If you were to take one look at Walt, you’d say, “Man, that guy is extremely average and destined for mediocrity.” Now, that might feel a bit harsh. But by all accounts, your assessment would probably be right—and Walt knows it.
Walt’s just an assistant barista with a strong desire to go to Mars but very little means to actually get there. But it gets worse. Walt and his mother moved constantly when he was growing up, making him feel as if he never really fit in anywhere. So when billionaire Leon Kovi starts the Kovi Industries Student Mars Program, he wants to take his chances there.
“I think if I could’ve gotten the chance to just go up there and look back, I would’ve seen where I fit in, in this crazy universe,” Walt says in his application. “Exploration is the way that we discover where we truly belong, and I just … I don’t belong here.”
But Walt just doesn’t have the skills needed for the program. Thirty-six rejected applications later, he’s beginning to lose hope.
That’s when he meets Ginny, a girl who finally seems to understand his hopes and dreams … a mere seven hours before she moves to Mars with the program.
As Walt watches the only person who ever connected with him leave in a rocket for another planet, he realizes that he needs to make a literal move. One month later, he tricks another Mars-bound student, Sophie, who is headed to Mars to live with her boyfriend there, into helping him sneak onto the next rocket. He becomes stowaway to dusty old Mars with the rest of them, on his way to reunite with Ginny. Sophie, afraid of being charged with aiding and abetting, agrees to hide him for the duration of the flight, hoping beyond hope that they can pull it off well enough to get them both to Mars without raising any suspicion.
And for a guy who’s nothing more than average, that’ll be a moonshot, for sure.
[Note: Spoilers are contained in this section.]
As Walt and Sophie sail across space, Sophie begins to question the sacrifices she’s making for her boyfriend Calvin. She wonders why she’s the one who has to put her dreams on hold and live on a planet she doesn’t care for. And in the shadow of those questions, she ponders whether the list of necessary qualities she’s made for a life partner are fair as well.
In their current relationship, Sophie and Calvin require each other to make sacrifices in order to stay together—however small or innocent they may be. At its root, Sophie and Calvin’s relationship is conditional and transactional, a give and take of “you must be like this or else this won’t work.”
Gradually, Sophie begins to rethink the nature of her relationship with Calvin—both in terms of the conditions he’s placing on her and the ones she’s placing on him as well.
Sacrificial love, of course, can be a good thing—something that Scripture calls us to offer others. But what we see between Sophie and Calvin is not that kind of love. Instead, it’s demanding and manipulative: “You sacrifice this or else.”
As Sophie starts to think about all that she’s giving up, she realizes that much in the same way that Walt blackmailed her to stow him away on the ship, Calvin is blackmailing her by conditioning the continuation of their relationship upon her moving to Mars. That, in turn, causes Sophie to relent of her own mandates for a life partner.
Walt is quite selfish, willing to blackmail people to get what he wants. But what does Walt want? He wants to feel like he has a “home base” where someone cares about him—that’s a feeling we can all relate to. And when Walt finally gets to Mars, Ginny is understandably a bit freaked out. After all, Walt just traveled from one planet to the next for a girl who he had only spent one night talking with.
But Walt realizes that it’s not physical exploration that’ll find him a home—it’s the exploration of deep relationships. Through his time with Sophie, Walt comes to understand that no matter how far he travels, he’ll never feel at home until he finds people who make that home worthwhile—and stowing away on an interplanetary journey for a near stranger isn’t the best way to accomplish that.
Walt asks Sophie if she is a Jehovah’s Witness. A student calls Walt’s idolization of Leon Kovi “hero worship.” CYN’s song “Heaven Shine a Light” references heaven.
Walt and Ginny kiss. When Walt asks Sophie what she believes happens when two people are stuck in the same room, a computer responds, “Either more humans or fewer humans.” When Walt’s heartrate is elevated, the computer tells him that he may be experiencing sexual attraction. Walt references Sophie requesting naked photos from her boyfriend Calvin. Sophie and Calvin spoon in a bed.
Because he’s forced to share a room with Sophie, Walt asks her when he can have “personal intimacy time,” and Sophie tells him to exercise self-control. Later, Walt walks in on Sophie as she reveals her bra to Calvin via a live video, and he calls her a hypocrite. Masturbation is alluded to again.
Walt and Sophie strip to their underwear after a spacewalk and briefly check each other out. Walt makes a plan to have sex with the ship’s captain in order to blackmail her.
Sophie and Calvin (the latter of whom is already on Mars) talk about being excited to “touch each other” when they reunite in person on Mars. Sophie tells Walt that she will show him the PG messages Calvin sent her. Sophie asks Walt if he is watching pornography. Walt and Sophie kiss, and they almost kiss on many other occasions. A robot calls Walt “sexy,” and another robot references sex.
Tabby and Celeste, a lesbian couple, reference dating for nine years and eventually get engaged. Tabby asks Walt if he’s ever been aroused on stage—something that’s the fodder for a crude joke later. Tabby and Celeste are seen cuddling together.
Captain Tartar references sex. Earl, a worker for the ship’s manifest, asks why Walt and Sophie aren’t kissing, and Walt tries to kiss Sophie.
Walt is briefly believed to have been killed by a ship’s fan while crawling in the vents. Walt accidentally drops and cracks Sophie’s communication orb. Walt repeatedly smacks his head against a table in frustration. He also makes a joke about suicide.
The f-word is used once, and the s-word is used six times. “H—” is uttered once, and a character describes himself as a “d–k.” “A–” and “b–ch” both make appearances a handful of times, and the insults “idiot” and “moron” are heard as well. God’s name is misused 20 times, and it is once followed by “d–n.”
A college student fills a flask with alcohol. Walt attends a college party where people are drinking. A drunk girl drinks a beer and belches into Walt’s face. Walt pours alcohol into his and Sophie’s drinks at a coffee shop.
Earl references “space wine,” and he says Carla the computer “can’t hold her liquor.” At an engagement party, Walt and Sophie drink alcohol, and Walt helps to move a drunk Sophie to her bedroom. Earl mocks Walt while holding a bottle of his space wine. People drink while playing a board game.
Walt accidentally robs a gift shop, and he intentionally steals ice cream. Of course, he also stows away on a rocket.
When I first saw that this movie was called Moonshot, I immediately thought, “Wait, they’re going to Mars. That makes no sense.” Even Google’s first definition of the term is “an act or instance of launching a spacecraft to the moon.”
But upon further sleuthing, it turns out a broader definition of the phrase is “a plan or aim to do something that seems almost impossible.” With that definition in mind, we can rest assured someone didn’t make a grave mistake in naming this HBO Max flick.
Indeed, Moonshot is aptly named. After a single night leaves Walt head over heels for Ginny, she leaves on a student program to Mars. And though the two are only connected at best, Walt is determined to be with her in person on the Red Planet, and he’s not going to let a little thing like 140 million miles stop him.
So Walt stows away on a rocket ship bound for Mars, blackmailing the help of the Mars-bound Sophie to make sure his misdeed goes unnoticed. And though the two start their journey at each other’s throats, they begin to bond over their similar circumstances, as Sophie is also on her way to Mars to be with her boyfriend.
At one point, Sophie shows Walt her checklist of everything she must have in a life partner—he’s gotta have a six-pack, he must be ambidextrous, and he has to reach checkmate in 27 moves—among other requirements. And though Sophie has such high standards for her future husband, she struggles with conditions being applied to her. Like, why does she have to move all the way to Mars and give up her dreams on Earth for him?
As Sophie struggles with accepting the move, she can’t help but wonder if the conditions she’s placed on her partner are too strict. I mean, Walt surely doesn’t meet half of half of them, but she still enjoys being around him. Maybe it’s not about who they are or who they’re not or what they’re willing to give up, but rather, it’s about the connection and love they share despite their differences.
Take from that message what you will, but to get there, viewers will navigate an asteroid belt full of sexual innuendo and themes—not to mention the fact that the two main characters hide their deception from their respective partners and engage in activities which would certainly be considered cheating by many. A lesbian couple is prominently featured, one of whom seems to exist only to make jokes about male genitalia. Additionally, there’s frequent consumption of alcohol.
Perhaps the real moonshot is a movie that’s able to tell a good story without relying on sensual jokes as a basis for its humor.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
