PASSENGERS
US, 2016, 116 minutes, Colour.
Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia.
Directed by Morten Tyldum.
In recent years there have been quite a number of big-budget popular films about space. They include Oscar-nominated serious films like Gravity or The Martian, or the 2016 story of aliens and humans, Arrival.
In fact, a lot of this film will remind audiences of Gravity. However, it has many more ingredients besides the technology and the management of spacecraft. At heart, it is a romance. But it also has melodramatic aspects, dramatic aspects, and as with the other films poses a number of questions about how we would experience and react to crises in space.
There used to be cryogenics but now passengers to a distant planet can be put into hibernation for 120 years. And that is where this particular spacecraft is headed, into a future of 120 years in time on a planet which gives humans the possible ability for new starts and for creativity. As the film proceeds, we see that the vast spacecraft is state-of-the-art and, to say the least, huge and lavish, with 5000 hibernated passengers and over 200 crew.
As the film opens, there is a collision in space which will have all kinds of consequences. However, the immediate consequence is awakening one of the passengers, Jim Preston (and engaging Chris Pratt) an engineer from Colorado, your ordinary citizen but with intelligence and theoretical and practical know-how. For the first 30 minutes, Jim is by himself, managing, not managing, bemoaning his fate, letting beard and hair grow, and not even allowed the luxury of Gold Class passengers for breakfast or for coffee.
He is not quite alone, there is Arthur, your perfect British barman – but, of course, he is an android, but nicely so in the form of Michael Sheen.
Then, for reasons that viewers will have to see rather than being revealed here, Jennifer Lawrence is awake. She is from New York City and a writer, realising that she has a unique story in terms of the two of them being on a spacecraft wakened after only 30 years of the hundred and 20 year trip.
This is where the romance goes into high gear, happy sharing of life, love, and, of course, falling out.
So, where can it all go from here, just continuing on for the next almost 90 years?
There is another awakening, one of the crew, played by the venerable Laurence Fishburne, who helps the couple to explore what might have gone wrong and why so many other facets of the spacecraft are not operating properly.
This leads to the melodramatics and the dramatics with the valiant attempts to deal with the spacecraft and to get it back on track and repair the damage – and a bit of outside walking in space, reminders of 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as Gravity.
In this sense, Passengers is not exactly an original story but rather derives quite a number of elements from previous stories which are incorporated to make it not so much science-fiction as an occasion for audiences to enjoy a variation on the human condition – as well is asking some disturbing questions as to how we would react in similar circumstances, especially with living out one’s life on this comfortable but isolated spacecraft.
1. Background of science-fiction? Science-fantasy? Futuristic stories? In space and space travel? Space colonisation?
2. The spaceship itself, vast, for 120 years of travel, 5000 people in hibernation, the pods? The interiors of the ship, the cabins, the grand concourse, the technical apparatus, automated? The technology and repairing of errors? Space and the spacewalk? The impact for a 21st-century audience? Thinking about such future exploits?
3. The title, limited to the two passengers, audiences identifying with them, the man and the woman, the travel, hibernation, waking prematurely, the years of their life on the spacecraft, the travel?
4. The blend of romance, melodrama, drama?
5. The initial crash, the impact, explosions?
6. The consequence, Jim waking, the automated voice, the tone of the voices, client-oriented? Jim in himself, from Colorado, his age, engineer? The challenge to cope? His becoming more aware, alone, his behaviour, the search, no one else alive, the shower, his clothes, growing the beard, the economy-class breakfast? Meeting Arthur, the discussions with Arthur, the possibility of communication? Using his time, as an engineer, his ability to waken someone, his decision not, confiding in Arthur?
7. The decision about Aurora, the information about her, New York, writer, the video clips and her friends? His waking her, her response, having to cope, communicating with him? His not telling her the truth?
8. Life on the spaceship, the two keeping active, Aurora and her gold class status? The experience of the spacewalk? Talk, Aurora and her writing, reflections, accepting the reality of the situation? Jim and his preparing to propose?
9. Arthur, in himself, android, his good manners, service, the visuals of him, Michael Sheen, the mechanisms waste down? His objectivity? The discussion with Aurora, the revelation?
10. Aurora’s reaction, no proposal? Thinking that Jim had murdered her? The clash, her emotions, hurt? Swimming, running, alone? The impact on Jim?
11. Mancuso awakening, in himself, part of the crew, the effect of awakening, his sickness, the discussions, his ability to fix things, the entree into the Captain’s area, the search? Identifying the problem, the crash and the holes? His illness, death, in uniform, his being laid out?
12. The effort to repair the holes, Aurora and Jim collaborating, the experience of loss of gravity, Jim knocked about, Aurora in the swimming pool? The attempts to fix, the growing heat, Aurora and the handles? Jim having to go into space, the walk, the link? Aurora helping? Jim stranded in space, Aurora going to rescue him? Bring him back, dead? The power of the spaceship to resuscitate? Aurora and her having the power to override the objections? Jim alive again?
13. The effort, the shared experience, rekindling the relationship?
14. Aurora and her writing her book?
15. The end of the journey, the arrival, the captain, the crew, the passengers, going into a new world, hopes? And Aurora’s record for them of life on the ship?
