Why build such a huge base and only have one guy doing everything? - Moon (2009) Discussion

[–] rainofwalrus 9 years ago

Great question. Perhaps unknowable. If I were to guess: Less Loose Ends.

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

reply

[–] phantom2-2 9 years ago

it would certainly have taken more people initially to get the base up and running, thus the bigger base. once it's in business they can downsize the staff to a single sam (at a time).

besides, a bigger base would have been more livable than a tiny one. loneliness and claustrophobia? not a good way to spend three years.

reply

[–] WalkGoodPhil 9 years ago

I'm still watching the movie right now. I'm at the part where the two Sams just found the other bases. I was thinking maybe there were other Sams at each base. I guess I'll find out soon.

reply

[–] daniel-389-59760 9 years ago

I also have questions like this regarding the film, but I assume this is the writer's way of showing the irrationality of a capitalist agenda? I don't know. Personally, I love capitalism. Perhaps the film is showing how inhumane humans are in order to turn a profit?

It kinda gives me the same vibe that Cloud Atlas did when they show the people being converted to food.

Ultimately, I try to look past some of the unknown elements in this story because there is still a hell of a lot to digest that is actually given to us in the story.

I'm more fascinated by the biblical implications the film makes more than anything. The whole "fallen angel" thing is very interesting.

reply

[–] DethstruXioN 8 years ago

I always find it funny to read a statement like "I love capitalism", when it brings so much bad with it too.
But i guess it is the same for saying "I love sex", when there is rape and STD's.
It is eventually mankind that soils the soil.

Btw, have you seen Soylent Green?

By replying now, i just read your last sentence, i guess i already addressed that in your other thread.
I dont think it specifically wants to incorporate the bible, it might use themes but yeah, i dont feel like repeating myself on this.

But it is good to look past unknown elements from time to time, because if you really want to dissect fictional stories, you will find out that most of it is ... fictional. It is up to the viewer to accept the fictional aspects of it.
I dont think Moon really overdid it on the suspense of disbelief, so i am willing to glance over things that appear improbable.

reply

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

"I always find it funny to read a statement like "I love capitalism", when it brings so much bad with it too.
But i guess it is the same for saying "I love sex", when there is rape and STD's."

No, it's not the same.

In Capitalism, only CAPITAL matters - life does not. Even george bush once admitted this in a youtube video (look it up, he says something that sometimes profit trumps life, or something along those lines).

Therefore, corporations become these psychopaths that care only about profit and capital, everything else is expendable, including workers, fresh air, nature, healthy food, human beings and all animal life, flora and fauna, clean oceans and lakes, etc.

Capitalism is scary, because it's basically a greed-based work-slavery system, where rich get richer, while poor get poorer, and everything is maintained by guns, militaries, tanks, jet fighters and bombers and nowadays, drones.

Communism is scary, because you have no rights in it, because everything belongs to the government - if you can't own anything, you can't have rights.

These governmental population control-'isms' are pretty much horrible, especially in the hands of the people that usually do anything to get in the positions of power.

The only good 'isms' I can think of, are 'vegetarism' and 'veganism'. It's better to not love an 'ism'.

Loving 'sex' is basically worshipping bodily lust, but at least it has basis in nature, whereas Capitalism is an abstract concept that doesn't exist in nature, and yet causes so much harm.

Free market is better than capitalism, but all these 'exchange of goods and services' systems were supposed to be temporary - money is supposed to exist as a convenience, not as something that you use to oppress people (but that's what it is now - it's chains for the masses).

Once we evolve enough spiritually, we don't have to use such things as 'money' anymore, it's just a stepping stone to a greater life.

But now that's a perpetual status quo..

reply

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

..because someone(s) halted the natural progress and stunted our spiritual growth, and now we're kept in a half-animalistic, almost childlike state with emotions flaring and materialistic greed and lust directing everything we do.

Sex exists so people can reproduce, bring new bodies for more souls to incarnate in. Food exists so these bodies can maintain energy flow until they expire.

But if you start 'loving' sex or food, you are bound to misdirect your attention away from the natural, spiritual cultivation towards animalistic lust and greed, and this is not healthy.

Nothing in excess is healthy, and that kind of 'love' (worshipped lust, really) leads to problems and unbalanced life.

reply

[–] liscarkat (16643) 3 years ago

With all its shortcomings, capitalism has worked better than any other economic system. As far as vegetarianism is concerned, it is not natural or healthy. Human beings have evolved as omnivores. Our teeth, digestive systems, and metabolisms are configured to process meat as well as plants. And veganism? It's too silly to even be worthy of discussion.

reply

[–] andrewwatsonffc 8 years ago

The way it looks to me was when the base was first built it was manned by more than one person. But after it was up and running they only needed one person to keep it running,

reply

[–] saxman418 8 years ago

Or run the whole thing with AI and machines?

Blowin' the changes!

reply

[–] rainofwalrus 8 years ago

Or run the whole thing with AI and machines?

Given the nature of the Procedural Illusion (Clone Secret), the entire thing was run by an AI. And we see how well that worked out.

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

reply

[–] saxman418 8 years ago

I mean no clones - totally automated. If something goes wrong, then is the time to send human technicians to fix it.

Blowin' the changes!

reply

[–] DethstruXioN 8 years ago

I could argue that automated servers still need a techie around for maintenance, and i assume that there arent many highly trained/Astronaut technicians that want to do illegal business.
Since the company decided to go shady.

The Eliza unit consisted of guys that seemed to be hitmen that sweep the area and press the reset button and fly off to let the new Sam do the maintenance.

But in this process, the Eliza unit are the human technicians.
Their arrival message showed that Sam was under no circumstances allowed to question any of the Eliza motives, he was "asked" to cooperate with everything they do, because they were there "to help him after all", but they tried to reduce every human variable, basically treating Sam like a machine too, and they came in with guns, so they were probably not going to consider to be friendly to Sam or even keeping this clone alive.
To them, he is nothing more than a GERTY made from skin and bone.

reply

[–] saxman418 8 years ago

Why would the company have to "go shady" if they had a legitimate operation to harvest the moon without using clones? And the Eliza guys were human astronauts who were quite happy to do illegal business

Blowin' the changes!

reply

[–] DethstruXioN 8 years ago

Well ok, i assumed you tried to find a solution within the given context of the movie.
In the movie the company is shady, so thats why i brought my reply in that way.
If the Eliza crew is happy with being shady, as seen in the movie, then that still reflect back to Lunar industries if that ever got out, maybe they hired them as freelance contractors, but still, if news gets out about the cloning process and/or the way they treat the clones, we would be pretty much at the same spot.

But yeah like Walrus also said, GERTY was part of the problem too.

Now i guess you could go out of the movie's story too by adding cyborgs or machines that have no personality and never try to attain one, but that would not connect to the message of the movie.
Neither was their intention to show a fully working automated and self-sustained factory, because the point was to bring the humanity into it.

But it would seem that installing a bunch of Mega-Roomba's on the Moon's surface, with one or two technicians on standby on Earth could suffice, without adding the whole base and chain of clone slaves.
The Astronaut/Technicians would only need a small pod to habituate for the moments that they need to be on the Moon for service, but those visits would probably not last longer than a few weeks, so no huge base would be needed.

But on the other hand, if something really is amiss, like one Roomba breaking down fully, that would take a longer stay, to clean up and install a new one or parts of one.
Unless they decide to just scrap them and just send in a new one in Mars Rover style, pack it in bubblewrap and hope it make the landing softly enough to unwrap and start hoovering again.

reply

[–] rainofwalrus 8 years ago

You don't see how GERTY was a big part of the problem here? Waking a SAM prematurely, lying to Corporate, and then letting that SAM out of the base against orders.

Enjoy these words, for one day they'll be gone... All of them.

reply

[–] DethstruXioN 8 years ago

Given that they never explained how the gravity works inside the base, maybe a large portion of the base is used to generate this.

Maybe some compartments were simply enlarged to make the clones feel more at home,
to prevent them from snooping around in order to have move room to live in.

The biggest part of the base where all the clones were stored seemed to be underground (assuming that it is underground and you also mean to include this part), and was never supposed to be seen by any of the clones, only by GERTY and the "rescue crew".

A group of people would mean an increase of variables, controlling only 1 human at a time would normally increase the efficiency and sustainability of the lie.

They also explained that it was cheaper to make clones than to have new Astronauts trained and sent up to the Moon every 3 years, that is just a thing that you have to accept. Maybe it was the same kind of lie that ties in with the 1 man manipulation as i explained above, nobody knows.

That it didnt work out at the end, well, thats exactly what the movie was all about.

reply

[–] tlm557 8 years ago

Because it is a bad movie that makes no sense.

reply