Moon fits into a familiar genre that I call “Truckers in Space” (think Alien, Outland, and, well, maybe, Space Truckers). It has the small cast, big mining ship, working class crew making a major lifestyle sacrifice for a “share,” big business cover-up, threatening central computer…and so on. What I thought was new, and loved most, was that Mr. Jones and Mr. Rockwell brought warmth and a genuine emotional conundrum into this rotten situation. I wouldn’t like knowing I’m easily replaced. Although he’s a million miles away and has suffered the hardship of his wife dying and selling out, I’d want to be the real guy, not the clone. Even Kubrick and Tartovsky with their wide-screen, big-picture, birds-eye views can sometimes be faulted(or praised) for avoiding this human element.

The thing I didn’t like? When we run out of fuel…why do we go back to a fuel based economy? Mining the moon? We are gluttons.

I had the chance to see a screening of this with Duncan Jones present. He downplayed the screenplay and said he wrote it quickly because he had a window of opportunity to work with Sam Rockwell. A funny–at least to me–behind the scenes bit he mentioned was had to do with Dead Ringers. They studied the bonus features from on the Laser Disc of that movie for technical effects on twinning. Long live old media!

He also thanked us all for coming to Moon instead of District 9 which was opening that weekend. I got the impression Mr. Jones is a bit of a hopeless sci-fi nut who had the interests of other hopeless sci-fi nuts in mind. He mentioned that he wanted to be true to “hard science” in his story and he has reservations about having to use ghostly hallucinations at the beginning of the movie because they were more fantasy-based.

Benton, wow, “1,” …making an movie about that story is impossible. I also love Dead Ringers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mokkQ1d_308

–John Ebert

I too loved, and was thoroughly surprised by how incredible this film was. Sam Rockwells performance is almost as good as Irons in Dead Ringers. Your insights into historyless society are wonderful, and it certainly ties into your “48 hour mentality” notions as well. Culturual amnesia and clones (Kid A) are becoming an extremely real and dangerous force, and I fear for the Ipod generation that is to succeed mine very much.

I love the terror of how the cold corporate watchdogs are in the position of total manipulation of the non-human beings that are clones through their ominous video screens…theres an awful reality I think Duncan Jones captures there because as soon as we are able to push human cloning into the public eye (and I have reason to believe it is quite possible, and probably has already been done) corporations will use humans as mere tools for whatever they need done, exactly as this film documents. And who is to stop them?

Brilliant insight into the mythical aspects as always…it seems as if myth is indeed a terroritory that has charted out all of our horrors that keep being replayed and dreamed up like some endless videotape by the great minds and souls around us.

I hope this review allow people to apreciate what an underrated film this is.

Looking forward to the new ones as always!