Moon meta

[alias_sqbr]

That's right, I'm discussing actual science fiction! Specifically, the movie "Moon".

Overall: Quite good, slow and psychological and well made. Sam Rockwell does a great job as pretty much the only character. After watching the trailer I kind of guessed what was going to happen and nothing in the film really surprised me. Could have done with a few more interesting science fiction ideas in my opinion, given the lack of distracting shiny things like explosions.

And now, misc rambling spoilery thoughts..
***SPOILERS***

If you're going to have a slow film where characters have long drawn out emotionally fraught conversations, don't do it with a timer which goes right to the wire. I sat there going "STOP BONDING AND FINISH THE JOB". Thirteen hours they had to organise everything and they got it done with seconds to spare?

As with Wall-E the All Powerful Evil Corporation seemed a bit easy to thwart, so that I didn't entirely believe the happy ending.

I liked Gertie as a character. He was kind of like a mirror image to HAL, where the inconsistency in his programming saves the protagonist rather than threatening him. I do find it shortsighted of the company not to have stronger safeguards for if the clones found out what was going on. Perhaps some ethically minded programmer did it on purpose.

Did I mention that nothing in this film surprised me? From the trailer I thought "Oh, he's a clone with a 3 year life span who's been programmed with fake memories who encounters one of the older/newer clones and then has to avoid being taken out by the company". It was kind of frustrating how slow the characters were to figure everything out and work together but I guess they were both in bad psychological places.

It's only been fifteen years (5 clones)? I think I might have preferred it if it was longer, nothing extreme like 100 but maybe 24 or 30. The company is clearly in it for the long haul.

You have to wonder what the original Sam Bell knows, and what his involvement with the process was. Did they get his permission, wipe his memory a little then scan him?

Comments

[distantcam.livejournal.com]

You have to wonder what the original Sam Bell knows, and what his involvement with the process was. Did they get his permission, wipe his memory a little then scan him?

Maybe we'll find out in the sequel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mute_%28film%29

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the trailer, so it wasn't until Gertie started discouraging Sam 2 from leaving the building that I realised he was a clone - before then the 'rescue' just seemed a bit odd.

No more surprises after that though.

I thought Sam 1's degeneration was well handled, both visually and in the script. And yes, I liked Gertie too :)

[alias_sqbr]

Yes, I think they really felt like two different characters (and yet the same guy), and his degeneration was subtle yet unmistakable. It was quite well done.

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but I've seen the trailer which was enough to make me go "way too effectively creepy and horrifying for me, so tell me what happens instead!" *laughs*

I can remember seeing the smiley computer face in the trailer and thinking: "man, that would kinda irritate me, seeing that every day" and then later in the trailer "Gah! the computer's making a sad face, things must be Really Bad" and being far more unnerved that I'd expected. I'm curious about how the programming helped -- would you be willing to spoil me even more? *grins*

[alias_sqbr]

Heh, I know exactly how you feel :)

GERTY was programmed so that his primary motivation was to look after Sam, and his secondary goals were to maintain the station, keep the clones a secret etc. So it didn't take much to persuade him to help out.