Challenging capitalism: Ethics, exploitation and the sublime in Moon and Source Code

Abstract:This paper is the first academic article to offer a detailed analysis of two of Duncan Jones's sf films: Moon and Source Code. The readings explore the films' complex philosophical themes, focusing on ethics, specifically utilitarianism, and the aesthetics of the sublime. Both discourses inform the films' presentation of technology and labour within futuristic forms of late capitalism. Drawing links between the two films emphasises their shared themes of exploitation, suffering and resistance. This enables an appreciation of the complexities of Moon and provides a new way of reading Source Code, focusing on the interplay between the film's different realities rather than privileging the virtual space of the train. While the films utilise the aesthetics of the sublime, my readings will trace the ways in which they close down the possibility of transcendence, thereby relocating resistance to the system within different types of replication and repetition.