History Film / Moon

* YouDidntAsk: Implied with GERTY. For example, GERTY never even hints Sam is a clone, until Sam actually ''asks'' him point blank if he's a clone or not.

* BackupTwin: A whole warehouse of identical backup clones, in fact. (A scene from ''{{Mute}}'' suggests there were a total of 160, counting the four who had died before the start of the movie.)

* BackupTwin: A whole warehouse of identical backup clones, in fact.

* EconomyCast: To the point it borders on MinimalistCast. The only character we really see "live" in shot is Sam -- everyone else appears on a video screen or in a flashback, is a robot, or is in a silhouetted suit. If it wasn't for Kevin Spacey's voice acting, this would be a film starring one person.

* MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness: Futurology, level 5.5.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Played straight, subverted, averted... call it {{deconstructed|Trope}}. All of the Sams are on the far side of the moon and desperately want to return home to their wife and daughter. Sam 1 (and his predecessor clones) never make it. Sam 2 (and maybe his successor clones) do, but their lives are a lie -- they aren't the "real" Sam; there's nothing to return to. Even if there was, they won't live to enjoy much of it. And Original Sam did his time on the moon and returned home for real -- which set up the clones in the first place.

* WeirdMoon: {{Inverted|Trope}}. Earth, as seen from the Moon, appears larger than it should. In RealLife, it would appear to be almost four times as large as the Moon appears from Earth.

* WasItAllALie: Most of the film involves Sam's quest to figure out who he really is and where he came from.

* SuperCellReception: Sam is able to make video cell-phone calls from the Moon to Earth once he gets past the signal jammers, at least.

* SimpleScoreOfSadness: The main theme is rather fast-paced (though still simplistic), but it slows down for the main dramatic moments.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: Averted; Sam can't figure out the password to access the logs of all the past Sams until GERTY supplies it for him.

* MarkedToDie: The clones are indeed designed to die.

* KillAndReplace: The easiest way to keep costs down, apparently. Each Sam believes he's at the beginning of his three-year contract.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first scene, Sam is wearing a shirt that says "Wake me when it's quitting time."; later on he comments on talking to himself. Also, the song that's set as the alarm tune: "I'm the one and only".

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Oil has been replaced with more sustainable renewable energy sources. Which is great if you're living on Earth, but it kind of sucks if you're the movie's main character...

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The film takes place in the not-too-distant future in which 70% of the world's energy is generated by fusion mined from lunar helium-3. We've also got the technology to mass-produce clones with three-year lifespans and memories inserted from another person.

* MetaTwist: People generally spend the bulk of their first viewing of the film waiting for the twist that GERTY is evil.

** An early version of the film poster (such as the one on this page) carries the tagline "950,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face... [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil is yourself]]". The moon's distance from Earth varies between about 226,000 and 253,000 miles over the course of its orbit. Later posters fixed the distance to 250,000 miles, and given this fact it might have been a simple typo.

* {{Irony}}: Of a pretty disturbing kind.

* AdvertisedExtra: Due to the limited number of characters, Kaya Scodelario as teenage Eve receives top billing despite having only a minute or two of screen time. To a lesser extent, Dominique [=McElligott=], who plays Tess, is only seen in a handful of flashbacks and videos.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Mostly averted, what with it being a [[MohsScaleOfScifiHardness very hard]] sci-fi film. However, an early version of the film poster (such as the one on this page) carried the tagline "950,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face... [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil is yourself]]". The moon's distance from Earth varies between about 226,000 and 253,000 miles over the course of its orbit. Later posters fixed the distance to 250,000 miles, and given this fact it might have been a simple typo.

** We get occasional brief glimpses of GERTY's back; looking closely reveals a Post-It note reading "Kick Me". Sam 2 makes a point of removing it after giving poor GERTY a forced reboot.

* GenreSavvy: Sam 2 figures out the repeated use of clone employees by Lunar Industries pretty quickly, reasoning that if they're so cheap they haven't repaired the long-range communications satellite, they won't want to waste money on training more employees.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Mostly averted, what with it being a [[MohsScaleOfScifiHardness very hard]] sci-fi film. However, an early version of the film poster (such as the one on this page) carried the tagline "950,000 miles from home, the hardest thing to face... [[TrailersAlwaysSpoil is yourself]]". The moon's distance from Earth varies between about 226,000 and 253,000 miles over the course of its orbit. Later posters fixed the error, and given this fact it might have been a simple typo.

* RedHerring: GERTY is intentionally designed to resemble ''TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey'''s HAL 9000 (right down to the CreepyMonotone) so that the audience immediately suspects that he is evil. In fact, he is the closest thing that the Sam clones have to a friend, and he ultimately helps Sam 2 escape the lunar station to start a new life on Earth.

Jones have started that he hopes that he will able to develop a full trilogy of films set in the ''Moon'' universe, and development on a sequel called ''Mute'' is already under way. Jones have stated that other than being set in the same universe ''Mute'' will share no direct connections to ''Moon'', and is going to be somewhat inspired by ''Film/BladeRunner''.

* AdvertisedExtra: Due to the limited number of characters Kaya Scodelario as teenage Eve receives top billing despite having only a minute or two of screen time. To a lesser extent, Dominique [=McElligott=], who plays Tess, is only seen in a handful of flashbacks and videos.

* ArtificialGravity: Outside the base, gravity on the lunar surface is appropriately low, but inside the base it appears to be standard Earth gravity. The DVD commentary admits this was done for practical reasons.

* AsceticAesthetic: Sarang

* HairTriggerTemper: Sam #2 and he knows it.

* {{Homage}}: According to creator Duncan Jones, he deliberately tried to recreate the look, style and feel of classic sci-fi films such as ''[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'', ''Film/SilentRunning'', ''Film/{{Alien}}'', and early 80's sci-fi films ''Film/{{Outland}}'', ''Film/BladeRunner'', and ''[[Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact 2010]]''.

** The use of "I Am the One and Only" as his alarm is pretty sick too. At first it's was ironic because he is literally alone on the station, but it later becomes even more ironic.
** Early on in the film Sam comments in a video message about how he's been talking to himself. [[CloningBlues Later on, he literally does.]]

* TheOtherDarrin: In-universe. Not exactly used, but the TropeNamer is referenced. At one point we see a clip of ''Bewitched'' being played, where two character are discussing Darrin. Darrin was of course... replaced.

** They're harvesting on the far side of the moon to avoid changing the reflectivity of the Earth-facing side, which might mess-up nocturnal wildlife on Earth.

* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Played straight, subverted, averted... call it {{deconstructed|Trope}}. All of the Sams are on the far side of the moon and desperately want to return home to wife and daughter. Sam 1 (and his predecessor clones) never make it. Sam 2 (and maybe his successor clones) do, but their lives are a lie -- they aren't the "real" Sam; there's nothing to return to. Even if there was, they won't live to enjoy much of it. And Original Sam did his time on the moon and returned home for real -- which set up the clones in the first place.