Midweek Mention... Moon

Moon

Sidey: Nepo baby week, yeah. Yeah.

Reeg: Nepo Baby weed. Yeah, Nepo

Sidey: Do

you know who directed Will Watch Moon, and do you know who directed that?

Cris: No.

Sidey: A guy called Duncan Jones. Riggs is a big, big fan of his dad. if I

Reeg: can't even remember now

if I was trolling

about it or

Sidey: Bowie. Is he? Yeah.

Jones. Oh, is it not? No.

Cris: like that. But, his name's

Sidey: to go by something that

Cris: Oh, is it not?

Reeg: And he could have easily chosen to go by something that would more associate him, but he didn't.

I think he, as far as possible,

Cris: So what was David Bowie's actual name?

Sidey: write, like, John

Cris: Alright, like John Jones or something.

Sidey: I can't remember to be honest, but yeah, it's something really boring.

Cris: totally boring.

Sidey: But, we watched Moon.

Reeg: We did?

Cris: did? Yes, I did too.

Reeg: First time? Yeah.

Sidey: Okay. First time all the way through.

Yeah,

Reeg: Okay. Are you just seeing this before and hadn't liked it?

Sidey: No, I think I'd fallen asleep and then just not got back to it, yeah. So I was keen to finish it off this time.

Reeg: Yeah.

Well, should we pick it up? It starts with an advert for Lunar Industries Limited, because, which is kind of helpful, because it provides some sort of narration and scene setting up front in the wake of an energy crisis that left the whole world suffering brownouts and food shortages

Sidey: You ever had a brownout?

Reeg: Yeah,

many times,

Sidey: What

Cris: does that actually mean?

Reeg: does that actually mean? Cities, whole

Cris: Ah, right, okay. Is that not a blackout?

Reeg: Brownouts there's a different type of out that's a

Cris: Anyway, don't worry.

Reeg: yeah, no, you should look it up, you're right but that's all in the past, they've built this lunar facility to mine the moon, and it, it mines this alternative fuel, helium 3 which is like, Had absorbed sunlight or

Sidey: Stuffed with the thing.

Reeg: Yeah, and so we're told all this and then we cut to Sam Bell Sam Rockwell on the mining base Sarang. He's on a treadmill bearded

Sidey: Yeah. it's just a one man operation, that's all it takes to run this thing.

On a three year contract. Sign me up. Yeah.

Cris: On the moon.

Reeg: on a three year contract, he's coming to the last two weeks of it. And he's assisted by Gertie, who's a kind of robot that

Sidey: sex pe

Reeg: Yeah, voiced by Kevin Spacey. He's quite an effective character in this, he can only move on rails that are on the

Sidey: only move on rails that are on

Reeg: Yeah, and he's got like a very simple emoji type

Sidey: a very simple emoji type display.

Yeah,

Reeg: but it feels like it's enough of its own personality that

Sidey: not a total rip off.

Reeg: So he's only allowed to leave the station when the harvesters have a full load and he goes and brings them back, which you see him going out to go and get this stuff, driving into the underbelly of it, collecting it and coming back or whatever.

Cris: and he names them John and Steve

Sidey: Matthew, Matthew. It's all biblical names isn't

Reeg: They are all biblical

Cris: Alright, okay.

Reeg: And his mental state is clearly fairly low. I mean, he's openly talking out loud to Gertie and how three years is too long of a contract. There's been relationship difficulties at home that are alluded to. Contact is non existent because the

Cris: Live contact, yeah, there's no live feed.

Reeg: Yeah. And you know, he's at the point where he's like stabbing his armchair with a pair of scissors and that kind of thing and working on his miniatures and all that stuff. And then he starts having hallucinations of a girl. He

Sidey: He sees a lady, doesn't he? Yeah.

Was there any connection with her? Was it just a random lady that you saw?

Reeg: Yeah, I don't know.

Sidey: think

Cris: was a daughter.

Sidey: Oh, when she was older?

Cris: Yeah, when I've seen the daughter when she was older, I thought that's who he

was

Reeg: who he was seeing. Well, I don't know.

Cris: I dunno, I'm just saying that from my point of view, I don't actually know. I didn't do the research for

that. but,

Reeg: point of view. I don't actually know.

Sidey: Yeah, great, great song choice.

Reeg: do the research for that.

He goes out, I think he sees him, he goes out on the harvester and the, like, the video monitor flashes up briefly and he sees himself on

Sidey: it. A different looking version of him.

Reeg: And that causes him to have a bit of an accident, doesn't it?

Sidey: bit of an accident, doesn't it? He gets his helmet on, doesn't he? He sort of

Reeg: Goethe saying to him, there's been an accident.

Yeah. And he hears, he sort of all obviously discombobulated or whatever, but you can hear Gertie talking in the room next door to Lunar Industries back home, which is Benedict Wong

Sidey: Matt Berry,

Reeg: Berry, which was

Sidey: was pretty

Reeg: Yeah. So, and obviously it's supposed to be like no contact home. So he's obviously a little bit suspicious straight away.

Sidey: We've seen him have a haircut and get tidied up. Yeah. So his appearance is slightly different, but he's a lot, like, cleaner, cleaner cut now and looking much different than we'd seen him before. Yes. Hmm.

Reeg: Yes, that's really important to be fair. Yeah, he, you know, one of the harvesters I think has failed Gertie's like, no, you've got to stay in the lab.

It's really important to the point where it's starting to feel a little bit like uncomfortable. So he like manufactures a problem with some sort of like gas leak. Doesn't he say that he's allowed to go outside? Gertie will. Definitely let him go because everybody's telling him he has to stay in the, in the spaceship.

When he goes to get a suit, he said there's one missing, which he clocks. Yeah. And when he goes to get a Rover, one of those is missing as well. So he heads out to the lunar surface and he does eventually find the that was

Sidey: And he finds something else as well.

Reeg: something else himself.

Cris: big reveal for us too,

Sidey: So, it's a big reveal for us too.

Cause now we know that the one that woke up in the infirmary is a clone. And what I liked about the movie is it doesn't wait to the very end to give you all the big reveals. It kind of gives you them throughout the movie.

As

he discovers them, we're in on it too.

So there are now two, he brings him back, he brings him back into the HQ.

And it is really confused it not so much the new sam but the old one He's all over the shop. He's covered in blood and bruises. They don't have a fight ever the actual ding dong, don't they?

Reeg: Oh, yeah after he's recovered a bit.

Sidey: Yeah, so he's in the infirmary for how he recovers, but he's obviously got all these questions about what the fuck, who is this guy, you know, what is going on I'm out of here soon, you know, this is not part of the plan, like what the fuck, it's really discombobulating and obviously he's

In

this solitary world for three years, his mental state is obviously got so many question marks about what's real and what's not.

Reeg: state is obviously got so many question marks about what's real and what's not. Somewhere in base, which leads to a physical altercation between, between the two of them because he wants to search under the miniature town that he's been building.

Which he doesn't remember building all of. He only

Cris: Yeah I said there was already a few houses here,

Reeg: houses here. And he's beaten up really badly actually, the first one, even though he doesn't seem to hit him too badly So, yeah

Sidey: Like mutually paranoid, don't they? Yeah. To the point where they need to go out and explore and concoct a reason why they need to go out because Gertie's always saying, no, I'm I'm I'm just here for your protection, for your safety. And so they have to try and trick it into letting them out. So, they take the two rovers out to explore what's out there because they think that it's not that The relays down that it's being forced.

The signal is actually being jammed and they're being they are just trapped here. So they do go out and they actually find these big antenna where they are they are actually being

Cris: Yeah, they are being blocked, yeah. So that's why there's no live

Sidey: but while they're out, the original Sam

Reeg: blood inside his spacesuit,

Sidey: he goes out for a walk and yeah and he sort of keels over.

It's silent obviously because there's no atmosphere. We just hear it on the PA

radio rather but he's not well and then yeah like I say he vomits blood all over the visor and he says I'm going to have to go back and the other Sam goes out and does some more exploring and finds some more of these relays.

But Sam the original. He's in a real bad state. His face is all messed up. He vomits out a tooth. And then he goes to one of the computer stations and tries to put in his password. I don't really understand this bit. It still baffles me to be and can't get

his password right. And then you just see the robot arm of Gertie comes up.

I thought at first it was going to like fucking harpoon him or

Reeg: going to, like, fucking harpoon

Sidey: it just, but it puts in his password for

Reeg: he puts in his password. He's following his mind as well,

Cris: his mind as well, rather than his body. So he

Sidey: Everything is just fucking dying. And he watches these videos, which are clearly older, much

Cris: Other clones.

Reeg: different versions of him in different dress and all that stuff and all of them getting into this cryo chamber preparing to go home, which is pretty clear is just an incineration chamber.

So,

Sidey: he goes down to that cryo thing.

Reeg: He finds the secret

Sidey: component and the, there's a message that says, oh, congratulations on the success of your mission. You'll now be, and, and he knows that's bollock. And he sees some, some ash on the floor where previous versions of him have been incinerated.

Yeah. And as he is tapping around on the floor, he finds it's hollow actually. And he uses one of the tools to pry open this, I don't know, great. Yeah. And there's a passage down, and this is the secret

Reeg: And there

Sidey: there is also

a video calling unit, this orange thing that he picks up, they say he can make a call home as well. Yeah,

Reeg: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Cris: thing, yeah.

Reeg: So yeah

Cris: Well that's what they keep doing. Because initially when they take the rovers out, It just keeps going and it says, Unable to receive connection or something like that one of these and and signal block signal blocked and then at one point he's like Oh free line or

Reeg: he finally gets a bit of 5G or whatever so he can call home.

Cris: Calls his

Reeg: and he phones his home and he asks to speak to his

Sidey: It's a teenage

Reeg: girl that answers and he asked to speak to his wife, Tess. And she says, Oh, you know, she died three years ago. He's like, what, how do you know that?

And he's like, well, I'm a daughter. so it's his daughter that he's

Sidey: massively crumbling now, like, oh

Reeg: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cris: yeah.

Sidey: then you hear his voice saying. Who's that?

Someone wants to speak to mum and he just hangs up. So are we to then believe that

Reeg: That's the original

Sidey: the like leader of the, of Luna or whatever

Reeg: Could be, who knows, but

Sidey: out or someone in the program, some seniority that's just

Reeg: But the original Sam. I mean, it's clear that it's all clones up there. So Sam, and Sam hangs up and cries, man. And it's such an affecting performance. We've not really captured the relationship between the two Sams, which is done really, really well through a lot of it. Like, they're pissed off with each other's minor flaws and stuff, like you would be with yourself.

Sidey: with yourself.

He puts on Katrina and the Waves.

Reeg: Yeah, just to piss him off. Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: have this battle of putting it on and off,

Reeg: Yeah, it's a great scene when they're playing ping pong was and where he moves around, including going through the middle of the frame to like show you. so yeah, it swells up big emotion and we feel I think the camera pans back from him. to the rover to the lunar surface and then just the

Cris: Where you see the earth in the

Reeg: million like could be a billion miles away he's all his isolation and

Cris: then he heads

Reeg: he heads back yeah and there's a rescue team that's a rescue team incoming which we know are there just to fucking murder them all and

Sidey: They, yeah, cause they've started off as sort of enemies and now they're working together and they've got a plan and they're like, You know what, we need to get out of here.

So the plan, originally the plan was to put Sam 1.

in a, in a ship and cart him back to worth.

Reeg: Well, the first plan is actually to get another clone out and

Sidey: That's right. They do that.

Reeg: But they don't go through with it. That's when Sam one who's like, just his body is completely falling apart at this he's the one who, he suggests that he.

Cris: because they expect, they

Reeg: expecting to find a body

Cris: a body

Reeg: And if they do, and there's no problem then, yeah. So, he goes back to die where he should have died. On the moon in that original crash.

Sidey: Sam two

Reeg: And Sam 2 goes back home.

Sidey: So he does take Sam one back to the rover.

Puts him in there. It's still not dead. You see his eyes moving around, but it's just so far gone. And he races back and you can see the rescue module coming in and there's a I think there's a counter on the one of the screens.

Reeg: He's also set one of these giant harvesters, which, which, you know, they mine this stuff along the landscape to crash into

Sidey: Yeah, he does that. He doesn't do that first. He gets into the, the, the spaceship. And as the thing is closing and

Cris: Yeah, he

Sidey: he puts his hand to stop the door. Then he's like, fuck, what I need to do is I can sabotage the whole thing.

But then he's, then you're right. He sets the module to crash in and take the antenna down. So you get the live feedback up. And then he fucks off just as it touches down. He like,

Cris: and he leaves the clone, the last clone, Sam three to wake up while these guys are coming in. Yeah. Yeah. The Eliza or whatever the mission

Sidey: And Sam 1 just watches him, this last dying moment, I think, while his

Cris: Yeah, the ship crew goes

Reeg: Yeah, he gets to see it. He gets to see it.

Sidey: But then the end, there's, there's a, Yeah, it's all a bit like, oh, there's

Reeg: Yeah. It's all a bit like, oh, there's been a load of controversy stirred up by it all. And, you know, the stock price has gone down

Sidey: stock price has gone down and This guy who claimed he would work for you know, on the moon.

Cris: He's an

Sidey: They're saying He's an imposter

and he's an illegal immigrant.

I think that's what

Reeg: you don't

Sidey: don't even get the happy ending bit from it. It's all like,

Reeg: ending.

Sidey: where it hurts. Yeah.

Reeg: Yeah, it hurts. Better to do that than or cheaper.

Sidey: Yes, I can. They're probably working on it

Reeg: But in general, this is good, right?

Sidey: I really liked it. Yeah, I did really like it. I like the way There's twists like throughout, you know, little things that are fed to you to keep you like the story engaged in the story. Also, it's clearly like practical effects and models

Reeg: All of that at

Sidey: which I really liked.

I think Duncan Jones worked in advertising and things like that before you know and smaller budget thing. So, this was a 5 million budget. So to do a sci-fi movie, that's quite small. Yeah.

Reeg: But it's got a great big scope as well though,

Sidey: The score I thought was excellent.

Reeg: Mansell was the score.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reeg: And just the general aesthetic is quite good. Cause it plows that same furrow, like you say, of some of the 2001, but it still has its own look, Gertie has its own look and feel and comes out like an anti how in many ways.

Cause he's quite helpful throughout the plot. And then the themes are good as well about loneliness and being kind to yourself and that sort of thing, forgiving yourself, you know, it's all good stuff.

Sidey: Chris?

Cris: This was surprisingly good.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie. I did enjoy it mostly because I quite like Sam

Rockwell. I

Sidey: I do as well.

Cris: he's really funny and generally quite a good actor, I find. And it's also generally when I see him, I don't look in depth into roles and all this stuff that you just said Riggs, but I just like him because normally he's quite witty, but a bit of a, like a geeky, dorky.

Kind of thing in normal movies that I've seen where he's he's quite handy But he's also a bit like silly and whatever whereas here He is a bit of everything because it's different personalities with different characters, and he's Someone is sick and spits teeth the other one hits the bag, and he's a bit of a lad and whatever number three Just woke up the previous versions.

He's Forrest Gump, then he's cleanly shaved then he's

I and I also quite like the idea of The contract and like you say, the rich or whatever, these corporations, what are they going to do, how far are they willing to go? The connection between you're on the moon, would that actually work? All this kind of stuff.

Is it 2006? Or 2009? 2009. For a movie from 2009, I thought it was It's not a lot of sci fi in terms of aliens and flying ships and stuff like that, but it still holds quite well in today's movie, I think, if that would have been made two years ago. Maybe it would have been filmed in 4K or ultra 4K or whatever.

But other than that, everything is, would kind of hold in today's cinematography, I

Reeg: Yeah. Yeah,

Cris: quite enjoy that that side of it. And I, yeah, I did, I did like it. And to be honest, for me to find a movie where is basically one actor, the guys that

are from Lunar Enterprises, they don't really They speak three minutes in the whole movie.

The computer, he's there, but he's still a computer. It's not like Kevin Spacey's there in a

Reeg: It was good, yeah, I enjoyed it.

Cris: It was good, yeah, I enjoyed it.

Reeg: it, 90

Cris: it's, what is it, 90 minutes, something like that?

Sidey: yeah, yeah.

Cris: the good spot, yeah.

Sidey: Duncan Jones had been developing something which turned out to be a film much later on called Mute with Sam Rockwell, but they couldn't decide which part he should play in that.

So when it came around to making Mute Sam Rockwell cameoed in it as Sam Bell from Moon, which is quite nice. And I also like Sam Rockwell, so this was, this was a solid, strong

Cris: Yeah,

Reeg: strong

Cris: This was good. I like, I like