Europa Report – 2013
I first heard about Europa report on the internet. I was very disappointed to learn that it was
only going to be available in larger markets on limited release and on the
internet for purchase as a digital download, but was encouraged when I found
that I was able to pre-order it on Amazon, which I did.
It is an interesting film that I am not sure what to think
about just yet, but as I mentioned on Facebook, I think I like it. I’m going to have to watch it again though to
get the full impact of everything that happens in the film.
The “found footage” format of film is not really my
favorite. This is a found footage film
that is presented in the form of a documentary presented what went wrong on the
first mission to Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
After sending unmanned probes to Europa, it is determined
that the make-up of the large moon is a world covered with water incased in a
layer of ice that has varying depths across the surface. The Europa One spacecraft is dispatched with
an international crew of six. The
mission is privately funded. The story
is told from the point of view of Dr. Unger, the head of the project. She appears as part of a narrative and in
scenes that are from a press conference that she and her team participates in.
Everything goes off without a hitch until a solar event
knocks out communications between Europa One and mission control. During an attempt to repair the
communications, one of the astronauts has his suit contaminated with hydrazine,
a highly toxic propellant that would contaminate the entire ship. The astronaut decides to save his partner,
the chief engineer, but sacrifices himself.
Without communications, it is up to the crew to decide whether to abort
the mission or to carry on. After some
discussion, the decision is made to continue with the mission.
Upon arrival at Europa, the crew makes a successful landing
on the moon, but it is a little short from the designated target area thanks to
a thermal vent that threw the ship off course.
The crew sends a drill probe through the ice to reach the liquid
subsurface of the planet. After a short
time, a bright light is seen on the monitor, the probe indicates heavy
radiation and the probe stops sending information.
Being not far off, one member of the crew goes EVA to reach
the original landing zone to discover when appears to be lights moving around
underneath the ice. The astronaut
gathers what she can in the way of ice samples, but again that source of
radiation arrives on the scene and the astronaut is lost as she plunges through
the ice. The rest of the crew decide
that they should take what they have learned and get back to earth, but while
lifting off, the engines have trouble and the ship begins to plummet back to
the surface. The ship’s commander gets
out of his seat to jettison the water shielding that protects the crew from
radiation in order to lessen the impact of the ship. His strategy works keeping the ship from
being destroyed, but he is killed in the process.
One of the three remaining astronauts are lost when they
attempt to make repairs on the propulsion systems. The mission’s chief engineer manages to
complete repairs on the communications systems before he himself is killed, and
the last remaining member of the crew records a situation report, sends it with
other video and data that has been gathered before she is finally lost.
Nothing about the story in this film is really new or
extraordinary. An unknown creature in an
unfamiliar location preys on a number of people and is kind of revealed at the
end of the movie. Are you thinking
Alien, or perhaps Apollo 18. That’s what
came to mind as I watched this. However,
that isn’t the whole thing.
This film has some amazing visual effects, taking it’s
visuals from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; one has to think it very
accurate in that respect. A lot of time
and money went into this film to make it visually accurate, and it pays off in
spades. It is really too bad that this
film was released on a limited basis, it would been a good one to see on the
big screen.
The other thing that really makes this worthwhile to see is
the film score. Brilliantly composed and
directed by Bear McCreary is brilliant and adds a great deal to the film.
One problem that, in my opinion, this type of film presents
for me is that there is minimal or no character development; there are no
characters that I found appealing to me and I didn’t really care that they were
being taken away one by one because I didn’t really have an investment in them. In the case of this particular film, the
story is very disjointed for the first half of the movie, jumping back and
forth between scenes, many of which really didn’t have a great deal of context
in the movie.
My recommendation? As
I reflect on this film, I find that I appreciate what the film makers were
trying to do, but I cannot say that it was a great film. It has some great elements, but the acting
and the story aren’t among those elements.
I find myself kind of saying that Sci-Fi Fans might enjoy it, but don’t
expect something spectacular. It is
pretty much as I said an ordinary film with some extraordinary elements.
I am wondering if that isn’t perhaps why the film makers
decided not to have it distributed by a major studio and kept it to a limited
release.
Well, there it is…
Q’aplaH’!
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