Moon

Characters:

 Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell/Sam Bell Clone/Original Sam

 Kevin Spacey as GERTY (voice)
 Dominique McElligott as Tess Bell
 Kaya Scodelario as Eve Bell
 Benedict Wong as Thompson
 Matt Berry as Overmeyers
 Malcolm Stewart as ‘the technician’
 Robin Chalk as Sam Bell clone/Sam Bell
Director: Duncan Jones
Date of Showing: 2009
Short Background:
In the near future, Lunar Industries has made a fortune after an oil crisis by building Sarang
Station, a facility on the far side of the Moon to mine the alternative fuel helium-3 from lunar soil. The
facility is highly automated, requiring only a single human to maintain operations, oversee the
harvesters, and launch canisters bound for Earth containing the extracted helium-3. Sam Bell nears the
end of his three-year work contract at Sarang Station. Chronic communication problems have disabled
his live feed from Earth and limit him to occasional recorded messages from his wife Tess, who was
pregnant with their daughter Eve when he left. His only companion is an artificial intelligence named
GERTY, who assists with the base's automation and provides comfort for him.

Highlight of the Story:

 Sam feels like he's being treated like a child and grabs some tools. He opens a vent and
cuts into a tube, causing a leak of gas to spray out. GERTY comes over and works on
fixing it. Sam says that some meteorites might have caused the problem. He says that
there might be a breach in the exterior shell of the base and that he should go inspect it.
After some arguing, Sam tricks GERTY into letting him outside. Sam finds that his
spacesuit is missing, and so he takes a spare one. He gets into another rover and drives
out to the harvester where the crash occurred. The first rover is still there. Sam opens
the hatch and finds a body inside. Upon further inspection, he sees that the body looks
just like him but with bruises on his face. Sam brings the body back to the base. He asks
GERTY what's going on and why the man looks like him. GERTY states that the man is
Sam Bell.
Science behind the selected scenes:
The science behind this movie is the helium 3 mining in moon. But first, what is
helium 3? It is the substance that the film’s lunar mining operation is harvesting, a light,
non-radioactive isotope of Helium. He-3 has been identified as an essential ingredient
for nuclear fusion, a still- unproven process that could potentially generate vast
amounts of clean energy to supply the Earth’s energy needs. Moon depicts huge,
automated harvesters scraping the moon’s surface; inside the big beasts, the lunar soil
is heated and processed, and the extracted He-3 is refined. Sam Bell’s job, in addition to
maintaining the station and mining equipment, is to collect the canisters of
concentrated He-3 extract and launch them back to Earth in rocket-propelled capsules—
which eventually becomes the means of his own escape from his preordained fate on
the moon.
Technology used in the movie
 GERTY 3000 – A robot-computer who takes care of Sam and makes sure that Sam is kept alive
and functioning for his three-year life on the moon. Gerty also keeps Sam informed of the state
of the facility
 Lunar Rover - a space exploration vehicle used by Sam to go to a Helium-3 harvester
 Cryogenic Chamber – a chamber where clones are put to sleep and frozen before returning to
Earth.
 Facility – a large mining base which operates almost the entirely autonomously without
needing Sam to do very much. It contains all the basic features needed to maintain and
support its primary function– minign resources.
How it is relevant to the formation of the society:
In the movie, it shows how GERTY, the robot-computer, takes care of the human and
how the robot cared for the human. The robot even helped the human in escaping even though
it is against the company who built the robot.
The one way communication which exactly the type of communication someone trapped inside
a lifeless body would be restricted to. Everytime he sees a new tape, he feels equal part joy and
agony, because he sees what he wants and also the barrier that prevents him from it. The
terrible reality for sam is the thing which cause him the most happiness is also the source of his
biggest pain– hope. As clone sam slowly uncovers the truth he also begins to see the life he’s
been hoping for slowly moving on without him. What makes this more interesting is that clone
sam 1, the sam who saw the reality of the situation who decided to finally succumb to his
condition and essentially end his life while clone 2 who hasn’t have that experience remains
defined and returns to Earth.
Essentially, just maintaining the life he has without being able to provide the life that he wants.
It also reflects the kind of helplessness and frustration that many patients with terminal illness
feel as medical staff fill the room with positive attitude and kind words but ultimately do
nothing to change the situation
The relationship between GERTY and Sam. How GERTY
 Passenger
Characters:

 Jennifer Lawrence as Aurora Lane

 Chris Pratt as Jim Preston
 Michael Sheen as Arthur
 Lawrence Fishburne as Gus Manusco
Director: Morten Tyldum
Date of Showing: 2016
Short Background:
Jim Preston is one of the passengers of the sleeper ship called the Avalon that
transporting 5000 passengers in hibernation pods to the planet Homestead II. Due to an
asteroid collision of the ship, Jim Preston wake up 90 years too early. He met Arthur the
android barman and suffered in an isolation for a year.
Highlight of the Story:
Due to loneliness Jim Preston has awaken Aurora and claim that her pod had
malfunction. Later, they find out that the ship is in great danger and only the two can save the
lives of the people on the ship.
Science behind the selected scenes:

 The search for Earth-like planets around other stars.

 The passengers are put into a state of stasis inside hibernation pods, for trips through
space.
Technology used in the movie: Robot, Spaceships, Hologram, Hibernation Pods
How it is relevant to the formation of the society:

 The fact that they can put people in the hibernation pods already affect the society they
isolate 5000 people from Earth and send them to another planets.
 When Jim Preston feel the loneliness and isolation, he desperately wants a companion
so that he purposely open Aurora’s pod. We can always relate in that, when we feel
desperate, we did things that we shouldn’t do that results on a conflict.
 The movie shows a Stockholm syndrome when Aurora in which she fell in love with Jim
Preston the person behind her awaken 90 years too early.
 Arrival

Characters: Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks

Jeremy Renner as Ian Donnelly
Forest Whitaker as Colonel Weber
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Date of Showing: 2013
Short Background: The film follows a linguist enlisted by the U.S. Army to discover how to
communicate with aliens who have arrived on Earth, before tension lead to war.
Highlight of the Story: The highlight of the movie arrival is when Dr. Louise Banks started to
learn the language of the aliens.
Science behind the selected scenes: Dr. Louise Banks is confronted with a bizarre alien
language and is asked to decipher it. Spoken, it sounds like whale or dolphin noises, and written
it’s a circular array of inky patterns known as logograms. In order to communicate, Banks writes
down English words and acts out what they mean.
Technology used in the movie: The technology used in the movies is the spaceship and they
wore suit for their oxygen supply.
How it is relevant to the formation of the society: Many of the people are afraid on the aliens
and the arrival of the aliens is like a threat to them. This Doctor Louise Banks has a talent that
can talk to animals, plants, so the military beg her to go to the sight where the alien is and she
might understand their language.
Mars needs Mom
Characters:

 Seth Green as Milo

 Dan Fogler as George “Gribble” Ribble
 Elisabeth Harnois as Ki
 Mindy sterling as The Supervisor
 Joan Cusack as Milo’s Mother
Director: Simon Wells
Date of Showing: 2011
Short Background:
Highlight of the Story:
Science behind the selected scenes:
Technology used in the movie:
How it is relevant to the formation of the society:

Gravity
Characters: Sandra Bullock as Dr. Dryan Stone
George Clooney as Matthew Kowalsky
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Date of Showing: 2013
Short Background:
Dr. Ryan Stone is a medical engineer on her first shuttle mission. Her commander is
veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky, helming his last flight before retirement. Then, during a
routine space walk by the pair, disaster strikes: The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Ryan and Matt
stranded in deep space with no link to Earth and no hope of rescue. As fear turns to panic, they
realize that the only way home may be to venture further into space.
Highlight of the Story:
Science behind the selected scenes:

 Ryan had to let go to save Matt.

Isaac Newton tells us that an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon
by an outside force. Kowalski was unable to arrest his forward movement by grabbing
ahold of the ISS, so he goes floating off into space. Other than gravity, which we can
ignore for this close contact scene because it is acting upon everything in the same way,
there are no forces acting on Kowalski. He is moving away because he was moving in
that direction and nothing stopped him. Ryan goes after Kowalski.
Now, what affect does Kowalski have on the situation? There is no force acting on him.
But he too has a kinetic energy equal to half his mass times his velocity squared. So, if
the rubber band is to slow Ryan to a stop it also has to slow Kowalski. So now it has to
absorb her energy and his energy. Kowalski's interpretation of the situation is that the
parachute cords can't absorb that much energy. So, he figures that if he lets go of her
hand, the parachute cords, instead of absorbing Ryan's kinetic energy AND his kinetic
energy, will only have to absorb Ryan's kinetic energy.
  Ryan could jet around on a fire extinguisher.
Using the fire extinguisher would certainly move Ryan, but not necessarily in the
direction she intended.
In order for the fire extinguisher trick to work, the extinguisher would have needed to
sit right at her “center of mass.” Imagine that kind of like the center of a seesaw with
equal weights on both seats — it’s the point where, if a pivot were placed there, the
object would stay balanced and in place. Spraying a fire extinguisher from this point
would push a balanced, upright Bullock in whatever direction she wanted to go.

 A satellite, once destroyed, can form a catastrophic cloud of space debris.

It wouldn’t happen as fast as in the movie, Frost says, and it wouldn’t impact quite so
many satellites (more on that in #6), but a space debris event could definitely come with
huge consequences.
In fact, it’s happened before. In January 2007, the Chinese unleashed more than 1,600
pieces of debris into the atmosphere when they destroyed one of their own satellites
with a missile. The impact of that missile strike sent the debris into orbits much different
from the original satellite’s, creating, in Frost’s words, a cloud of debris “enveloping the
Earth and [continuing] to threaten any spacecraft between those two altitudes.”
Technology used in the movie:

 Spacesuit - A space suit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh
environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes
 Jet pack – also called as Manned Maneuvering Unit used on space shuttle missions to
perform untethered spacewalks
 International Space Station - a space station (habitable artificial satellite) in low Earth
orbit where Ryan went inside to try to communicate with Matt and also to undock the
space shuttle
How it is relevant to the formation of the society:
Ryan Stone, we learn, has already lost everything a human can lose short of life itself, but she
rediscovers her will to live when she accepts that what is happening will happen whether she is
alive or not. Life is a conscious choice, made when there is seemingly nothing left to live for
simply because being alive: why not? Ryan Stone decides to live, accepts that her decision
ultimately means nothing, and carries on anyway. This, to me, is the perfect representation of
hope.
Everything, as Gravity is basically the cinematic representation of our insignificance and the
universe’s total hostility toward the human condition, and how that shapes our identity.
 Interstellar
Characters:

 Matthew McConaughey as Joseph Cooper

 Anne Hathaway as Amelia Brand
 Jessica Chastain as Murphy Cooper
 Mackenzie Foy as young Murphy
 Ellen Burstyn as old Murphy
 Matt Damon as Mann
 John Lithgow as Donald
 Michael Caine as Professor Brand
Director: Brad Bird
Date of Showing: 2014
Short Background:
Set in a future where a failing Earth puts humanity on the brink of extinction, it sees an
intrepid team of NASA scientists, engineers and pilots attempt to find a new habitable planet,
via interstellar travel.
Highlight of the Story:

Science behind the selected scenes:


Technology used in the movie:
How it is relevant to the formation of the society: