1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Production

4. Release, director's cut, and sequel

5. Reception

6. Soundtrack

7. See also

8. References

9. External links

• Robert Kulzer
• Jeremy Bolt
• Paul W. S. Anderson

• Travis Milloy
• Christian Alvart

• Dennis Quaid
• Ben Foster
• Cam Gigandet
• Antje Traue
• Cung Le
• Eddie Rouse

• Philipp Stahl
• Yvonne Valdez

• Constantin Film
• Impact Pictures^[1]

• Constantin Film {{small|(Germany)}}
• Icon Productions
• {{small|(United Kingdom)}}

• United Kingdom
• Germany^[1]

Pandorum is a 2009 science fiction horror film, with elements of Lovecraftian horror, and survival adventure. The film was directed by Christian Alvart and produced by Robert Kulzer, Jeremy Bolt and Paul W. S. Anderson. Travis Milloy wrote the screenplay from a story by Milloy and Alvart. It stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. Filming began in Berlin in August 2008. Pandorum was released on 25 September 2009 in the United States,^[4] and on 2 October 2009 in the UK. The film's title is a fictional slang term for a form of psychosis called Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome (ODS) caused by deep space and triggered by emotional stress. This leads to severe paranoia, delirium, and nosebleeding.

Plot

Human overpopulation depletes Earth's resources, leading humanity to build an interstellar ark. It carries 60,000 people on a 123-year trip to colonize Tanis, an Earth-like planet. The passengers are placed in hypersleep, and a rotating crew wake biennially to maintain the ship. Eight years into the mission, the ship receives a transmission from Earth in multiple languages: "You're all that's left of us. Good luck, God bless, and godspeed."

Some unknown time later, two members of the flight crew, Corporal Bower and Lieutenant Payton, awaken. Improper emergence from the hibernatory state leaves them both with partial amnesia and possibly suffering from pandorum, a hypersleep-related disorder that causes psychosis when under emotional duress. The ship experiences power surges caused by an unstable nuclear reactor, and they are unable to enter the bridge. While Payton stays behind to access the ship's computer, Bower uses the ventilation system to search for the reactor.

Bower encounters Nadia, a geneticist, and Manh, an agriculturist, and they are attacked by a group of cannibalistic humanoids. The trio flees into a barricaded chamber and finds a cook named Leland, who has been awake for years, living off the water leaking into the ship, the algae it creates, and resorting to cannibalism. Meanwhile, Payton encounters Corporal Gallo, who claims that the ship is lost in space and that he killed his team in self-defense after they developed pandorum.

Leland feeds Bower's group and shows them mural drawings depicting their true origin: after Earth vanished following an unknown catastrophe, Gallo went insane, killed his crew, and induced pandorum in other passengers. After goading them into a violent and tribal culture, Gallo went back into hypersleep. Aided by accelerated evolution from an enzyme meant to help colonists adjust to life on Tanis, the descendents have turned into cannibalistic mutants. Leland drugs the group, intending to butcher and eat them, but Bower convinces him the reactor must be stabilised.

Bower hopes to find his wife but remembers that she died with everyone else on Earth. This revelation almost makes him give up and pushes him closer to insanity. When Bower's group finds the reactor, they see a crowd of sleeping mutants. Bower fails to sneak by them. While Manh distracts the mutants, Bower restarts the reactor, killing many mutants. Leland flees, and Manh is cornered by the mutant leader. In a one-on-one fight, Manh kills the leader but is killed by a mutant child he hesitates to slay.

Gallo becomes increasingly agitated, and Payton prepares a sedative. As they wrestle over the sedative, Payton is revealed to have hallucinated Gallo. Gallo killed the real Payton long ago. Because he went into Payton's pod, Gallo mistakenly believed himself to be Payton. Leland reaches the bridge, and Gallo kills him with the sedative. When Bower and Nadia confront him, Gallo opens the shutters on the bridge's windows, revealing that the ship is adrift in deep space with no stars visible. The shock pushes Bower further toward insanity. Taking advantage of Bower's mental state, Gallo argues they must maintain the violent society rather than attempt to revive civilization.

Nadia observes bioluminescent ocean life through the windows, and the computer displays that 923 years have elapsed since the mission launched. The ship reached Tanis 800 years ago, and landed itself in the ocean. Bower hallucinates a mutant attack and breaks a window. As water pours into the ship, Nadia and Bower climb into a hypersleep pod. The flood triggers an emergency protocol which ejects all active pods to the surface; Gallo and the remaining mutants drown. Bower and Nadia surface near a lush coastline, and witness the other pods ascend.

Cast

• Dennis Quaid as Lieutenant Payton/Older Corporal Gallo
• Ben Foster as Corporal Bower
• Cam Gigandet as Younger Corporal Gallo
• Antje Traue as Nadia
• Cung Le as Manh
• Eddie Rouse as Leland
• André Hennicke as Hunter Leader
• Norman Reedus as Shepard
• Wotan Wilke Möhring as Young Bower's Father
• Niels-Bruno Schmidt as Insane Officer Eden

Production

The film began life as a preliminary script written by Travis Milloy in the late 1990s. The story was originally set on a prison ship named Pandorum, transporting thousands of Earth's deadliest prisoners to another planet; the cannibal hunters were the end result of the prisoners' degeneration. The characters played by Antje Traue and Cung Le were inmates. Ben Foster's character was a non-prisoner who did not trust anyone.

Believing no studio would want to make the film, Milloy thought about making it as a low-budget film shot on video in an abandoned paper mill with unknown actors. However, it attracted the attention of filmmaker Paul W. S. Anderson and Jeremy Bolt, and they gave it to Impact Pictures, who green-lit it. The producers gave the script to director Christian Alvart who was struck by the similarities to his own screenplay titled No Where. His dramatic story was about four astronauts aboard a settlers' ship who suffer from amnesia. Alvart decided that they should meld the two screenplays together, and the producers and Milloy agreed. With the ship now changed to a settler's ship, the use of the word "Pandorum" was changed from the name of the ship to a type of mental illness caused by sustained deep space travel.^[5]

Release, director's cut, and sequel

Summit Entertainment handled foreign sales and presented Pandorum to buyers at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, but due to a deal with Contender Films in the UK, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures took over and handled foreign sales to the film.^[6] Overture Films distributed Pandorum in North America, Icon in the United Kingdom and Australia, Svensk in Scandinavia, and Movie Eye in Japan. The film was set up as a possible franchise. According to Travis Milloy, it was to have a sequel and a prequel.^[5] If it performed well, Impact Pictures could green-light one or more sequels.^[7]

The DVD and Blu-ray Disc release occurred on 19 January 2010 in the United States^[9] over Anchor Bay Entertainment.^[10]

The director and producer commentaries on the DVD indicate that an unrated version of the movie exists but has not been released.

Reception

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 29% based on 84 reviews and an average rating of 4.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "While it might prove somewhat satisfying for devout sci-fi fans, Pandorum's bloated, derivative plot ultimately leaves it drifting in space."^[11] At Metacritic, which judges on a 0–100 scale, the film holds a "generally unfavorable" score of 28 based on 13 reviews.^[12]

Science fiction magazine SFX stated that "Pandorum is the finest interstellar horror in years" and awarded the film 4 stars out of 5.^[13] Film Ireland also gave Pandorum a positive review, appreciating the film's synergy of cinematic techniques, set design, and developed characters.^[14]

The film grossed $20.6 million worldwide on a $33 million budget.^[3] The film opened at #6 at the US box office with weekend receipts totaling $4.4 million. Poor return due to lack of promotion was a contributing factor to Overture Films' declaration of bankruptcy several months later.^[15]

Soundtrack

1. "All That Is Left of Us" (2:43)
2. "Pandorum" (3:58)
3. "Anti Riot" (4:17)
4. "Shape" (2:03)
5. "Hunting Party" (2:48)
6. "Kulzer Complex" (4:40)
7. "Tanis Probe Broadcast" (2:01)
8. "Scars" (2:20)
9. "Fucking Solidarity" (3:28)
10. "Gallo's Birth" (2:22)
11. "Biolab Attack" (2:25)
12. "Kanyrna" (3:22)
13. "The Stars All Look Alike" (4:32)
14. "Boom" (3:55)
15. "Reactor" (4:08)
16. "Skin on Skin" (3:21)
17. "Fight Fight Fight" (2:56)
18. "Bower's Trip" (7:51)
19. "Discovery / End Credits" (7:55)

See also

• Survivalism in fiction
• Malthusianism
• Psychological and sociological effects of spaceflight

References

External links

• {{official website|http://www.pandorummovie.com}} (dead link)
• {{IMDb title|1188729}}
• {{AllRovi movie|472864}}
• {{rotten-tomatoes|pandorum}}

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