The time is sometime in the future.Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his contract with Lunar Industries, which operates a mining operation on the far side of the moon. Using automated mining machines, the company mines Helium-3, a precious gas that holds the key to reversing the Earths energy crisis. He has been a faithful employee for three long years. His home has been Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone. While here, Sam has been attended by a mobile computer named GERTY.Isolated, determined, and steadfast, Sam has followed the rulebook obediently, and his time on the moon has been enlightening, but uneventful. The solitude has given him time to reflect on the mistakes of his past and to work on his raging temper. He does his job mechanically and spends most of his available time dreaming of his imminent return ... [more]

The time is sometime in the future.Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is nearing the end of his contract with Lunar Industries, which operates a mining operation on the far side of the moon. Using automated mining machines, the company mines Helium-3, a precious gas that holds the key to reversing the Earths energy crisis. He has been a faithful employee for three long years. His home has been Selene, a moon base where he has spent his days alone. While here, Sam has been attended by a mobile computer named GERTY.Isolated, determined, and steadfast, Sam has followed the rulebook obediently, and his time on the moon has been enlightening, but uneventful. The solitude has given him time to reflect on the mistakes of his past and to work on his raging temper. He does his job mechanically and spends most of his available time dreaming of his imminent return to Earth, to his wife, Tess, young daughter, Eve, and an early retirement.But two weeks shy of his departure from Selene, Sam discovers that he cannot communicate directly with Earth as the communication satellite has apparently broken. Nonetheless, he continues to receive taped messages from Tess and Eve.One of the mining machines breaks down and Sam goes out in a rover to fix it. He is distracted by a hallucination, crashes the rover, and suffers injuries.A confused and puzzled Sam wakes up in the infirmary, and GERTY tells him hes been unconscious for a few days and has suffered memory loss. Sam is able to avoid GERTYs notice and goes outside to the rover where he finds the injured Sam! We will call the injured Sam, Sam 1.Sam 2 brings the injured Sam 1 back to the base, and the two are at first hostile to each other, each thinking the other is a clone. But they soon come to realize that they are BOTH clones. And GERTY admits that they have been given edited memories from the original Sam Bell.Lunar Industries announces that they are sending a rescue unit to repair the damaged mining machine, and the Sams realize that part of that rescue mission will be to kill them both.Sam 1, spurred by a hunch from Sam 2 and assisted by GERTY, then discovers a room full of Sam clones. Sam 2 deduces that the base is blocked from connecting with the fully functioning satellite. The two Sams go outside the blocking perimeter where Sam 1 is able to contact Eve, who is now 15 years old and not the baby Sam remembers. She tells him that Tess has been dead for years.Sam 2 notices that Sam 1 is deteriorating fast, so Sam 2 puts Sam 1 back in the crashed rover where he will be found by the rescue team. Back at the base, Sam 2 moves a new Sam clone (Sam 3) into the infirmary, and GERTY agrees to erase its memory banks so that there will be no record of what Sam 2 has done.As the rescue unit docks and Sam 3 awakens, Sam 2 blasts off in a transporter, while the dying Sam 1 watches him leave.The voiceovers at the end allows you to deduce that Sam 2 landed on Earth and is denouncing Lunar Industries. [less]