You heard correctly.
Wow … haven’t seen a thing about this movie. Any advertising at all?
I think it’s still in limited release, and it may not go wide at all. It’s not the kind of movie that gets a giant marketing budget, though.
True, but they should have disclosed that. But also, were that the case, wouldn’t that sort of undermine the entire plot somewhat? And even still, if one grew up not realizing such, I’m pretty sure it would come as a much bigger shock than what’s depicted in the film.
For what it’s worth, I saw Moon reviewed in Psychology Today, which should make it obvious this isn’t a brainless sci-fi roller coaster flick.
I wound up seeing this movie on a date. I’m nerdy, he’s nerdy, and we both liked it a lot.
Saw Moon a few weeks ago. I will echo exactly what Jayrot said. Good movie, may wife and teenaged son liked it. For me, a SciFi fan, it felt like a long *Twilight Zone *episode, although a good one. I figured out the general theme pretty early on, as do most I’m sure, but the resolution was worth the wait.
I was disappointed in the film. Rockwell continues to impress, I think he is a great actor and I want to see him in more roles.
But Duncan Jones is very inexperienced and it shows. He cannot trust his audience to discover the main plot twist on their own, so he hits them with it too early and much too clumsily. I’m sure he will improve as a director because it’s obvious he has some talent, but this early effort will not be considered one of his best if he continues to direct.
Moon could have been a great film- instead it was just good. Rockwell is great in it, but that’s not quite enough.
I don’t really know that the reveal is as a “twist,” and that’s a very good thing for me. I thought the movie behaved much like a good “hard” sci-fi story (something like “The Cold Equation”), in that it wasn’t about finding out what was going on. Rather, it lays out the situation very very early on, and the story is simply a matter of seeing how the characters react to it. It’s not really about the science; it’s about the humanity responding to the science.
Also, while I get your criticism, Red, and can see how it doesn’t work for many people, I really liked how underplayed Sam’s reaction to the event was, because…
[spoiler]The revelation that he’s a clone is so gigantic, and so altering on a fundamental level, that I don’t think either one of them could’ve possibly wrapped their brains around it enough to be more outwardly angry than they were. What you saw as not reacting I saw as compartmentalizing: instead of even attempting to deal with the ramifications of losing something as intrinsic as their “real” humanity, they shut their brains off to it and only take it in bit by bit (“Okay, I guess that means I’m not going home.” “Okay, I guess my daughter’s all grown up now.” “Okay, I guess that…” and so on). I thought Rockwell did a fantastic job of showing how each version of the character compartmentalized differently: New Sam stays rational and business-oriented, and Old Sam just kind of embraces the craziness, since he was already halfway there. They also relate to each other well, because it’s not like they have any secrets to keep.
It would’ve been much less believable, for me, if they’d had a more dramatic, actor-y reaction to the news, because I just wouldn’t buy that somebody could learn something that huge and, within a few hours, process it enough to have any relevatory anger. Though I’m sure that New Sam (the one who makes it to Earth) has some serious PTSD sometime down the line.[/spoiler]
Fair enough, I just don’t buy that being realistic…at all, which completely broke the immersion for me.
Also, I don’t believe they had to act “angry” in order for it to be realistic–in fact, that thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I was merely hoping for some surprise, which the movie failed to deliver in spades.
Just saw this last night, so that’s why I’m resurrecting this. (It is my understanding that CS threads are open for zombification, to a point).
Why did the company send a rescue ship? If they bring Sam home, he won’t be able to go home to Tess and young Eve. Were they supposed to dispose of Sam2 and awaken another clone?
Been a while since I saw it but didn’t they send the ship primarily to repair the damage caused by the crash with the harvester?
I think it was to fix the whole situation. The clones are supposed to think they are up there all alone, but leaving a crashed harvester with a body in it (as far as the company knew) was going to blow the illusion.
My main problem with this movie is that the Evil Corporation’s plan was not only rudiculously over the top evil, but was also mind-boggingly more expensive then the obvious non-evil alternative.
I can believe in a soul-less Corporaton thats willing to do unspeakable things to protect its bottom line, I can’t believe in one that spends trillions of dollars it doesn’t need to just to go out of its way to be evil.
On the assumption that spoiler boxes are still to be used,
Does the original Sam Bell know that he was cloned and that his clones are continuing his work on the moon?
Due to most of what’s been said in the thread, it certainly sounds interesting. But sadly the trailer has been taken down. Off in search of another look elsewhere.
I think it’s fair to say that’s an open question based solely on the movie. Although I read someone else saying they heard (from the screenwriter?) that in fact
the original Sam Bell was well aware and made the choice.
While I get that with certain other elements it could have been a different, possibly better film, I think analyzing some of those aspects is missing the point of the film as a character study/philosophical rumination. The comparison to Gattaca is perhaps apt, as that has even more severe flaws in its world. I think Moon is way better, though.
It’s apparently out on DVD (at least I saw it advertised on a DVD dispenser), and is really worth looking for. One notable feature of the direction is how a movie can be so derivative in a good way. It’s not a homage, or even homage/ripoff line-blurring; it’s flat-out derivative of the films made during the Apollo program, but it works. Maybe it’s a shorthand way of making the world comfortable and almost familiar, or maybe it’s the slightly humorous way in which it’s done (Dark Star is as much an influence as any other).
Zombie Alert – I just rented this film and watched it last night.
I thought it was a marvelous actor’s film. Rockwell did an outstanding job.
To answer a couple of points brought up earlier –
The “Rescue Mission” was pretty well armed to help a lone mining station operator fix a damaged harvestor. I believe any clones found would have been terminated with extreme prejudice if they displayed any knowledge of their nature.
Also, although they do not go into it at all in the film, I believe the original Sam is getting a healthy licensing fee / retainer for his contribution to the corporation.
And Kevin Spacey as benevolent nursemaid HAL was amazing.
Hope it’s okay to dig up this thread again.
UNBOXED SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:
I guess I’m kind of paranoid when it comes to plots. I just can’t let myself accept that this film had a fairly straightforwardly happy ending–even though the film itself seems to present things this way.
After all, the robot is played by Keven Spacey. Kevin Spacey is almost always evil. That robot almost has to have some kind of scheme going. It’s Kevin Spacey.
And it’s hard to believe that the helium delivery module Sam was flying on would be likely to land in a way that would allow for a human contained inside to survive. In fact it’s hard to believe a human would be able to survive the temperatures inside it through the spaceflight–or have three days of air in his spacesuit. But he apparently survived all the way to Earth, as portrayed in the film, so I’ll let that alarm bell ring silent. But did he survive the landing? Seems very likely not, since it wasn’t designed for a human to land in.
And though Sam is basically a good guy, he seems concerned very much with seeming like a basically good guy. The idea that sick-sam could travel back to earth is just so implausible I have almost no way to believe well-sam meant his offer (that sick-sam go in the module) seriously.
After all we know Sam is callous enough to be able to knowingly allow thousands of his own clones to live a lonely, pathetic existence on the moon.
So here’s what I think happened.
Well-Sam offered to let Sick-Sam go, knowing Sick-Sam would end up realizing he’d never make it and offer the seat back to Well-Sam.
This has all happened before and GERTY has a contingency plan in place for this kind of thing–which is basically to appear quite helpful about the whole thing–while knowing full well that in fact when Sam gets into the helium delivery module, he’ll die in flight or upon landing.
Now, this time things go differently because of Sam knocking over the tower blocking his signal. So Earth does find out about all the clones etc. But not because Sam landed and told. He died, due to GERTY’s treachery.
I didn’t understand why the multi-billion dollar company couldn’t just pay a regular human (or team of regular humans) a couple hundred grand per rotation to go up there. The risk of getting caught in this cloning scheme seemed to far outweigh the savings.
I don’t remember cloning being mentioned as illegal in the film, so what would be the risk? Public outcry? For the company that’s making modern life possible?
They’d justify it the same way the multi-billion dollar companies of today justify everything they do: it’s cheaper, it enhances stockholder value, it’s necessary for the way we live today.
Union Carbide, Exxon, and BP in turn have committed heinous sins far worse than cloning one dude could ever possibly be, and they’re still in business.