Moon (Page 1 of 2)

Few words can describe how much I love this movie. This is also the first commentary in a while for a movie that I actually own. (I have Empire, but only the special edition). So, I'm excited to give it a whirl.

(also I object to the question I was just asked to prove I was not a bot. The answer is 'Star Wars'. Not 'A New Hope', not 'Empire'...   )

I really think Brian's mistake was, as he himself has phrased it, reading into the movie instead of out from it.

Duncan Jones doesn't know that Brian Finifter wants to see "the APOLLO 13 that hasn't happened yet." It's not his fault that he didn't make the movie he had no idea Brian was going to think he was making.

I agree with the bulk of what Teague said at the start of the show, but I still for some reason don't like this movie.

Last edited by Landporpus (2010-09-27 18:40:42)

I loved this movie. I thought Rockwell was awesome; a speak-before-you-think guy and sometimes subtle acting at the same time. I could've used a bit 'more' story, i guess. It's great that it was made for only $5m.

Compare it to Gentlemen Broncos which cost twice as much, also has Sam Rockwell and is terrible, and has only made $100,000 back so far. Yeowch! (I'm still glad i saw it though, it has a few good bits - watch till the end of the credits).

I think the story reason for the clones being different is that the fresh clone has year old memories, where as the older clone has had a year by him self and has for lack of a better term, mellowed.

Fixed it for yah.

And I thought that was pretty much his entire character arc and the reason for the movie being about clones. The original Sam had anger issues which is why he took the job on the moon base in the first place, to give him time to work himself out before he destroyed his marriage. Which obviously it worked because the Sam who's been there for 3 years is pretty much chilled solid whereas the new Sam still has all the original anger issues because he hasn't spent 3 years by himself (Btw I hardly think the original Sam has been on the base for a year, I got the impression it was maaaaybe a couple months).

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2010-09-30 06:54:06)

Good work, guys! This was a terrific movie. The opening prepared me perfectly well. I don't buy that we'll be mining the moon for energy or that there will be good AI for a long time, if ever, so human cloning fits with that just fine. The magic beans are that this is a future where stuff you've heard about on NPR Science Friday maybe being possible has been made practical (altho what they're doing is really human copying, as you point out, which is less believable even than good AI).

I had a problem with the amount of sunk cost in the clone depository, tho. If you count the bays, there seems to be about 150 pods. There's no way they'd need that many clones before figuring out how to eliminate the need for a human operator. Given how difficult it is to move around and stay alive on the moon, it makes far more sense to remotely operate semi-autonomous robots from earth.

Last edited by Zarban (2010-10-02 04:20:10)

+1 cosmic radiation sickness, i just assumed that, and actually thought it lent a lot to the credability of the story.

Could a big corporation abuse human rights sooooo badly, when removed from sight alltogether (on the moon)? Do clones have human rights? What did the clone do upon return to Earth, go to court?

Why did a minerals container have adequate life support (heating etc), and how did he survive the rail gun launch?!

PS I LOVE this movie, but the models took me out of it, notably the way the dust played in moon gravity (spoiled by Mythbusters I guess). I really think they should have spent some on particle sim for that.

Have you guys looked at the artists site for production design, it is AWSOME!
http://gavinrothery.posterous.com/

There were about 150 clones in stasis, minus the (I think) seven used by the end of the movie. They are all pre-programmed to believe they are Sam Bell, just starting out on a 3-year mission on the moon. When one gets to the end of his 3 years, radiation and perhaps genetic imperfections wreak havoc with his health. He gets in the "return capsule" and is incinerated. A new clone is popped out and told that he just got to the moon but his landing vehicle crashed and he needs several days to recover.

No Sam is uploaded into a new clone. They are independent.

When Sam 2 returned to earth, he immediately became a celebrity, was given US citizenship, and was awarded a huge settlement by the courts. He even married the original Sam's daughter, which was a little weird for everyone.

Corporations in the mining and energy sectors have demonstrated on many occasions that they are quite happy to treat employees with lethal disregard if they think no one will find out or care. To believe that clones would be cheaper than regular people, you have to be willing to believe a couple of things:

• It is possible to clone a person, raise the clone to adulthood, program it with another person's memories, ship it to the moon, and store it in stasis for years.

• It is more expensive to identify people willing and able to spend a long period on the moon, train them, send them, pay them, keep them safe, and return them to earth than it is to use disposable clones.

• It is much more expensive to send people to the moon than to send the occasional supply shipment (H3 canisters, in particular).

There are a few things that might help you believe those things.

• A regular person willing to go to the moon for a long time might demand an exorbitant salary and retirement package.

• It might be impossible to keep a person on the moon for a useful amount of time without subjecting them to a lethal dose of radiation.

• Manned space missions cost about double the cost of unmanned missions, amounting to hundreds of millions each.

• The company might feel that it can't afford the bad publicity that the loss of a manned replacement crew mission would create.

• I once cloned my college roommate and raised the clone in suspended animation in our bathtub, feeding him growth hormone and aging treatments until he appeared to be 22 years old. However, I was only able to program him to with Eliza-level AI software, and it became really annoying to hear him constantly say, "Tell me more about your mother." On the other hand, I was working with a very limited budget.

He might have read the script for Duncan Jones' next film, which is going to have a Sam Bell cameo. Or he's making a joke. Either way, well played.

Although actually, the 'make something up' is actually eyes pointed down. Up and to the left is recall.