Warning: Spoilers For Moonfall Below
Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster movie Moonfall is based on conspiracy theories that the moon isn’t what it appears to be, but tweaks these seemingly wild theories a bit for the sake of the story. Emmerich is the famed king of disaster movies, first achieving that recognition with his 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. Emmerich would later follow up with other disaster films, including Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and Independence Day: Resurgence.
With Emmerich’s disaster movie pedigree involving invading aliens, giant monsters, climate change, and Mayan apocalyptic prophecies, Moonfall shifts into a new kind of disaster for him. What happens in Moonfall is the gravitational effects of the moon upon Earth begin to intensify. The moon also draws closer and closer to Earth as it begins raining chunks of itself onto the planet. Meanwhile, conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley) posits that the moon is actually a massive lunar superstructure orbiting Earth. Astronauts Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) and Brain Harper (Patrick Wilson), who encountered a bizarre A.I. presence in a Space Shuttle mission years prior, accompany K.C. on a voyage to stop the moon’s collapse and save the Earth.
K.C.’s proposal is based upon an actual conspiracy theory known as the Hollow Moon theory. In Moonfall, Roland Emmerich holds true to the general essence of the Hollow Moon conspiracy and what it proposes the moon actually is. However, for the purposes of storytelling, he also adds in some additional mythos of his own making to serve the story told by Moonfall. Here’s what the Hollow Moon conspiracy is, how Moonfall uses it, and how the movie adapts it to tell its particular disaster story.
What The Hollow Moon Conspiracy Is
The moon is subject to many different conspiracy theories, particularly those surrounding the 1969 moon landing being faked. In the case of the Hollow Moon conspiracy, the essence of it is that the moon has a hollow interior and is actually some kind of massive structure orbiting Earth. Typically, this theory suggests that the moon is a huge, Death Star-sized space station or some other type of massive device constructed by ancient aliens (just like Palpatine’s Rise of Skywalker base, to use another Star Wars comparison). Like many of Moonfall’s concepts, this idea has been seen in science fiction for a long time.
Most famously, H.G. Wells’ 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon focuses on an expedition to the moon. Upon arrival, the characters learn that the moon is actually inhabited by aliens dubbed “Selenites“. The novel has been adapted to film numerous times, while Moonfall also incorporates one real-life element that led to the theory’s formation. During the Apollo 12 mission, the landing of the Lunar Module on the moon’s surface was described as causing the moon to ring similarly to a bell. This has been cited by conspiracy theorists and QAnon types who follow the Hollow Moon conspiracy as evidence that the moon has a hollow interior. The scientific community has attributed the moon’s ringing sound to its different composition from Earth and the fact that lunar “moonquakes” also operate differently. Moonfall directly references the claim of the Moon ringing like a bell, and while Emmerich’s movie doesn’t take direct inspiration from Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, Moonfall does play with similar ideas.
How Moonfall Uses The Hollow Moon Conspiracy
When Jo, Brian, and K.C. arrive inside of the moon, they uncover a massive metallic interior, with the swarm of sentient nanites pursuing them. This is where the problems for the Moonfall characters truly begin. After they manage to escape into a vehicle hangar inside of the moon, Brian gets separated from Jo and K.C. and comes into contact with another, more friendly type of A.I compared to the Matrix-like pursuer they encountered. Taking the form of Brian’s son Sonny (Charlie Plummer), the A.I. reveals that the moon is a superstructure built by the ancestors of humans, who originated billions of years earlier in another galaxy.
Mankind’s ancestors had created a utopian civilization that heavily relied on the A.I. they created until it became self-aware and decided to wipe them out. The moon was one of many huge structures in space the ancient civilization created as a way to repopulate their civilization on another planet. The A.I. managed to eliminate all of them except for the one orbiting Earth as its moon. The killer A.I. plans to drain the energy from the white dwarf at the moon’s center, causing the moon to break apart. By doing this, the A.I. hopes to wipe out life on Earth and prevent the moon from being used to establish the alien’s civilization reminiscent of Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium once more. Ultimately, K.C. sacrifices himself to destroy the A.I., ending the moon’s devastation of Earth, with K.C. being immortalized inside of the ship’s mainframe.
How Much Moonfall Changes About The Hollow Moon Conspiracy
As a conspiracy theory utilized as a sci-fi movie premise, there’s plenty of wiggle room for every adaptation of the Hollow Moon conspiracy to do its own thing (which is why many felt the premise deserved better than the Emmerich box office bomb Moonfall became). Moonfall takes the basics of the Hollow Moon conspiracy with the idea of the moon as a disguised space station orbiting Earth. The biggest area where Moonfall tells its own story lies in the story behind the moon’s creation, and its linking to the origins of mankind.
The sentient A.I. menace is also another area where Moonfall injects its own material. In all, Moonfall takes the Hollow Moon conspiracy and puts a bit of a Star Wars-type spin on it. In Moonfall‘s version, Earth, like Tatooine, is part of an intergalactic war that ties directly into mankind’s origins, as Brian points out in the film. While the Hollow Moon conspiracy is tied to alien life, how that brought about the moon’s creation will inevitably vary from theory to theory. Being upfront about its fictional nature, Moonfall is Emmerich’s disaster movie take on the idea of the moon as the construction of aliens.
Like all of Emmerich’s disaster movies, Moonfall goes light on the science and heavy on the fiction. No one should go into Moonfall expecting anything more than pseudo-science in what the movie has to say about the formation of the moon and its purpose in orbiting Earth. However, with Emmerich’s talent for trashing the Earth with calamities whose science seems plausible for two hours or so, by the time Moonfall‘s end credits roll, it gets the job done.
A Moonfall Sequel Would Likely Move Away From Its Hollow Moon Conspiracy Roots
While there’s not much news of a Moonfall 2 yet, Emmerich has been open about Moonfall being the first part of an intended trilogy, and he ends the movie ends with several sequel-spawning cliffhangers. While Moonfall 2 hasn’t been confirmed, there’s nothing to suggest that Lionsgate would be averse to letting Emmerich spin out the universe he’s created into more films. However, the reviews for Moonfall weren’t flattering, so there’s still a risk the Moonfall trilogy doesn’t happen.
However, if Moonfall does get a sequel, it’s unlikely to continue exploring the Hollow Moon conspiracy that was so integral to the premise of the first movie. The explanation for the events of Moonfall – that the moon is a hollow construct made billions of years ago by advanced humans – has opened up the scope for much deeper science-fiction. Moonfall 2 will likely focus on Artificial Intelligence, especially with conspiracy theorist K.C. uploading his consciousness into the Hollow Moon’s hyper-advanced computer systems during the ending of Moonfall.
While Moonfall dealt with some incredibly cool concepts like Dyson spheres and precursor civilizations, it also stated outright that the Hollow Moon wasn’t the only place such things exist. Moonfall 2 will probably explore the ramifications of the events of Moonfall beyond the moon, conspiracy theories, and NASA. Sci-fi is a notoriously expensive genre of movie to make though, especially a story with the grand scale Moonfall 2 would need. Since Moonfall only made around $10 million on a budget of $ 150 million plus, Lionsgate would be taking a huge gamble on Moonfall 2. Audiences might have to look elsewhere for movies about ancient alien civilizations and a human-AI singularity.
