The film was exploring aspects of the phase “Survival of The Fittest”which is about evolution, competition, adaption, and cooperation. All of that was in the film.

“Within the exposition of the story, you can clearly tell the director Christian Alvart was attempting to make observations on commentary on the condition of humanity and our base nature. These are great things to utilize when tapping into a story like this one… however you have to tap into them, or observe them, or comment on them WELL. To me they just came off as trite afterthoughts instead of existential dilemmas on the condition of man. What that leaves you with is nothing more than a monster horror movie in space, which feels quite hollow considering you KNOW they were going for much much much more.”

The very title of Pandorum suggests Pandora from mythology that was a story about the degradation of the human condition. They do make references to it in the film which I noticed right off the bat. So I didn’t find it hallow at all.

The real mystery of the film was “how is the reator failing in only 8 years when it was build to out last our childern’s childern?” and “how come the passengers mutanted but we haven’t?” Basically, the ultimate question was how long have they been out there. Plus I don’t recall the monsters knowing Kung Fu.

SPOILERS:

They’re not really the passengers but devolved descendants of them.

Basically, this entire movie can be summed up in the following 5 lines:

1) guy A to guy B) why’s there no power? we should turn on the reactor.
2) guy B to guy B) good idea, you go and do that, and i`ll stay here and do nothing except occasionally mumble on the radio.
3) guy A to guy B) This ship is full of monsters, its making it very difficult to get the reactor. Plus, I met a girl and a guy who doesnt talk english.
4) guy B to guy A) OK, im still doing nothing. Just sitting here, good luck with the monsters.
5) guy A to self) I found the reactor! Now i can switch it on, return to the bridge with the girl, and escape! The end.

It’s obviously a lower budget film as it was never released nation-wide to theaters, and yet it’s way better than dumb movies like Paranormal Activity which I thought was a JOKE.

It’s very “creepy” — is the word for it, and has some new talent actors which I thought were very good. And I love Dennis Quaid, but he’s actually a secondary character in this movie. =) It’s much better than the RE movies, too. Monsters were a hundred times better than the stupid crap monsters that most films churn out, such as Quarantine (another movie I thought was a joke.)

I would def check it out.. if you have netflix you can order it. Of course if you’ve read the spoilers here it won’t be as good. :P And no, it isn’t that obvious where the monsters came from (but I didn’t see the trailer?). Considering they’re in space, the monsters could have been from anywhere – alien squatters, etc. Give it a try, you should judge for yourself and not go by cynical critics who are a dime a dozen on these review websites.

So, I have to take issue with this entire paragraph both as a Cine-Fanatic and as an engaged film watcher! First, the “where are we?” question was not and could not have been the central question of the film because this is not a film about destinations. This is a film about “it doesn’t matter where we are because we still try to rip eachother apart!”

Second: additionally I didn’t feel myself ‘caring’ about where they were and I wasn’t upset with the fact that the characters seemed mystified by the origins of the monsters because I do not suffer from that all too common malady of reviewers (and film-goers alike) known as “Omniscient-itus” wherein you project your ability to See All from outside the screen as something the characters too should be able to do as well!! The actor playing Bower was so amazing that I didn’t notice that it was clear to me that these monsters were mutated people! All I knew was that in such a disoriented and hopeless state, I could totally understand that level of ignorance.

(SPOILER ALERT – key ending details below! read no further to avoid knowing too much about the end!)
Finally, the big ‘reveal’ at the end should, as you say, change how you thought about what came before. In amazing films (Sixth Sense, American Psycho) you are completely thrown off balance and find yourself opened up to great new ideas! In pretty good films – and Pandorum is a pretty good film – one comes away having sensed what the end might be ahead of time, but wondering why that ending still felt unsettling. For example, in light of what happened in 800 years on that ship, why am I not completely excited for those people to bring a similar evolutionary trajectory to the new planet? Should humanity have made it? I find myself confused by the sameness of our imaginations in films like this – why do we always see ourselves this way, but still want the hopeful ending?

No, its not a perfect film, but by and large it was very entertaining and thought provoking if you imagine yourself as these few survivors!

Yet it was remade as Pandorum, except with mutants instead of flying robots.

That final scene where people are popping up all over the place on escape pods? Straight out of the Sky Captain movie.