Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Here’s one for your Netflix queue
Quick: name five real science fiction movies. Real ones, not monster movies, nor pseudo-Westerns or pseudo-Samurai or pseudo-whatever with a thin overlay of SF . . . I’m talking a movie that could not exist without the science at its core, and moreover, a movie that focuses on the themes that SF deals with best.
What does it mean to be human, for example.
So toss out Terminator and its sequels (pursuit by crazed killer, feh), Alien and its sequels (monster movie), Star Wars and its prequels (fairy tale) and what are you left with? Karen and I came up with 2001, THX 1138, and Blade Runner. Maybe Planet of the Apes, for all its flaws.
And then there’s Moon (2009).
Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the sole flesh-and-blood operator of the helium-3 mining station Sarang, on the Moon’s far side. He’s accompanied by GERTY, the soft-spoken AI (voiced by Kevin Spacey) who will instantly conjure memories of HAL 9000. Sam’s nearing the end of his three-year term, with only two weeks to go before shipping back to Earth to be reunited with his wife and the nearly three-year-old child he’s never met. But all is not well with Sam; he’s having headaches and hallucinations of increasing intensity, and when he crashes his rover into one of the station’s four harvesters, things really start going to hell.
This is one of those films that cannot be reviewed. Either you screw up the next viewer’s experience with spoilers, or you provide such sketchy details that the reader draws the wrong conclusions. Yes, there’s a ruthless corporation (anyone with any sense of irony whatsoever will see right through the movie’s opening, wherein we are treated to a Lunar Industries Limited commercial — aren’t they wonderful?) and Kevin Spacey’s GERTY seems more than a little likely to win the AI Most Likely to Go Nuts Award, so isn’t this more of the same-old same-old?
Um, no.
Instead, this is a movie that confounds its viewers’ expectations, that provides a richness of detail that can keep people arguing for days (check out the discussion boards on IMDB — after you’ve seen the movie, of course), that packs a huge dramatic punch, and that tackles one of the big SF themes in a fresh and provocative way. There’s even a sly bit of social commentary here, snuck in on us with the film’s last line. It’s subtle and damn near everyone watching the movie will pass it off as a joke. And no, it’s not the oh so tired “Aren’t big corporations eeeeevil?” trope.
Good stuff, my friends.
D.
I disagree with Blade Runner – it’s all about chasing down baddies.
But if Blade Runner is on your list, BSG should be too. *even tho it’s TV, not a movie.)
And how do I find you on FB? 🙂
Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Weird Science or Judge Dredd? Barbarella (Husband call it a more of a sex cavort than a romp and it has no science)? 2001 for sure. Logan’s Run? War of The Worlds? Forbidden Planet? Day The Earth Stood Still? Aeon Flux? Akira? Appleseed? The Fly!! The Tingler? *cough*Avatar*cough*? Solaris(movie is better than book)? Brazil? Wall-E? Gattica? Frankenstein?
Although some friends of mine complained that it was just an extended Outer Limits episode, I really liked it. Review here: http://lovelysalome.blogspot.com/2010/02/moon-2009.html
And I second the rec for BSG!!
Hi, Nox. Yes, BR was all about chasing baddies, but it also focused on questions of identity and humanity. This was even more evident in the book, where the protagonist’s status as human vs. replicant was even more in doubt than in the movie (although I’ve long felt that Ford’s monotone voice-over was an intentional clue that he was a replicant. Either that, or a suggestion that he’s less human than the replicants).
I can’t rememmber my handle over at Facebook, but if you’re under “noxcat” I’ll come looking for you. Otherwise, I’ll write you later once I’m at home and can check such things.
Lyvvie, I do need to check out Solaris. As for the others . . . Body Snatchers, maybe (more allegory than SF, IMO, which is what trips up Clockwork Orange, too; both films are more social commentary than SF, I think). Same goes for Brazil, which is delightful satire and social commentary, but really not dependent on the science/technology. Hmm . . . Dark City comes to mind.
Would you believe I have never watched an episode of BSG?
Carrie, I’ll come check out your review.
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. This might mean something to some of you. More than anything else, Moon reminded me of the stories of Stanislaw Lem (the Pirx the Pilot short stories).
Hm. Either I timed out, or I got spam-filtered (it was a one word, hyperlinked comment, so I’m voting for filtering). Regardless…
What about Primer?
Ooh, looks interesting (just looked at the trailer). I hadn’t heard of this one.
Gotta go check it out on Netflix . . .
Okay, I just watched Primer.
Hmm.
My first impression is, time travel paradoxes do not make for great cinema.
My second impression is, was that movie even about a time travel paradox?
Why is that one guy in a coma? Why is that other guy’s ear bleeding, and what happened to their handwriting? WTF happened?
So then I read the Wikipedia exegesis, and I still don’t understand what happened. I am impressed Carruth made the film on a $7,000 budget, and I do think he was successful in showing the banality of scientific discovery. As for his secondary goal of showing the breakdown in the two main characters’ friendship, I didn’t think that was nearly as successful — I felt he sprung it on me in the last few minutes.
No, not great cinema perhaps – but I enjoyed it. As for ‘WTF happened?’, well – xkcd explained it best here.
Oh, that xkcd comic was wonderful! He clearly had the same impression of the movie that I had.
I enjoyed the technobabble; I felt he did a far better job of it than most people do in SF movies. I also respect the ambitiousness of the filmmaker. I just don’t think he did a very good job.