how is this embody thematic and cinematic qualities from some (three) of the previous sci films we've seen and discussed. You can talk about Things to Come, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Oddessey, Brazil, Blade Runner, and Primer. What does Moon inherit from these films?
Connections to Blade Runner:
Blade Runner and Moon seemed very similar to me-- both stylistically and thematically. There was an element of symbolism that they had throughout the film in the smiley face placed on Gerty and the strange clothing that the main character wears. This reminded me of the strange outfits of the replicants in blade runner. Thematically, the question of the new technology being ethical comes into play in both films. The main character is cloned and the clone realizes they are not real and the memories have been "copied" from the real Sam. This is very similar to the copied memories of the replicant Rachel.
Connections to 2001: a Space Odyssey:
Moon and 2001: a Space Odyssey are both about men who live away from the earth and live in space with robots as helpers. Plot-wise the story is very similar and at the beginning Moon borrows small details from 2001, such as the video chat with the daughter back home, and the classical music in the background during a space journey. The space station is very similar to the one in 2001, and a few of the scenes are similar: such as the one of Sam running on the tredmill.
Connections to Primer:
This film connects to Primer in that the plot gets very complex towards the end. The multiple copies of Sam are similar to the multiple versions of the characters in Primer who have traveled in time. Also reminiscent is the degradation of the main characters despite a sense of stillness in time. In Moon it is very surprising when we hear that 15 years have gone by. Sam however does look older and older towards the end of the film. In Primer, similarly, the characters begin to lose their ability to write and seem to be deteriorating towards the ending for instance when Aaron wears the sweatshirt and sweatpants it's a noticeable difference to the suit he always used to be wearing.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon
One of the first things I noticed in moon was the robot-computer (whose name eludes me at the moment) because it reminded me of the one from 2001. I remembered the commentary that said that the computer in 2001 was "the most human" or something like that, and I thought that this was reflected in Moon as well, when the computer would do things for Sam even if it went against orders. The facial expression emoticons were a nice touch though.
Most of the setting inside the Moon base looked pretty sleek and modern, but there were elements of it that reminded me of Brazil; specifically those giant truck things that Sam gets hit by and the computer that he finally uses to contact earth. They had the heavy, industrial look and feel that was very present in Brazil.
Thematically, I thought that it followed the majority of the other movies very well. Some technology is invented or changed to make the world better and- surprise - something goes wrong. I say the majority because I also wanted to say that it took place in the future, but as far as I'm aware Primer didn't so I can't say that for all of the films that we watched. I noticed the least amount of similarities between this film and Primer out of all of the science fiction films that we watched, which is slightly interesting because I believe they were both independent movies.
The thing that surprised me the the most about Moon is that it actually had a somewhat satisfying ending. I know that some people are going to disagree with me on this one, but I never actually expected him to make it to earth. By the sounds of the reports at the end of the movie, he makes it. Nothing is really solved, but I really thought that he wasn't going to reach his destination, which happens in a lot of science fiction movies (like Brazil).
Most of the setting inside the Moon base looked pretty sleek and modern, but there were elements of it that reminded me of Brazil; specifically those giant truck things that Sam gets hit by and the computer that he finally uses to contact earth. They had the heavy, industrial look and feel that was very present in Brazil.
Thematically, I thought that it followed the majority of the other movies very well. Some technology is invented or changed to make the world better and- surprise - something goes wrong. I say the majority because I also wanted to say that it took place in the future, but as far as I'm aware Primer didn't so I can't say that for all of the films that we watched. I noticed the least amount of similarities between this film and Primer out of all of the science fiction films that we watched, which is slightly interesting because I believe they were both independent movies.
The thing that surprised me the the most about Moon is that it actually had a somewhat satisfying ending. I know that some people are going to disagree with me on this one, but I never actually expected him to make it to earth. By the sounds of the reports at the end of the movie, he makes it. Nothing is really solved, but I really thought that he wasn't going to reach his destination, which happens in a lot of science fiction movies (like Brazil).
Question 4
Moon is has a similar theme with Brazil which deals with complete control by a central authority, and the protagonist trying to escape it. In Moon, Sam's life has been planned out for years, with him being killed after three years of service, and a new clone being brought to life. This systematic lifestyle is also shown in Brazil through the paperwork that has to be completed for every action, and people only able to do what they are specifically assigned to do. The biggest differentiation between these two films is (possibly) in their endings. In Brazil, Sam Lowry is able to escape the control of the central authority through his imagination, and we are made to think that Sam has successfully escaped at the end, but it is soon revealed that this too is merely a delusion. Sam is not physically able to escape from the cylindrical room, but mentally, Sam is able to escape from the central authorities, so it is hard to say whether he was able to "escape" control. The difference with Moon is that Sam Bell is able to physically escape from the mining base at the end of the movie. However, the ending is fairly open ended, and the audience is not told whether he reaches Earth, and what happens after he reaches our planet, and there are also thousands of other Sam Bell's stuck in the mining base left to continue the three year cycle.
Moon and Blade Runner both play with the concept of memory. The Sam's have implanted memories from the original Sam Bell as a way to incentivize the clones to work the three years. Sam has a family to look forward to at the three years, and is what helps him to get through loneliness and boredom until he is ultimately killed at the end of his service. On the other hand, memory is used as a way to differentiate between Replicants and humans in Blade Runner. Replicants are identical to humans except in their increased agility and strength, and the fact that they don't have memories past a certain point in time. In Moon, Sam is able to figure out that they are probably clones since they look the same, and also have exactly the same memories. I found it interesting that memory is used as the differentiating factor for both of these films.
Moon and Blade Runner both play with the concept of memory. The Sam's have implanted memories from the original Sam Bell as a way to incentivize the clones to work the three years. Sam has a family to look forward to at the three years, and is what helps him to get through loneliness and boredom until he is ultimately killed at the end of his service. On the other hand, memory is used as a way to differentiate between Replicants and humans in Blade Runner. Replicants are identical to humans except in their increased agility and strength, and the fact that they don't have memories past a certain point in time. In Moon, Sam is able to figure out that they are probably clones since they look the same, and also have exactly the same memories. I found it interesting that memory is used as the differentiating factor for both of these films.
The romantic sci-fi film Moon has a lot in common with its predecessors, most notably Primer, Blade Runner, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Moon and Primer shared an important concept necessary for a “good” sci-fi film--futuristic technology that is grounded in real-world concepts and sciences. By doing this, a film creates a world its audience can understand and therefore relate to. In Moon, much of the technology--from the lunar base to the harvester--was created with input from NASA to ensure accuracy. For example, Jones explains that the astronauts built the base using a material dug out of the moon itself, to save costs. He also discusses how the symptoms affecting the old Sam clone--the headaches, bleeding, pale complexion, dizziness, and fevers--are often caused by acute radiation poisoning, which would be a practical and assured way for the He3 harvesting company to gradually kill the clones. Similarly, the time machine featured in Primer was built with an understanding of the principles of gravity and the Meissner effect, which deals with magnetic fields and superconductors. The characters spoke in technical jargon used by working scientist, further emphasizing the potential reality of the situation. Shane Carruth, the director, was a math major and engineer before becoming a film director, enabling him to develop these more complex ideas. Though these films differ in that the technology in Moon is more easily understood by the common man, while the explanation of the technology in Primer is really only appropriate for those with a math/science background, the connection both these films make to real-world concepts is crucial to the success of the film.
Thematically, both films deal with the breakdown of a relationship. In Moon, that relationship is between Sam and...himself. It explores what it would be like to meet a younger, less knowledgeable version of yourself, and whether you would actually like yourself as a person--in Sam’s case, he struggles greatly with both areas, though eventually finds peace with himself. In Primer, the relationship is between Aaron and Abe, two young colleagues with very different ideas about the use and implications of a time travel machine. They start off the film as companions, as equals, but end as acquaintances who want nothing to do with the other.
Moon also has a lot in common with Blade Runner, thematically, as both deal with the ethics of human cloning. In Blade Runner, the audience immediately learns that human replication has backfired, as the “Blade Runner” is a man hired to eliminate them. Through this plot, the filmmaker is warning us about the dangers of messing with genetic engineering. Though Moon is less obviously opposed to cloning, the suffering each clone endures as he longs for a home he will never reach is enough to suggest that the cloning is wrong, even though it’s only ruining one life. Both films remind us that while technological advancement can mean positive progress, the sacrifices people make are often too great.
Cinematically, Moon and 2001: A Space Odyssey are similar, specifically in the way they created the worlds of the film. Both films make use of extensive modelwork, (though obviously, CGI wasn’t really available to Kubrick). Jones explains how “there’s a depth to the look that you get with models that you just can’t get with CGI...it’s about the detail that you just wouldn’t think to put in”. The robot-characters in both films are also quite similar, speaking to the main character as a human-like friend. The robots also wield more power than their human “owners”--GERTY refuses to let Sam outside and communicates with Earth via live feed (which Sam can’t do), and Hal prevents Frank from reentering the satellite. One more cinematic similarity the two share is the way they underscore scenes shot in space with classical music, which creates an interesting juxtaposition between the past and future.
Moon themes
The film that I link most closely to Moon is 2001: A Space Odyssey. To me the link is more than the fact that both are set in space. Moon very much builds off many of the themes introduced in 2001. Firstly, the idea of technology progressing so far that it becomes an isolating agent. In each film, very little communication happens between characters (until in Moon Sam meets his clone). In both films, most of the dialogue happens between humans and supercomputers (HAL in 2001 and GERTY in Moon). In both films, the supercomputers are highly developed characters. One major difference between the two films is that one supercomputer, HAL, attempts to thwart the human astronauts, Dave and Frank's mission while the other supercomputer, GERTY, actually helps Sam escape back to Earth. Though the supercomputers take drastically different actions, both do so on order to stay true to the orders that they have been given. In doing so, the supercomputers actually exhibit human qualities. Both films raise the questions, is that the way that our society is headed and if so, is that a good thing? One difference I saw between 2001 and Moon that actually puts Moon much more in the realm of Blade Runner is that Moon has a very prevalent ethical question that the film asks of its viewers. In Blade Runner, this question is, what does it mean to be a human being? In Moon, this question is what does it mean to be a clone and do you have the same rights as the human you are a clone of?
Questioning Moon Post
Like many of the other sic-fi films we have watched this unit, Moon initially started off slowly with little action. The first connection I made in Moon was the similarity between Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Gerty in this film. The two films explore what it means to be human, a common genre theme, but they do so differently through these two characters. Both of the computers have genuine human-like characteristics, but while Hal ultimately acts as a force of evil, Gerty has Sam's best interests at heart and proves to be an entirely emotional character. It is possible that Jones took 2001's quasi computer-human character and added more humanity to it in creating Gerty, something that made Moon more than just an average sic-fi film.
Another apparent connection is the one between Brazil and Moon. Both films deal with an overbearing, secretive, and all-powerful government, one that hides information from its citizens. In Brazil, Sam (the Brazil Sam) is not able to escape this government; it ultimately drives him mad and the audience is left feeling disappointed as we stare at his spaced-out smile once it is revealed that the happy ending is playing out only in his head. In Moon, however, Sam does achieve this happy ending as he his able to make it back to Earth and experience the life that the original Sam once lived. Moon Sam is able to escape the repressive government and find peace with his humanity; Brazil Sam cannot escape the government that he himself was a part of. While the two films differ in thematic content, they share similar set design in that both sets are very realistic looking and appear to be shot in a studio. In both films, it appears that full-scale sets were used, making films that otherwise would be unrealistic look realistic to the viewer.
One connection I made between Moon and Primer was the music. I do not know if the same music was used or if it was composed by the same artist, but both soundtracks are capable of being happy, sad, sentimental, and thoughtful all at the same time. Because the music had so many different tones depending on the context, it was able to mirror the complex emotions the characters felt as there appeared to be multiple of themselves (a thematic similarity between the two films). When the characters in both Moon and Primer found and utilized their doubles, they were confused, excited, and inventive about what to do next. The characters in Primer, or at least Aaron, used his double to go to the future and pass on the events of what would happen with their time machine technology to the Aaron in the past. In Moon, the younger Sam also goes back (not to the past, but back to Earth) with knowledge about what is really going on in the company and with intentions of passing that information on. Moon inherits from Primer the idea of not only having multiple versions of one person, but using the information one of those versions holds to better the lives of all of the versions. Both films portray this as a selfless and brave act, although it is interesting to think about how selfless it really is if you are doing it to benefit another version of yourself.
I think that Moon surprises the audience because it really gets at the root of "what makes us human" much more directly than many other sci-fi films. The first Sam we see is actually a clone of the original Sam, as is the second Sam that is activated once the first Sam gets into an accident. Both of these characters are technically not human, but they are derived from a human, so on the human to not human scale, how human are they? Gerty is definitely not human, but he has emotions and looks out for the best interests of the Sams, especially when he reboots himself to erase his memory, so do emotions make him partly human? I believe that Jones is suggesting that human is not a physical attribute, but an emotional one; all of the Sam clones and Gerty are human because they are capable of caring for another person and having tangible emotions. In this same way, Jones portrays the men who work at the company as inhuman; they secretly clone their own employees without telling them and refuse to acknowledge that these actions are morally wrong. Moon is different from other sic-fi films in that it sets up the non-human characters as the most characteristically human while depicting the fully human characters as devoid of human emotion or any level of sympathy.
Another apparent connection is the one between Brazil and Moon. Both films deal with an overbearing, secretive, and all-powerful government, one that hides information from its citizens. In Brazil, Sam (the Brazil Sam) is not able to escape this government; it ultimately drives him mad and the audience is left feeling disappointed as we stare at his spaced-out smile once it is revealed that the happy ending is playing out only in his head. In Moon, however, Sam does achieve this happy ending as he his able to make it back to Earth and experience the life that the original Sam once lived. Moon Sam is able to escape the repressive government and find peace with his humanity; Brazil Sam cannot escape the government that he himself was a part of. While the two films differ in thematic content, they share similar set design in that both sets are very realistic looking and appear to be shot in a studio. In both films, it appears that full-scale sets were used, making films that otherwise would be unrealistic look realistic to the viewer.
One connection I made between Moon and Primer was the music. I do not know if the same music was used or if it was composed by the same artist, but both soundtracks are capable of being happy, sad, sentimental, and thoughtful all at the same time. Because the music had so many different tones depending on the context, it was able to mirror the complex emotions the characters felt as there appeared to be multiple of themselves (a thematic similarity between the two films). When the characters in both Moon and Primer found and utilized their doubles, they were confused, excited, and inventive about what to do next. The characters in Primer, or at least Aaron, used his double to go to the future and pass on the events of what would happen with their time machine technology to the Aaron in the past. In Moon, the younger Sam also goes back (not to the past, but back to Earth) with knowledge about what is really going on in the company and with intentions of passing that information on. Moon inherits from Primer the idea of not only having multiple versions of one person, but using the information one of those versions holds to better the lives of all of the versions. Both films portray this as a selfless and brave act, although it is interesting to think about how selfless it really is if you are doing it to benefit another version of yourself.
I think that Moon surprises the audience because it really gets at the root of "what makes us human" much more directly than many other sci-fi films. The first Sam we see is actually a clone of the original Sam, as is the second Sam that is activated once the first Sam gets into an accident. Both of these characters are technically not human, but they are derived from a human, so on the human to not human scale, how human are they? Gerty is definitely not human, but he has emotions and looks out for the best interests of the Sams, especially when he reboots himself to erase his memory, so do emotions make him partly human? I believe that Jones is suggesting that human is not a physical attribute, but an emotional one; all of the Sam clones and Gerty are human because they are capable of caring for another person and having tangible emotions. In this same way, Jones portrays the men who work at the company as inhuman; they secretly clone their own employees without telling them and refuse to acknowledge that these actions are morally wrong. Moon is different from other sic-fi films in that it sets up the non-human characters as the most characteristically human while depicting the fully human characters as devoid of human emotion or any level of sympathy.
Ima Moon ya
The most obvious connections from moon can be drawn to 2001 and Blade Runner. Hal and GERTY are robotically identical, but their purpose in the film does vary a teensy bit. In 2001, Hal is there largely to contrast with the humans on board the ship, Hal being the most human of all the crew members. Once again, GERTY is a very human-like robot in that he seems to genuinely care about Sam. What makes moon interesting is not the contrast between GERTY and Sam but rather the comparisons. Both are technically "programmed" and yet they both have rather human characteristics, furthering the discussion on what is human and does Sam still count even though he is technically a scientific creation. That conveniently leads into a comparison to Blade Runner, and how similar the Replicants are quite similar to the Sam clones. Both the clones and Replicants are used for labor but are given human emotions and thoughts. This leads back to the reoccurring theme of "if it feels and acts like a human, is it a human? and if not what is human?" And once again the answer is left up for the audience to decide. Things to Come also plays a part with the background of Earth. Both movies take place in the future of when the movie itself was released and play into realistic scenarios of how the future could end up. While Things to Come uses that as the plot for the entire movie, Moon simply uses the background information that humans mess things up and that is why Sam is on the moon. It still makes the movie feel more genuine because it does seem like a believably crappy future we will probably have.
What I thought was different and what made the film unique was the ending. With films that deal with "what is human" themes it is often left with nothing really changing. In Blade Runner the audience is left to understand that the main character was a Replicant and now he is going off to live out what is left of his "life", but nothing really changes in the world he is in. With Moon, the audience is left with those news sound bits that make it seem like the Sam clone is going to, somehow, change the future. It seems like he is spreading awareness of what is happening and that might lead to people rising up and seeing what the company is doing as inhumane. It is left open ended but a bit more satisfying than other sci-fi movies that deal with similar themes.
What I thought was different and what made the film unique was the ending. With films that deal with "what is human" themes it is often left with nothing really changing. In Blade Runner the audience is left to understand that the main character was a Replicant and now he is going off to live out what is left of his "life", but nothing really changes in the world he is in. With Moon, the audience is left with those news sound bits that make it seem like the Sam clone is going to, somehow, change the future. It seems like he is spreading awareness of what is happening and that might lead to people rising up and seeing what the company is doing as inhumane. It is left open ended but a bit more satisfying than other sci-fi movies that deal with similar themes.
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