【Video Essay】Alienating Capitalism, All-too-human AI and Clones: Duncan Jones’ Lunar Odyssey

FILM 485 Midterm Project

Like many sci-fi films set near an anthropocentric future that have thematic discussions on the isolation nurtured in distant space, the identity crisis raised among clones, the depiction of artificial machines, and their intellectual consciousness, Duncan Jones’ Moon also poses the dire question of what makes a human being, in contrast to a robot AI or an artificial being. While the film may seem to look like a remix of homages sent by Jones to our familiar sci-fi classics, it never descends into pastiche. Instead, it turns the familiarity into something appealingly unique.

In this video essay, we are set on a journey to the Moon with our protagonist Sam, who is later revealed as a clone, and our AI darling Gerty, who is surprisingly humane. We explore how the ideas of cloning, isolation, and identity play out in this lunar odyssey.

Voiceover from https://play.ht/studio