Jan 31, 2010

What happened to the original Sam Bell?

My wife and I were watching the DVD of Moon the other night. It got to the scene where (spoilers ahead) Sam phones his old home on earth. His daughter picks up — except that now she's a grown woman. Her mom, she informs him, is dead. "Who's that honey?" comes a voice from the kitchen. "Hey Dad, it's someone asking about mom..." Sam hangs up: he can't take any more. "Hey that was Sam Rockwell's voice," says my wife. "That's the original Sam Bell!" Surely not, I tell her. "It was definitely him!" she goes. Luckily, Sam Rockwell and I are best buddies these days — inseparable — and today I had to clarify a couple of things from our interview. So I asked him.
TOM: "Is that your voice coming from the kitchen when Sam Bell phones home?"

SAM: "Yes. That's the original Sam Bell. I don't know who old he is now. He's probably in his fifties. That stuff is all very — its not like the audience has to know that. But I was a pain in the ass about back story. What happened? How many clones are there? Where is the original Sam? How old is he and why did he do this? Duncan would go through it with me very patiently. We went over it a million times.”

TOM: "It makes the clones even more outcast."

SAM: "It makes the original Sam a bit of a dick. He sold his DNA to some company never thinking of the repercussions.”

TOM: "It couldn't be that he'd done his original three-year stint and they took some skin off him without him noticing?"

PAUSE.

SAM: "Yeah, that would work too."

6 comments:

  1. I thought it was his voice too! I was convinced that the original Sam must have sold his DNA... what I don't understand is why the clone Sams see images of his teenage daughter. It should not have existed in his memory yet...

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    1. >It should not have existed in his memory yet...

      But it is a great way to add distortion to what is really happing. There should always be a myth to solve left. You can try to explain it with the old Sam degenerating and slowly loosing his mind. Maybe it is a side effect of the thougt insertion needed to bring the Sam Bell knowledge into the clones mind.

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    2. I read somewhere that clones are comparable to twins. And that twins are said to get mental images of each other's surroundings even when both of them are distance apart.

      So I guess what happened is that the cloned Sam Bell picked up a mental image of her daughter in real time through the eyes of the real Sam Bell.

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  2. I was doing the moon scenario on a pen and paper round with my friends. It worked out quite well. When my buddys (all Sam Bell Clones) called their family, i presented the same Scenen, but they waited. So i showed up the orininal Sam somewhat in shock. First thinking it is a prank, but then realising what is happening. He then drang his family into terminating the call. So playing the evil Sam who sold his DNA whould add more drama and will have a huge impact in the characters self-assurance. If your DNA is that of a man who don't give a fuck about his own cloning, to what makes that you?
    My story ended with the characters escaping the station, but they had to overcome the "rescue team" first and steal their ship. They even ordered GERTY to activate more clones to help in fighting. One scene was very intense: When they where fighting the rescue team, the team commander tryed to flee to the ship. So they are in a haste, to get them. At the air lock, the commander pushed the open button and each of the characters had a space suit, but no helmet on. So after killing the commander, the charaters had to fight against each other for only one helmet left. It ended with one character, closing the air lock and the other characters, breathing heavy injured in the dock. They took the ship and flew home. Sorry for them, that they could not see the degeneration of the old Sam. The character playing the old Sam, thought it was a good idea, to use the Escape pod, before the other Sams are becoming aware of the only one Escape option :). Luckily there was pretty fast a new Sam Clone for the Player available.

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    1. I don't play pen-and-paper games. Thus, I don't really have a strong grasp on what actually happened in the scenario you just described. Nevertheless, having just watched Moon, I have to say that whatever happened, it sounds like it was pretty freakin' awesome.

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