compare and contrast "A Cold Equation"by john barton movie to the short story?

Question

list differences and similarities like you would using a venn diagram

Answer 1

The original story can most easily be found in the anthology "Science Fiction Hall of Fame". Each member of the SFWA (Science-Fiction Writers Association) voted for what each considered to be the greatest SF story every. The results were tabulated and anthologized by Robert Silverg, I think in 1966.The movie, directed by Peter Geiger in 1996, is actually the thrid version of Godwin's story. The first version was for the Boris Karloff TV series "Out of This World" produced in 1962. The latter adaptation in 1996 received a great deal of criticism for altering the central premise: instead of tragedy happening because "the cold equations" of physics are inalterable by human beings, the blame is placed on the greedy corporation that the pilot works for.

In "The Cold Equations," Barton is a character who is moved to compassion over Marilyn's plight, but he does not sufficiently act on his compassion in any creative or constructive manner in any attempt to save her. She has transgressed into male, cold, hard, logical space, a place where she cannot and does not survive. She is punished as part of Barton's devotion to the laws of space, which serve as something between a tyrannical set of laws and a nature-worshiping frontier cult where physics creates the laws of human society. His decision is justified within his own paradigm, filled with binary oppositions designed to designate space as a man's world, but his paradigm willingly excludes compassion and the human ways of Earth for "the cold equations" of space. To believe that his decision is justified, we have to believe that his paradigm is correct, that "the cold equations" are in fact laws to be lived by, and in so doing, become misogynists who believe space is a place for boys' adventure, not for mutual exploration or the perpetuation of our species.

In his essay "Hard Science Fiction," Hartwell describes hard SF as being about "the beauty of truth" (p. 30). The key moment of hard SF is the "eureka" moment (p. 31). The "eureka" moment in "The Cold Equations" is not one that leads to a character's salvation from danger, as in other stories, where a last-second revelation saves the character from death. The "eureka" moment is Marilyn's final acceptance of her inevitable death. Marilyn accepts the rules of the frontier and her own death, "rightful" according to the rules of space. According to Hartwell, hard SF is about accepting the laws of nature. Barton already knows the inevitable, has already come to accept the fact that Marilyn cannot understand until the end.

There is much more at stake in "The Cold Equations" than just the life of a character in a story. Depending on how a reader reacts to the story, its cold brutal logic, extolling knowledge and reason over sentiment, the reader may be forever soured on science fiction, as the price paid for knowledge it brings is accepting the inhumane mindset that is sometimes needed in its stories. "The Cold Equations" is such an extreme story (Marilyn's only choice in her death is whether she goes willingly, Barton can do nothing to save her) that it approaches the level of an oversimplified "parable" (Gunn 198), illustrating a hard SF story in line with John Campbell's rules for the genre. Whether you agree with the story and accept its cold logic or recoil from its extreme nature, "The Cold Equations" is a critical work of hard SF which must be considered if one is to understand or speak of the genre.

Not sure how you can turn that into a Venn Diagram (or how I could have posted it as such) but that is all of the information that I have and should be enough for you to finish it yourself.

Answer 2

Cold Equations Short Story

Answer 3

As usually is the case, the movie sucked when compared to the story.