"GERTY, you remind me of No. 5 from SHORT CIRCUIT"

Rating: 7/10 (20 July 2009)

Hal had the ultimate poker face. A yellow pupil of sorts ensconced in red light, the rogue computer who commandeered the Discovery in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" was unreadable; a mere orb, an "eye" that looked into the eyes of its crewmen, and lied. Just before Hal makes a fallacious prognosis on the spacecraft's well-being, this inscrutable piece of conscious hardware projects its own misgivings about the Jupiter mission onto Dave(Keir Dullea), who doesn't realize that the computer is downplaying the veracity of the moon excavation findings. Late in the film, we learn that HAL knows about the monolith, which vexes him, as does the ongoing sojourn to the stars. When HAL says it's "protecting HIS own concerns" about the mission, the crewman misses the malevolence in this statement. In Hal's unnervingly modulated voice, belies the hatching of a murder plot. If only HAL had a face, then maybe the hapless astronauts would stand a fighting chance of guessing at its duplicity.
The computer in "Moon", GERTY(voiced by Kevin Spacey) has one of those "have a nice day" smiley faces that may, or may not, correspond to what its "feeling". It's the second face we're interested in, the one with the ulterior motive, underneath that pixelated smile which assures Sam(Sam Rockwell) that "he's" the next best thing to being human. Whereas HAL was remote and carried an air of condescension towards Dave and Frank(Ken Lockwood), GERTY seems nurturing and approachable, an illusion created by the representational face on its screen. While GERTY isn't a murderer like HAL, this affable piece of technology is definitely complicit to the murders on board the ship. When the Lunar Industries employee(who sends moon-based energy back to Earth) communicates his excitement about returning home over breakfast, GERTY puts on a happy face, knowing full well that Sam is a clone, and will die in space. Unlike HAL, however, this computer can be outsmarted. The new Sam discovers his predecessor in a wrecked lunar vehicle after convincing GERTY that the ship needed some outside repairing. Unlike HAL, this computer tows the company line. The new Sam overhears GERTY talking to its terrestrial-based bosses from a live feed purported to be inoperable. They're on the same page: for the economical virtue of profit, both man and machine work together to prevent the laborer from learning the truth. Unlike HAL, when GERTY goes rogue, and this is the biggest difference between the two artificial intelligences, the computer's agenda is to save, not kill, like a subordinate the machine is purported to be. But GERTY's conspiratorial decision to keep Sam's recovery a secret from headquarters lacks motivation. In spite of the film's anti-Bay approach to science fiction("Moon" has the tone of Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running"), this admirably restrained indie, compromises itself, much like the Spielberg/Kubrick joint venture "AI", in the sense that GERTY plays like a Spielbergian take on HAL. In other words, "Moon" starts off as sharp cheddar, and ends up like a soft brie. The second Sam convinces the computer to wake up another clone so he and the first Sam can avert certain death at the hands of the company's fast-approaching trouble-shooters. The second Sam wants to kill the new Sam and stage his corpse inside the lunar vehicle. And that's where "Moon" starts to wobble. Late in the film, the second Sam explains to GERTY that humans aren't programmed, and yet, by participating in a potential murder plot to save lives, the computer acts as if it's already made the distinction between man and machine, therefore not care if the clones lived or died. GERTY turns out to be more like "E.T.", than the cold and calculating HAL. Whereas HAL needed to be shut down(the computer feared that a higher intelligence than himself awaited them in Jupiter), GERTY voluntarily powers off, and reboots, to erase all traces of the earthbound Sam. The difference between GERTY and HAL reminds me of the moment in "AI", when a moon(pure Spielbergian imagery), reveals itself to be an aircraft on the prowl for runaway androids in the woods(Spielberg gone dystopian). It was a perfect synthesis of Spielberg and Kubrick's filmic, and philosophical sensibilities. "Moon", however, didn't need the former's influence. But still, the film is pure science fiction, and is the best of its kind(more "speculative fiction" than space opera) since David Twohy's "The Arrival".