Welcome to Thunderdome

Posted: **Sat Apr 11, 2009 10:37 am**

This looks pretty interesting.

http://movies.ign.com/dor....09.html

Posted: **Mon Feb 01, 2010 9:41 am**

In the future, 70% of the Earth's energy needs will come from hydrogen stripped from rocks on the moon. I think...I kind of missed some of the explanation as I was playing Grand Theft Auto at the time. Anyway, there's an outpost on the moon collecting that energy and it's manned by one person, played by Sam Rockwell. He's joined on the moon by a robot named GERTY voiced by Kevin Spacey.

Sam (also his character's name) is nearing the end of a 3 year contract and will soon be going home. That's when he begins to get ill and starts seeing things. This leads to an accident, which ends up revealing that Sam isn't as alone as he believes. Sam meet Sam. This is not a spoiler, in the previews they show two of him walking around.

The rest of the story is about the two Sams, where they came from, how they react to one another, the first Sam's injuries and illness, and that expiring contract.

Sam Rockwell does a great job. He's playing two people who are in the same situation, but coming into it from two completely different perspectives.

Kevin Spacey's voice earns a mention as it's close to HAL, but with less of an evil edge. I found myself forgetting that it was Spacey later in the film.

I wanted to mention the visuals because it's 2010 and film making has never been more advanced in the area of special effects, however they still can't make moving around and interacting with objects on the moon seem completely real. Just something for the morons who think the moon landing was faked to chew on. They can't make a convincing fake moon encounter in 2010, but they did it in 1969?

This film had some pacing issues in which things would slow down, but not for long. And this is a character piece, so don't expect any romance or guns blazing. This is all about these two Sams figuring out what's going on.

After you've seen the film, check out the imdb message boards regarding potential meanings behind the movie. A couple regarding religion are quite interesting.

The movie ends on a really, really stupid line that one could easily say was a political statement, but it shoudln't hurt your enjoyment of the overall movie.

7 out of 10.

Posted: **Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:18 pm**

Leisher wrote:I wanted to mention the visuals because it's 2010 and film making has never been more advanced in the area of special effects, however they still can't make moving around and interacting with objects on the moon seem completely real. Just something for the morons who think the moon landing was faked to chew on. They can't make a convincing fake moon encounter in 2010, but they did it in 1969?

I liked this flick. I liked Gerty.... very interesting how the robot interpreted its programming.

I quoted the above bit because the only thing that bugged me is that there is only a 3 second scene where the dude was bouncing around realistically in 1/6 gravity. Besides those 3 seconds, the dude spends a lot of time on a treadmill running normally, for example. Everything else seemed like a realistic near-future moon base except for that.

Posted: **Fri Jan 21, 2011 9:20 pm**

Let me add.... my nitpicking aside, this is a good movie. In fact, there may have been something lost if we were distracted watching the characters bounce around inside the moon base instead of watching the characters.

Posted: **Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:07 pm**

That's a really good point. I didn't even notice the gravity change in the station. Probably due to the characters moving the plot so well.

Posted: **Fri Jan 22, 2016 5:35 pm**

Saw this. Not bad.

70% of the Earth's energy needs will come from hydrogen stripped from rocks on the moon.

Helium-3. An actual thing. If you could deal with mining and transporting it, it's not infeasible.

They can't make a convincing fake moon encounter in 2010

Not with this movie's budget.

Posted: **Thu Oct 11, 2018 10:27 pm**

Watched this tonight, with the kid. He liked it.

Posted: **Fri Oct 12, 2018 6:45 am**

David Bowie's son directed.

Welcome to Thunderdome

Moon

Moon

Moon