A Question About Moon

[Emperor Cupcake]

SPOILERS!!!

Okay, last night I finally got around to seeing Moon with Sam Rockwell. And it was fantastic, and I highly, highly recommend it. There is one tiny thing that's kinda bugging me, though. I seem to remember a brief scene early in the film where Sam-5 sees a dark-haired woman in a yellow jumpsuit sitting in his chair in the base, and then when he looks again she's gone. I also thought it was this same woman he saw outside, the figure who made him crash the rover. So my question is, who is she? She's clearly not his wife (or the woman he thinks is his wife), because his wife had short blonde hair. Is it just something he's seeing because he's generally falling apart and going stir crazy? And if so, why not have hallucinations of his wife (or himself), which would seem to make more sense, instead of seeing visions of a random stranger? I even went so far as to look on the movie FAQ and message boards on IMDB, but I didn't see anything about that. Does anyone who's seen the movie have any idea what I'm talking about?

I was also curious as to why GERTY would help Sam-5 and Sam-6, in apparent defiance of its programming, but the more I think about it, the more I think the film was establishing the fact that GERTY was starting to develop human emotions, like loneliness and sympathy. That was one of the things I liked most about the film, the way they played with people's perceptions of the evil, backstabbing HAL, then turned those perceptions on their heads. Like I said, a great film which doesn't seem to have got a lot of attention as far as I can see (like why wasn't it nominated for Best Picture instead of, say, The Blind Side, which I haven't seen but which looked syrupy and awful, and besides that starred the horrible Sandra Bullock)?

[Mr. Atari]

Yes, Moon was outstanding. Outstanding.

I think the girl in the chair (and outside) was supposed to be his daughter. At least that was my assumption when I saw the film.

And I think GERTY helped because that was the core of his programming. He said a number of times, "I'm here to keep you safe." I loved the little emoticon faces he had.

[Mighty Jack]

I think that was his daughter too. Since he'd never met her and shoudn't remember her, I figured that this was an indication that he's picking up memories from the original Sam here on Earth. That kind of gives it an existential undertone, that he isn't just a copy to be thrown away, but is becoming the actual person he was drawn from. (or maybe I'm over thinking it?)

I liked the movie a lot, feel it would have been a more worthy best pic nomanee than a lot of them. But there are parts of it that just didn't seem to work for me. As a study of character and the human condition it was great, but some of the plot lines felt underdeveloped and the ending was too abrupt.

[Emperor Cupcake]

Yeah, it occurred to me that it might be his daughter, though the one time we see his daughter older on the little phone-home device, I didn't think she looked like the woman he saw. But that would make more sense, and I'm perfectly happy to concede that I didn't see the woman clearly enough to be able to judge.

I thought GERTY was going to let Sam-6 get into the escape pod thingie and then gas him or something.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

It is indeed his daughter. The PAL DVD, don't know about others, features Q and A sessions and two commentaries that cover a number of the questions people have about the film and it's the idea that the Sam clones are in some way psychically linked to the original Mr. Bell, kind of like the idea that twins are.

As for GERTY I got the idea that like HAL he's flawed because he was made and programmed by humans. You can't have a perfect machine because human error is always a factor. So in an odd way both computers do start to behave with human characteristics. In GERTY's case the flaw allows one of the clones to manipulate him into helping them by playing to the programming that he's meant to keep them safe.

Absolutely adored the film and glad others have liked it. It deserves a lot more recognition. Thankfully it got quite a few BAFTA nominations (the fact that it was a British production helped I'd expect) including best film. Duncan Jones won for outstanding debut, or however they were terming it, which was good. He says this is his Silent Runnings and next up is his Blade Runner. Can't wait.