Moon - discussion guide

Buy Moon from Amazon.co.uk or from Amazon.com

Summary

In the near future, the energy crisis has been solved with a clean fuel called Helium 3, which is mined on the far side of the moon by Lunar Industries. Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an astronaut working at the lunar base on a three-year contract. On his own, save for the base’s eerily intelligent computer Gerty (Kevin Spacey) and bereft of all contact with earth except for pre-recorded video messages from his employers and his wife (Dominique McElligott) and daughter, Sam is counting the days until he can go home. But something isn’t right. Haunted by hallucinations of a teenage girl (Kaya Scodelario), Sam has an accident which leads him to a terrible discovery about what is really happening on the base.

Background

Written as a vehicle for its lead actor Sam Rockwell (The Green Mile, Galaxy Quest), Moon is the first feature production from commercial director Duncan Jones. Influenced by the sci-fi films of the 70s and 80s, Jones wanted to pay homage to classics such as Outlander and Silent Running.[1] Moon was shot in just 33 days on a tight budget of $5 million, with the lunar base built as a 360-degree set and models used to create the majority of the special effects.

Talking about the film’s personal dimension, Jones said ‘I was at graduate school at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, and spent three-years feeling like I was on the far side of the moon. It's no coincidence that Sam's three-year contract is the same as my three years of graduate school. I went through my own experiences that informed my own feelings about alienation and isolation.’[2]

Moon received widespread critical acclaim, with one critic calling it ‘a frequently engrossing science fiction story given a particular tension and seriousness by its moral inquiry into what it means to be fully human and alive.’[3] It won Best British Independent Film at the 2009 British Independent Film Awards.

Questions for Discussion

1. What was your first impression of Sam from the early scenes of the film? How do the director and lead actor convey Sam’s emotional and psychological state? What expectations are built up and what questions raised?

2. How does the film use its sci-fi setting to explore the theme of isolation and its effects? How is this theme particularly relevant in our culture?

3. Duncan Jones describes the lunar surface as a place of ‘desolation and emptiness’.[4] How do the film’s visuals reflect its themes? What might the moon’s surface symbolise?

4.  ‘The film asks: if you met yourself, would you like yourself? Will you only see your faults? Or only the good things?’  (Duncan Jones[5])

How does the film explore the idea of confronting yourself, both figuratively and literally? How would you describe the relationship that develops between the two ‘Sams’? What would be the best and worst things about meeting yourself?

5. It is hinted that Sam and Tess had issues in their relationship before the mission because of Sam’s temper. How do the director and lead actor convey the ways in which Sam has changed and developed over his years on the lunar base? What has he learned about himself, even before his big discovery?

6. The ‘old’ Sam refuses for a while to believe that he is a clone, and both men prefer to think that the other is a copy of him rather than vice versa. Why do you think it is so important to us to believe that we are in some sense unique and special?

7.  ‘We’re not programmed. We’re people.’(Sam)

What ideas and developments in our culture might threaten the perception of humans as autonomous beings? What might be the moral and ethical consequences of technology such as cloning?

8. What conclusions does Moon draw about the nature of personhood, and how are these conveyed? Did you agree or disagree with the film’s perspective, and why?

9. What are the main factors in your understanding of your identity? How can we be sure that human beings have objective individuality, value and dignity?

10. Psalm 139:13-16 describes the way that every human life is individually planned and created by God. If this is the case, how might it change the way we view God, ourselves and others? What implications does it have for meaning and purpose in our lives?

Back