"Moon" Trailer Aims To Show That Quality Can Win Over Quantity in Sci-Fi

By: Garrett Thomas Posted: April 14, 2009 Filed under: Trailers

All too lately sci-fi fans have been subjected to the lowest common denominator form of science fiction movies. This is not uncommon in terms of film, with the logical plan of packing as many seats as possible. Unfortunately science fiction is a genre that arguably suffers a greater defeat than any other because of this business model. It seems to me that in an attempt to fill the multiplexes there's the predictable addition of A-list stars and computer generated effects to 'wow' the newly recruited popcorn eaters while at the same time watering down the intellectualism to make it more appealing to the masses. This could leave the fan base of the original work (novels, original films, etc.) feeling alienated and insulted and significantly lower the quality of the film.

Along comes the first trailer for Moon. The debut film by Duncan Jones due out this June. It stars one of my personal favorites, Sam Rockwell, who is the only one who made The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy remotely entertaining as a film. In this trailer we see Rockwell isolated on a 3 year lunar mining operation harvesting Helium-3 for Lunar, to export it to Earth for energy production uses. His only accompaniment is an odd computer personality named GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) which strikes me as a cross between HAL 9000 and GLaDOS (of Portal fame). But it's not until there are two weeks left on his Lunar obligations when we start to see a series of events that lead into what appears to be a struggle with reality.

Moon has the small scale look and budget of an indie film with a lone semi-recognizable actor. The success of this movie lives and dies with Sam Rockwell's performance, as he is pretty much the film's only character. But I have complete faith he can pull it off. The quality of this movie isn't laced with special effects due to it's independent budget so that means more attention paid to a fully developed and perfected story. If a film on the budgetary scale like this one can succeed I believe it will yield more movies of its caliber in the future. With a greater emphasis on quality I think science fiction can once again strive to heights out of this world instead of whatever crater it has been forced down into in recent years.