"What is this movie?", Skylab edition

November 9, 2015 1:33 PM

I'm trying to remember a movie I've seen (and hopefully not invented in my own mind). Details are hazy, but it has a recurring theme about Skylab falling, and a piece of it does, in fact, fall in some narratively significant way in the end.

Some additional details:

- It's not Wet Hot American Summer
- I'm pretty sure this was either foreign or an indie film
- I'm pretty sure there was a female protagonist, possibly a coming-of-age story

Does this movie actually exist?

posted by mkultra to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

you're not thinking of Donnie Darko, are you?
posted by janey47 at 1:34 PM on November 9, 2015

Until the End of the World (1992), Wim Wenders
posted by Nevin at 1:36 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Definitely not either of those. Not a sci-fi film.
posted by mkultra at 1:41 PM on November 9, 2015

I think this is an Australian film? I'm recalling them chasing parts across the Australian desert?
posted by clvrmnky at 1:42 PM on November 9, 2015

A longshot, but the first thing I thought of was "Dead Like Me".
posted by Monster_Zero at 1:47 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think this is an Australian film? I'm recalling them chasing parts across the Australian desert?

That's probably also Until the End of the World. It's not Skylab, it's an "Indian Nuclear Satellite" but when it does impact and generate an EMP, the protagonists are flying over the Australian outback and have to land it and get out and walk.

(Sorry, this is one of my favorite movies, I have seen it dozens of times.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 1:53 PM on November 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

I remember seeing a horror movie in the 80s about skylab falling and brining some kind of virus/disease with it.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2015

Le Skylab by Julie Delpy? see the trailer
posted by bluedora at 2:17 PM on November 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sounds a lot like Dead Like Me. The (female, coming-of-age, dead) protagonist is killed by a falling toilet from Mir.
posted by neckro23 at 3:43 PM on November 9, 2015

Dogs in Space?

There is also a minor incident in which the characters burn some rubbish in a plan to claim it as a piece of Skylab for a local radio station. ... Footage of Sputnik 2 is intercut with the narrative, focused largely on Laika (the first dog in space), and can also be seen on television in the background of several scenes.
posted by Gortuk at 3:57 PM on November 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

Was it this short called Skylab about a kid who is convinced a chunk of Skylab is going to crash into his house?
posted by ejs at 4:16 PM on November 9, 2015

Definitely Until the End of the World. It's sci-fi, has a large part set in Australia, and has a female protagonist, as well as the satellite falling. Netflix considers it a road movie.
posted by irisclara at 5:27 PM on November 9, 2015

In Wenders' Until the End of the Movie, the female protagonist ends up as an astronaut in a satellite.

It was sort of a sci-fi film.
posted by Nevin at 5:29 PM on November 9, 2015

Response by poster: It's not Until the End of the World. See here.
posted by mkultra at 8:23 PM on November 9, 2015

I remember seeing a horror movie in the 80s about skylab falling and bringing some kind of virus/disease with it

That one sounds more like 1971's The Andromeda Strain to me.
posted by Rash at 2:40 PM on November 11, 2015