A 2018 Sci-Fi Thriller directed by Lennart Ruff that has a military family (Sam Worthington, Taylor Schilling, and Noah Jupe) taking part in an experiment that explores genetic evolution and space exploration.
The movie also stars Tom Wilkinson, Agyness Deyn, Nathalie Emmanuel, Diego Boneta, Corey Johnson, and Aleksander Jovanovic.
It was released on March 30, 2018.
Tropes for the film:
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Collingwood's first alterations allow the volunteers to be impervious to the cold and stay underwater for extreme long periods. These changes alone would make a journey to Titan unnecessary when they'd suffice for any climate shift on Earth that even under the worst conditions will still be far more habitable then Titan ever would be.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Prof. Martin Collingwood is seeking to genetically transform the volunteer test subjects so they can survive on Titan. His goal is laudatory in that he's trying to save the human race, but when the subjects start dying or going insane, he's urged to stop and reevaluate the results. He refuses to do so because right now he has the funding and support for his project and wants to race ahead while he has the chance, even though he admits he had no idea what the end result will be.
- Gaia's Lament: By 2048, the Earth’s resources have been used up and wars are being fought over what’s left. Prof. Martin Collingwood predicts that in ten years, half of Earth will become uninhabitable, and in fifteen years, half of the world’s current population will die from starvation. That’s why he’s genetically altering Rick and the other test subjects to survive on Titan, as he claims that unless humanity moves to Titan, the children of the current generation will witness the end of the world.
- Goal-Oriented Evolution: Invoked Trope where Prof. Collingwood is seeking to genetically-alter the test subjects so they can survive on Titan. He's criticized for his unethical experiments in "forced evolution".
- Growing Wings: In his Rousing Speech, Collingwood tells the volunteers for a program to settle humans on Titan that the changes they undergo will turn them into supermen. He didn't mention he was secretly splicing the volunteers with animal DNA; one subject, Zane, is shown to grow bat wings right when he goes crazy, kills his wife and is shot dead by soldiers. At the end of the movie the only successful test subject, Rick, is shown with similar wings, flying over a methane lake on Titan.
- Nature Is Not a Toy: Rick Janssen is one of 14 volunteers undergoing human test trials in the hopes of being the first to establish an interstellar colony on one of Saturn's moons, Titan, to combat Earth's overpopulation crisis, and is joined by his wife Abigail (a medical researcher) and son Lucas at the research facility Rick is sent to. While the initial tests results were promising, under increasingly intense training tests (to force the human body to adapt to the moon's atmospheric conditions and environment), things start to go wrong when Zane, another test subject, has a mental breakdown while Rick begins shedding his skin when taking a break at the bottom of the pool. After Zane suffers a second mental breakdown and kills his wife, while Rick suffers complications from his recent conreal surgery, Abigail confronts Martin. When he refuses to give a straight answer, Abigail later sneaks into his office, and discovers that all 14 tests subjects are having their DNA infused with the DNA from various different animal species. By the end of the film, Rick is the only surviving test subject that was successfully sent to Titan, the others having perished during the trials or killed in the confrontations with military police (after having slain some of the police as well).
- Parody of Evolution: Played for drama when Rick’s wife Abigail (Rick is a volunteer test subject for a project to genetically modify humans so they can live on Titan) breaks into the scientist's office and finds this picture, with a note at the end saying: Homo Titanien.
- Power-Upgrading Deformation: The film involves a project with Professor Collingwood in charge to transform volunteer test subjects into a new species of humanity who can survive on Titan. Collingwood, when giving a Rousing Speech, tells them they will become like super men, but they're not so happy about the physical transformations (not to mention their tendency to go insane and kill their partners).
- Transhuman Treachery: The project to turn the volunteer test subjects into a new species of humanity that can settle on Titan ends up killing or driving insane all but two of the subjects—Rick Janssen and Tally Rutherford. Tally then goes and kills her husband for no apparent reason. While another subject had killed his wife earlier, he had clearly gone insane. No reason for the death of Tally's husband is given other than the process has made Tally monstrous and inhuman.
- Tally's husband was abusive to her, as Abigail notices bruises on her skin during a physical check-up and heavily implied it was his doing.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Rick kills several Spanish soldiers while on a rampage in the climax, but none of those deaths are held aggainst him.
- Window Love: Subverted. Rick is shown to his wife and son once he has been genetically-transformed into Homo Titanien. The process has rendered him mute, and he presses a transformed hand against the window of the lab, but they can only stare at Rick in horror and don't return the gesture.
