action movie set on the ISS when the Rapture, WWIII, the second coming, the last trump, the Vogon Constructor Fleet, giant space goats or  whatever is taking place – takes place!

In spaaaaaace!

About the production, should David ever get the 100 bazzilion he needs to shoot this thing-

“David has a written agreement with a nation-wide youth organization. This means completion of OrbiTer ™ also helps many young men and women help to recover their lives by, in-part- working on OrbiTer ™. “

Um, yeah. That sounds like taking advantage of cheap labor to me. I wonder if the Screen Actors Guild  heard of this? And do  “young men and women” NEED to recover their lives by working on an indie movie?

Oh yeah. It’s a Christian thing I suppose.

“As the trailer proves, the special effects in 3D has received opinions that  appear unanimous: the special effects in the Orbiter compare very favorably with the best, last word in outer space special effects movies, 7-time Academy Award winner, “Gravity”.

Well the CGI is OK I guess. It’s not really industry standard even compared to Gravity (which was industry standard back in 2012.)

Gravity had good special effects for the time and Sandra Bulloc too. But other than the CGI stuff, Gravity was a pretty lame attempt at depicting real spacecraft or NASA operations or much of anything else. Satellites don’t orbit close enough to easily transfer from one to another.  Orbital space is like a vast ocean, about 1000 times larger than all the oceans on the Earth. It’s vary rare that stuff runs into other stuff (and yet, humanity is managing to put SO much junk up there that this won’t always be true.) Perhaps Sandra Bulloc should be careful!

But, people in space suits paddling around like they were in a swimming pool? I haven’t seen special effects like that since the Japanese film Message From Space!

Also, David keeps repeating this thing about “everyone agrees his special effects are really special” and that a horde of physicists think the fire in space and guy paddling around in the swimming pool are really keen! After being asked as to who these physicists were, David angrily demanded that people tell him where they worked and many other personal questions. 

. Presumably NOT to send them flowers!

“Large theater chains in the United States have been contacted and the project discussed, and are ready and willing to accept David as the distributor of OrbiTer ™, a critical financial aspect insomuch as delivery to a hungry audience is essentially assured, bypassing the usual confiscatory third-party distributor in the U.S. theatrical market. “

This sounds pretty dodgy to me. David Rosler  is the producer, director AND distributor of this thing? I’m surprised he’s not starring in it too.

And “hungry audiences?” Hungry for Left Behind in space?  It would seem that reality is a bit more fickle!

In David’s Gofundme page, he seems very upset about the unfair treatment he supposedly got on Twitter and Facebook when he tried to peddle his film.

“The critics of the world just aren’t interested a couple of obvious shill antagonists tell me – they speak, no one else does. Not in any movie site. not in any Christian site. Except once, when I posted to a proudly agnostic facebook group, that group saw it. And as expected, some haters piled on. What I think no one expected was the degree of support it got. 600 posts, 35 positive emojis on the main post 15 negatives. AAT WHICH POINT THE THREAD WAS CLOSED FOR ANY MORE COMMENTS. That is How orbiter SHOULD be seen on facebook. Instead, except for one facebook group in which it would have been easy to anticipate scathing negatives in which there are 600 posts of all varieties, we get NOTHING. Nothing on evangelical groups. Nothing in prayer groups. Nothing in MOVIE groups! NOTHING. ZERO. NOT A SINGLE CRITIC. Not a single know-it-all. NOTHING. BASICALLY A TOTAL FACEBOOK BLACKOUT.”

I actually saw the Facebook post he was referring to. It’s in a forum where people talk about their favorite (or not so favorite) Science Fiction books and films. Spam is not encouraged and David’s bald-faced sales pitch for funding was not appreciated!

But even worse! David Rosler thinks there is a conspiracy afoot! A conspiracy designed to thwart him from his sacred US Constitutionals rights which were handed down by God himself to Moses during the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Or so it would seem.

it has been said that the social media giants can do whatever they want because they’re privately owned companies. that is a ridiculous fallacy. To begin with, it is illegal to conspire to deny anyone a constitutional right under any circumstance whatsoever, regardless of the venue, according ti Title 18, section 241 of the criminal code. And conspiracy has a very broad definition which plainly includes what has been happening on social media.

David Rosler believes (like most people) that Facebook and Twitter are have something to do with their first amendments rights. That they are public utilities and not private corporations. But he also believes in a benevolent sky-man who forgives him for creating a lot of spam on aforementioned social media sites. Also Jesus will forgive him for behaving like a douchbag. Jesus will forgive him for creating fake accounts on Facebook in order to spam groups with his nonsense.

The Internet on he other hand?

So let’s see if I can get this straight. OrbiTer ™ is a “faith based” Christian film that is something like a cross between Left Behind and Gravity. Left Behind being a Nicolas Cage vehicle which nobody watched and Gravity being a Science Fiction exploitation disaster picture which, other than looking great and thrilling audiences (by looking great mostly) it had about as much plot as five minutes of Requiem for a Dream.

But Produce Director, Publicity Director, and probably Star David Rosler thinks he can wow the same nerds who liked Gravity by mashing up a lot of dismal end-times and Jesus bullshit. Without Nicolas Cage!

Oh and David Rosler still thinks 3D films are pretty keen too. That explains a lot!

Somehow; I don’t think the SiFi nerds are going to go for this.

I think this is the kind of nerd he is looking for!

But, if you give  David Rosler lots of money, you might get this fabulous collector coffee mug!

Sounds legit!

www.orbitermovie.com/

If you go there. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom where David’s very professional “trash the detractors page is.”