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Here be spoilers. Go buy MOON on Blu-ray before you read another word.
The greater good in film tends to require sacrifice. It’s why MacReady sits in the snow waiting to see what happens. It’s why Freeman dies never knowing if anyone found the note in the bottle that he threw into the sea. Sometimes this final selfless act is rewarded. The best and most recent example being a garbage collector, who in a wonderful example of screenwriting not only comes back from the dead, but in doing so reveals he’s a lot more than the sum of his parts. Turns out the little fucker has a soul*.
Which brings us neatly enough to Sam Bell and probably the most human story I’ve ever seen in hard science fiction.
There is a greater good in Moon, but Bell doesn’t sacrifice himself for it. He’s betrayed for it.
For the first clone we meet the revelation comes too late and that’s the scene that kills me. It’s also where I believe Moon is pushed from a merely excellent film to a perfect one. Sam’s already in denial about what’s going on – even when confronted with himself in the form of the second Sam**. By the time he’s got a handle on the truth he’s falling apart. And then, and this is when Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker really turn the screws on the character and the audience, Sam phones home.
We’ve had characters discover they’ve been living a lie before – it’s a reliable staple in science fiction for a reason – but this is the only time I’ve seen someone put in such a corner. Death is bad enough, but the poor bastard just had his life taken away as well.
He never had a chance. He breaks down, wants to go home, and if you’re like me you break down right along with him.
And that’s why the script is smart enough to throw away the revelation of the clones at the close of the first act, when less confident writers would have tried to reveal it much later. The movie brilliantly plays with the audience’s expectations through GERTY’s programming, and sets new standards of visual effects when Sam interacts with himself, while reveling in old school minature and model work elsewhere. Once the baton is passed to the second Sam, we’re back in the fight that both O’Niel and Ripley faced in Outland and Alien and we’re very much rooting for the underdog. That the bastards also managed to squeeze in a visual reference to Tron that I missed on the first five or six viewings is just icing on the cake.
But the first Sam still dies.
This is some sophisticated science fiction. It wears its influences on its sleeve, but never takes the lazy route of homage most movies do. Instead it prefers to go all out and risk everything on sharing that very special space that earlier movies carved out for themselves.
When you take into account Sam Rockwell’s performance, Clint Mansell’s score and the fact that the whole shebang cost only $5million(!) I’ll go as far as saying that Moon is the first truly important science fiction movie of the 21st century.
Fuck it. I’ll go further. Moon is better than 2001: A Space Odyssey by a country mile.
*If you’ve been following @MarsPhoenix on Twitter you’ll know how easy souls are to project
**one thing we learn in the director’s commentary is that Sam 1 and Sam 2 are actually Sam 5 and Sam 6
Was looking forward to your thoughts on Moon sir, fantastic post, will link to from http://blog.manmademovies.co.uk if that’s ok?
Of course
Was checking out your Flickr stream earlier. Lovely stuff.
I’m sold.
Was in two minds whether this was for me or not. Though beautifully shot, I find 2001 to be way too abstract and ponderous for my tastes. Was anticipating pretty much the same for Moon,
Nevertheless, your thoughts have me intrigued, and despite the spoilers, I’ll be hunting this one down for a viewing.
Really agree with you–the film’s writing has huge stones in doing the reveal early so it focus right in on the resultant psychological fallout.
Been arguing this point with a friend, who complained that, “the film went nowhere after blowing its load early.” I can understand where he’s coming from, but that’s missing the point entirely in my view.
Great review, Mike, and the first time I’ve been interested in getting a DVD just for the commentary since The Thing’s release on disc.
Completely agree with you that its better than 2001, Its been a while since I’ve enjoyed & felt so much emotion when watching a film, let alone one in my favourite genre.
Brilliant review.
Also, this really brings to light for me, the whole nonsense of Downloading movies ripping from movie sales. I believe that its all about the quality of the film. I have encourage so many people to go see this & will be buying it for my whole family for christmas. Not sure if I am explaining myself fully but perhaps its a point for another time..
Spot on as usual Mike. This movie was achingly beautiful. Quiet and powerful.
Thank goodness you are better at writing this sort of thing up – I saw it at the cinema and I am still a bit lost for words.
This is GREAT analysis Mike, befitting a truly great movie.
One of the things I LOVED about MOON was the production design – the still you’ve used at the end of your post captures it nicely, with the environment around Sam framing the performance using the same stylish retro-futuristic aesthetic I first encountered in the PlayStation game Wipeout, and the wider work of Designers’ Republic.
Taking the bait of your post’s deliberately provocative conclusion, I’ve always struggled with the need to understand one film as ‘better’ than another – especially where one film is so clearly influenced by another. And here, it feels as though the influence 2001 exerts over MOON is present as much in my experience of watching it as it is in the production itself.
2001 taught me what to expect from the aesthetics of a good science fiction movie. It also trained me to be instantly wary of a ship’s computer, a prejudice Jones goes after with the eesentially benevolent, emoticon-faced Gerty.
These learnings were subsequently reinforced by Ridley Scott’s ALIEN, and by Stanley Donen’s SATURN 3 (penned, incidentally, by Martin Amis), both movies that, though their tone is completely different, have a place within the evolution of my experience of watching MOON.
If there’s value in comparisons, maybe my position would be this – that MOON has the potential to be as important a movie as 2001 in the evolution of the science-fiction genre, and that, pound for pound, it feels like there’s more meaning, and heart, and style in this movie than any of the forerunners to which it owes its existence.
Amazing film. Feels like an adaptation of a lost sci-fi novel.
What struck me was how much more malevolent GERTY was compared to HAL. The smilies just creeped me out.
I need to watch it again (and again to see the Tron reference) but one thing bothered me from a plot POV. Why didn’t Sam2 try to save Sam1 and himself by using one of the un-activated clones as the decoy?
“Fuck it. I’ll go further. Moon is better than 2001: A Space Odyssey by a country mile.”
I’ll be one to second that. Moon was absolutely fantastic, and while I doubt that anything is going to change in the genre in the near future, I think that it shows that a highly intelligent, sharp and cheap film can be a far better film than one stuffed with money and firecrackers.