As Mickey 17 will get its VOD launch, those that loved Bong Joon Ho‘s new film could discover themselves wanting extra. It has a novel mix of absurdist comedy and political commentary, but it surely additionally leans closely on its sci-fi facets, with Mickey (Robert Pattinson) being an “expendable,” somebody who performs harmful duties on an area colony as a result of, at any time when he dies, they merely print him up once more. This association works positive, till at some point, two Mickeys meet. If this bizarre, virtually existential twist entices you, then we’ve got simply the factor: the 2009 sci-fi gem Moon, starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Duncan Jones. The 2 films share related premises, however with totally different approaches, making for wonderful complementary views.
Sam Rockwell Faces Comparable Challenges to Robert Pattinson in ‘Mickey 17’
Moon is about in a non-specified close to future, when the world depends closely on a brand new gas, helium-3, which is present in abundance on the far facet of the Moon. Lunar Industries has a base there, the place a single employee, Sam Bell (Rockwell), retains the operation purposeful with the assistance of the AI GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). He principally checks the techniques of the lunar harvesters, performs upkeep, makes certain that every part is so as, and, at any time when new shipments of helium-3 are prepared, he dispatches them to Earth.
It is a boring job that nobody desires, however Sam does it. He has a three-year contract with Lunar Industries, and solely two weeks are remaining earlier than he can lastly go dwelling to his spouse, Tess (Dominique McElligott), and their toddler daughter, Eve. The worst a part of the job, nevertheless, is that there is no such thing as a stay communication between the bottom and Earth, so Sam can speak neither to Tess nor to Lunar headquarters straight, and exchanging messages normally takes days. Due to this, his relationship with Tess is strained, and issues aren’t trying good.
When one of many helium-3 harvesters begins appearing up, Sam has to exit to research, however finally ends up crashing his rover. When he awakens again at base, although, issues really feel off. Suspicious of his actuality and having visions of a younger girl (Kaya Scodelario), he decides to research his accident, and when he visits the crashed rover he finds a person who appears precisely like himself within the cabin, bruised and unconscious. As he rushes again to base, taking his doppelgänger with him, little does he know that the character of his actuality is about to vary without end as he tries to make sense of what’s going on.
‘Moon’ Has a Extra Existential Twist In comparison with ‘Mickey 17’
As you might need guessed, the truth that there are two Sams is what drives the entire plot of Moon, as each of them attempt to grasp the fact of what is taking place. It is a far totally different method than in Mickey 17, the place Mickey and everybody round him find out about his situation as an expendable. This turns the film into an absurdist comedy the place everybody is aware of that Mickey is being paid to die repeatedly. The issue is when there are two totally different Mickeys, as that’s strictly forbidden and thought of an abomination, but it surely’s precisely what occurs when Mickey 17 unexpectedly survives what ought to have been a simple dying.
In Moon, Sam faces a extra existentialist dilemma, particularly as a result of he believes he’s solely two weeks away from going dwelling. Spending three years with none human contact and solely GERTY round has been exhausting sufficient, so he’s naturally feeling these previous years weighing on his thoughts. In response to GERTY, lots of Sam’s bother and confusion come from a supposed concussion he suffered throughout one other accident some time in the past, and discovering a doppelgänger makes issues even worse. He has been coping with himself for lengthy sufficient, so there being one other one in every of him is not precisely what he needed or wanted. GERTY’s synthetic objectivity can be not useful.
It is value noting that Sam Rockwell’s appearing in Moon can be very totally different from Robert Pattinson’s in Mickey 17, and that is solely doable due to how in another way these two films method the thought of duplicates. Being the one actor on display screen for many of the film, Rockwell captures his character’s struggles with lots of depth and sensitivity, constructing two variations of Sam that really feel concurrently each distinctive and really related. The Mickeys are used to the thought of being expendables, so they’re snug even with dying repeatedly, however, for Sam, having a reproduction of kinds poses a completely totally different problem, given the loneliness and identification disaster he has confronted in earlier years.
Bong Joon-Ho loves making highly effective sociopolitical satires, and his final three films have benefited closely from his sharp humorousness in that sense, with Mickey 17 being an absurdist blockbuster, Parasite changing into a basic, and Okja approaching it as a witty fable. Moon is probably not as humorous, however Duncan Jones proves himself to be simply as sharp when making such a critique, seeing how, in his film, the corporate that gives the entire world with clear vitality additionally forces a person to spend years alone on the Moon. The trick in each films is making it appear to be the characters selected these perilous jobs, moderately than accepting them as a result of they have been what was accessible.
Additionally, each Sam and Mickey discover themselves in conditions that defy any logic with their respective clones and doppelgängers, main us to mirror on the morality of the strategies behind their respective jobs, in addition to how capitalism typically subdues employees and makes them work in circumstances that no particular person would usually tolerate, each bodily and mentally. In that sense, whereas Mickey 17‘s critique is extra apparent, Moon takes a extra refined route, with a twist that makes it one of many finest sci-fi films of this century, as a result of, whereas doppelgängers may not be actual, its story is not that removed from being actual in numerous methods within the close to future.
