MOON Review and Duncan Jones Interview
mrblack 2009-06-11T24:30:50-0700 
Recently I went to a special screening of Duncan Jones' new film MOON. Venkman saw this at Sundance and he absolutely loved it. I was very intrigued by his review of the film. The film industry has been very saturated with Science Fiction lately which in all honesty sounds great but most of the films in the genre lately have been lacking a little sometime I like to call....story. With the advances of computer technology and visual effects techni1ques, studios have been focusing heavily on making bigger and better visuals and are forgetting that true science fiction is about human character and reactions to extraordinary situations.
We posted the trailer of MOON a while back, that you can see here , and after watching I thought ... WOW! This is looks like it could be a true Scifi film and not just an effects extravaganza. So what did I think after I actually saw the completed film? It was even more amazing then I thought possible.
MOON is about a man who is hired for a 3 year contract to run a one man mining operation on the surface of the moon. Apparently there is a substance called Helium 3 that is found on the surface of the moon. This substance in theory could power massive amounts of electricity with no harmful pollutants or adverse effects. the problem is that it appears in very small quantities on the Earth's surface but is much more readily available on The Moon.
Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon, Galaxy Quest) plays Sam Bell, the only man assigned to the mining operation. he is responsible for maintaining the automated systems as well as sending all refined Helium 3 back to Earth. His only real companion is Gerty a robotic interface that also acts as the station's computer masterfully voiced by Kevin Spacey (Usual Suspects, K-Pax).
The story is a genuine character story. It deals greatly with how a man's personality is affected by long bouts of isolation and the moral implications of a corporation acting in a situation with no fear of legal reprisal.
Sam Rockwell absolutely plays this role fantastically. and...++Spoiler Alert++...he plays multiple roles in the movie that all interact.
I recently sat down in a round table discussion with Duncan Jones the director and writer of MOON and here is what he had to say.
The question was asked "Can you tell us about how you got into directing?"
When I was a little kid, one of the hobbies I remember having was...with my dad was shooting little 8mm films, like little one stop animations and things like that so we used to do that together so I was working on films from a very very early age. We used to do that when I was like 6 or 7 years old. I was on film sets a lot sort of on the back lot when my dad (David Bowie) was working. then I went off on this academic detour. Went off to college in the United States ...I had an academic and a soccer scholarship...then went to graduate school stuck it out for 3 years studying philosophy and didn't enjoy it.. and its no coincidence that Sam's 3 yer life span is the same amount of time I spent at graduate school. because it did feel like I was on the far side of the moon out there. My dad was then working on this thing with Tony Scott so he said why don't you come down hangout with us and come work on the set so I did and Tony Scott was magnificently guy and gave me some time and talked to me look you have always enjoyed films why don't you go and work in commercials for awhile...and that is how it all started for me.
He goes onto talk about how MOON came to be.
It was kind of a puzzle putting the film together..it started off wanting to do a film with Sam Rockwell that is where it all began so from that point it was really about putting various bits together. We had an idea of how much money we could raise we knew we weren't going to get anything more than 5 million dollars so that was kind of our cap. We knew that we wanted to have a really contained shoot so we had to shoot on sound stage. We wanted it to be science fiction because that is something that both Sam and I wanted to do. and we had ideas of more retro science fiction films the ones from the 70s and 80s there were techniques that they used to use which still look great they just don't get used anymore because everyone gets so used to using CG for everything.But we wanted to use model miniatures and things like that and it was kind of a look that still stands up just doesn't get seen
He then tells why he chose the Moon as the backdrop.
The thing about the moon is.. I was born after the Apollo moon missions went to the moon so i think for a lot of our generation there is something very mysterious and slightly unbelievable, even if you know that humanity has been to the moon it kind of feels a bit mythic and legendary, it doesn't actually feel like something that we really can relate to. And I think that fact that everyone in the world can look up into the sky at night and look at the Moon its kind of like this place or country almost that none of us actually get to visit. So I think there is a mystery there that even if we know everything about it from a scientific basis there is still just something so mysterious about it. Its kind of like the most obvious place to set Science Fiction.
A comment was then brought up about how Sam Rockwell's character seemed to be a bit more of an Anti SciFi hero being that he was a bit course and rough but with a level of humor. Duncan goes on to reply and its pure gold:
Well that's a new phenomenon I would say. The idea that that's an anti-hero in Science Fiction is a new thing. I mean that fact that Science Fiction films today are filled with very archetypal hero types is not the way it used to be. It used to be Science Fiction was about human beings and really exploring how it was to be a human being could survive alien environments or just really futuristic environments and what it was about them that made them human. and you did that by contrasting them to the environment that they were in. I think that Science Fiction films today have on the whole "dumbed down" . Its about going from one big expensive set piece to another which you know I enjoy it, I like watching big popcorn films as well but there is a particular type of science fiction that just doesn't get made anymore but that used to get made all the time. So there is a history of Science Fiction films that those kind of characters were the standard.
It was then commented that it is refreshing to see that this is sort of an antidote to the gloss and veneer that we have become so used to
I hope I get a chance to do bigger budget science fiction films because I would love to bring that sensibility to bigger films. I think J.J. Abrahms did a great job with the new Star Trek film and I love that, but still they are very much caricatures and they are not deep characters at all and I think there is a place for deep human stories and really rounded characters in science fiction settings
If Moon becomes a big hit do you want to take it one step further and direct big budget movies
I think I would always want to be a bit choosy. I am a bit fortunate that there has been a good reaction through the festivals and in the industry about the film so far so I am starting to get offered scripts and they are kind of disappointing sometimes when you read the scripts and see the kind of things you get offered, but there are some good things coming across and there is the project that i wanted to originally do with Sam which I am going to hopefully do next which is going to be another SciFi film "Mute", and that's kind of the other side of the coin and I think that these 2 films (MOON & MUTE) are a really good pair because the first one is quite about isolation and loneliness and the other one is a much much busier kind of "noisy" film. Its a thriller based in a future Berlin.
I read an interview once where this new film is based partly on Blade Runner...
Yes if Moon is based on Outland and Silent Running then this one MUTE is inspired by Blade Runner
Is there anything you can tell us about it?
No. You will have to wait.
(He laughs)
MOON was a fantastic film. Duncan Jones absolutely captured the one aspect of Science Fiction that has been faltering of late and that is to make it a CHARACTER driven story. It may not have a lot of splashy effects or expensive CG but the story wins out. It is defintely one of the greatest SciFi films I have seen in a long time. This guy understands the way a good film needs to be and I for one am looking forward to everything else he does in the future. If you like story and character go see MOON, but if you don't... then you are on your own my friend.
Reader Comments (1)
I'm very much looking forward to Moon, and Duncan Jones and Same Rockwell seem to have definitely nailed this movie down for me. I've been sold ever since I've seen the trailer.