New film Moon revels in sinister emptiness of lunar future

William Maher | Jun 26, 2009 10:46 AM
See the trailer for one of this year's promising science fiction movies, Moon, which takes cues from Odyssey 2001 and Solaris

While films such as Transformers 2 keep the mainstream happy, the new Duncan Jones directed Moon looks set to deliver something more restrained, and dare we say, atmospheric.

Earning the film some attention is a cold, eerie Odysey-esque feel, including a HAL-like artificial intelligence voiced by Kevin Spacey. From the small snippets we've seen, the film also has echoes of Solaris, though we'll reserve final judgment for the finished product.

Moon's premise - a lone miner living on a lunar station - is certainly timely, with NASA's LCROSS lunar mission in space as we write this, on a mission to bombard the Moon in the hunt for ice water. As we've reported, the planned Constellation mission hopes to take human explorers to the Moon and beyond by 2020.

Also read Primary mission: NASA expects dust and ice cloud 50km high

And for a look at the search for other habitable worlds, mark your TV Diary for 7:30pm SBS, on Tuesday June 30 - Are we alone in the Universe?