Another Movie Review

We "Netflixed" a movie called Pandorum. It was a horror/action flick basically, but it had some decent sci fi mind candy.

A guy wakes up from suspended animation in a space ship. His memory is glitchy; he can remember how to operate equipment, but he doesn't remember his name or where the ship is headed. Its dark and the area seems abandoned. A sign on his sleeping pod lets him know that temporary memory loss is common.

Soon another guy wakes up who is higher in rank. His memory is in the same state. Together they piece together that they are Flight Crew 5, they were supposed to be wakened by Flight Crew 4 for their 2 year shift, and something has gone horrible wrong.

Something is wrong with the reactor. It sending irregular surges throughout the ship. The 1st guy is an engineer and knows how to fix it, but doesn't know how to get to the reactor (or still where they're going or why). The doors are all shut so the engineer gets out via the ducting system while the captain manually operates the computer system as best possible.

Engineer runs in to monsters. Aliens? WTF? He finds three other survivors (one who doesn't speak english. WTF?). They're in bad shape and don't know much more than the engineer except how to evade the monsters.

Meanwhile, the captain's memory starts returning in some odd ways and he doesn't like what he is realizing. Stop reading here if you don't want the surprises ruined!

The captain was part of the 3 man crew that was awake when they got a transmission from Earth that the Sol system was about to be destroyed so their ship was the last of humanity. Which isn't all that bad since the ship is an "ark" whose mission it was to colonize the first viable Earth-like planet found, Tanus. So they have 60k sleeping humans, a lot of cool equipment, a good destination, and some genetic stock for bananas and zebras and what-have-you. The voyage will take ~120 years.

Captain does not take the loss of Earth well. He kills the other two crew members and decides to make himself a god. He's not good at it and 900 years later there are only ~1200 sleepers left, a mutant monster population, and technical difficulties so he put himself back in a pod. That's got to be some serious @$%^ to suddenly remember about yourself.

The engineer saves the day (Yeah Science!). It turns out the ship landed on Tanus quite a while ago and is half-submerged near land. One of the survivors is a female geneticist so she can get the bananas/zebras online. The ~1200 remaining humans now have a new, unspoiled Earth and some kick-ass technology. The beach they head to is somehow a mix of Ireland and Maui. Nice.