Moon (film)

Plot summary

In 2035, Lunar Industries has made a fortune after an oil crisis by building Sarang Station, an automated lunar facility to mine the alternative fuel helium-3 from lunar soil, rich in the material. The facility is fully automated, requiring only a single human to maintain operations, oversee the harvesters, and launch canisters bound for Earth containing the extracted helium-3. Currently, Sam Bell nears the end of his three-year work contract at Sarang Station. Chronic communication problems have disabled his live feed from Earth and limit him to occasional recorded messages from his wife Tess, who was pregnant with their daughter Eve when he left. His only companion is an artificial intelligence named GERTY, who assists with the base's automation and provides comfort for him.

Two weeks before his return to Earth, Sam suffers from hallucinations of a teenage girl. One such image distracts him while he is out recovering a helium-3 canister from a harvester, causing him to crash his lunar rover into the harvester. Rapidly losing cabin air from the crash, Sam falls unconscious in the rover.

Sam awakes in the base infirmary with no memory of the accident. He overhears GERTY receiving instructions from Lunar Industries to prevent him from leaving the base and to wait for the arrival of a rescue team. His suspicions aroused, he manufactures a fake problem to persuade GERTY to let him outside. He travels to the crashed rover, where he finds his unconscious doppelgänger. He brings the double back to the base and tends to his injuries. The two Sams start to wonder if one is a clone of the other. After a heated argument and physical altercation, they together coerce GERTY into revealing that they are both clones of the original Sam Bell. GERTY activated the newest clone after the rover crash, and convinced him that he was at the beginning of his three-year contract.

The two Sams search the facility, discovering a secret vault containing hundreds of hibernating clones. They determine that Lunar Industries is unethically using clones of the original Sam Bell to avoid the cost of new astronauts. The elder Sam drives past the interference radius in a second rover and tries to call Tess on Earth. He instead makes contact with Eve, now 15 years old, who says Tess died "some years ago." He hangs up when Eve tells her father (offscreen, identified as "Original Sam" in closed captioning) that someone is calling regarding Tess.

The two Sams realize that the incoming "rescue" team will kill them both if they are found together. The newer Sam convinces GERTY to revive another clone, planning to leave the revived clone's corpse in the crashed rover and send the older Sam to Earth in one of the helium-3 transports. But the older Sam, with his health declining, knows that he will not live much longer (he has learned that the clones are designed to "break down" at the end of the 3-year contract, their bodies disposed of under the guise of sending them back to Earth in different pods to the helium-3 transports). Older Sam suggests the younger Sam leave instead. The older Sam is placed back into the crashed rover to die so Lunar Industries will not suspect anything until it is too late.

Following GERTY's advice, the younger Sam reboots GERTY to wipe its records of the events. Before leaving, the younger clone programs a harvester to crash and wreck a jamming antenna, thereby enabling live communications with Earth. The older Sam, back in the crippled rover, remains conscious long enough to watch the launch of the transport carrying the younger Sam to Earth.

The transport arrives at Earth, and over the film's credits, news reports describe how Sam's testimony on Lunar Industries' activities has stirred up an enormous controversy, and the company's unethical practices have plummeted the company's stock.

Cast

Production

This is the first feature film directed by commercial director Duncan Jones, who co-wrote the script with Nathan Parker. The film was specifically written as a vehicle for actor Sam Rockwell. The film pays homage to the films of Jones' youth, such as Silent Running, Alien, and Outland.

Jones described the intent: "[We] wanted to create something which felt comfortable within that canon of those science fiction films from the sort of late seventies to early eighties." The director spoke of his interest in the lunar setting: "for me, the Moon has this weird mythic nature to it.... There is still a mystery to it. As a location, it bridges the gap between science-fiction and science fact. We (humankind) have been there. It is something so close and so plausible and yet at the same time, we really don't know that much about it."

The director described the lack of romance in the Moon as a location, citing images from the Japanese lunar orbiter SELENE: "It's the desolation and emptiness of it...it looks like some strange ball of clay in blackness.... Look at photos and you'll think that they're monochrome. In fact, they're not. There simply are no primary colours." Jones made reference to the photography book Full Moon by Michael Light in designing the look of the film.

Moon's budget was $5 million. The director took steps to minimise production costs, such as keeping the cast small and filming in a studio. Moon was produced at Shepperton Studios, in London, where it was filmed in 33 days. Jones preferred using models to digital animation. Jones worked with Bill Pearson, the supervising model maker on Alien, to help design the lunar rovers and helium-3 harvesters in the film. The Moon base was created as a full 360-degree set, measuring 85–90 feet (26–27 m) long and approximately 70 feet (21 m) wide. The film's robot, GERTY, was designed to be bound to an overhead rail within the mining base since its mechanical tether was critical to the story's plot. The visual effects were provided by Cinesite, which has sought cut-price deals with independent films. Since Jones had an effects background with TV advertisements, he drew on his experience to create special effects within a small budget.

Release

International sales for Moon are handled by the Independent sales company. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group acquired distribution rights to the film for English-speaking territories. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group was considering making Moon a direct-to-DVD release; however, after Moon premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in January 2009, Sony Pictures Classics decided to handle this film's theatrical release for Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group.

Sony Pictures Classics distributed the film in the United States in cinemas, beginning with screenings in selected cinemas in New York and Los Angeles on 12 June. The film's British premiere was held on 20 June 2009 at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh as part of the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival. Jones was present at the screening along with other key crew members. The full UK release was on 17 July, two days after the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Australian release was on 8 October.

Box office

Moon grossed £700,394 from its domestic release, $3,370,366 from its North American release and $9,760,104 worldwide making the film a modest financial success.

Critical reception

Moon was generally well received by critics. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 187 reviews, with an average score of 7.5/10. The site's consensus states: "Boosted by Sam Rockwell's intense performance, Moon is a compelling work of science-fiction, and a promising debut from director Duncan Jones." On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 67 based on 29 reviews, considered to be "generally favorable reviews". Damon Wise of The Times praised Jones' "thoughtful" direction and Rockwell's "poignant" performance. Wise wrote of the film's approach to the science fiction genre: "Though it uses impressive sci-fi trappings to tell its story—the fabulous models and moonscapes are recognisably retro yet surprisingly real—this is a film about what it means, and takes, to be human."

Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter applauded screenwriter Nathan Parker's “sharp [and] individualistic” dialogue and the way in which Parker combined science fiction and Big Brother themes. Byrge also believed that cinematographer Gary Shaw's work and composer Clint Mansell's music intensified the drama. Byrge wrote: “Nonetheless, 'Moon' is darkened by its own excellencies: The white, claustrophobic look is apt and moody, but a lack of physical action enervates the story thrust.” The critic felt mixed about the star's performance, describing him as “adept at limning his character's dissolution” but finding that he did not have “the audacious, dominant edge” for the major confrontation at the end of the film.

Empire magazine praised Rockwell's performance, including it in '10 Egregious Oscar Snubs—The worthy contenders that the Academy overlooked' feature and referred to his performance as "one ... of the best performances of the year".

Roger Ebert gave the film 3½ stars out of 4, saying: "'Moon' is a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction, which is often about the interface between humans and alien intelligence of one kind of or other, including digital. John W. Campbell Jr., the godfather of this genre, would have approved. The movie is really all about ideas. It only seems to be about emotions. How real are our emotions, anyway? How real are we? Someday I will die. This laptop I'm using is patient and can wait.” Moon also received positive reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.

Reception from the scientific community

Moon was screened as part of a lecture series at NASA's Space Center Houston, at the request of a professor there. “He'd been reading online that we'd done this film about helium-3 mining and that's something that people at NASA are working on”, says Jones. “We did a Q&A afterward. They asked me why the base looked so sturdy, like a bunker, and not like the kind of stuff they are designing that they are going to transport with them. I said 'Well, in the future I assume you won't want to continue carrying everything with you, you'll want to use the resources on the moon to build things' and a woman in the audience raised her hand and said, 'I'm actually working on something called mooncrete, which is concrete that mixes lunar regolith and ice water from the moon's polar caps.'"

Sequels

Jones is planning a follow-up film, titled Mute, which will serve as an epilogue to Moon. "Sam has agreed to do a little cameo in the next film", said Jones, who ultimately hopes to complete a trilogy of films set in the same fictional universe.