History Film / Moon

** The base has readouts for four harvesters. [[Literature/TheBible Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John]], Luke, which is broken-down during the entire film, has been crossed-out and "Judas" written-in.

* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Sam #2 and GERTY. Sam #2 even tears the [[KickMePrank "Kick Me" post-it note]] off of him before leaving as a sign of respect.

* ItHasBeenAnHonor: Sam #2 and GERTY. Sam #2 even tears the "Kick Me" post-it note off of him before leaving as a sign of respect.

* JapanTakesOverTheWorld: Implied. Japan does not take over the world. Korea does.

** Early on in the film, Sam comments in a video message about how he's been talking to himself. [[CloningBlues Later on, he literally does.]]

** The tagline similarly spoils and conceals the plot, as "The hardest thing to face... is yourself" is a clear reference to Sam's CloningBlues, but could also be more of an existential crisis he's going through [[GoMadFromTheIsolation due to being isolated for so long]].

* CloningBlues: What most of the movie deals with.

* CassetteFuturism: Downplayed in the sense that it still does contain technology that is very much 21st century. However, it still plays through in the sense that many of the equipment are large, bulky, rugged and used which is akin to many real-world mining industries. Justified as the location ''is'' set on a mining installation.

* {{Retirony}}: Sam has two weeks left before he can go home to his wife and baby daughter, and then the rover crash occurs... which leads to him learning that he's actually a clone with implanted memories, "his" wife is dead, "his" daughter is now a teenager whose entire childhood he missed and who's being raised by a different father[[note]]explicitly identified as "Original Sam" in the closed-captioning titles[[/note]], and his "retirement" involves his being incinerated and replaced by a new clone.

* {{Retirony}}: Sam has two weeks left before he can go home to his wife and baby daughter... and then the rover crash occurs, which triggers a chain of events which leads to him learning that he's actually a clone, his wife is dead, he missed his daughter's entire childhood, and he's actually about to be incinerated and replaced by a new clone.

* {{Retirony}}: Sam has two weeks left before he can go home... to a wife that's dead and a baby daughter whose entire childhood he missed. And then the rover crash occurs and things get worse.

* CloneDegeneration: Each clone breaks down after three years. The DVD commentary states Lunar Industries figured three years was the longest they could expect someone to "want" to work on an isolated Moon base, so they designed the clones to last just that long. The company probably did this also in order to ensure that each clone doesn't live long enough to start investigate the base more thoroughly and possibly find out the truth. It leads to use of BloodFromTheMouth and ImColdSoCold.

* CloneDegeneration: Each clone breaks down after three years. The DVD commentary states Lunar Industries figured three years was the longest they could expect someone to "want" to work on an isolated Moon base, so they designed the clones to last just that long. It leads to use of BloodFromTheMouth and ImColdSoCold.

** ''[[Film/Outland1981 Outland]]'' has been the biggest influence on this movie for being one of Creator/DuncanJones' childhood films: the look of the spacesuits and the ''Film/{{Alien}}''-esque UsedFuture aesthetics, the mining operation for a callous MegaCorp, and more overtly the RaceAgainstTheClock aspect of Sam having to hurry before a "rescue unit" (in reality a clean-up team sent to kill both Sam clones and restore the status quo in the base) arrives with a large screen on the wall indicating the time running out before its arrival, and the one member of the Eliza Unit that we see onscreen being an astronaut carrying a rifle like Ballard when he goes outside to try kill O'Neil.

** ''[[Film/Outland1981 Outland]]'' has been the biggest influence on this movie for being one of Creator/DuncanJones' childhood films: the look of the spacesuits and the ''Film/{{Alien}}''-esque UsedFuture aesthetics, the mining operation for a callous MegaCorp, and more overtly the RaceAgainstTheClock aspect of Sam having to hurry before a "rescue unit" (in reality a clean-up team sent to kill both Sam clones and restore the status quo in the base) arrives with a large screen on the wall indicating the time running out before its arrival, and the one member of the Eliza Unit that we see onscreen being an astronaut carrying a rifle like O'Neil does.

** Sam's clones, being artificial humans with a very short lifespan and implanted memories, are based on the Replicants from ''Film/BladeRunner''.

** Sam's clones, being artificial humans with a very short lifespan and implanted memories are based on the Replicants from ''Film/BladeRunner''.

** Sam tending plants and the relationship he has with his RobotBuddy GERTY are inspired ''Film/SilentRunning''.

** Sam 2 mockingly calls Sam 1 "[[Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio Geppetto]]" when the latter is more focused on the model village instead of listening to him.

* BittersweetEnding: Sam 1 succumbs to the CloneDegeneration, but Sam 2 escapes back to Earth and the mashup of newscast voices heard before the film cuts to the end credits imply that he successfully exposed Lunar Industries' evil scheme.