Pandorum is a German 2009 science fiction mystery and survival adventure film, centering around themes of survivalism and ecology. Written by Travis Milloy, directed by Christian Alvart and produced by Paul W.S. Anderson. The film stars Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. Filming began in Berlin in August 2008. Pandorum was released on September 25, 2009 in the United States, and on October 2, 2009 in the UK.
The film's title refers to a fictional psychosis caused by deep space and triggered by emotional stress leading to serve paranoia and nose bleed, which prior to the to current events caused the captain of a ship named the Eden to believe the flight was cursed. The mystery is centered around what had happened on the ship for it to reach its current state.
The film begins with a time line stating that in the future Earth has grown overpopulated and humanity has fought over the last natural resources. In the year 2174, a ship called Elysium was sent out to colonize an Earth-like planet called Tanis.
In space, we see the massive ship flying towards the stars. On the bridge of the ship, officers receive a message from Earth. The message is "You're all that's left of us. Good luck, God Bless, and God speed".
Bower (Ben Foster) wakes up from his hyper-sleep pod and panic from claustrophobia.
A back brace is holding him suspended in the pod, he manages to free himself from the brace and falls to the bottom of the pod.
The pod latch releases with a hiss and Bower falls out onto the pod room floor.
He rips out the tubes going into his body. He sees that he has a series of numbers tattooed on his arm. After peeling away a synthetic covering on his skin, he sees that he is alone. He reads that memory loss can be a side effect of long-term hyper-sleep.
Not knowing what's going on, he finds a locker with his name on it and puts on some clothes. He finds a picture of his wife.
He notices a couple of other pods nearby. A pod for Cooper is empty. Another pod still has Payton (Dennis Quad) inside. Bower tries to wake Payton up by slamming something against the sealed pod, but he hardly makes a scratch on it. He tries to open the door of the room but it's locked.
A power surge shakes the ship, causing Payton to wake up. Both men are suffering from memory loss due the General Anesthesia they received in hyper-sleep.
Payton is a Lieutenant and Bower is a Corporal. It turns out that since the trip to Tanis would take over 100 years, the crew has been split into groups/shifts to work. At the end of a groups turn (a couple of years), they are supposed to wake up the next group and debrief them.
They realize that something's wrong since they're all alone. The numbers tattooed on their arms indicate which group they belong to. Another power surge shakes the ship and Bower realizes that he's an engineer. Something's wrong with the reactor and he needs to fix it. Payton gets a nearby command center working by using the auxiliary power. He tries to call for help but no one answers. They hear a noise coming from a nearby vent.
Payton decides that they need to find the crewmembers and get to the bridge to see what's happening. He sends Bower to find a way out in the vents while he stays behind at the command center to guide him around the ship. The vents are filled with tubes and are hard to crawl through. Bower tries to find his way to another room but the vents look endless and run in every direction.
After feeling like he's going in circles, he panics and becomes claustrophobic again. Payton via radio calms Bower down by joking that he got the door open. Bower falls down a shaft and lands face-first on a grate. Payton calls to him, but Bower can't respond. Bower lights a glow stick and sees Cooper's decomposing corpse right next to him. He releases the grate latch and falls through the grate, freeing him up to respond to Payton.
Bower reports to Payton that he found the corpse of Cooper. Suddenly the ship trembles momentarily but violently enough to pop open a chamber door, which Bower falls through and into an overhead compartment.
However, after the fall, he no longer has communications with Payton. The ship's corridors are long and dark.
While searching around, Bower comes across a woman, Nadia (Antje Traue), trying to open a door. He tries to talk to her, but she quickly runs away. While chasing after her, he sees that she has seemingly stopped in a corridor. He tries to tell her that he's part of the crew and he needs to know what's going on. She remains silent.
He shines his light on the figure and sees that it's not a woman but a man; a man who has been hung and is missing most of his lower half. The woman pops up and sucker punches Bower. She kicks his feet from under him and Bower falls hard onto the grate floor. She holds him down, taking his supplies, and orders him to remove his shoes as she only had yoga socks on her feet. Suddenly, they both hear screeching nearby. Nadia runs away and Bower is left confused.
He sees a blue light at the end of the corridor and the screeching gets louder. The blue light is attached to a creature, which goes after Bower. The half-eaten man is pulled up and devoured. Bower runs back to the room he came through and hides in the storage compartment.
While the creature looks for him, Payton's voice comes through the radio. The creature tears open the compartment and snatches Cooper's body.
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