A time of both hope and conflict. Humanity looks to the stars for intelligent life and the promise of progress.
We get our first glimpse of Roy McBride’s character from the inside. These internal monologue are a regular presence in the film. An astronaut for the quasi-military US Space Command, his psychological fitness for duty requires frequent reevaluation, and so, in advance of each mission, he documents (and submits for approval) his self-assessed mental and physical well-being. As mission-readiness is always the goal he seeks, we can never be quite sure how truthful are his words. Here is today’s liturgy:
I’m calm, steady, slept well, 8.2 hours, no bad dreams. I am ready to go, ready to do my job to the best of my abilities. I am focused only all the essential, to the exclusion of all else. I will make only pragmatic decisions. I will not allow myself to be distracted. I will not allow my mind to linger on that which is unimportant. I will not rely on anyone or anything. I will not be vulnerable to mistakes. Resting BPM, 47. Submit.
These words are spoken over a shot of his wife, bag in hand, placing the house keys on the table near the front door as she exits his life. Pragmatism, it seems, has a price.
Roy has dedicated his life to the exploration of space. He does high-altitude repair on the International Space Antenna, a massive, space-elevator-like structure which extends into the thermosphere. A stoic man with a stalwart work ethic and a BPM that famously never rises above 80 no matter how tense the situation, this work suits him. He also has the sort of familial lineage which opens doors, and were he only to avoid upsetting the established order, he could retire a celebrated public servant, regarded by the world as a continuation of his father’s grand legacy.
You see, his father was a hero – an exploratory pioneer. He was leader of the Lima Project, a mission to set up a research station in orbit around Neptune, where solar interference was weak, in order to search the galaxy for extraterrestrial life. Lima was capable, for the first time, of delivering a definitive answer to the question: Are we alone? Roy’s father was confident the answer was “no”, and that we’d get that answer in very short order.
A father… who resides in the heavens.
Communication from Lima went dark some time ago. Roy’s heavenly father has gone silent. “I was 16 when he left, 29 when he disappeared,” he says. Roy tortures himself with old video messages from his father, recorded in the space between estrangement and silence. Orphans are made of children and souls in the space between estrangement and silence.
So, it came as some surprise when, after all this time, God broke his silence. Or did he? Powerful and deadly electrical surges began to emerge from the Neptunian system and wreak havoc on human life and civilization. Roy himself barely survived one such surge, which blasted the aforementioned antenna in the middle of a repair, knocking him off and sending him careening to the surface of the Earth. These events would prompt a closed-door meeting with space command brass, who would tap him for a mission that it’s thought only he could fulfill. These energy bursts are the result of an antimatter chain-reaction that grows more powerful as it advances from its Neptunian origin. The Lima project was powered by antimatter. An uncontrolled release could destabilize the entire solar system, and destroy all life therein.
The subject turns, naturally, to Roy’s father. “Can you tell us how you handled your father’s absence?” A quick glance over to the resident psychologist, pen in hand, makes it understood that Roy’s perceived fitness for this mission is riding on this answer. He responds with calculated dispassion, stating that it distressed his mother, but that his father was dedicated to his work and it was no doubt hard on him too. Platitudes. You see, when the soul lies, it’s usually by omission.
“We believe your father is alive,” they would tell him. Insofar as surprise can grace the face of a stoic, it did. Unfortunately, they don’t know exactly where Clifford McBride is; even when limited to the Neptunian region, the heavens are “a vast area to cover.” Roy’s mission, should he choose to accept it, would be to first transit to the moon (commercially, so as not to attract too much attention). On the dark side of the moon (or is it the dark night of the soul?) awaits a ship which will carry him to Mars, the site of the last remaining secure communications facility. From there, he will deliver a “personalized” message to his heavenly father (contradictingly prepared for him in advance, of course). The hope is that a direct plea, from son to father, might elicit a response which can then be used to extrapolate a source.
The gravity of the situation is expressed plainly, as Job might have expressed it: “What is happening up there is a crisis of… unknown magnitude.”
Roy’s climactic arrival to the moon would prove anticlimactic – a far cry from eagles having landed and giant leaps for mankind. Aside from the alien-themed tourist kitsch, this could be Hartsfield-Jackson. DHL and Subway sandwich shop adorn this extraterrestrial world with the all the corporate banality of our terrestrial one. “All the hopes we ever had for space travel,” Roy monologues, “covered up by drink stands and T-shirt vendors; just a recreation of what we’re running from on Earth. We are world eaters. If my dad could see this now, he’d tear it all down.”
The moon greets passengers at the terminal entrance with a plaque and a motto: “Earth’s Moon: Where the world comes together.” The irony is at once vapidly cheesy and darkly ironic. Indeed, if the peoples of Earth had it in them to come together, they wouldn’t need to leave the Earth to do it. It’s not even true, as the moon is revealed to be a battleground of murky borders and conflicts over mining rights that turn violent on a dime. Roy would find himself embroiled in one such battle when his travel party would later be attacked en route to the launchpad for the final leg of the journey.
What happened to my dad? What did he find out there? Did it break him? Or was he always broken? My father… the most decorated astronaut in the history of the program. U.S. Air Force Academy… his doctorate at MIT. He promised me that one day I could join him in his pursuits… that he’d come back for me. And I believed him. First man to Jupiter. First to Saturn. And then… nothing.
Roy is greeted on Mars by Helen Lantos, director of operations, who escorts him to the communication facility, commenting that he’s lucky to have landed. The surges have been assaulting the red planet too. They lost three astronauts in the landing attempt, but “nobody knows what’s causing them.” Space Command is keeping that secret close to their chest.
Under the watchful eye of three Space Command executives, Roy begins his transmission:
This is Doctor McBride’s son, Roy. Father, if you can hear me, I’m attempting to communicate with you. SPACECOM wants you to know that they are aware of the disturbances, and that it cannot be your responsibility. They would like all information about attempts that you are making to ameliorate the situation.
It is a scripted prayer, and it has the feel of one too. No response is forthcoming. Perhaps God is dead? Or, perhaps the prayer is too dead for a living God? “We’ll try again next cycle”, an exec assures him.
“They’re using me”, Roy monologues, in the interim, “Goddamn them. I don’t know if I hope to find him, or finally be free of him.”
After a brief hesitation, Roy would go off script for the second attempt:
Dad, I’d like to see you again. I recall how we used to watch black and white movies together… and musicals were your favorite. I remember you tutoring me in math. You instilled in me a strong work ethic. “Work hard, play later,” as you said. You should know I’ve chosen a career that you would approve of. I’ve dedicated my life to the exploration of space And I thank you for that. I hope we can reconnect Your loving son, Roy.
Roy waits in earnest for the response – a sign from the heavens – but the Earth would be the first to deliver. The established order had everything it needed from him. “Thank you so much major, for all your help; we’ll be returning you to the Earth in short order.” Roy’s agitation begins to mount, and his famously low BPM begins to climb. “He answered, didn’t he!?” Only patronization and dismissiveness are returned to him, as the execs comment on his accelerating pulse and aberrant bio-rhythms, both of which will “need to be addressed” before his return to Earth. His “personal connection” has made him “unsuited for continued service.” It’s a clue as to the real purpose of this mission. They had no use for the contact; they only wanted the coordinates.
The pieces come together for Roy, shortly after, when Helen would meet with him privately, wondering why she the spacecraft he had arrived on was ordered to be requisitioned for deep space and armed with nuclear munitions. “It’s for a search and destroy mission,” she says. She’s responsible for the lives of over 1,000 people on that base, and she needs to know what threat she’s being asked to take on. She pieces together that he is Clifford McBride’s son. “We are both victims of the Lima project […] You and I share a great loss,” she says. Her parents left for the Lima project; she knows the plight of the orphaned soul too.
Roy confesses what he knows, and how he’s been determined unfit for the ongoing mission. “I believe your father is alive,” she ventures. “They never told you what happened to him out there, did they?” She reveals to him a recorded, classified mission briefing sent by his father some years ago. It opens with a series of distorted screams before cutting to his father:
This is Clifford McBride, reporting from the Lima Project. I’m disclosing a tragedy. Here, on the edge of our solar system, some of our people have been unable to handle the psychological distress of being so far away from home. They desired to return to Earth, and I could not permit that. And I have to report the reality that they mutinied… committed acts of sabotage trying to commandeer my ship. I was forced to react with equal severity. I disabled one section of our station’s life support system, and without doubt, I did punish the innocent along with the guilty. We will not turn back. We will venture further into space. We will find alien intelligence. I am forever driven on this quest.
“SPACECOM would never allow their image to be shattered… so they made him a hero to protect themselves,” Helen says. “Your father murdered my parents. That monster threatens us all. And now it’s your burden.” Roy promises that, if she can get him aboard that ship, he will deal with his father.
With help from Helen, Roy would sneak aboard the ship through an underground lake which gave access to the launchpad. His presence would provoke an immediate hostile response from the 3-person crew during the boost phase. Between the dangers of inertia and oxygen deprivation caused by the accidental discharge of a fire extinguisher in the closed capsule during the struggle, Roy would find himself the only survivor. In sullen tone, he records the tragedy into the flight recorder and, with equally sullen tone, expresses his resolve to complete the deicidal mission.
The journey is the most reflective period of the film – a guided tour through the dark night of the soul. He is a man unmade, in the blackness of space. Here, darkness bathes him from the outside, and consumes him from within; man is only a membrane now. Palpably isolated and reeling from the physical and mental effects of extended space-travel, Roy survives on old video recordings from the father who estranged him and the wife whom he estranged. “I feel like I’m looking for you all the time, trying to connect,” his wife’s image would say. This is his commandment, that he hurt one another, even as he has been hurt.
At long last, Roy’s ship comes to rest in orbit around Neptune. He has reached the abode of God. But, the triumphal catharsis fails to arrive. Something is terribly wrong with this place. Where is St. Peter? Where are the pearly gates? If there were one word to describe this heaven, it would be… lonely. It’s profoundly, maddeningly lonely.
Neptune herself provides some small respite from the oppressive emptiness, but it is cold comfort. She is a foreboding and unforgiving world – a ghostly blue ocean of death. Roy spots his father’s space craft, hovering over the surface of the deep. It is just a pinprick against the intimidating blue backdrop; fragile and impotent, it is far and away the lesser of these two gods. Further, its orbit is degrading which has caused it to drift from expected coordinates. Roy must depart from his craft to maneuver around Neptune’s rings in a small transport capsule. Even with all the distance he has traveled, this gap seems impossibly wide.
His spacecraft slowly fades into the distance outside the transport window as a monologue fills the void: “All my life I was terrified to confront him; I’m terrified even now. What do I expect? In the end, the son suffers the sins of the father.”
Another antimatter surge flares up on approach to Lima, striking the transport. His request for docking clearance goes unanswered. It would have been in vain anyway, as we soon learn. “Craft damaged, unable to dock,” reports the flight system. Sometimes the symbolism is a bit too obvious. Roy now watches his transport craft fade into the distance as he spacewalks to the Lima airlock.
Roy’s slow descent to the belly of the beast is at once spellbinding and haunting, doubling as a metaphor both for a stolen past and the slow progression of pathological obsession. The corpses of angels hang weightless in the passageway; God never even bothered to bury his dead. An old Time magazine announcing the Lima project with the cover title Is Anyone Out There? is taped to the wall, a black marker having scribbled a frantic series of yeses over it.
Roy gradually makes his way to the antimatter reaction chamber, gazing into the luminescent enclosure as he drifts closer. It pulses haphazardly, as if struggling to breath. This machine is dying… scared, and alone. It is no wonder he shouts at his nurses. Heaven is a palliative ward, and it is woefully underfunded. A war of attrition between pragmatism and empathy is waged in the heart as Roy arms the portable nuclear charge that will bring a final end to the heavenly threat. It is then that he hears a voice, speaking out of a whirlwind: “Roy? Roy, is that you?
I have cataracts, I don’t see very well.
Hi dad…you alone?
Oh yeah; captain always goes down with his ship. Been here quite a while, alone. Tried to stop this goddamn surge.
What happened?
My last loyal few tried to escape. And they started all this. They caused a meltdown out there, Roy. We fought, and our struggle caused catastrophe.
It’s why I’m here. I’m going to stop it. Get the two of us back home, maybe.
Home? This is home. This is a one-way voyage, my son. You’re talking about Earth? There was never anything for me there. I never cared about you, or your mother, or any of your small ideas. For thirty years, I’ve been breathing this air, eating this food, enduring these hardships, and I never once thought about home.
I know, dad.
I knew this would widow your mother, and orphan you, but I found my destiny. So, I abandoned my son.
I still love you, dad. I’m taking you back.
I have work to do. I have infinite work to do. I must find intelligent life.
We were prepared, upon meeting God, to feel awe. We were prepared for terror, and majesty, and wonder, and humility, and amazement. We weren’t prepared… for pity. The cannon never prepared us for disappointment. “It’s time to go,” Roy answers patiently, stretching out his hand for his father’s grasp. God pulls back, reduced now to the image of a timid animal – reduced, to the image of a man.
God goes on to narrate his obsessive pathology, and recount the angelic rebellion that occurred so many years ago: “I admire your courage for coming alone, Roy… travelling all this way… following me here. Makes me wonder what we could have accomplished together. But I guess the fates have deprived me of the partner I should have had. If we’d had more people like you, we could have pressed on, could’ve found what we’re looking for. My crew examined all the data… discovered no other life out there. No other consciousness. They quit.”
Sometimes the human will must overcome the impossible. You and I have to continue on, Roy. Together. To find what science claims does not exist. You and I, together, Roy. Because the Lima project has told us… that we’re all alone in the knowable universe. I can’t fail. You can’t let me fail, Roy.
Dad… you haven’t. Now we know we’re all we’ve got.
One suspects Roy isn’t referring to humanity generally, but to the pair of father and son. Indeed, here they are, alone, two men after each other’s own image, impossibly far from the sight of Earth. Certain judgement, it seems, awaits both back on Earth. Both followed an obsessive journey to bring them here, leaving a trail of death, destruction, and broken relationships in their wake. The son doesn’t merely suffer the sins of his father; he also commits them.
The two exit the craft tethered to each other, both literally and metaphorically. Somewhere along that tether is the vertex of reality itself; it is where the finite meets the infinite – where a man coming to terms with his future meets a man coming to terms with his past. A reconciliation between heaven and Earth is at hand! That’s why, when Clifford would activate his suit’s propulsion unit to dart off into the blackness, he wasn’t just committing suicide; he was tearing the cosmos asunder, stranding humanity on Earth, forever. A brief struggle would ensue, Roy desperately trying to reclaim his father, but his father insists: “Roy, let me go.” The son, at last, relents.
To think how close we came to having the blood on our hands. Then again, in the race to seal the fate of man, we lose even when we win.
Roy would make it back to Earth a new man. Or, should I say, an old man partially erased? Destruction is a form of creation. Another reconciliation (this time with his wife) is also implied. Her name is Eve, lest we assume the next chapter of this story is unwritten. A final monologue closes us out:
I’m steady, calm. I slept well. No bad dreams. I am active and engaged. I’m aware of my surroundings and those in my immediate sphere. I’m attentive. I’m focused on the essential, to the exclusion of all else. I’m unsure of the future, but I’m not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me. And I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live, and love. Submit.
It’ll have to be enough. If it’s not, God help us.
Great review Jarrod, I’ll get some thoughts to you soon.
I thought this was a ironic paragraph: 🙂
We were prepared, upon meeting God, to feel awe. We were prepared for terror, and majesty, and wonder, and humility, and amazement. We weren’t prepared… for pity. The cannon never prepared us for disappointment. “It’s time to go,” Roy answers patiently, stretching out his hand for his father’s grasp. God pulls back, reduced now to the image of a timid animal – reduced, to the image of a man.
Thanks, and OK.
Yep. I’d be interested to hear precisely what you found ironic about it; I suspect it’s not identical to what I intended to be ironic about it, so that’d be interesting 🙂
This was probably the philosophical climax of the movie. The movie had been alluding to this theme of man being created in the image of a broken God, destined to manifest all of his flaws. I thought it was an interesting scene because:
1) It was a really nuanced way of communicating the experience of being profoundly disappointed that God wasn’t the hero he was made out to be – there’s a parallel to the experience of a child’s growing up and learning that their parents aren’t the beneficent demigods we as children considered them, but are just humans who make mistakes, like everyone else.
2) The movie had been toying with this theme that brokenness is what unites man and God, leaving us to reflect on whether brokenness is a divine property that man is stricken with, or an earthly property that God is stricken with. So, I thought it was interesting to see God being, if you will, “brought down to Earth” in this scene – made out to be a timid animal just like the rest of us.
3) It flips on its head the expectation that it is God who seeks reconciliation with man, and man who pulls away. It does a good job of capturing the feeling of chasing after an absent god – trying to establish a relationship only to be rebuffed by him. Also interesting that there is the added symbolism that Roy is, in effect, trying to pull God down from heaven and returning him “home” to Earth. Perhaps he’s right to pull back in that case? Then again, the movie portrays heaven as a place of profound isolation, and God as an obsessive man trapped in a realm of divine, solitary confinement. So, maybe God has been on that island all alone, for so long, that he doesn’t know how to leave. Or, maybe, he can’t bring himself to face his children on Earth and admit that he failed.
So much captured in that scene.
Oh the piece I found ironic was the line “the canon doesn’t prepare us for… pity…”
“A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him.”
for “disappointment”
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.
for “God… reduced to the image of a man.”
“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?”
In the scandal of the incarnation and the God made weak, you capture all of those elements. Though of course, I’m twising your quote a bit to serve my ends, you’re talking about a DIFFERENT kind of pity, disappointment, and “god made man”. Exactly like you said in 3), it flips the idea on its head. Its not the shocking discovery that God has been made weak, but rather, that god is pathetic. The wierd thing about disenthiesm is that “God” is just “god”, in the sense that he can’t be the Infinite, Beyond Being, Source of all that is, he’s sort of just this moraly ambigious character. I guess there are degrees to this, but is there a connection between disenthiesm and paganism? Where there are multiple, moraly ambigious gods? Or what about something like process theism? Is there any connection between those?
Leaving that asside for now, another angle you might want to explore in the film is the one I was thinking of as I watched. I thought the film was a sort of twist on the hero’s journey where the son goes to rescue the father and finds out in the process that the father is currupt. The father, he finds out, wasn’t a hero, and neither is he. In the end, the son gives up on being a hero–he realizes what trying to be a hero in the likeness of his father cost him–and relies on others. I connect this with the current moment in the US where people are sort of questioning their own history, exploring the legacy of the “heros” of the past. Like Clifford, they are journing into the past and discovering that those great heros of the founding–the men on the frontier who sacrficied everything and ran roughshod over it all to chase their goals–are actually moraly ambigious characters. There are no heros. Clifford models his own life after his father, he wants to be a hero–to chase the frontier like his father– in accordance with the great cloud of witnesses before him. But the son must pay for the sins of the father, the great founding sin of the nation–its ruthless ambition–continues to infect Clifford and destroys his life. He sacrifices everything on this alter of ambition. We see how the sins of the past are carried into the patterns of life of the present, perpetuated by the “sons of the father”, who continue to the same destructive lust for ambition. Indeed, the past itself–the father–is now sending rays of distruction into the present, disrupting civilization itself. Clifford’s father is held up as hero by the institution, it cannot face its past, you write “SPACECOM would never allow their image to be shattered…so they made him a hero to protect themselves.” I would connect this to the current moment with the statues–the image of the hero is being challenged, and those who want to protect the image of the nation, do not like the national heros are shown to be mearly human. So Clifford travels back in time to reconcile with his past. When he meets his Father, he finds, not a hero, but a moral abigious human, possessed by ambition. It is the ruggid, self reliant individual of the great american fronteer–but not the white washed version you see in the statue–but rather, a grizzly human, in need of grace. I’m not entirely sure what the movie is saying when Clifford’s father tells him to let him go, and then he drifts off into space to his death. Is he telling Clifford to let go of his whitewashed conception of history, the idea that heros exist? Is it calling for a severing of the past and a brave new march into the future? I’m not sure. But in the end, Clifford gives up the idea of a heroic past, and gives up on the idea of being a hero himself. The ending line was striking, we see a straight out repudiation of the myth of the great, self reliant individual who needs no one but himself: “I will rely on those closest to me. And I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live, and love. Submit.”
What do you think of that read? 🙂
Ahh… I see where you’re going with those quotes now.
Yes, I think you’re right to mention the scandal of the incarnation as a really profound lens through which to interpret a lot of the symbolism here. I actually spent a lot of time reflecting on the tension the movie creates with Clifford’s character. It seemed (to me) to oscillate back and forth between emphasizing his humanity (mostly the brokenness inherent in his humanity), and portraying him as a corrupted and broken god. I couldn’t tell if this was intentional or not, but the effect was certainly interesting. You’re definitely right to note that while the kind of pity and disappointment I’m noting is distinct, the cannon did acquaint us with both.
The subtle Christian nuance of a god-man seems to be mostly absent (at least in Clifford’s character). He wasn’t fully man and fully God (at any one time) such that he could serve as a bridge between heaven and Earth, nor did he exemplify the virtues we associate with the Christian god-man. He vacillated violently between the worst kind of human and the worst kind of god, such that it burnt the bridge between heaven and Earth. The movie flirted with this interesting idea that there’s a heavenly analogue to the concept of “worldliness” – a way in which a person’s soul can be corrupted by the heavens in all the same ways as it can be corrupted by the world. “Otherworldliness,” perhaps?
I actually thought the movie spent a lot more time presenting Roy as the Christ figure. It’s obviously not a direct comparison, but the association was hard to ignore. It’s established by narrative that he has “one foot on Earth and the other in heaven”. He follows in his father’s footsteps, is notable for his patience, bears the sins of mankind, goes on a journey to reconcile mankind with God…etc. But, there are also far too many narrative facts that break that interpretation – or, at least, break a clean attempt at that interpretation. We might think of him as a sort of “fallen Christ?” Maybe? I couldn’t reach a satisfying conclusion about that.
If you’re up for it, I’d be interested to hear more on your thoughts about the Christ symbolism in the movie. Did you get more from Clifford than Roy?
I also, by the way, think that SpaceCom is a pretty clear symbol for the institutional church. Did you pick up on that or have any thoughts about it? I didn’t think the movie developed that idea very thoroughly, but it laid all the groundwork for it.
There actually is something of a connection between paganism and modern dystheism. It’s notable, historically, that dystheistic gods were common in the pantheons of many polytheisms and that the concept mostly faded into the background until the rise of Romanticism (a time when interest in ancient Greek literature (and, by extension, its theology) was undergoing a renaissance and many such texts were, for the first time, being made available to wide audiences). That’s when we really begin to see Western monotheism (which had, over the intervening years, become the dominant theology of the first-world) being directly evaluated using dystheistic assumptions.
There’s also the idea that what ancient polytheism did was manifest, in the pantheon, the entire set of ontological properties (which included the spectrum of human virtues and ills). With the rise of Christianity (and to a lesser extent, Judaism, which to this day has a more nuanced take on the concept), we discarded the idea of a divine manifestation of “ills”, leaving part of our ontology (and a fundamental part of our experience) unrepresented in the divine realm. That’s given birth to the somewhat awkward field of theodicy – a field that, were it not for eutheism, we wouldn’t need in order to make sense of the totality of our experience.
Process theology and dystheism would be a much more complicated conversation – the two certainly, as a logical matter, could get along well with each other. But, in terms of process theology as a body of work, dystheism doesn’t actually come up very often. Process theologians tend to concentrate on the “omnipotence” prong of the Epicurean Paradox, which allows them to maintain a conception of the absolute goodness of God by instead recontextualizing the limits on his power to act. So, you don’t actually hear very much in the way of clear expressions of dystheism from that camp.
I really, really like your hero’s journey read. That’s fantastic stuff. I think you’re spot on with the narrative that there are no actually heroes, only degrees of morally ambiguous. I was actually struck by how… modern the ending of the movie seemed – how it felt like it was venturing a timely answer to an age-old problem. Your thoughts help me understand why I felt that way 🙂
I wrestled with the “let me go” statement too. I think what’s interesting about it is that it nicely book-ends several different interpretations, leaving room for discussion about what, precisely, we’re being told to let go… and even whether we’re supposed to heed that advice, or not.
What complicates the narrative about bravely marching into the future (at least insofar as we’re going to take it as some general, optimistic ending) is that the movie gives us plenty of reason to suspect that it’s not all roses in the future. Long before the surges, humanity was already in a tenuous situation. We see some signs of cooperation, but every indication is that humanity is taking its soulless corporatism and violent conflict and exporting it to the heavens. With the “death of God” at the end of the movie (on my interpretation, that is), the trajectory seems established that humanity will, given enough time, colonize the heavens with worldliness and destroy everything of ultimate value in the universe.
…unless, perhaps, you pin the hopes of all humanity on Roy’s personal revelation? Or, maybe we’re supposed to hope that something resembling Roy’s realization is a model for others to follow, necessitating, presumably, a similar journey taken by each of them? I don’t know.
But yes, great point that it leaves us in an unexpected place – a hero’s journey where the culmination of the story is the repudiation both of the hero and of the idea of heroes! How interesting is that!? Good stuff.