Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Moon movie

This is topic Moon movie in forum Discussing Published Hooks & Books at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by DWD (Member # 8649) on :

Anyone heard anything about the movie Moon? Looks like an interesting Indie SF space opera piece opening June 12. The published synopsis:

quote:
It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive.
Thankfully, his time on the moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their three-year-old daughter, Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of “Sarang,” the moon base that has been his home for so long, and he will finally have someone to talk to beyond “Gerty,” the base’s well-intentioned, but rather uncomplicated computer.
Suddenly, Sam’s health starts to deteriorate. Painful headaches, hallucinations and a lack of focus lead to an almost fatal accident on a routine drive on the moon in a lunar rover. While recuperating back at the base (with no memory of how he got there), Sam meets a younger, angrier version of himself, who claims to be there to fulfill the same three year contract Sam started all those years ago.
Confined with what appears to be a clone of his earlier self, and with a “support crew” on its way to help put the base back into productive order, Sam is fighting the clock to discover what’s going on and where he fits into company plans.

Hope the story and execution are good; it would be nice to see more of this kind of SF at the movies.

Posted by JustinArmstrong (Member # 8607) on :

Yes, I was looking around Hulu I think about two weeks ago and I found the trailer to this. It looks very good. I'm a huge indie fan, and I love most sci-fi movies.

Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :

I loved the trailer and the idea we'd be getting a good old fashioned SF movie in cinemas soon. My only fear was that I could guess too much of the plot from the trailer, so I hope there's a bit more to it.

Posted by DWD (Member # 8649) on :

Yes, it felt kind of Solaris-like, but it's hard to tell for sure.

Posted by DWD (Member # 8649) on :

Wired is calling it "masterful"...

http://tinyurl.com/masterful-moon

Posted by rich (Member # 8140) on :

Saw this yesterday, and I think it's the best movie I've seen this year. It's a science fiction movie only in its trappings--it's really a character piece, and I think it ends with a great line that encapsulates the entire movie.

If you get a chance, go see it.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

The plot-as-reviewed kinda reminded me of an Ursula K. Le Guin story, "Nine Lives"...not that it was exactly that plot, mind you...may be worth a look when it comes on pay-per-view, I think...

Posted by JenniferHicks (Member # 8201) on :

I'm interested in seeing this one as well. But apparently the science makes little sense, at least according to Nancy Kress:

http://nancykress.blogspot.com/2009/07/cranky-at-movies.html

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

How many SF movies do?

Posted by aspirit (Member # 7974) on :

Some SF anime (Japanese animated) movies are based in believable, science-heavy worlds. Ghost in the Shell and Planetes come to mind. Too bad the average American looks at animation as kid-stuff.

Jennifer, you might want to warn people of the spoilers on Nancy Kress's blog, because Kress doesn't provide any warning.

Posted by rich (Member # 8140) on :

Looks like Nancy Kress couldn't get to the trees for the forest...

SPOILERS--------------------------------------------------------

The funny thing is that each and every point that Kress brings up can be countered with a reasonable explanation, the most important one being that the clones don't know they're clones til one goes outside the base to retrieve the body of the other clone. And that's all within the first half hour. It's not a movie about "evil corporations", but about a man coming to grips with who and what he is.

I mean, yeah, there should've been some "bounciness" in the base (it is ON the moon after all), but...seriously, it's one thing to say that a character piece isn't her cup of tea, but to fault the movie for the PATH it took---

1) "plants jammers on the moon"--why wouldn't there be antennae scattered on the moon...that could also be utilized as jammers? I'm sure at one point there were REAL people on the moon, and I just assumed that those "jammers" were actually something else before they were jammers.

2) "despite being programmed by the corporation"--I didn't think they were programmed. I thought they were clones that had implanted memories from the original human being that they used for the clone. I mean, that's what they said in the movie, but, hey, maybe I should've spent more time thinking about it instead of watching the movie.

3) "'uploaded memories'"-- again, the memories were his from a period of time, and I thought the videos were real, as evidenced by the fact that there was a deliberate EDIT in one of the videos. That kinda clued me into the fact (when I bothered to think about it later) that it must've been actual videos from the wife to the husband 'cause she was obviously distressed about their relationship. Again, possibly the original SAM was there setting up the equipment/project managing and GERTY (the computer) and those were videos from that time period.

4) "an escape pod"--not an escape pod, but a means of transportation for the H3. Or, hell, let's be charitable to Kress' logic here and pretend that yes, it was really an escape pod. Why is it there? I don't know, maybe OSHA wanted them to have it there. But it doesn't matter, 'cause the clones were NEVER going to use the thing as an escape pod. They thought they had a 3 year contract, and there was a different method of returning to Earth.

5) "a 'secret room'"--yeah, that's why they call them secret. Again, the clones have/had no reason to look for a secret room.

6) "all this is 'cheaper'"--has Kress ever worked for a big corporation before? But, regardless, yeah, it probably was cheaper to just have someone up there with the knowledge of the mining operation than a whole team. I mean, yeah, one person IS going to be cheaper, especially when that one person is a clone who thinks he's only there for 3 years and the implied reason he took the job was a break for the benefit(?) of his marriage.

Look: I didn't like Star Trek 'cause there were crazy science issues in that that make Moon look like a paper written by Einstein, but Star Trek was entertaining, and Moon was entertaining also if you went with the first half hour of the flick and thought, "ok, so this is where it's going to go..."

One man's meat is another man's poison, but to disregard Moon 'cause you THOUGHT the science was wonky (even though the problems addressed by Kress aren't really hard science issues) is doing a disservice to what I think the creators were trying to accomplish.

Posted by JenniferHicks (Member # 8201) on :

Wow, sounds like the Kress post hit a nerve. I haven't seen the movie yet (I'll probably have to wait for DVD) and so can't say whether I agree with what she wrote or not. It is interesting to read how different people interpret the same work of sci-fi. Just goes to show no one will read/watch something in the same way.

BTW, sorry I didn't mention her post had spoilers. It wasn't an intentional omission.

Posted by rich (Member # 8140) on :

It only hit a nerve 'cause she complained about the science, but she didn't really note what the science issues were--just story elements that weren't really issues if one followed what was going on.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

There's Clarke's Third Law: "Any advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic." Which explains 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Note to a note: Turner Classic Movies has been running old Moon moview all day long, in celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Don't pass up a chance to see what the movies thought of the subject before it was actually done.