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Moon (2009 film)

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Moon
File:Moonposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDuncan Jones
Written byNathan Parker
Duncan Jones
Produced byStuart Fenegan
Trudie Styler
StarringSam Rockwell
Kevin Spacey
Dominique McElligott
CinematographyGary Shaw
Edited byNicolas Gaster
Music byClint Mansell
Production
companies
Liberty Films
Stage 6 Films [1]
Distributed bySony Pictures Classics
Release dates
23 January 2009 (2009-01-23) (Sundance)
17 July 2009 (UK)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5 million
Box office$7,166,021[2]

Moon is a 2009 science fiction film about a man who experiences a personal crisis as he nears the end of a three-year solitary stint harvesting resources on the far side of the Earth's moon. It is the feature debut of director Duncan Jones[4]. Sam Rockwell stars as the employee Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey voices his robot companion, GERTY. Moon premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and was released in selected theatres in New York and Los Angeles on 12 June 2009. The release was expanded to additional theatres in the United States and Toronto on both 3 and 10 July[5] and was released in the United Kingdom on 17 July.[6]

This film was the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) winner of the 2009 award for the Best British Independent Film. Director Duncan Jones was also awarded the BIFA Douglas Hickox Award.[7]

The film has also been nominated for two BAFTAs at the 2010 awards. It won the award for Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer.

Plot

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an employee contracted by the company Lunar Industries to extract helium-3 from lunar soil for much-needed clean energy back on Earth, leaving behind his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott), who is (at the time of his leaving) heavily pregnant with their daughter, Eve. He is stationed for three years at the largely automated "Sarang" lunar base ("sarang" meaning love in Korean[8]), with only a robotic assistant named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company. A chronic communications satellite failure limits him to only occasional recorded transmissions to and from Earth as fixing the link is currently not among the top priorities of Lunar Industries. Two weeks before completing his contract, Sam begins to hallucinate, briefly seeing a teenage girl on the station. During a routine rover excursion to retrieve ready canisters of helium-3 from a harvesting machine, he sees the same girl standing on the lunar surface. Distracted, he crashes the rover into the harvester, losing internal atmosphere. Sam hurriedly switches on his suit's life support system before losing consciousness.

Sam awakens in the infirmary and GERTY tells him that he is recovering from injuries sustained in an accident. Sam's suspicion is aroused when he eavesdrops on a live communication between GERTY and Lunar Industries executives and learns that GERTY has been instructed not to allow him outside the base. A message from Lunar Industries executives informs him that a rescue crew is on the way, to repair the damaged harvester. Sam sabotages a gas pipe in the base to convince GERTY to allow him outside to repair the fault. Once outside the base, Sam instead goes to investigate the damaged harvester, where he finds someone barely alive in the crashed rover: himself. He brings this Sam (the first Sam) back to the Sarang base.

The two Sams struggle to come to grips with the existence of each other, each believing the other to be a clone of himself, with the first Sam's physical and mental state beginning to rapidly deteriorate. The second Sam reflects himself at the beginning of his contract; sharp, headstrong and short-tempered. Unable to find answers in the base as to the reasons for the inability to contact earth "live", they investigate the source of the base's communication problem by venturing outside the base's perimeter, where they find a series of antennas jamming direct live communication with Earth. The first Sam starts feeling pain and becoming ill, and returns to base where their suspicions of cloning are confirmed when, with the aid of GERTY, he discovers video logs of previous Sam Bell clones working, becoming ill and ultimately getting into the "hibernation" pod intending to return home, only to be incinerated. The three-year "contract" turns out to actually be the clone's life span.

Now with a better understanding of the nature of his existence, the two Sams explore the hibernation pod chamber further, discovering a large room beneath it housing an extensive cache of unawakened clones. The first Sam takes a rover out beyond the jammers, and establishes an uplink with his home on Earth using a portable video phone. While obscuring the camera, he speaks with Eve—now 15 years old—who was the girl he had seen previously in his hallucinations. He learns that Tess died "some years ago", and that the original Sam Bell is alive on Earth.

With only a few hours before the "rescue" team arrives, the two Sams realise that if they are discovered together, they will both be killed. The second Sam makes a plan to launch the first Sam back to Earth in the helium delivery vessel, proposing to place another clone body in the damaged rover to take the first Sam's place. Prior to enacting their plan, the first Sam, aware that he is near death, insists that the second Sam escape while he returns to the rover to die. To cover up the second Sam's existence, GERTY permits Sam to wipe his memory and reboot him. After reprogramming a helium harvester to crash into the jammers, the second Sam launches his escape, being seen by the first Sam in his final moments. The harvester destroys the jamming equipment and the base computer registers that a live up-link has been established. As the second Sam approaches Earth, newscast voice-overs in different languages begin detailing the consequences of his impending return to Earth: Lunar Industries' stocks are crashing, Sam's clone gives evidence to an unidentified Board of Directors, and finally a talk-show host denounces the clone as a 'wacko' or an illegal immigrant and insists he be put in jail.

Cast

Production

Moon is the first feature film directed by commercial director Duncan Jones, who co-wrote the script with Nathan Parker.[9] The film was specifically written as a vehicle for actor Sam Rockwell.[10] The film pays homage to the films of Jones's youth, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Silent Running (1972), Solaris (1972), Alien (1979) and Outland (1981).[11] 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."[12] 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 referenced the photography book Full Moon by Michael Light in designing the look of the film.[13]

Moon's budget was $5 million.[14] The director took steps to minimise production costs, such as keeping the cast small and filming in a studio.[12] Moon was produced at Shepperton Studios, London, England,[9] where it filmed for 33 days.[12] Jones preferred using models instead of digital animation.[11] Jones worked with Bill Pearson, the supervising model maker on Alien, to help design the lunar rovers and helium-3 harvesters in the film.[15] The moon base was created as a full 360-degree set, being 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 a rail within the base since the tether was critical storywise.[12] The visual effects were provided by Cinesite, who sought cut-price deals with independent films.[16] Since Jones had an effects background with commercials, he drew on his past experiences in creating effects under a small budget.[12]

Release and reception

Release

Sam Rockwell and Duncan Jones at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival screening.

The sales company Independent is handling international sales for Moon.[17] Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group acquired distribution rights to the film for English-speaking territories.[9] Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group was considering to send Moon to go straight-to-video; but 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.[1] Sony Pictures Classics distributed the film in the United States theatrically,[18] beginning with screenings in selected theatres in New York and Los Angeles on 12 June.[5] 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.[6] The Australian release was on 8 October.[19]

Reception from critics

The film currently holds an 89% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 164 reviews.[20] Moon received positive reviews at the Sundance Film Festival.[21] Damon Wise of The Times praised Jones's "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."[22] Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter applauded screenwriter Nathan Parker's "sharp [and] individualistic" dialogue and how 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.[23] 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."[24]

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."[25]

Reception from the scientific community

Moon was screened at NASA's Space Center Houston at the request of a professor there. The screening was part of a lecture series. "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.'"[26]

Awards and nominations

BAFTA Awards 2010

  • Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film - nominated
  • Carl Foreman award for special achievement by a British director, writer or producer in their first feature film - won

British Independent Film Awards 2009

  • Best British Independent Film - won
  • Douglas Hickox Award for Duncan Jones - won
  • Best Actor for Sam Rockwell - nominated
  • Best Director for Duncan Jones - nominated
  • Best Screenplay for Nathan Parker - nominated
  • Technical Achievement, Original Score for Clint Mansell - nominated
  • Technical Achievement, Production Designll for Tony Noble - nominated

Fantastic'Arts 2010

  • Special Prize - won
  • Critics' Prize - won

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," says Jones, who ultimately hopes to complete a trilogy of films set in the same fictional universe.[26][3][3]

References

  1. ^ http://images.blu-ray.com/movies/covers/7728_back.jpg
  2. ^ "Moon (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 5 November 2009.
  3. ^ a b c "the leading science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine". SFX. 2009-12-11. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  4. ^ "DVDs: Moon is one small step for David Bowie Jr. Join our fan community today". National Post. January 15, 2010. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
  5. ^ a b "MOON // A Film by Duncan Jones // Dates". Sony Pictures Classics. Retrieved 11 June 2009.
  6. ^ a b Clarke, Cath (29 May 2009). "First sight: Duncan Jones". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 June 2009.
  7. ^ "2009 Winners". British Independent Film Awards. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
  8. ^ "Christal Smith: MOONing for Earth". Huffington Post.
  9. ^ a b c Siegel, Tatiana (5 May 2008). "Sony lands 'Moon' rights". Variety. Retrieved 27 December 2008. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  10. ^ Dawtrey, Adam (14 January 2009). "U.K. co-productions storm Sundance". Variety. Retrieved 15 January 2009. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  11. ^ a b "News Etc". Empire. February 2009. pp. 20–21.
  12. ^ a b c d e Douglas, Edward (23 January 2009). "Sundance EXL: Duncan Jones & Sam Rockwell on Moon". ComingSoon.net. Coming Soon Media, L.P. Retrieved 24 February 2009. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  13. ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (23 October 2008). "Moon rising: Two new lunar movies are taking viewers back into orbit". The Independent. Retrieved 27 December 2008. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  14. ^ Spelling, Ian. "How David Bowie's son wound up making an indie movie about the Moon". SCI FI Wire. Retrieved 2010-01-28.
  15. ^ Marshall, Greg (16 January 2009). "Sundance goes sci-fi with 'Moon'". Park Record. Media News Group. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ Dawtrey, Adam (7 November 2008). "London's CG houses share digital wealth". Variety. Retrieved 27 December 2008. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  17. ^ Dawtrey, Adam (11 March 2008). "Independent flies to 'Moon'". Variety. Retrieved 27 December 2008. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  18. ^ Swart, Sharon (23 January 2009). "Sony Classics nabs 'Moon'". Variety. Retrieved 24 January 2009. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  19. ^ Stratton, David. "At the Movies: Moon". ABC. Retrieved 5 November 2009.
  20. ^ "Moon". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  21. ^ Flynn, Gaynor (24 January 2009). "Brits in the thick of it at Sundance". The Independent. Retrieved 24 February 2009. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  22. ^ Wise, Damon (24 January 2009). "Poignant tale of starman waiting in the sky". The Times. Retrieved 24 February 2009.
  23. ^ Byrge, Duane (26 January 2009). ""Moon" a well-assembled sci-fi thriller". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 11 June 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  24. ^ http://www.empireonline.com/oscars2010/oscar-snubs/
  25. ^ Ebert, Roger (17 June 2009). "Moon". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 26 June 2009.
  26. ^ a b Stewart, Ryan (11 June 2009). "Duncan Jones (a.k.a. Zowie Bowie): Moon". SuicideGirls. Retrieved 11 June 2009.
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