“The Cold Equations,” the 1954 science fiction story by Tom Godwin, was a genre-defining work that looked hard at the impersonal efficiency of modern technologies, the types of sacrifice we find acceptable in the name of “progress,” and the inevitability of death. The 2021 film Stowaway, directed by Joe Penna and starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson, and Toni Collette (inspired by the story) has similar ambitions, but falls about 200 light-years short of truly tackling any of it. It’s a diverting field trip into outer space, but we didn’t find it to be the philosophical challenge it thought it was being. We ain’t easy to please!

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Thanks to slfhlp for providing us some SICK BEATS for our intro and outro.

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