Ep 58 - Moon (2009)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Moon 2009. The man on the moon is alone for so long that he goes from talking to himself to talking to himself to sacrificing himself to help himself live the life he wants to live to the fullest. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Completely overrated. [00:00:25] Speaker C: Hello everybody and welcome back to our rating. This week we are doing our Patreon pick, which is where you guys get to choose a movie that we watch. This week we watched the movie Moon and not only did we do that, but for the first time ever, we actually did a Patreon watch along party. We got a bunch of people together and watched this movie together over on the Discord. If you want to be a part of that, make sure you check the link down in the description below so you can join the level and join us for the next movie, whatever that happens to be. Brian and Will, how are you guys doing today? Brian? [00:00:52] Speaker B: I'm good. That's it. Will, how are you? [00:00:56] Speaker C: How are you? Will? [00:00:57] Speaker A: I'm good. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Excellent. I'm so happy that that wasn't flubbed at all. Now, we obviously watched this movie together. Had both of you seen this one before or was this new for either of you? [00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen it before. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Me and Ryan watch Party this when it first came out. [00:01:12] Speaker B: So all of us were. [00:01:14] Speaker C: All of us had seen it once and we saw it a second time together. That's awesome. Brian, you wanted to say something about the poster? [00:01:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:20] Speaker B: And if it's not going to get cut out, then I'll say I really like the poster to this movie. I think it just looks cool. I've always. I'm a fan of movie posters. I don't collect them or have them all over my room or anything because I don't know, I'm not a teenager anymore. But I do like movie posters and I think this one just looks really neat. That's all I wanted to say. We didn't need to blow me up for that one. I just wanted to say the movie poster looks cool. That's all. [00:01:43] Speaker C: Ironically, by blowing you up, we actually covered the movie posters. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I like the movie post. [00:01:50] Speaker C: Yeah, it just disappears. Also, shots fired. I've got movie posters in the other room. My actual movie room. [00:01:57] Speaker B: I don't have like a man cave that I can put movie posters posters up. But this would be one of the movie posters that I'd like. I just think it looks trippy. I think. I mean, it's a movie starring a lot of Sam Rockwell and it's. I don't know, it's just got a cool look to it. [00:02:12] Speaker A: I like it. It's, it's simple, but it's also elegant and it's very much in the same tone as this movie. I feel. Now posters hit and miss on that, you know, hit and miss. [00:02:25] Speaker C: Now this is a relatively small movie, only had like a five million dollar budget, only made about ten million dollars. So I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of our audience hadn't seen this one before. But for the record, we don't really bother with spoilers on our rating. For the most part when we're talking about a movie, we are just going to jump right into the movie. That being said, because I'm going to assume a lot of people haven't seen this before. For those who haven't, this is a movie starring Sam Rockwell and almost exclusively Sam Rockwell where he is on the moon. He is a farmer of, I believe, metals. Right. That he is sending hydrogen maybe. [00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, they're pulling rock that have like helium 3 or something from the sun absorbing into these or the rocks absorbing it from the sun. And he's shipping that back as an energy source for Earth because the Earth has used up all of their energy sources. [00:03:11] Speaker C: Gotcha. So he is solo in this mission and seems to be doing fairly okay until an accident happens and the system reboots and wakes up another system, Sam Rockwell. And we find out that he is in fact a clone. And there is a huge bay of clones and every three years they just disintegrate or deteriorate, die, and the next one comes online. And so the character that Sam Rockwell is playing is living his best life on Earth, presumably getting paid for having sponsored himself or hoard himself out to this company. And it is just the story of these clones as they become essentially self aware. Does that sound. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:50] Speaker A: So if you haven't seen the movie, we've already spoiled it. There's no hope for you. [00:03:55] Speaker B: The big twist is done. [00:03:57] Speaker A: Next time, watch the movie before you click the link, you sons of guns. [00:04:01] Speaker C: In fairness, you just said that there was multiple Sam Rockwell's in the opening. [00:04:05] Speaker A: So that was not on the nose [00:04:08] Speaker B: at all for interpretation purposes. [00:04:11] Speaker C: There sure was. [00:04:13] Speaker B: No so. So Sam basically becomes aware of his real truth, that he's only going to live for three years because. And I actually did some research on cloning. Turns out the reason we don't clone people is because when you clone something like the, like the sheep that was cloned back in 96 was the first time we actually cloned an animal successfully. That was one sheep out of 277 attempts. And it ended up getting some diseases and stuff and died a little earlier than it normally would have. And that's the problem with cloning. You get lots and lots of defects and false starts and stu. So it kind of, it kind of showcases that, hey, they're trying to clone and make these clones, but they can only get them to last for three years. And so that's why he goes on a three year tour and he has all that stuff like recorded and played back to him. Even though he thinks he's having a two way conversation with like a delay or something. It's actually that, you know, he's just, they just made three years worth of footage for them to send back and forth to keep him thinking that he's the man playing his, his best life when really he's gonna die in three years and be cremated instead of sent back to earth. [00:05:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And I mean, for the record, people were saying spoilers. Yes, but I think everything we talked about was in the trailers and the first 20, 25 minutes of the movie. So I mean, don't get me wrong, we're gonna spill more of this movie as we go. But you know. Oh yeah, it's still worth watching. I'd say, well, next time show up [00:05:40] Speaker B: at the watch party and it won't be a spoiled movie for you. See, there we go. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. I, I like. Yeah, this is like a classic sci fi movie. So if you like a classic sci fi movie, it doesn't really matter if it's spoiled for you, that whole thing because what the movie's about is self reflection and bettering yourself and you know all those things when you're in isolation and how that affects the human. But it's still a well put together little movie worth, worth your time. Even if the cloning portion of it is spoiled for you in my, in my humble opinion. [00:06:19] Speaker B: Right. And, and he still has the goal of trying to figure out what he does with that knowledge. How, how is he going to interact with himself and where does he go from here? How does, how does he live his life knowing this new truth about himself? And that's the fun part of this movie is exploring all those questions. [00:06:36] Speaker C: I kind of wish, I'm so glad you brought that up. I kind of wish this movie went a little bit further, further into some of those questions. It feels like it kind of presented those questions but didn't really explore those questions very much. Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this movie. I'm definitely not digging into it, but I feel like this movie could have gone harder on some of those themes. Do you not agree? [00:07:00] Speaker A: Yes and no. I mean, you have the, in a two hours or so movie, you can only pull so much. And what is the director, writer trying to say? Or what are they trying to bring up? Or what conversations do they want us to have after the movie? And so if you go too far down one way, maybe you answer those questions too much, perhaps, or maybe you bring up too many questions that people don't want to actually think about. So you got to leave that open for the audience to take or leave what they want on the table. That said, the director of this movie, for those who don't know, was Duncan Jones. For those of you don't know who Duncan Jones is, that's David Bowie's son. Pretty crazy. This was his first movie. He didn't want to direct a movie without Sam Rockwell. He actually hunted, staked out Sam Rockwell and said, I want you in a movie as what I want to direct. He hasn't done a whole lot of work, but I, I'm looking forward to seeing some. Oh, you know what, I think he did do something else, but I don't know what it is. [00:08:11] Speaker C: He's done a couple of other things. He started, this is his first one, like you mentioned, it's got the Highest score on IMDb, went on a source code which I actually enjoyed. That's a pretty fun little sci fi movie as well. Warcraft after that. [00:08:23] Speaker A: So there it is. [00:08:24] Speaker C: That skyrocketed. And I don't remember hating Warcraft as much as other people did. Although I'm not going to say that it was good, I don't think it was awful. And then he has one more movie under his belt, Mute. And then it looks like he hasn't done anything in the seven years since then. So not a huge library, but two of the three of his that I've seen I really enjoyed. [00:08:44] Speaker A: So yeah, I mean, as a first time director in this, like he gets the style down, he gets the tones down. Like I think it's really well put together. Also he wrote too, right? He wrote the story for it. So yeah, pretty, pretty full package making [00:08:59] Speaker C: this movie for just $5 million. Like it's got a couple of decent stars in there. Like you'd recognize obviously Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, there's a few others, Benedict Wong, but not many. It's a pretty small cast, but for the special effects elements, I thought they were pretty decent considering the size of the budget. A Lot of practical effect, which helps. [00:09:17] Speaker A: Yes. So they actually budgeted out to do a lot of CGI in the movie and saw how astronomically priced it would be. And then they priced out the practical effects, and it was like night and day in comparison for cost. So they went to the practical effects side for the majority, of course, amplified by some CGI here and there. But I think they also got a bit of a deal because this was happening during the writer strike when there wasn't a lot being made. And so there was a lot of people that just wanted to work. And so they got a lot of these, like, tech guys for really cheap. And in fact, some of the special effects guys are in this movie as well because there's so few actors. There's like, three special effects guys. The mug shots kind of looks where the. What is it? The relief team comes. That's the special effects guys. So it's funny that they use their. Their pictures in the movie. [00:10:07] Speaker C: The rescue team with their assault rescue team. [00:10:10] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:10:11] Speaker B: So on the. On the effects docket, both special effects and practical effects, I. When I first. When I first saw the film the first time, I was pretty blown away. Thought it looked great. Not the best thing I'd ever seen, but it really looked good. And when I was watching it the second time, I was a bit more analytical of it, a little more critical. And I noticed some of the beginning space scenes are really amazing, really, really good. But later through the film, it feels like they stepped it down a notch. Like, they kind of led with their best stuff to get you kind of in the zone. And then there were some outside shots. And I was like, that doesn't look as good as some of the other stuff. Like that building doesn't look real to me or something. So there was. Not that it was bad. Not that it was bad. It was just. I noticed that there was a degradation in. In the quality of some of the CGI scenes, especially outside, when they were doing. I think it was only outside is when they had CGI stuff. And then the sets, the actual set pieces. 1. It bothers me that there's these openings with a step that you have to step over. I don't understand why they couldn't make a door that went into the ground. Why they had to have it, like, up. That just, like, it didn't make sense to me. You wouldn't build a base like that. NASA and the private space companies, they've got really smart people, and they don't do something that isn't necessary. And I don't know why that would be necessary to make that lip, other than it looks kind of cool on film. And so that, for me, kind of bothered me. And then once I started looking at those doors really closely, there are some scenes like when Sam's talking to Sam throughout the whole movie. In the beginning, when they're. When they first meet each other, they're kind of standing in a doorway and Sam's leaning up against one of the doors. And I'm looking at it, I'm like, that's flat painted cardboard. Like, I can see that. That's a cardboard wall painted with, like, a flat gray paint that they use some sandpaper on to give it a metallic sheen. And I didn't really notice it the first time because you're too busy watching Sam's amazing performance with Sam to notice the set pieces. So I think they. I think the fact that this budget is so low, what they accomplished with it is incredible. But when you watch it the second time, you do notice that it is a shallow budget that they used on some of these effects. [00:12:37] Speaker C: You're not wrong. But I mean, again, considering how small the budget is, I think I give it a pass. Like, I really like it. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's fantastic for the budget that they used. I'm just. I was just like. The first time I saw it, I was just so in awe of everything happening in this movie that it took me the second time around to notice some of the shortcomings, to really. To really criticize this. This movie. [00:12:59] Speaker C: Fair enough. [00:13:00] Speaker A: I. I don't. I didn't mind it as much just because it felt like the throwback. Right. Like, it. It. There's a couple of throwbacks to, like, Space Odyssey. Right throughout this movie. We got the classical music, you've got Gertie, which is Hal, really. [00:13:15] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:16] Speaker A: So even the look of, like, it kind of looks like a throwback to, like, what, space stations in the, you know, 70s or 80s, we thought they would look like it had some of those looks, right? With like, padded walls and weird little, I don't know, angular things. I don't know. I. I didn't mind it. And sometimes you could tell that they were models outside rolling about and that the gravity wasn't affecting the, you know, ball and chain on the back of the rover or whatnot. But it didn't bother me a whole lot because it just felt more like a tribute to these classic sci fi films. So I. It didn't bother me overall. [00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:56] Speaker A: That's all I'm saying. [00:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Didn't bother me. [00:13:58] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's fair. The movie had kind of a. Almost like a Twilight Zone feel to it. Okay. [00:14:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:04] Speaker C: In the sense of, like, there is a twist, but the twist isn't like the end of the movie and the end of the show. The twist is just kind of like, oh, this is interesting. And then you kind of keep the story going from there, you know, like the. The fact that he's a clone, you find out pretty early on. And then it's more just exploring what that means and what that looks like as opposed to being like, oh, that's be all, end all. Like, when I mentioned that he was a clone, that wasn't spoiling the end of the movie. Like a Sixth Sense or something like that. Like, that's pretty clearly what this movie is about. [00:14:32] Speaker B: And let's face it, this is more of a psychological movie than anything else. So, you know, noticing that gravity isn't affected in some spots, but is affected in others. Like he's outside doing a moonwalk and he's doing that slow, lobbing moonwalk, I'm like, how come he doesn't walk like that inside the building? It's the same gravity, but it doesn't matter because that's not what you're really paying attention to. What you're paying attention to is these incredible sequences where you 100% believe that there are two Sam. Well, Sam Rockwell's in the room playing ping pong with each other. Yeah. It is absolutely seamless the way they can make eye contact with each other. Do you know hard it is to make eye contact with yourself when you're not actually there? It is insanely hard to get that angle right. [00:15:20] Speaker A: I just use a mirror, Brian. It's so easy. [00:15:24] Speaker C: Yeah, but these guys, like, they very specifically, like, they look vastly different despite being the same person. Like, the one guy, rough shape once, [00:15:32] Speaker B: guy's got three years of mileage on him and the other one's fresh out. The clone vat. So. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. [00:15:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:37] Speaker A: And I. I do appreciate, like, Sam Rockwell. I guess we're gonna say Sam either way. It's his character name as well. But I like how old Sam had come to peace and resolved his anger issues. So that character was very fleshed out compared to the new Sam or the recently awoken clone that still had those angsty anger issues that he hadn't sorted out being on the moon for three years in isolation. So it was a really smart way to have contrasting characters that were the same person and you could believe they're the Same person because of the experiences they've had to make them different. You know what I mean? I think the writing in that was really smart, and Sam Rockwell executed really well. Both of those characters, both sides, didn't [00:16:34] Speaker B: even need the bruises and the damage from the wreck to help with, like, it was a visual cue for you to separate the two. I didn't even need that. It was so apparent who. Who was talking when they were talking. There were two different Sams in there. And you're right. The. The older Sam had come to peace, and he was much more relaxed and easygoing and patient with everything. And the new Sam was edgy and, you know, hitting the punching bag and just stressed out all the time and couldn't. Couldn't let go. It was really interesting to see those. The two dynamics early on where. [00:17:06] Speaker C: Where the. The older Sam burns his hand, he sees something that isn't actually there. Burns his hand has, like, a bandage over for the rest of the movie. I feel like that was kind of leading towards, like, a. Is it Alien? The second one. The second one with Michael Fassbender. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Covenant. [00:17:26] Speaker C: Covenant. Thank you so much. Leading, like, Alien, Covenant time, where they're like, he gets injured, and then they have to, like, fake out how that is. Like, I thought maybe the newer Sam would have to burn his hand so that he can fool Gertie or something. And it just never really came to pass. Like, it just never really became necessary that he burned his hand. Kind of like you're saying, like, you could always tell which Sam was which without those little subtle details. I. I expected that to go somewhere that it didn't. It wasn't a big problem. It wasn't a big scene or anything like that. It was just one of those weird, like, oh, I thought that was gonna amount to something that never really did. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I suppose you're right. Like, they did seem to focus either starting or ending the scene showing his hand specifically being like, okay, this is the Sam we're following. And maybe that was just written into the script as. As queuing, but because Sam Rockwell just crushed these characters, you just didn't need it. It was success. So. But because it was already, you know, kind of written in, they're playing it out. It's just the way it is. [00:18:23] Speaker B: It didn't take away from it at all. No. Yeah. [00:18:26] Speaker C: But even the fact that he is seeing something could be like. Because we're seeing his body fall apart, maybe that's his mind starting to as well. [00:18:33] Speaker A: And that's part of it too, right? Like, at the beginning, they do kind of show you that he is kind of breaking, falling apart. Mentally, physically, he is seeing things. So at what point is he seeing this vision and believing that he's seeing himself or is he, you know, mentally just gone? Which Audiences already know what's going on at that point, but the character doesn't. So maybe, I don't know that. That seems to be a little bit of the piece of the puzzle there too, of him just trying to remind himself, is this real or not? Am I seeing this or not? And I kind of wish they held on to that a little longer. He kind of came to terms with it a little quick for my liking. But again, within the two hour scope, they. They do a lot. [00:19:18] Speaker B: When, when I first watched this and the two SAMs were in the same room, I was having trouble believing that he was a clone of himself. I thought it had to be something else. Excuse me. And I remember the first time I was watching this, I didn't believe that there were two SAMs, that one was a clone or anything until they actually exchanged something. They like made contact with each other. Now, had I been paying attention, I'd been like, oh, yeah, one carried the other one out of the wreck. So obviously he did. But I. But they didn't show that sequence. They just showed him like, wipe the face plate and there was somebody inside. Like, maybe he's seeing things or whatever. You don't really know until he opens the suit or something. So it was kind of the same way with Fight Club. I couldn't believe it until I had like evidence. And they did give you some evidence early on. They started actually exchanging, holding, grabbing, you know. And as the movie progresses, you see more and more intricate sequences where like, you know, he's patting him on the cheek and stuff. Like, how do you, how do you make that? You know, how do you make that shot? I'd love to see how that's actually done. That was some really cool stuff. I'd like to know who played the body double when you'd see the back of one Sam and the real Sam Rockwell talking to himself. I'd like to know who played the body double because even that, even the back of the guy looked right. [00:20:38] Speaker A: I can tell you it was Robin Chalk was clone. Yeah, he was the kind of the body double throughout. So an interesting role to play. Just showing the back of you side of you profile, right? Like never full on image view. But you have to be there to play off of the other actor, right? Like a very important integral part Especially in a movie like this. I'm guessing he's probably got very similar physical attributes, height, weight, everything to, to pull this off as well. Because you're saying lining up those eyes, right? You, you're, you, you have to be looking at somebody. And so ideally they're the same height on the same mark in the same room so that you can flip that and refilm it the other way. Right. So it's very, very well done. And yeah, it's great. [00:21:25] Speaker B: So even though that guy just shows the back of his head, that's an important part for him to play. And then not an easy one either. [00:21:30] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and it's also impressive again from a first time director to have nailed this so expertly. Like you said, like it's fairly seamless. All these interactions with himself, like I didn't notice anywhere. I'm like, oh no, they're clearly. [00:21:42] Speaker B: I never saw one. I never saw one. That took me out. [00:21:46] Speaker C: Now out of curiosity, as far as the movie goes, you touched on it a second ago, Brian. He is on his own for three years until he, you know, gets in a space shuttle and goes back to Earth, AKA the cremator. And the new clone is awakened and continues his three year mission. During that time he's receiving video transmissions from home. He can't get live feed, so it's all taped recordings of his wife. And he's going through this three year journey where his wife actually has a child. He meets the daughter, stuff like that. We find out later on in the movie the daughter is now grown up. She is in her, what, teens? High teens? Yes. [00:22:24] Speaker B: 15. [00:22:25] Speaker C: Yeah, somewhere in that range. [00:22:26] Speaker B: I'd say late teens even. [00:22:27] Speaker C: So clearly he is at least the, what, fifth clone to have gone through this proceeding. I'm curious. They didn't really touch on this. We know the dad is alive, the mother's passed away and the daughter's alive. I really wanted him to connect with Earth Sam, have some sort of a conversation with him. We know that the clone makes it back to Earth and you know, makes a fuzz talking to the news and stuff like that. I'm really curious, like do you guys think that Sam knew that this was happening? Is he getting paid from the company and he did this entirely willingly or did they clone him from like a cup or something? He has no idea. And they just use the recordings that his wife actually sent to him to mess with this clone. Like are they getting free Sam labor out of this guy or do you think that he's living? [00:23:12] Speaker B: Sam comes out of the bathroom and a fleet of, like, scientists scurry in there to just swab some DNA. No, I think he absolutely, I think Earth Sam absolutely knew what he was getting into because the wife had to make those recordings to the guy on the moon. [00:23:25] Speaker C: But original Sam could have been on the moon and the wife's making the recordings. [00:23:29] Speaker B: Now. [00:23:29] Speaker C: I am with you. I'm with you. That the family is probably in on this. But that leads to the next question. And again, they didn't really go too into this. I'm sorry. Well, you, you agree that. [00:23:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I agree 100 that he was probably the first one manned wrecking crew up on the moon. He had the live feed of those video interactions throughout. Then he went home and the company's like, hey, we have got this breakthrough. We're going to clone you and send you up there. Here's a cut for your thing. And I kind of like that they didn't touch on the real Sam, aside from the one phone call that he does get to make, and he hears the real Sam's voice saying, who is that? Yeah, let me talk to them. And then the, the line gets cut off. I, I love that they just give you a hint of it so that you can question, like, what is his role in all of this? I, I kind of like that. [00:24:18] Speaker C: I, I'm kind of doing the sliding doors thing on that one where I'm like, I love the movie we got, and I also really want the movie we didn't. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Right. [00:24:25] Speaker C: I want them to be two separate things so I can enjoy that phone call. [00:24:28] Speaker B: If, if that were me, that phone call would have gone on for another 10 minutes. Like, I got questions, you know? But of course, holding back those questions allows the audience to ask those questions and, and, and, and, and answer them themselves. [00:24:41] Speaker C: So here's the next question. I have the follow up to my own question. Assuming Sam knows about this process, could you do that to yourself? Knowing that the person on the moon is going to be a version of you going crazy, not knowing what's going on, getting false hope from your wife about your child that he's never going to get to meet, and then dying alone? Could you do that to a version of yourself? [00:25:06] Speaker B: All right, all right. How much are you paying me? Yeah, how much you're paying me? It's a severance kind of question, right? Same. Same kind of principle, right? You're, you're making an, an aspect of yourself that you don't ever have to deal with, that has to deal with all the horrible stuff and you get to be paid for it. [00:25:23] Speaker A: So I don't know, I feel like most sci fi pictures, it's the big bad company against the world and it's a matter of how much to get to get paid to make things happen. So do you believe clones are real people? All of this, you know, if they can only ever live three years, like, is this the best use of a clone's time? Should we clone it all? Like all of these questions that can be brought up from this movie. But you know, at the bottom line, I feel it's a evil corporation tactic here and, and Sam's bought into it because he's getting well paid to do to have to lend his voice to AI, you know what I'm saying? If, if I were to put it in today's age, you know, you're just lending your voice to AI and AI will reimburse you a little bit and that call it a day. [00:26:16] Speaker C: Fascinating way of looking at that. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Some actors are going that way. Some actors are like, yeah, you can, you can have my likeness and I'll [00:26:22] Speaker B: retire and you can just get a royalty check. [00:26:25] Speaker A: Me in movies and I'll, yeah, I'll take a, I'll take a cut and it's a choice whether it's right or wrong. That's up to every individual, I suppose. Dan, how do you feel? [00:26:35] Speaker C: I mean, you're not entirely wrong. There probably is a amount of money that would allow me to throw my morals out the window, but like there's a huge chunk of me that's like no one knows me. Like I know me and like I wouldn't do being alone very well. And now I'm just forcing who knows how many me to live a miserable existence that they're going to hate. They're going to wake up and like once you open the door to that, because this is classic sci fi stuff, right? So like once you open the door to the idea that like you're going to wake up, not have any idea if you're the clone or the real one or whatever. How would I ever know that me living on earth with my wife is the real me and not also a clone and there's a better version of me living a better life somewhere else, you know what I mean? Like, it would just, I think it would open up too many doors in my imagination for me to be able to do that. [00:27:23] Speaker A: You wouldn't sleep well at night for the rest of your life. [00:27:26] Speaker C: I mean, stack of money, I guess, but shy of that, like, I don't know I don't know if I could do it. [00:27:31] Speaker A: It's an interesting concept for sure, right? [00:27:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's tough. I, I would definitely like Brian. I would be having that conversation with the Earth. Me though, being like, dude, the why? [00:27:42] Speaker A: I mean, one part of me immediately thinks I just like, I just gave up three years of my life. I missed the birth of my child in the first three years. And if I think back, I was very fortunate because when my son was born, I say this during COVID I got to be home with my son and I have been home with my son since he's been born pretty much. And would I want to trade that to go to the moon for three years and live in solitude and miss all of those experiences? Like no, 100%. But that's because I've had those experiences being in Sam's shoes, kind of trouble with anger management, maybe getting away because I'm. The marriage is crumbling a little bit because it does seem like their marriage kind of was on the right because of this move. And so maybe he was like, after three years, he's like, you know what? I never want to go back to the moon again. Just clone me, give me a fat stack, and I can spend the rest of my life making up for the three years I missed with my child. [00:28:51] Speaker B: And honestly, it kind of looks like it was better for him. Old Sam is a better, more well rounded individual who's ready to go back and be a part of his family again. When young Sam feels like he's kind of running away or using it as an, as an escape, you're, you're saying [00:29:09] Speaker A: close one, but you're not saying, oh gee, Sam, we don't know. OG Sam, we don't know OG may [00:29:17] Speaker B: never have left the earth. Earth, we don't know. [00:29:19] Speaker A: That's true too. That's true too. Yeah. [00:29:21] Speaker C: You guys are reading a lot into OG Sam about his marriage and him living a better life. I'm like, we don't know. Like we don't even know if he knows what's going on. [00:29:29] Speaker A: Well, yeah, the only thing we know for from OG Sam is his wife passed away. [00:29:35] Speaker C: Yep. [00:29:36] Speaker A: And he lives with his 15 year old daughter. Ish age. [00:29:41] Speaker B: Hey, do we have a time when this takes place? Like what year this? [00:29:45] Speaker C: 2035. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's 2035. So near future. Okay, so. [00:29:51] Speaker A: But again, I think the movie does a good job of setting up those questions so that we can talk about it and be like, what the F. It could be this, it could be that, could be anything. What would you do? I don't know. This is crazy. And so that's a. A good thing. Whereas if they would have just spilled all the beans, I felt I would have felt a little bit less good about it. Or. Or, you know, it depends how it unfolded, but it would. I like that curiosity that it drive. Drives up into my soul and my brain. [00:30:19] Speaker C: Well, and you're not wrong. Like, it is, like, as I mentioned, like, I kind of want both versions of the movie because the one we got is darn near perfect. Like, it's really solid. But I also want to have those conversations. That's good. We have this show so we can talk about those kind of things. Because there are things that I'm still curious about now. I will point out I found out 2035 on IMDb. I don't believe the movie ever states what time it is. So you could watch this in 2035 and it could still be the near future. Like, it's not like a back to the future where it specifically says, oh, this all happens in 2015, and we're 10 years removed from that and still don't have a hoverboard. Fricking Universal. [00:30:53] Speaker B: Honestly, because of the style of this film, it almost feels like an alternate reality. And it's maybe a bit retro. Like, this is actually late 90s. Like, that's what it kind of feels like. It takes place because of the look of the film and everything. And so I kind of just thought it was kind of an alternate universe. Maybe. Maybe. But near future also works. So, yeah, it's. It's cool either way. A lot of freedom to interpret this movie the way you want to. And I love that. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Yeah, [00:31:25] Speaker A: I agree with that. [00:31:26] Speaker C: I also. It's such a little nothing. I. I kind of loved that when the clone woke up, like, when they. When they go down to the basement, they find that, like, whole Bay of Clones, they pull one out. Just take a look at it. He's got a little Ziploc baggie of all the same shirts that we've seen Sam wear throughout the movie. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Yeah, like the. [00:31:44] Speaker C: The space station somehow knows how to get rid of all of his clothing and then supply the exact same clothing. It was just one of those weird little, like, nothing moments that my brain was like, that's cute. I like that. [00:31:53] Speaker A: So that brings me to my. My biggest question. Concern. Wonderment from you guys about this movie. Because the only other thing on this moon station is Gertie. Gertie robot with his little arm floating around on his little rail. He's the one that's got to clean up and reset all of these. Everything. The shirts, the rooms, everything. So what were your guys's thoughts on Gertie, is my first question. Dan, why don't you go ahead? I'll. [00:32:29] Speaker C: I'll grab that one, if you don't mind. Gertie's played by Kevin Spacey and it's this little robot with an arm. It is super primitive. It is attached to the ceiling. I don't think it's moves very easily from room to room, if at all. It was an incredibly helpful robot, despite knowing seemingly everything that was going on, which was a little bit weird to me, the fact that it clearly works for this evil corporation. It clearly is on board with the whole cloning process. And yet everything that Sam asks of it, it does no problem, including unlocking previous recordings of Sam, where he's like, clearly putting himself into the incinerator. And it's just like, here, watch this. And it's like, I don't really understand why they didn't program that to Gertie. To not do things like that. Like that seemed very counterproductive as far as cleaning up the place when, you know, Sam dies, presumably because they're like, hey, we're gonna put you on a rocket ship and send you back to Earth. They would have in the instructions, like, make sure you tidy up the place for the next person, throw all your clothes in the bay with you or. Or something so that Gertie wouldn't have to clean up. Because I don't imagine that Gertie is going to have much luck cleaning the place up whatsoever. I thought Gertie was interesting. It's very much like you mentioned before, like a HAL clone. Like, it has that feel to it. In fact, we made the, the joke a couple of times in the chat, like, oh, I can't do that, Hal. I. I didn't mind it. It just. It. It was just. I wish they explained a little more. Like, all it said was, I'm supposed to be helpful to you. And that was supposed to be like, well, it's just something about it just feels like it was going against its programming to help him. Is that feeling you got, Brian? [00:34:09] Speaker B: I feel like it's programmed to help and assist and keep him healthy and alive until it's time for him to climb into the pod to go home or the cremation chamber. And I think what it is is that they didn't really need to put any stop orders on Gertie because Sam, if everything went according to plan, would never ask to see the hidden footage of himself because he wouldn't know it exists. And so Gertie just never has to do any of that for any previous clone. And then once the genie's out of the bottle, you know, there wasn't any code put in there to, to solve this problem for the corporation, not for anybody else. But, but it's not a problem for Gertie. Gertie just has to keep now both alive and healthy. And the best way to do that is if, you know, help them process their mental health in any way they can, whatever they're doing. And so I guess it kind of works like yeah, you could say there's a, a, a hole in the plot with some of the Gertie stuff, but also it could just be the way that they approached it. They, they, the programmers just never felt that they needed to put stops in place because they didn't expect this to ever happen. It's just hubris kind of thing. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:30] Speaker B: The best I can come up with. Really. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:32] Speaker C: I mean we saw a cleanup crew show up after what, two days? So like worst case scenario, if one of the Sams goes haywire, they can go, yeah. [00:35:46] Speaker B: So he doesn't or not how Gertie So that he doesn't remember anything, which is what happened. [00:35:50] Speaker A: Right. [00:35:51] Speaker B: We don't know. Maybe this is a regular event and this is how it's supposed to go because it's not like Sam's going to last very long. He's got a three year shelf life. No matter what. Whether he burns up in the incinerator or just dies of cancer, he's not going to make it very far. They probably just didn't expect him to take a ride in the trash chute all the way back to Earth or whatever thing he climbed into. [00:36:15] Speaker C: So why even keep those recordings? What's the point of those recordings? [00:36:20] Speaker B: Beats me. [00:36:21] Speaker C: No data, I don't care. It doesn't take away Google, doesn't take [00:36:25] Speaker B: away my data points. I watch the most worthless useless information ever and I'm sure Google never deletes any of that. [00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fair. I mean, so I, I, I don't disagree. Like Gertie was a necessary portion of this film for multiple reasons. I did find that overall Gertie felt good, except there was a couple of moments where like Dan was mentioning like Gertie will just be helpful and that Sean threw a lot. Although I do feel like they intentionally made it ambiguous at the start a little bit. And there was a couple of times where Sam legit said like asked, I'm not quoting this, but am I a clone? Like, is this a clone? Am I a clone? And Gertie didn't answer. And there was another time when Gertie had the live feed call and Gertie lied about it, which didn't flow, didn't gel with the programming that lets Gertie override the password and show them all the files. Those two things don't mesh up as far as I'm concerned in a computer program. [00:37:37] Speaker C: Well, I'm going to take it one step further if you don't mind, please. [00:37:40] Speaker A: No, no, no. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. [00:37:43] Speaker C: When confronted directly, Gertie lies to him. But when he's trying to break in and see those videos, Gertie helps him without him asking. Gertie just comes up behind him and starts typing in the password. He's not like, hey, Gertie, you need to help me with this. So why does Gertie go from actively lying to him to actively over sharing? It doesn't take me out of the movie. I'm not trying to like make it to death. It's just one of those weird, like, oh, that didn't. I wish there was an explanation for that. [00:38:09] Speaker A: I think stood out. It stood out to me. So it was just an odd thing [00:38:13] Speaker B: I wanted to see what you guys. There's definitely some rough spots those, those points. I kind of view it as Gertie is doing what he thinks is best for Sam. It doesn't even matter which copy of Sam it is. I don't think Gertie thinks of Sam as a clone. Sam is the entity that Gertie is supposed to take care of. And so when Sam is having on the verge of a nervous breakdown and trying to get access to this, he sees that he can help Sam's mental state by leaving it by punching in the code. And I think that when Sam asks him directly after that live call and Gertie lies to him, I think it's because Gertie feels that lying to him is going to give Sam the best peace of mind. And that would jive with the programming. The programming may not be tell the truth, stop him, lie to him, whatever. I think the programming is just take care of Sam. That's it. [00:39:04] Speaker C: That's actually a very good point. I actually like that a lot. [00:39:07] Speaker B: It's not bad. [00:39:07] Speaker A: It's not bad. Although it's still weird just because it's a forced plot point. But it's a good. It's a great exclamation explanation of the reasoning behind. If there is the thought process of Gertie. Obviously there's no thought process, but yeah, okay. I. I just wondered where you guys were at with it because it was. It was like the one thing of the writing and, like the plot that just kind of felt forced. And so it. It pulled me out a little bit. But again, it's still a fun movie to watch. It's super interesting. It's just. That was odd. And. [00:39:40] Speaker B: And they. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Because they purposely made it ambiguous at the beginning, the. The hard turn made it that much more hard to believe, if that makes any sense. [00:39:50] Speaker C: Yeah. If we saw Gertie being super helpful the entire time or if we saw Gertie getting damaged, either one of those would have been okay for me, but either way, it's. It's fine. If you like what we do and you want to help support us, head on over to the Patreon. There's a link down below. Huge shout out to our producers, our executive producers, Real Bubba, Hotep and Dino, our writer, Elder JM990 and our director, it's you. Thank you all so very much. [00:40:18] Speaker B: Okay. Film was great. Loved it the first time. Loved it the second time. I actually liked going in the second time and being more critical of the film, being able to really look into the. The pieces, knowing what the plot is all about and knowing where it's going and everything. So I enjoyed seeing those set pieces. And even though I saw more flaws the deeper I looked, knowing the budget and what went into this film, it didn't take away from it at all. It was actually just going like, that's still really good for what they did, though. One of the worst parts of this film was just seeing those doorways that Sam had to step over to go through. That made absolutely no sense. If you were to ever pick up a heavy space rock and needed to cart it somewhere, you couldn't because you couldn't roll your cart anywhere. It just seemed dumb to me. I guess you'd have Gertie pick it up and carry it. Gordy only had one arm, though. I digress. The. The low point in the film in my stats here was probably the sound. They had good reason for doing what they did, but a lot of the sound was, you know, they did, like, muffled space sounds, which was okay. Technically, the moon has an atmosphere, though it's almost negligible. But I would. I really like when they do, like, true space sounds where it's perfectly silent in space or even closer to silent when you have those kind of sounds and stuff. And I think there were opportunities missed when it came to the sound. I don't remember any kind of music or drama building tunes or anything like that. So it didn't take away or add to in that effect. It was just kind of the actual sound of people talking, whether they're in a suit or in a spaceship or. Not a spaceship. Well, spaceship I guess, or Rover or whatever. So that was the only thing that kind of came in low. And even that still got a really good score, honestly. Overall, I gave this film an 82. I think it is an excellent piece of science fiction that doesn't even really need to be science fiction. [00:42:19] Speaker A: It. [00:42:19] Speaker B: It just has a lot of deep thinking about the consciousness and how you would react to yourself. Your own growth and discipline and all that stuff that's in this movie. Just some really heady things to think about. Made for a great flick and had a good time watching it. [00:42:37] Speaker C: Very similar to Brian. I don't really remember the music in this movie all that much. I think the sound was fine. I don't have. I agree with Brian. Again, it would be nice if the outer space scenes were completely silent. But I wasn't thinking that while I was watching the movie. I was too engaged in the movie to have that take me out of the wallet. I think the performance. Performances or performance, how you want to look at it from Sam Rockwell was absolutely phenomenal in this movie. And this movie does a couple of things that I really, really like in cinema. One, I love contained environments. Whether it be like a clerks or a phone booth or a oh, shoot lock where you just have like one actor who's really carrying it or like a small little group in a small little area. So that portion of this does really well for me. Also the sci fi that isn't just like aliens and silliness, but it's actually like raising really interesting questions about who we are as a people and what we can do. I really love that kind of stuff. And this movie did both of those really quite well. Especially for how small of a budget it is. I also really appreciate the fact that they could get as much out of this as they did on an indie budget. I really enjoyed this film both times that I saw it. Unfortunately, it's not one that I think I'm going to be revisiting often or over and over again. It was just. I'm glad I revisited it. There were parts of it that I completely forgot about, so I'm glad that I did. But I don't know which one I'm gonna go back to over and over again. I am giving this an 84 though. I really like this one. And even though we did just spend an hour completely ruining it for you, you should really check it out if you haven't seen it. Facts. [00:44:02] Speaker A: We ruined the movie. No, no, it's great. It's great. Now I'm gonna disagree about one thing that both Brian and, and Dan said. I actually quite like the music. Specifically, specifically in this movie the artist was Clint Mansell. He also did the music for Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan Pie, the Fountain, all kinds of very good music. He, he really knows how to like put you on edge with the music. And I, I think I actually read that the director was actually using segments of his music from Requiem when they were like editing and stuff. And he's like, I can't get this music out of my mind. How are we ever going to find music to go into this movie now? And actually just contacted this guy and he's like, yeah, I'll do the music for this movie. So I thought that was really cool that they actually got him after using samples of his music from other movies already. And I thought the music was really. Well, that being said, yeah, some of the outdoor Moon sounds was a little weird. But you know, if you're invested in the movie, you just go along with that kind of stuff along the way. Aside from that, I, this is like this fits perfectly into my little box of what will likes in a movie. And it's independent passion projects, first time or near first time directors putting everything they have into a movie and it really shows on screen in this movie. So there's very little I, I can't, I can't say I, I enjoyed about this movie. There's some plot holes and things like that. But again, the greater portion of sci fi with great sci fi is the questions about humanity or society and, and you know, like Star Trek or what have you. That's, that's what sci fi is about. It's not just about we're far off in space, fighting aliens and silliness as Dan put it. And I 100 agree with that. So overall this movie, it, it hit me, hit me really well. I think I enjoyed it more actually on the second watching than when I originally watched it. I gave this a movie 84 out [00:46:05] Speaker C: of 100 as well. And with that, our third Patreon pick makes it onto the list. Moon is taking over the second place with a score of 83. So far we've had pretty good luck with these Patreon picks. I really appreciate that. What do you guys think? Are you. Obviously this was, this was no City of God, but it was also significantly better than Wanda. I think it's pretty exactly where it should be considering all of our scores are within two of each other. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I like how, you know, it's rare that we are this tight on our ratings. I mean, I'm not the biggest sci fi fan. I think you two are definitely more fans. But I enjoy sci fi for the thought provoking nature and I think this one kind of hits that just right. And so I. I'm happy with the score and I'm happy that we are kind of in alignment with it. [00:46:54] Speaker C: Absolutely. [00:46:55] Speaker B: All right. [00:46:55] Speaker C: That's actually a good trio. I might have to go back and check, see if this is in fact the closest we've ever been. It'd be hard to beat. Whole thing too super cool. All right. And that's our rating of Moon. Leave a comment down below. Was our score a little too high? A little too low? I'd love to know what you have to think about that. We record this live or at Twitch tv, the Mongoolie show. And because this is a Patreon pick, we actually watch this one live over on the Patreon. So hit the link down below if you want to go join that so you can join the next. Join the next movie. Watch along with us when we do that at the end of the month. If you made it this far in the video, you probably enjoyed it considering that like and subscribe button so that we see you in the next one.