It looks like the filmmakers tap more and more into our shared consciousness and start to channel the messages they receive this way. Art was always the right place for that.
The last film nominated for the Oscars I want to talk about is ‘The Midnight Sky’. I will compare it here to a new film, ‘Voyagers’, that was released only two weeks ago. Both of them talk about the same idea — of humans destroying the Earth and trying to save the species by moving to another planet. Obviously, doing so does not resolve the problem which is, simply putting, human nature.
In ‘The Midnight Sky’ we watch a story of a scientist who has spent his life looking for a habitable planet. Now, when the Earth is contaminated because of an unknown catastrophe, he is trying to warn the crew on one of the spaceships heading back to Earth and advice them to return to K-23, a planet they found suitable for human life. He has never really lived his life but sacrificed it for the science. He didn’t even meet his daughter and now feels remorse because of that.
In the meantime the crew of the ship looses its members until there’s only two of them left — a pregnant woman and the father of her unborn child. They finally receive the message from the scientist and decide to return to K-23. There’s more to the story but I do not want to spoil it for you if you haven’t seen the film yet. Is it worth watching? Yes, because it asks questions that we should all ask ourselves. But it seems that I am the only person bothered by the fact that the humanity here will have to restart life on the new planet by incest, which will surely cause genetic disorders. There is only one couple of adults left so their children will be able to reproduce only with each other.
In ‘Voyagers’ that problem has been resolved by sending into space a group of children conceived by in-vitro fertilization. They supposed to reproduce on the spaceship before their children finally reach a planet where humanity can start all over. The children in ‘Voyagers’ are drugged to keep them under control but things do not go according to the plan. If they were only taught to meditate since childhood instead, there would be no problem. The message of this film though is optimistic as well — the better part of our nature takes over and this mission also finishes with a success. Or does it?
Is it really a success if we manage to destroy our Mother Earth and then abandon the ship like rats to start over again somewhere else? And how will the new place end up if we just continue business as normal? Would it be just a matter of time before we would destroy it as well?
