Pandorum
is a German-British 2009 science fiction
horror film,
with elements of Lovecraftian horror, and survival adventure. The film was directed by Christian Alvart
and produced by Robert Kulzer, Jeremy Bolt
and Paul W.S. Anderson. Travis Milloy wrote the screenplay from a story by Milloy and Alvart.
It stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster.
Filming began in Berlin in August 2008. Pandorum
was released on 25 September 2009 in the United States,[3] and on 2 October 2009 in the UK.
The film's title is a nickname
of a fictional psychosis called "Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome" (ODS
for short) caused by deep space
and triggered by emotional stress leading to severe paranoia, delirium, and nosebleeding. The film received mixed to
negative reviews, but has gained a cult following
over time.
After watching this
film I felt it was a greatly underappreciated movie with an intriguing view on
the future and nature of the human condition. The human race has had to abandon
earth due to excessive overpopulation, therefore a huge transport ship called
Elysium transports 60,000 humans 500 million miles from earth on a 124 year
journey to the only planet with an appropriate atmosphere, and water to sustain
humans. On board the Elysium are embryos for every organism on earth; thus the
Elysium is an interesting twist on Noah’s ark.
However the film
gets interesting towards the end after the plot twist and explanation (SPOILERS) which reveals that the vast horde of monstrous,
cannibalistic humanoid hunters which have been the films primary antagonist,
are in fact the descendants of humans. It is revealed that the ship arrived at
Tanis (the new world) 900 years ago at which point the first rotation crew
awoke to run the ship. Finding that the ship was in deep space a place with no
stars just black (later revealed to be the bottom of an ocean on Tanis) and a
message from earth telling them that Earth has been destroyed, the CO goes
insane kills the remaining skeleton crew. He then believes that this ship is
the new home of the human race of which he is in control thus he believes
himself to be the new god. He wants to ensure over population never threatens
the new world. Therefore he realizes that he only way to keep population manageable
the human race must revert to the primal uncanny, their origins. To return to a
state of savage violence in which you are either the butcher or the meat. To do
this he wakes several thousand humans from hyper sleep and locks them in the
cargo section of the ship to play a horrifying game of cat and mouse forcing
them to kill and eat each other to survive (survival of the fittest). An enzyme
every human receives in hyper sleep to accelerate evolution so as to adapt to
the climate of Tanis actual allows these cannibals to evolve to adapt to the
ship and a new savage, violent lifestyle. After seeing his work take effect the
new god Gallo goes back into hyper sleep waking as Payton 800 years later
starting the events of the film. After 800 years the descendants of the humans
have evolved into the monstrous hunters that are the antagonists.
However in the end the protagonist Bower and Nadia discover all of this and that the ship is below the sea, therefore after accidental shattering the bridge window they escape to the surface in a hyper sleep pod acting as an escape pod. All the remaining humans in hyper sleep are also ejected to the surface whilst the ship floods drowning the hunters and Payton revealed to be the main villain who created the new human race. Therefore as with Noah’s ark the water saves the pure and cleanses the evil.
There is a scene
during Pandorum in which Bower meets a survivor called Cook, who resides in an
exhaust outlet on the walls of which he has documented the evolution of the
monstrous hunters revealing the secrets of the ship and revealing Gallo to be
the villain. The history is documented as cave drawings, which is interesting
as it clearly shows the de evolution of the human race to their new savage
selves by using a primal style of art work.
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