History Film / SpaceSweepers

A tie in ''Webcomic/SpaceSweepers'' Digital Comic [[https://tapas.io/series/space-sweepers/info was published]] on Website/TapasMedia.

* RammingYourShipAlwaysWorks: Done by a sweeper ship to a drone in the final battle. Justified, as sweepers not only clear up space debris, but also have to contend with ''other'' sweepers after the same debris, meaning that such ships tend to be bulky and built to resist hard impacts.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: As a member of the Space Guards, Tae-ho was responsible for killing refugees from Earth who illegally attempted to reach orbit.

* AliensInCardiff: Before fleeing to space to escape a death sentence, Park was formerly a gang lord in...Springfield, Oregon. His criminal empire was apparently taken apart by local authorities and the Portland Police Bureau.
* AllThereInTheManual: According to promotional material [[FreezeFrameBonus and a single line of text briefly visible during an]] InfoDump, James Sullivan was the one who brought Tae-ho into UTS and groomed him for the Space Guards. Even considering himself Tae-ho's adoptive father until Tae-ho was fired from UTS.

* BaitAndSwitch: The heroes use this to full effect. [[spoiler: In the climax, it looks like they were trying to spirit away Kot-Nim from the bomb, when really, its the bomb they were trying to get away from her.]]
* BilingualDialogue: Thanks to [[TranslatorMicrobes translators]], characters who speak different languages are all able to understand each other. Korean is the language of the five protagonists, the villain speaks English, and supporting characters speak a mix of many different languages.

** The crew of the ''Victory'' find themselves drawn more and more out of their self-interest after they find Dorothy.

** Tae-ho was a first Commander of the Space Guard, who was fired after refusing to kill non-citizens and fell into homeless poverty with his daughter Su-ni. His daughter was later killed when debris collided with the space station they lived on, and he is trying to scrounge up the money to hire a search craft to find her body.
** "Tiger" Park was a ganglord on Earth (Apparently operating in Springfield, Oregon) and he fled to space four years ago after being sentenced to death. He would be executed if he ever returned to Earth.

** Dr. Kang was a UTS scientists who used advanced technologies to try to save his daughters life, [[spoiler:and tried to escape UTS when they wanted to use his daughter to colonize Mars and destroy Earth]].

* DistractedFromDeath: During the disaster that killed Su-ni, Tae-ho only noticed that there was loose cash all over the place. He was ecstatically grabbing money and telling her that they would be eating well that night, before he realized that she wasn't there beside him.
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Bubs literally lights up when addressed as "lady", expresses a desire for drastically appearance-changing surgery but sadly says it's both illegal and way too expensive, and [[spoiler: eventually does get the surgery and achieve the appearance she wants.]]

* TheDragon: She doesn't get much characterization, but the leader of the Space Guards is always leading the soldiers in pursuit of the ''Victory'', and at the end she shows up personally to battle them unarmored.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: It's by no means easy or without sacrifice, but [[spoiler: the crew forces UTS to back down and apologize (and, it's implied, stop bleeding the sweepers dry), Kot-Nim uses her powers to fix Earth, Jang kicks her drinking problem, Tae-Ho gets closure even if he doesn't find Su-Ni's body, Bubs gets to be her true self, and the crew and Kot-Nim adopt each other as family.]]
* EarthThatUsedToBeBetter: By 2092, The Earth is a polluted slum, inhabited only by those not rich or powerful enough to have moved to orbit. Radioactive debris rains back to the world below, making things worse. [[spoiler:Sullivan intends to finish the job]].

* TheElitesJumpShip: Only the rich are able to become UTS citizens and live comfortably off-world, [[spoiler: and Sullivan plans to kill off those left downbelow.]]
* EngineeredPublicConfession: The ''Victory'''s emergency broadcast system has the quirk of defaulting to airing whenever the system is rebooted, as demonstrated when Pierre accidentally broadcast his love song to Jang through it. This comes in handy later once [[spoiler:Sullivan let the ship come back online after he [[JustBetweenYouAndMe explained his plan]]]].

* ExtremeSpeculativeStratification: The rich and powerful are "citizens" of the UTS corporation who live in idyllic space habitats explicitly compared to Eden, while all workers (With the exception of the security forces) are non-citizens. Non-citizens are taxed, forced to live in squalor, and aren't even allowed to have bank accounts.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler:The bomb in the Factory cannot be disarmed, so the ''Victory'' decides to fly it away from the Factory as fast as they can. This will save Kot-nim from its radiation, and will also save the entire Earth from the extinction-event of the Factory crashing to its surface. Thankfully, [[SubvertedTrope Kot-nim manages to use her control over nanobots to save them from the explosion]].]]
* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: Captain Jang winds up tazering ''herself'' when she and Park struggle over her gun during their fight.

* LostInACrowd: When arranging the meeting with the Black Fox, Tae-ho sets it up at a masquerade nightclub where everybody is wearing costumes and masks. He and Park wear masks to hide their identities and are still indistinguishable from the crowd, and the Black Fox even initially approach a random drunk clubgoer.

* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: As a member of the Space Guards, Tae-ho was responsible for killing non-citizens who illegally attempted to reach orbit (i.e. refugees from Earth),

* SceneryPorn: The shots of the UTS residential district in space are very detailed and realistic, reminiscent of diorama effect.

* TaintedVeins: James Sullivan is suffering from some illness that is never directly explained (Presumably related to the way his lifespan was increased). It flares up throughout the film, and when it does his veins became discolored and visible and his skin becomes discolored discolored spreading outwards from the veins.

* {{Terraform}}: UTS Corporation is in the process of terraforming Mars, and are planning to announce the beginning of colonization. [[spoiler: At the end Kot-nim begins re-terraforming ''Earth'' to make it livable again.]]

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: By piecing together his age and the details he reveals about his family, you can deduce that James Sullivan was born in 1940, his father died in WWII, and there was genocide in his village. Which side his family was on is not definitively stated, but there is light implication that they were German.

** Sullivan brings a reporter to his office that had previously criticized his efforts to terraform Mars at the expense of the people still living on Earth. He then also brings in a tied up member of the Black Fox terrorists and, with the promise of elevating the reporter's family to living in orbit as UTS citizens, forces him to shoot the terrorist. Immediately afterwards, Sullivan says that the fact that he was willing to kill somebody proves that the reporter is not worthy of being a UTS citizen [[spoiler:and promptly kills him with a knife, after his Space Guards bolt his arms to the wall]].
** After recapturing Dorothy, Sullivan drops ''$4 million'' in front of Tae-ho. As soon as Tae-ho touches it, Sullivan says that this is the price of Dorothy's life, which Tae-ho knew, and that by accepting it he just gave up any chance of becoming a better person. [[spoiler:Though Tae-ho does initially take the money to pay for the search for Su-ni, he turns back and throws it down the waste instead]].
* WimpFight: When the Black Fox corner Tae-ho and Kot-nim, Park arrives and singlehandedly defeats the entire crew. He is a former ganglord, whereas despite being a terrorist organization the Foxes seem completely unprepared for violence and are unsure how to even throw punches. They resort hair pulling and pleading for mercy. [[spoiler:This is because they're not terrorists at all, but environmental activists]].

See the Netflix official trailer [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1WYnJF1Pwo here]].

* EngineeredPublicConfession: The ''Victory'''s emergency broadcast system has the quirk of defaulting to airing whenever the system is rebooted, as demonstrated when Pierre accidentally broadcast his love song to Jang through it. This comes in handy later once [[spoiler:Sullivan's EMPs deactivated as the ship restarted, as he [[JustBetweenYouAndMe was explaining his plan]]]].

* EngineeredPublicConfession: It is left vague as to who actually did it, [[spoiler:the ''Victory'''s emergency transmission was activated while Sullivan [[JustBetweenYouAndMe was explaining his plan]]]].

** Bubs notes that Dorothy is so realistic that she fooled even its sensors. [[spoiler:They later discover that she's not a gynoid at all. At the end of the firlm, Bubs actually ''does'' get a super-realistic remodeling to essentially become a woman herself]]

** The data markers on the police surveillance footage of Park's time on Earth indicates that his criminal empire was based on Springfield, Oregon.

* FirstNameBasis: Throughout the film, the Victory crew refer to each other formally, always using the Korean honorific ''-sshi'' at the end of their names. [[spoiler: When he thinks they're about to die and Tae-ho goes into his HeroicBSOD, Tiger Park gently refers to him as "Taeho-ya" [[note]]Koreans sometimes add "ya" or "ie" to the end of names as a form of endearment. However, this can only be done if you are extremely close.[[/note]]]]