Roland Emmerich, after his iconic movies of natural disasters and alien invasions, such as Independence Day 1 and 2, 2012, The day after tomorrow, takes up catastrophe cinema with moon fall. In the film the Moon gets dangerously close to the Earth causing some disasters and panic worldwide. The cause is an unknown force that has to do with AI (artificial intelligence).
The film is nostalgic Armageddon, Deep Impact or the same 2012 and other productions that have remained in the minds of viewers. On moon fallthe protagonists are Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley, the first are astronauts and the second, a nerd.
Most of Emmerich’s disaster movies adhere to the same formula: a nerd or scientist has a theory about a threat to humanity, but the authorities don’t believe him. Then the threat makes a very public appearance and of course the leaders now seek their help and in most cases reveal that they have known about the threat all along. It is then that they recruit a tough and rogue hero, who often has a broken marriage or family problems, to work with the scientist to save the day from danger out of this world. Usually as part of a subplot, the scientist or hero has a love interest or child who needs to be rescued from a comparatively practical situation (the human part). The unlikely duo work together and beat the odds to save the planet from certain destruction.
already in moon fallthe chosen hero is KC Houseman, played by Bradley, whom we remember as Samwell Tarly, the eldest son of Lord Randyll Tarly and Lady Melessa from the series Game of Thrones. He plays a conspiracy theorist who believes that the moon is a megastructure. When NASA ignores his claims, KC ends up with disgraced astronaut Brian Harper (Wilson). They team up with NASA director and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Berry) to convince officials that her plan to bomb the moon to stop her descent is a bad idea. Facing misfortune both external and internal, the heroes hope to organize a last-minute trip to space, where they will neutralize the AI that is wreaking havoc inside Earth’s natural satellite.
Emmerich’s taste for this material goes back to The X-Files, the hit 1990s show that helped saturate US government conspiracy theories and top-secret alien invasions. Since then, the director, clearly a fan, has explored these themes in his films. On moon fall (something like ‘falling moon’) this is noted, right in the scene where Jo seeks to discover secret files that show that NASA knew about the lunar threat. That’s when Holdenfield (Donald Sutherland in a cameo) appears in a wheelchair, plagued by secrets. His character offers a few lines of exposition to Jo, explaining that the US Government had known of a non-terrestrial presence on the moon since the 1969 moon landing.
“I just want you to have fun,” says Emmerich on YouTube and in another he also says yes moon fall is a success there will be a second and third part. “It’s one of those movies where you really have to sit down and strap on your seatbelt, hold your popcorn and it starts. Have the feeling that you can laugh, you can cry, you can have all kinds of emotions and then it’s over after two hours and five minutes or so.”
Emmerich also pays homage to The glow on moon fall. Note the scene where KC presents information to a small group of people in a hotel, the wallpaper pattern of that hotel matches the iconic wallpaper pattern of The glow, film directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1980. This seems to be a nod to the rumor that the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked.
Source: Eluniverso
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