Moonshot is a science-fiction romantic comedy film directed by Chris Winterbauer. It stars Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse.
Walt (Sprouse) is a college student working as a barista who dreams of going to Mars. He meets Sophie (Condor), who joins a mission to colonize Mars so that she can reunite with her distant boyfriend Calvin. Walt sneaks aboard the spacecraft Sophie is travelling to Mars on and needs her help to stay hidden.
The film premiered on HBO Max March 31, 2022. It was removed from the platform four months later in a cost-cutting move by Warner Bros. Discovery, although it remains available on demand on other digital platforms.
Trailer: Trailer
Tropes:
- Aborted Arc: What about their abandoned college classes and degree programs? What about the debris that hit the spacecraft - will it impact the imminent return home? No answers.
- Agitated Item Stomping: Sophie stomped at Walt phone for sneaking aboard the Spacecraft and to avoid getting caught.
- Air-Vent Passageway: Walt's original plan it to sneak onboard using them, and indeed he needs the skills eventually.
- All Just a Prank: Walt's sneaking aboard the ship and false identity was known by everyone, and they were all playing along and pranking him and laughing behind his back at his antics. Even his newfound popularity is a joke being played on Walt.
- Artificial Gravity: The Kovi transport spins for artificial gravity for the entire trip.
- Artificial Intelligence: There are several robot AIs in the movie doing odd jobs.
- Colonized Solar System: Mars has been colonized at the time the movie begins.
- Escape Pod: Walt smuggles himself onto the ship in one.
- Genre-Busting: The movie is set up in the trailer as a romantic comedy IN SPACE!
- Polluted Wasteland: Very lightly used. Pollution is brought up as one of the reasons to leave Earth - there's a scene with trash everywhere during the walk across campus, the Earth plush toy says they "won't miss your CO2" and it's pointed out that the trash from Mars is shipped back to Earth.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: We see that Artificial Intelligence is capable enough to single-handedly run and manage a campus coffee shop, but they aren't seen doing much of anything else useful - like security or working (much) on the spaceship, or on Mars, or cleaning up the garbage on campus.
- Shout-Out: Sophie's family is briefly seen playing the board game Terraforming Mars, but are actually on a Mars which is being terraformed.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: It's set 27 years after its release date of 2022. There are robotic A.I.s, colonization of Mars, and instant communication between the two planets - but people still use smartphones and tablets and general 2020's tech. The Pacific garbage patch is still "about the size of Texas", which actually would mean that in 27 years we've actually stopped its growth.
