My handlers and minders don’t let me out much any more, due to ongoing litigations and my apparent inability to keep my pants on. As a result, I don’t get to the movies the way I did in my youth, and when I do manage a movie it’s usually a movie my wife, the sainted Duchess, wants to see. My wife is smart and pretty, but her taste in films is what scientists term atrocious. Don’t tell her I said that; I have enough bruises. For proof I offer up the simple fact that one of the last movies she made me see was Valentine’s Day. I rest my case.
Now and then, though, I am left on my own here at the Somers Bunker and allowed to rent movies on the magical televisual device in our living room. Whoever invented pay-per-view movies should be canonized immediately. Being able to press three buttons and watch a movie makes popping a DVD in seem like an immense chore. I mean, three buttons from across the room versus, what, 37 steps? No contest, mi amigos.
Anyway, while The Duchess was out of town this week I rented Moon, starring Sam Rockwell. I’d heard some vague things about it but didn’t know much more than the star and premise. I really enjoyed it, mainly because it was one of the rare pure science-fiction stories you see filmed these days. Most SFnal movies are genre-mixers, really – and nothing wrong with that, as my own books fall into that category. But now and then it’s nice to watch a movie that is just SF geekery, you know? And Moon falls into that category. There are no guns, no explosions, no fancy special effects, and 4.5 characters, total. The story is not exactly a puzzle; you should figure out what’s going on pretty quickly. But it takes the refreshing approach of taking its premise seriously, exploring that premise’s implications, and seeing where that takes you, story-wise. It works really well.
One reason it works really well is because it shows you a lot and tells you very, very little. This makes sense because the character is on a mining base on the moon by himself, with just a computer and some video messages from earth for company. He only knows what he knows, dig, and what he can piece together from observation and logic. No Basil Exposition[1] shows up to explain everything, and the script very smartly avoids any Moron Lines to stress things that are perfectly obvious. For example, at one point in the film a message arrives telling the main character that a rescue team has been dispatched to effect some repairs. The photos of the rescue team are all you need to see to know they are bad news. No one needs to make a speech about it, and the character doesn’t need to find damning evidence that throws us a plot “twist”. You observe the team, you put their arrival into context of what’s happened already, and you know they’re bad news. The real fun part is, the main character makes the same calculation, but internally. When he does voice his conclusions about the “rescue team” it feels perfectly natural, because we’ve all made the same mental journey.
It’s nice to see that in the age of crap like Transformers, which, frankly, gives SF a bad name, someone out there can still raise 5 million bucks, get actors like Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey to star, and put out a smart little movie like Moon. I hear the director plans to make 2 more films set in the same general universe, though not necessarily extending Moon‘s narrative beyond this movie. I’m glad to hear it.
[1] If nothing else, Mike Myers gave us one of the most inspired character names ever.
Basil Exposition? Oh my gosh. You are brilliant. I never caught that.
I remind myself often that I am not to tell my readers what my POV MC feels, I should be making them feel it themselves.
I want to watch Moon now.
Elisabeth – It’s brilliant! Because he’s Basil Exposition, and his entire role in the movies is to explain all the background information! BRILLIANT! And also he’s played by Mike York, who had me at “The Last Remake of Beau Geste”.
“I want to watch Moon now.” – Such is my power. Fear me.
I saw Moon when it first came out (I work as a projectionist so I see everything), And I have to agree that it was brilliantly made. It was on of my favorite films of the year. I was disappointed that it was not even in the Oscar conversation. Hopefully it will get good dvd sales and spawn some more science fiction movies that understand the importance of the implications of the future and not just the shiny robots.
Although I was disappointed that a movie directed by David Bowie’s son didn’t have any glitter covered space men in tight pants.
Well, I agree with everything you said about Moon – the characters and storytelling technique were great. But as “SF geekery” it was fatally flawed. I don’t mind being asked to take a leap of faith – but the whole story can’t be based on things that just plain don’t make sense. (SPOILER ALERT – stop reading here if you don’t want the movie spoiled!) “Moon” has too many of these moments. Just as one example – the guy climbs into a cargo payload that’s meant to be fired back to earth with (presumably) some kind of rail gun – and he’s going to SURVIVE the G forces? And – even more basic – instead of just HIRING some minimum wage manual laborers to work the station, they’re going to create a whole subbasement full of clones, and wake them up as needed, while maintaining a giant conspiracy to keep them (and the world) from figuring out what’s going on? Huh? That’s just plain stupid!
No matter how good the storytelling, it gets ruined if the SF just doesn’t work. That’s the whole point of SF Geekery!
Now “The Man Who Fell to Earth” – THAT was a cool movie! 🙂
Duncan, I see “Moon” differently, but of course YMMV. I note that we’re given almost zero information about the situation back on earth – economically, socially etc. If things are bad on earth, labor might indeed be too expensive, or its possible the technology behind cloning is so cheap it makes clone labor more affordable. And I bought the cargo ship idea; after all, people have traveled to the moon and back, and they don’t tell us how *fast* he’d be traveling – the only info we get is when the character tells himself he’ll “take a few G’s” but will be fine. I had no problem with that.
Of course, some of this is me filling in info the story didn’t give us, which is a bit of a cheat in itself. But I bought it, personally. Cheers!
J