Bit of an interlude for a review today, then back to the weight posts tomorrow.
Pandorum is full of plot holes. I'm going to go through a few and so the rest of the review will be spoiler heavy.
During the film it's suggested that the weird mutant creatures are like that because the "evolutionary accelerants" they've had put into their system have adapted them to the ship. On the surface this sounds okay, except there are quite a few normal people running around too.
Why has this evolutionary acceleration affected some and not others?
Especially since it's also made clear that the ship has been on its mission for a lot longer than expected. This gives time for those people to evolve, but raises even more questions about those that haven't.
This could be because those who haven't been mutated were released more recently, but then how come one of them knows the origin story and the others seem very experienced? Certainly given the lack of general food which has presumably been the driver that's caused the others to become cannibalistic, what are these normal people surviving on?
And how come the evolution of the other has actually seemingly devolved them into a bestial state? And how have they managed to become merged with bits of machinery?
It's also revealed that the ship has crash landed on their destination planet. However, gravity seems to be working in the usual and expected directions - none of the corridors slope, for example, despite the reveal shot showing them at weird angles.
This might be because of artificial gravity, and yet AG wouldn't work like that - surely the gravity of the planet would combine with the AG to still give canted angles?
Even if that isn't how it worked, this enormous ship has crash landed on a planet - surely it would have broken up? If it was somehow tough enough to survive, then how come a relatively slight impact on a glass window cracks it?
Also, the very end gives the feel of being some sort of triumph - as in, now they've escaped and all the others are dead, because the ship's flooded.
And yet, by flooding the ship they block access to any of the stuff they'd need to survive. Also, the film clearly shows big chunks of the ship out of the water, so presumably many of the others could have survived in those bits?
Seems more like they've leapt from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.
Despite all of the above I actually still quite enjoyed it. The reason was because, despite trying to be all complicated with its plot, most of the film is actually sci-fi horror and is quite atmospheric and stylish with it.
I think it's a classic case of turn your brain off and you'll probably enjoy the ride.
2 comments:
1. It was a 123 year trip so there had to be a massive food storage. There was food seen in Nadia's hide-out and Leland was eating mutants. That's why he said that he let some mutants into his hideout. There was also a deleted scene where Bower ate some food after getting out of his pod.
2. The crew became cannibals because of Pandorum. Gallo drove them mad and convinced them that "life eats life" is the way to go. He tries this with Bower near the end of the film and Gallo is implied to be a cannibal himself. Since someone with Pandorum was convinced that a ship was cursed, making them into cannibals would be easy. The evolution thing only caused them to be faster, stronger, and crawl on walls. Sleeping under a nuclear reactor for generations ceased their descendants to became deformed. And they made their own weapons from parts of the ship.
3. Leland heard the story from other members on the ship. When he's telling the story he says "that's what some would say".
4. The ship didn't crashed, it landed itself. This was stated.
5. They could live off the food on the planet and start all over again.
Here is an interesting write up on the film.
http://onedeviousbastard.blogspot.com/2011/07/movie-analysis-symbolism-in-pandorum.html
Comment if you like.
Post a Comment