Astronaut Sam Bell has a quintessentially personal encounter toward the end of his three-year stint on the Moon, where he, working alongside his computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth parcels of a resource that has helped diminish our planet's power problems.
Sam Bell has a three year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract's entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station. His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth. There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY, the intelligent computer whose function is to attend to his day to day needs. With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated; he knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches. All he wants is to return to Earth to be with his wife Tess and their infant daughter Eve, who was born just prior to his leaving for this job. With two weeks to go, he gets into an accident at one of the mechanical harvesters and is rendered unconscious. Injured, he ...Written by
Huggo
The name of the Korean company that owns the Lunar Station (Sa Rlang) is mispronounced several times throughout the movie. The correct pronunciation of Sa Rlang is with the "a" in both words having the sound of the "o" in the English word "odd". See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Sam Bell:
[voiceover]
There was a time when energy was a dirty word. When turning on your light was a hard choice. Cities in brown-out. Food shortages, cars burning fuel to run. But that was the past. Where are we now? How do we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom? Right now we are the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun trapped in rock, harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today we deliver enough clean-burning helium-3 to supply ...
[...] See more »
Crazy Credits
The fictional company which owns and operates the lunar base is called Lunar Industries Ltd. As a nod to this, the production company used to make the movie is also called Lunar Industries Ltd (UK Companies House company number 06346944), whose company directors are Duncan Zowie Hayward Jones (the movie's director) and Stuart Douglas Fenegan (one of the movie's producers). See more »
The Moon has always been a source of wonder and mystery. It is so far away, yet much closer than the stars. Man has reached the Moon, but there is still so much that is unknown about it. It is a bridge between mystery and fact, and director Duncan Jones uses it as a brilliant setting for his science fiction film Moon.
The movie stars Sam Rockwell as a lunar astronaut also named Sam stationed alone on the Moon for three years. He isn't entirely alone, because the AI computer GERTY (Kevin Spacey) is constantly following him. Energy companies have discovered vast amounts of Helium on the Moon, and they now mine that Helium in order to power the Earth. As Sam begins his last two weeks stationed in the mining facility, his mind begins to break down and he soon realizes he just might not be able to make it back.
It is quite obvious that the main intention of Moon was to pay respect to the older science fiction movies like Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it is a great homage to the genre indeed. GERTY is possibly one of my favorite AI computers ever in a movie, because it constantly shows its mood through a series of different smiley faces, and has Kevin Spacey's voice. The overall story of Moon is pretty good, and it definitely tugs a bit on your emotions because the main character Sam is so real and relatable. It is a bit more of an art film, but I have found that the mixture of art and Sci-Fi is a brilliant combination.
The absolute key ingredient to making Moon was finding a capable actor because it is essentially a one man show, and they picked a winner with Sam Rockwell. Rockwell gives one of his best performances to date, and while it might be a little early to predict I can see him getting an Oscar nomination for his role. The other great thing about this picture is the special effects. Since the budget was so low this could have been a disaster, but the shots of the Moon Rovers and Harvesters were astonishingly realistic, and a typical movie goer would think this had at least a 40 million dollar budget. It is amazing how much more was accomplished with this tiny budget compared to the $200 million dollars poured into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Overall Moon is a complete film. It isn't groundbreaking, but it accomplished everything it set out to be, which are a great homage and a chance for Sam Rockwell to really show his acting prowess. I found myself leaving the theater with a great feeling of satisfaction that I have only received from a couple movies this year so far.
9/10
250 of 297 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
The Moon has always been a source of wonder and mystery. It is so far away, yet much closer than the stars. Man has reached the Moon, but there is still so much that is unknown about it. It is a bridge between mystery and fact, and director Duncan Jones uses it as a brilliant setting for his science fiction film Moon.
The movie stars Sam Rockwell as a lunar astronaut also named Sam stationed alone on the Moon for three years. He isn't entirely alone, because the AI computer GERTY (Kevin Spacey) is constantly following him. Energy companies have discovered vast amounts of Helium on the Moon, and they now mine that Helium in order to power the Earth. As Sam begins his last two weeks stationed in the mining facility, his mind begins to break down and he soon realizes he just might not be able to make it back.
It is quite obvious that the main intention of Moon was to pay respect to the older science fiction movies like Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it is a great homage to the genre indeed. GERTY is possibly one of my favorite AI computers ever in a movie, because it constantly shows its mood through a series of different smiley faces, and has Kevin Spacey's voice. The overall story of Moon is pretty good, and it definitely tugs a bit on your emotions because the main character Sam is so real and relatable. It is a bit more of an art film, but I have found that the mixture of art and Sci-Fi is a brilliant combination.
The absolute key ingredient to making Moon was finding a capable actor because it is essentially a one man show, and they picked a winner with Sam Rockwell. Rockwell gives one of his best performances to date, and while it might be a little early to predict I can see him getting an Oscar nomination for his role. The other great thing about this picture is the special effects. Since the budget was so low this could have been a disaster, but the shots of the Moon Rovers and Harvesters were astonishingly realistic, and a typical movie goer would think this had at least a 40 million dollar budget. It is amazing how much more was accomplished with this tiny budget compared to the $200 million dollars poured into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Overall Moon is a complete film. It isn't groundbreaking, but it accomplished everything it set out to be, which are a great homage and a chance for Sam Rockwell to really show his acting prowess. I found myself leaving the theater with a great feeling of satisfaction that I have only received from a couple movies this year so far.
9/10