DUNCAN JONES
One Giant Leap
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as well and I know that there’s some people
who've been influenced on that side of things.
I’m glad that people still appreciate the film.”
Considering Moon’s reported budget of $5
million, it remains a marvel of production design
with its station set and use of miniatures; the
use of CG embellishments is relatively minimal.
Jones has gone on to do a few films since
that have more heavily relied on CGI out of
necessity, but he seems eager to incorporate a
lot of practical effects in the next film project he
has lined up: an adaptation of Rogue Trooper,
the sci-fi comic strip from 2000 AD.
“We’ll be trying to get a good balance on
Rogue Trooper. All of the films I've done have
level, is there anything he would change about
the film now?
“I think the only thing is there is a bonus scene
at the end of the movie that we didn’t up doing.
We always liked it as an ending, it’s just that we
couldn’t get enough time and with the constraints
that we had, we never really had the connective
material to make it work; to go from what we
were able to shoot to this one scene where the
Sam Bell character goes to the home of his
grown daughter to leave her a present. We shot
the scene where he leaves her the present, but
we never really had the connective material
that I felt it needed to make it work. So, I think I
probably would have just tried one more shot at
attempting to make that ending work because I
still think it was a lovely cap on the movie.”
Speaking of a lovely cap on the movie, the
surviving Sam Bell(s) eventually received a brief
epilogue treatment with a cameo in Jones’ most
recent feature, Mute, a future Berlin-set neo-noir
starring Alexander Skarsgård, Paul Rudd and
Justin Theroux that shares a cinematic universe
with Moon. “I'm massively grateful to both Sony
and Netflix, respectively, that I got to make those
two films,” Jones says. “But now I'm incredibly
hungry to make the third and final piece of the
anthology. I’ve been working on a graphic novel
of what is the third part of the story, very much
with the hope that if that goes well and people
like it, maybe I can convince someone to see
what the potential would be for a movie.
“It is a bigger movie, but it wraps up what
those three movies are about. I'm hoping I get
to make that third film. What we’re hoping to do
is put together this collective of different artists
who are going to be working on it; some really
interesting people. It’s going to take a while to
do, but I think it will be worthwhile.”
Moon is available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray from
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
ALIEN (1979)
Aside from being one of the greatest horror films
ever made, Alien is one of the definitive portrayals
of blue collar workers in a sci-fi setting.
OUTLAND (1981)
Sean Connery plays a federal marshal who
is stationed at a mining colony on a Jupiter
moon and finds himself marked for murder after
discovering a conspiracy.
SILENT RUNNING (1972)
Bruce Dern’s astronaut finds himself alone in a
spacecraft with only robots for company.
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
The reveal that the soft-spoken robot GERTY
in Moon is genuinely benevolent seems like a
deliberate subversion of 2001’s HAL 9000.
SPACE ODDITIES
In 2009 Duncan Jones cited some
of these films as influences on Moon
tried to blend practical effects with CGI. There
aren’t many films these days which are made
strictly in camera. Even with a film like Warcraft,
we built massive film sets for that; in camera film
sets. Although there were lots of VFX work on it
as well, I think you're always balancing between
VFX and in camera as much as possible these
days. Just look at the new Star Wars movies.
Big space-faring spectaculars, but again, doing
as much in camera as they can. I think the
more you can set up in camera, the easier it is
to extend that universe by using VFX because
you already know what it is that you're trying
to achieve and you’re building on that. Rogue
Trooper will be similar. We’ll be trying to do
what we can in camera and if we can pull it off
with the budget we’re trying to work at, that’s
what we'll be doing.”
One early memorable part of Moon that
doesn’t rely on in camera practical effects is
its opening title sequence, in which the various
credits for the film are presented over a day in
the life of Sam Bell, emerging at curious angles
and with layers to the text that don’t make them
look like traditional credits. “Because of the
nature of the story in the film,” Jones says of the
opening credits sequence, “I wanted to basically
use the idea of shadows and of multiples of
whatever the title or text was, to foreshadow the
idea of multiples of Sam. We did it in part of the
poster campaign as well, where Sam Rockwell
has different levels of shadow behind his name.
We do similar with the titles in the movie, which
was informed by something we’d seen David
Fincher do [with Panic Room (2002)], as far as
having these physical 3D objects floating within
the space of the movie world. It was something
that we’d been hoping would work. Since it
was a smaller film, we didn't know for sure. We
weren’t able to test it beforehand, so we just
hoped it would work.”
Speaking of Moon being a small film, were he
to still operate on near enough the same budget
