Pandorum - Explanation

Lets look at the scene again.

1. Leland said that he was a "self-claimed king", not a god. Leland calls him "both god and the devil" as part of a metaphor (which will be explained later on in this review). Gallo's true views of God is that God is dead, not that he is one.

2. Now lets looks at some screenshots from the scene.

Earlier in the film a person who had Pandorum on another ship suffered severe paranoia believe things like a ship being cursed and launched himself and the crew into space thinking it would save them (pretty crazy). Here  Gallo is depicted with lightning bolts around his head (which says that there is something going on in there) while having Epistaxis (Nosebleed), obviously depicting Pandorum. We see the other passengers in this state as well,  while grabbing their heads in pain, who are referred to as those who had "behaved", suggesting that they were obedient towards him.

Leland said that Gallo casted them out to fight amongst themselves and feed on their own. By the end of the film when Pandorum starts to catch up to to the main character (Bower) Gallo tries to convince him to become a cannibal by telling him that "life eats life".  Gallo influence turned the passengers into cannibals, with the enzyme just making them evolve to adjust to the conditions of the ship. They were not trapped in the cargo hold as some have believed, as to be exiled doesn't necessarily mean to be against someone's will.

3.  If the passengers had turned into the hunter creatures then Leland should have turned into one of them as well since he too fed on his own (and the hunters) for years. Bower even questions that notion by asking why they hasn't change at all and the response is "maybe they been out longer than we have, longer than even him (Leland)". The ezyme was said to speed up evolution, which by definition is "change in gene pool of a population from generation to generation caused by
such processes as mutation,  natural selection, and genetic drift"  The trip to Tanis was said to take 123 years and Gallo had committed his crimes less than 8 years after the ship took off.  And its revealed at the end of the film they left Earth 923 years agos. Meaning that the hunters are desendants of the crew who have adapt to hunting, fighting, and lack of sun light (which is why their skin is pale. This with explain.).

 

Some people have claimed plot holes with the backstory but I already explained that. It's talking about the other plot holes.

1."How can the hunters survive hundreds of years without food?"

Well the ship was said to be build to last generations and there was food seen in Nadia and Leland's hideouts, plus there was a deleted scene with Bower eating some food after he leaves his hypersleep pod. I guess food doesn't expiration in the future but it's scifi so whatever.

2."How did Leland knew what happen?"

According to him he heard that from other passengers who had awaken who I guess heard it from Gallo. When he tells his story he says "see that's what some would say".

3. "Why is Bower's non-lethal energy rifle able to blow the head off a hunter?"

While that thing was stated to do damage up close in the film right after he got it.

4."How did Bower knew Gallo wasn't his lieutenant?"

When he gained back some of his memory he remembered what his lieutenant looked like. When he confronts Gallo he says "It seems my minor memory lapse has worn off. Who the Hell are you?"

Pandorum Review

  

Its been a two years since this film's release and I decided to make a blog about to celebrate. I was enlightened when Christian Alvart (director) mentioned that the space ship in the movie, is like an allegory to human life on the planet Earth, saying that its really one big spaceship flying around, in the space vacuum. He also mentions how the film has undertones of survival. Here is the video.

   

See the common belief by many viewers is that "Gallo goes crazy, believes he's God and traps people who disobeyed him in the cargo and they mutated into monsters"...that's not what happened, at all. Click here and this will explain.

Now that that's out of the way let's get into the theme of the film. It's not really much of a psychological film but a survival story with a lovecraftian horror element as a plot device and that element being that characters in Lovecraft's stories rarely if ever fully understand what is happening to them, and often go insane if they try. People have said that Gallo has a split personality disorder but that's not the case. Gallo’s younger self is simply just a manifestation of his own memories slowly coming back him with the fusion between them at the end representing them coming back in full like how Bower memories return to him. In other words its just a hallucination and the whole room sequence show us how Gallo drive people mad and thats by telling people about Earth and he's basically his own victim, hence "your mind has turned against itself".

 At the beginning of the film, text shows us as technology grew so did Earth's population and resources are depleting. So humanity tries to insure its survival with the use of technology itself. Its greatest creation is described as a Noah's Ark, which both Nadia and Gallo view it as hence his line "This ship is a seed which we can create a new world!". Like a Noah's Ark Gallo believed that a new world could be created after the old one's destruction, pretty much placing himself in the position of God. However this world will be a nature state that wouldn't end up like Earth, where "life eats life" because that's how overpopulation in the animal kingdom  is solved. This world be free of the human quality known as moral behavior, being more like animals which do not possess such a quality, which puts him in a position similar to the Devil. Gallo created this new world by dehumanizing human beings socially, making them fight each other and act as scavengers, feeding on the weak as apart of his "game". And over time that world became dehumanized biologically to adjust to that kind of condition, developing into the natural state Gallo wanted.

The film fellows the parallel journeys of two men who have no memory of who they are and they both are the representatives of the phase "survival of the fittest", but two different interpretations of it. Bower believes in solidarity or in other words human cooperation which is viewed by some as "survival of the fittest" while Gallo believes in the other interpretation of the phase where the life of the fit eats the life of the weak (competition) and this concept is demonstrated by the hunters when they fed on the lifeless corpse of their own like some animals to do. I believe that is called Social Darwinism, applying nature's law of the survival of the fittest to society which some say undermines morality.

Notice in this fight scene how the area they are fighting at kinda resembles the structure of a fighting arena where people use to watch others fight to the death against people and/or animals. Here humans are treated as animals to be hunted as food with traps and such, as while as used for sport for these creature. Also notice how the creature fought them without any weapons to even the odds and we see this happen again between the Hunter leader and Mahn, where he hands him a weapon. These guys obviously enjoy violence and play with their food as apart of the "nasty little game" Gallo had started with their ancestors. This game is survival of the fittest and it's clearly apart of their culture.

Like I said earlier its a survival story and its pretty much spelled out by one of the characters. Its survival of the fittest or maybe the brightest as Leland put it, who wouldn't have survived years if he had heart aka moral code. Now there is truth put on that statement as the female lead (Nadia) survived months and her survival strategy is robbing other passengers of their supplies, leaving people behind when danger shows up, and  only helps Bower because it ensures her own survival. She also don't trust anybody else because others could do the same and/or worse due to the fact that there are limited resources accessible with the power out which becomes evident when Leland tried to eat the trio and she's the first one to realize what's going on. Then you have Mahn (very likeable IMO) on the other hand who has more of a moral code than both Leland and Nadia as he puts his life on the line for others. But this code leads to his demise as he dies for showing mercy to a hunter child. They hunt while also being hunted at the same time, its a savage world where only savages can survive it, which again leads to the phrase "survival of the fittest", meaning that those who are better adapted to their  environment will be more likely to survive. Bower understood that hence his line "I know it feels like every man for himself", "I get it, you're a survivor" and "its safe to wake up up now". And by the end of the film Bower creates a new world by sending a flood like in the Noah's Ark story.

The film explores several different aspects of the central theme. The hunters' origins are another aspect of the phase "survival of the fittest" as it means "better adapted for immediate, local environment" and the phase happens to be a catchphrase for any topic related or analogous to evolution. By the end of film year 1 happens again and humanity is ready to go forward instead back this time after surviving through human cooperation after the fall of the hunters. In a way the hunters are like the other extinct human species such as Neanderthals that use to be on Earth before Homo Sapien Sapien replace them and I guess that is where the whole allegory of Earth comes into play.

 I consider Pandorum it to be fairly decent and it was one of those films that appreciated on a rewatch but it had the potential to be a much deeper film and I heard that an unrated version exist but it hasn't been released yet (hope it does). Some would complain about the thin characterization but this is excusable as memory loss is a big part in the storyline so they don't remember who they are so there is not much character you can build under such circumstances. Its a price to be paid but some people keep forgetting that (pun), it should be judge by its own terms and not by some standard. However there are still some issues I have with the film.

Minor Issues With The Film

*I would have prefer subtitles for the the foreign languages but I read in an interview with Cung Le (Mahn) that the director wanted the audience to feel what the main character is feeling. Basically seeing the events through the protagonist point of view. This is minor because its a taste issue and I wouldn't be judging it on it's own terms if I list it as a major one.

*The editing in the action scene are jerky and rushed, though there its not meant to be a mindless action film and it isn't. The action just serves the story.

*That last fight between Gallo and Nadia looked silly as in a funny way. I'm not sure if this was on purpose or not.

* Though Cam does bring some sense of menace and unease to his role he also overacts in places.

*The clothing on The Hunters because its kinda of distracting as they feel out of place (IMO) and are uninspired.

Major Issues With The Film

*We don't learn Nadia and Mahn's name until the credits roll in. Though they sound like first names meaning that they don't know them but they should know their last names like Bower from looking at their hypersleep bunkers. This is just unforgivable.

*I find the audio is a bit low here and there.

Though Pandorum has more influnence than innovation which John Kenneth Muir pointed out in his review  and the works that he compared it to were quite accurate. The scifi elements that Pandorum uses are mostly from literature and TV medias about gerenation ships that date back to the 40s. Just watch these vids.

Sound familiar? However, a films job isn't to be entirely original but to read the story as if it was original like the 2004 film The Incredibles. It performs this concept effectively to create a narrative that is thought provoking with a well crafted antagonist, and there were some suspense scenes that I really liked. I'll give Pandorum a couple notches above a mediocre rating which is a  7.0 out of 10.