Returning from the Moon, it’s actually much easier to go to the surface of the Earth than to go into Earth orbit. Going into Earth orbit requires a significant delta-V capacity, since you have to go from nearly escape velocity to earth orbital velocity. Going to the surface of the earth, all you need is a good heat shield and a minimal guidance package, since you can use aerobraking to shed all your velocity. Using aerobraking to slow down just enough for earth orbit, then climbing back out of the atmosphere into orbit, also requires a significant delta-V capacity. Since the pod at the end didn’t seem to have a large mass of fuel tanks and braking rockets attached, the only plausible destination is the surface of the Earth.
The bigger question is whether the cargo pod was designed to land gently enough for Sam to survive.
I don’t buy this distinction. I thought I was watching a movie about a guy anticipating an end to a long shift working on the moon, looking forward to returning home to his family. I was actually watching a movie about a clone who thought all of the above was true until he (and I) learned he was a clone. The main character’s fundamental understanding of his recent past was blown to smithereens by the reveal in the film. This sounds exactly like the twists in Fight Club and The Sixth Sense. The difference with Moon is that the twist wan’t a twist ending…but it was a twist.
Except we don’t see Sam (any of them) do anything of significance. Sam doesn’t even repair the faked meteorite impact. There is, in fact, nothing that Sam does that is integral to the function of the [sup]3[/sup]He reclamation system. He spends most of his time just occupying himself with mundane tasks (building the town diorama) and exercising. Sam really seems to be there to drive the story along, not because the operation has any particular need for him.
Ultimately, you and Ellis Dee above are looking for details that aren’t in the film. If what we know about corporations today still applies to corporations in the fictional future of the movie, the solution involving the clones is either the most economical, or there are unknown market factors at play forcing it. Do your really need to know these peripheral details to accept the premise that the corporation had motivation to use clones for this operation? The movie is not an exposé.
Okay I must be losing my mind or just misremembering but wasn’t it at least implied that the reason for the clones was that the radiation was too dangerous of an environment to work in for long periods of time?
So instead of the evil corporation having to constantly shuttle people back and forth so as not to be exposed to a lethal amount of radiation, the clones were just thought of as disposable?
My take on it was that this was the crux – to never have to deal with labor problems on the longest-running slave-labor project ever. The original is long dead and accounted for, the transit costs are a sham, and – all the clones, saving the lab costs, are free, and except for the accident at the end, completely silent. And the original presumably signed off on this on behalf not of his children (the girl’s free and fine) but only himself (loosely defined, but how many of us signed the back of our drivers’ licenses, consigning voiceless living cells to a fate they never consented to)?, leaving our outrage nowhere at all to go.
I found myself weeks later feeling sad for, and angry at, people not in, nor even mentioned in, the actual movie. That’s a pretty neat trick.
I recently watched this and agree with the general consensus. A fine movie and a very thoughtful performance from Sam Rockwell.
Many of the critical talking (and thinking) points have already been made but can I point out that having Matt Berry as a “suit” worked particularly well for me. It is exactly the sort of role I envisage Douglas Reynholm taking on in a decade or so.
That was my thought. Sam-one was pretty well falling apart by the end of the movie, and I was wondering whether it was from Tritium poisoning or an inherent limitation of the cloning process. When we saw the parade of clones climbing into the “return module” some of them looked pretty well, others not so much.
I think the “twist” defusing was a deliberate choice. When Sam-one got banged up in the rover-crash, he had a cut over his right eye. A moment later, “he” is waking up in the infirmary, right eye prominent, and no cut. “Wow!” I thought. “How long was he out? Did he miss his return ticket?” I therefore was not really surprised when Sam-two found Sam-one in the wrecked rover, and I’m not one who usually catches these things before they happen.
I did expect GERTY to go all HAL on the two Sams when they began cooking up their scheme.
All in all I enjoyed the movie immensely. A character study instead of explosions and (two) good performances by Sam Rockwell.
This is one of those movies where it’s more fun thinking back on it than actually watching it. I found the film tedious, but it raises some interesting questions.
None of it really made much sense; I found the basic scenario hard to believe (single-person manned outpost on the moon? It’d never happen.), but you have to wonder how you would react to that sort of reality-altering scenario.
Although the acting keeps it interesting, this was a Twilight Zone story inadequately stretched out to a feature.
for quite a while after they meet, it was intentionally kept vague as to whether Sam was hallucinating or not (he had been seeing things after all before the crash). the robot avoided his direct questions as to whether there is another person in the base, the other guy refused to shake his hands etc. it wasn’t till they were playing ping-pong much later that they had accepted each other’s presence. even then, the stress of the clone situation eventually led to a fight between them.
he went from struggling with whether he was seeing imaginary people to realising that he himself wasn’t “real”.
The movie was odd (to me) in that it presents a hard science veneer, but the core premise of the assembly line of ready to defrost clones and the work involved in fooling the current clone just to get a little bit of work done that could easily be done by mobile robots is so practically absurd on so many levels it’s makes the movie less plausible than a Flash Gordon serial.
Having said that I though it was an extraordinary technical special effects achievement given the relatively small budget.
Also, re the “he’d go crazy with 3 years of non-contact” notion. Some people would but there are plenty of people who could do many years of solitary life without going nuts. Hell some might pay for the privilege.
I thought it was pretty good. After watching it, I’m against sending clones to mine the moon without their full knowledge of their circumstances and their consent.
Is that from something? Google revealed only this very thread…