“Space Cadet” is an American comedy released in early July 2024. It tells the story of Florida bartender Tiffany “Rex” Simpson, who remembered her childhood dream of becoming an astronaut and wrote a letter to NASA.
Story of a space loser
On July 4, 2024, the “Space Cadet” movie was released in the United States and other countries. It is a rather frivolous comedy, which, at the same time, provides a new perspective on space exploration.
The main character of the movie is a Florida bartender Tiffany “Rex” Simpson played by Emma Roberts. At school she demonstrated remarkable technical abilities and dreamed of becoming an astronaut. However, because of her mother’s illness and death, she never went to university. For the past 10 years she has been making cocktails and helping her father set up a ghost-hunting show.
But at some point Rex realizes that she can’t continue to live in this way and decides to return to her dream. She writes a letter to NASA, not really having any hope of being accepted anywhere. However, a friend completes scientific achievements and qualifications that are lacking there, and thus she is taken into an astronaut training program.
Then the story of Rex passing various trainings and exams begins. Strangely enough, she copes with all of them equally well, and sometimes even better than others. But eventually, her lies are exposed. And the end of this story you will find out if you watch the movie.
Cheap comedy
At first glance, “Space Cadet” is a completely empty movie. As a story about space and preparation for it, it is very far from realism. In reality, Rex’s lies would have been uncovered during the application stage or in the early days of preparation.
Even less realistic is the whole story of the flight into space, which concludes the movie. And the space itself as well as the space station are shown rather conventionally. There are also complaints about the comedy element. This is absolutely not a movie that will make you laugh from start to finish, even though Emma Roberts tries to create an atmosphere of crazy absurdity at literally every turn.
All these things together create an air of non-seriousness. And the fact that, unlike “Fly Me to the Moon,” which came out a few weeks later, “Space Cadet” focuses much less on the actual hard work of astronauts and engineers, which also, may be perceived in a bad way.
Positive movie
However, actually “Space Cadet” is much more serious than it may seem. The main character Rex is not a positive fool, as many people perceive her to be. She really is a very technically gifted person, and the devices we are shown throughout the movie she actually built herself.
She passes all NASA tests honestly and sometimes much more brilliantly than those candidates who, supposedly, by their “questionnaire,” are expected to be prepared much better. Well, it’s very rare, but it happens. She has the ability to quickly learn new knowledge and skills, which is key for an astronaut.
She just hasn’t used it for 10 years and hasn’t gone the way she should have. From the perspective of many people, it’s a verdict on her dream of becoming an astronaut. But the movie is just about the fact that things really aren’t so simple here. One scene directly states that all these athletic nerds who are regularly hired into astronaut squads are great, but if we’re going to go somewhere no one’s ever been before, it’s good to have someone who thinks more vividly.
Yes, Rex is a walking “positive” who sometimes talks some nonsense about reflecting thoughts from planets and fate. However, this helps her meet challenges where nerds who are tired of getting the next qualification are ready to panic.
By the way, scientific knowledge and its holders are not actually ridiculed in the movie in any way. On the contrary, it constantly shows that all these people are practicing their skills for a reason. And Rex herself is constantly mastering physics during training. All this is just done positively, without the usual drama and epicness in such cases.
Perhaps that is the secret to this movie. It’s very positive, and you really want to watch it despite the lack of a twisted plot, incredible technical details or just continuous jokes.
After all, space was once conquered by dreamers who didn’t constantly keep replaying all the problems and constant challenges in their heads. It’s quite possible that for the future of this industry to move forward, it’s really vital to have people going towards a goal that they don’t seem to have a chance of realizing anymore. People like the protagonist of “Space Cadet.”
