VOYAGERS  

US, 2021, 108 minutes, Colour.

Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, Colin Farrell, Archie Madekwe.

Directed by Neal Burger.

Throughout the action of this space adventure, set in 2063, all the characters are adolescents. Which may account for some of the hostile reviews on blogging comments, dissatisfied adult audiences who think that the adolescents should be behaving better. But, this also might indicate how it is the Young Adult story and treatment, appealing to the experiences and aspirations, especially of teenagers, a variation on their world and experiences.

There have been quite a number of journeys into space, characters lost in space, odysseys, as well as science fiction/fantasies of travel beyond familiar galaxies, searches for inhabitable planets, Jennifer Lawrence in Passengers, the scenario for the Young Adult fantasy, Chaos Walking, planets well beyond ours, decades of travel to reach them, the search for possibilities of living beyond a decaying Earth.

This time the voyagers are young children, first seen being created in laboratories, artificial children who will grow up in isolated protection, destined for a mission to a planet where humans can survive, but taking 86 years of travel. The children are to be trained in handling the complexities of space voyaging, travelling by themselves, reproducing, a next-generation, and then grandchildren generation who will inherit this “earth”. They are dressed in black. They live in community. They have their lessons, trained with expertise.

There is an adult, Richard, played by Colin Farrell, who has devoted his life to training, who wants to be allowed to go with the children. He does go on board – and then the action advances 10 years. The children are now adolescents, still with communal living, dressed in black, with high expertise in the management of the spacecraft, the craft programmed with answers for all their problems over the 86 years.

Richard dies.

Those familiar with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies will soon make the connections between this scenario and that of the novel of young boys isolated from adults, on an island, becoming ever more primitive in their behaviour, passions and instincts unleashed, especially violence and dominance.

In the 21^st-century, the group on board is of carefully chosen mixed races, boys and girls, a boy who is obviously destined to be leader, Christopher (Tye Sheridan), a girl who is in charge of medical issues (Lily-Rose Depp), and a boy who has been centrally cast, so to speak, to look like the potential rival and villain (Fionn Whitehead).

And so, as we expect, there are jealousies, factions, revelations of violence and, instead of the dead skeleton, the Lord of the Flies, there is the Phantom bogey of an alien in the craft. There is also the element of sexual awakening – but, presented generally, as with some of the violence, more restrained than we might have expected.

Can there be order? Can good conquer evil? What is human nature? And, using religious language, what is the impact of “original sin”?

So, some pessimism about human nature – and, a final optimistic view about the human soul and spirit, and possibilities of life beyond Earth.

1. The title? Voyagers in space? Space exploration, inhabiting space?
2. The 2063 setting, the discovery of a habitable planet, 86 years travel, the children, the next generation, and the grandchildren, the settling of the planet? Plausible scenario?
3. The basis of the film on William Golding’s Lord of the Flies? The adaptation to the 21^st century? To space? The focus on the group of children, the absence of adults, human nature (and questions of original sin), adult control, breaking free, the move to anarchy, licensing sex and violence, anarchy? Leadership? Control? Decisions?
4. The introduction to Richard, his discussions with the authorities, the explanation of the plan, the children going by themselves, technically trained and equipped? Richard wanting to go with them?
5. The artificial conception of the children, the numbers, the range? The babies? The growing, the passing of the years? All in black? The education, the training, technical? Separation from others, from the outside world? Confinement to prepare them for the space travel?
6. On the space ship, Richard and his care? With particular children, the focus on Christopher, on Sela, on Zac?
7. 10 years passing? The adolescent children? Physical growth, psychological? The blue liquid and keeping them under control? The importance of the rules? Everything planned, solutions for every situation? Richard and the bonds with the particular children?
8. Richard, his death, the burns, the discussions of an alien? The revelation that Zac had engineered Richard’s death, with the connivance of Kai?
9. The discovery of the drugs within the blue drink? The decision not to take it? The effect?

• Christopher, personality, sympathetic, leadership, the bond with Sela? His responsibilities? Her responsibilities, medical? The contrast with Zac, assertive, conniving, ambitious, jealous?
• The activities on the space ship, the attempts to discover the truth about Richard’s death? The discs, the visuals of the truth?
• Zac, the vote for the leader, the vote for Christopher? Zac and his jealousy? Undermining?
• The changing behaviour of the adolescents, sexual urges and behaviour, careless and undisciplined behaviour, the dining room, the corridors? The violence, the victimisation of the young man, his being killed? The girl demanding the rules? Her being shot?
• The division of the children into the two groups, different leadership? Christopher and the few, and their thinking they should join Zac?
• Zac and Kai as his support? On the fiction of having the alien on board, and possibly inhabiting different children?
• The issue of weapons, Sela and the knife? The hidden stash of weapons, the and his cohort finding them?
• The violent confrontation, the weapons, the sack and his shooting? The pursuits throughout the craft? Christopher and Sela, the sexual encounter, hiding, the dining room, Zac and his shooting the doors to the spaces?
• Christopher and Sela in the spaceport, donning the spacesuits? Zac and his attack, the fights, Christopher out of the pod, Sela and her kicking Zac and his going into space? Christopher and is returned?
• Order restored, the vote, Sela becoming the leader?
• The passing of the years, the 86 years, the sighting of the new planet, the elderly, the next generation, the children and hope?