The Titan’s Nosedive to the Gene-Pool
The mess that made the sci-fi movie sink
Science fiction has always been an exploration of the big “What ifs” of life in the future, a projection of consequences to hopes and fears, we cannot see beyond in our own lifetimes.
Since the 1970s, every piece of work — Utopian, Dystopian or otherwise — is pretty much agreeing on one thing: time is running short to turn around things for our dear old blue marble.
The Onset of New Sci-Fi
As the last decade of catastrophic and apocalyptic films has already been exploring extinction events of internal and external influence (Remember 2012 (2009) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004)?), their successors aim to evolve beyond that and play with more progressive ideas.
The contemporary sci-fi pieces Interstellar (2014) and Arrival (2016) are painting a bigger picture, that gives us perspective of the actual scale of the universe/dimension, in which we struggle to find orientation. Annihilation (2018) does the same: telling us exactly where we are and what we have to move (and think) beyond for that one fateful step towards the future — or rather a future.
These films bring to the mainstream of international theater, what has been going on for ages in the book shelves of sci-fi lovers. When the hopes and fears of authors projecting scientific studies into a story, become mainstream, cinema is ready to give space to those pieces.
Arrival and Annihilation are both based on publications, which gives them a necessary anchor. Interstellar has come with its own scientific publication in tow, and has changed how we depict black holes, today. (Remember The Black Hole (1979)?)
The Titan is not such a film.
The Titan does not answer the question of our future in space colonization. It does however answer the question: What if ‘Prometheus’, ‘Splice’ and ‘Species’ had a baby?
Its hereditary traits make the ambitious endeavor an awkward child. The star has headlined two blockbuster bombs containing the word ‘titan’, and has most notably been steering the virtual body of a blue alien, that was cloned for his character to survive on an alien planet.
The co-star is best known for her character being incarcerated and having to deal with influences out of her control.
The typecasting does not do the actors or the film any favors.
The story gives the scenario more likeness to The Island of Dr. Moreau than an episode of Black Mirror.
The Premise
Not much food or space left on earth. Not much time left, either. Must make superhumans to live on Titan. To the laboratory, quickly!
P.S.: Bring your family.
Rick Janssen, a military man and his family are swept up from a chaotic world, only presented to us by rather calm news footage, to participate in an experimental program to create genetically adapted humans who can live on the Saturn moon Titan.
Abi Janssen, a pediatrician, is informed, that the family wasn’t only selected for her husband’s recent solo adventure of crossing a Syrian desert alone, but also for her experience with patients.
The couple and their preschool-aged son move into an architecturally luxurious villa in Gran Canaria, north-west off the coast of the African continent.
The Spanish military isn’t too happy to have NATO-sanctioned shenanigans going on on their turf, so there is a bit of tension between the civilian leader of the operation and the military forces involved.
Whenever something goes wrong — and of course it will — and you will be thankful for it — the civilian leader Professor Collingwood is happily using the military forces to his advantage. It remains unclear, who is calling the shots and what the stakes really are.
Before the experiments begin, the subjects, a group of durable military women and men from several NATO countries, are informed about the procedures and their intent. Instead of adapting planets (with terraforming), the program is going to adapt people.
They are going to be genetically altered for survival on Titan.
Very few are going to make it.
This is important.
Forced Evolution
Titan is described as a subzero world of Methane seas and rains; yet, inhabitable, but still the best match for colonisation in the solar system, just waiting to be woken from its primordial sleep.
The future Titans are stimulated to match those conditions with a combination of medical treatments and underwater training.
At times, it seems we might be heading in the direction of Methane Dolphin people, but the evolution doesn’t exclusively follow an underwater theme, and no fins or webbing appear on the subjects.
What does appear, are minor changes at first, expected and unexpected results in favor of the program.
As the audience, we are not sure of the priorities. What steps are bigger or better than others? What are unfavorable steps in the wrong direction?
Halfway through the film, we still don’t know enough about these strangers to care about their change.
A sudden death instills doubt in Abi’s perception. Why? Is she just starting to look at the treatment? She knows it’s invasive and drastic. Her husband is training to go live on another planet.
They never talk about that, by the way. The closest we get to that, is a bedtime story to the young son, who already understands where his dad is going, because he has a night light of the galaxy. The characters have no need to talk, no need to take us with them on their journey.
The biggest insult of the emotional detachment is, that it’s not used to flesh out the portrayal of war veterans and their families.
Predictable Escalation
More dramatic complications occur, as one of the subjects gets more aggressive in response to being stimulated for super-strength, and during a friendly cook-out of the families attacks his wife, whom he will later kill, when he fully metamorphoses into a Homo Titanius.
The medical team seem to fully expect the unexpected and yet, show no credible alertness to deal with their subjects within the confines of the laboratories. The men and women are each left to roam in their luxurious houses, because they are bugged with surveillance. A fact that serves no purpose and gets no follow-up whatsoever, aside from agitating the female protagonist.
This only changes, when Rick does not respond well to the alteration of his eyes, and more surgeries are announced.
(Suddenly, at the mentioning of cat eyes, we are rooting for this to be a secret Avatar prequel, that will now pick up the pace dramatically.
It doesn’t.)
When the remaining members of the group go into surgery, after the Hulk of their group has been shot, the audience is prepared to lose them all, because the film is called “Titan”, singular.
To prolong the inevitable, two survivors emerge from whatever is happening in body horror OR, and are presented to their families fully actualized — and mute.
Rick and his colleague Tally sport the same dolphin-like skin and smoothed-over features. Still no fins or fishy traits, but hidden skin flaps, that they are able to extend to gliding aerofoil membranes. We’re informed, they communicate on a higher frequency. Yet, they have nothing to share with each other. They don’t get the time for any reaction to their new selves. The dysphoria must be off the charts.
It is worth mentioning, that Tally, a person of color, does show no distinction from Rick now, apart from a more elliptical skull. Titan has no use for melanin. Tally and Rick are their own, albeit forced step in evolution, now.
Disappointing Finale
Abi’s disapproval of her husband being turned into a creature rather than being “enhanced into a super-man” (see trailer), changes nothing. They don’t grow apart to reunite, when his life is on the line. Their son is not affected dramatically. The sacrifice of Rick’s humanity comes as no surprise, as it was written in the contract, not even the fine print.
His altered state as something less, yet something more than human, a man who is still good old Rick at heart, is mentioned as a side-note.
The consequences of tinkering with real live people who have thoughts and personalities are given little to no screen time, because the characters have no such burden to begin with.
If Tally had been allowed to emote, her change could have hit us hard, but it didn’t.
We fully expected her to reassign herself as Rick’s female and kill her husband, who gave her no children. This core component of a creature movie like Splice did not really add anything but more regret.
The final escalation turns everybody against Rick, who does not want to go to space. Instead of drugging him, Abi helps him escape. Where to, Abi? WHERE TO?
The professor hunts them down with the help of all the available guns, which turn against him, as he orders to shoot Abi and the kid, who are human-shielding Rick. The point of this back and forth is not clear.
We can only assume it is about war veterans going back on a tour. You cannot separate a soldier from his family. Rick did not cross the desert alone, as stated in the beginning of the film, because he had his family to get back to.
It makes no sense for the professor to use that logic against Rick, by forcing him to cut ties prematurely — or ordering his family to be killed.
We are led to believe, that New Rick (as opposed to Pickle Rick) does not want to leave, because this mission has no return. He knew that going in.
Maybe he does not want to leave, because he is very confused, traumatized, and needs more time to adjust. His physical self is not at home on Earth any more, as much as Frank Castle’s emotional self is not at home in his former picket-fenced neighbourhood. Or so it is imposed.
Rick is still very much here. His departure feels as forced as everything else. Including a countdown to an exclusive time-corridor to Titan would have helped to justify the pressure.
The movie ends with Rick on Titan, as seen in the trailer. He flies by an imaginary camera, Super-Man style, as expected, while Abi smiles at the stars from a afar, standing in front of a new “Titan II” facility.
Her son is there, too, not much older, if aged at all. They are happy and hopeful.
We are horrified at the allegedly peaceful solitude of a man on an alien world with no support system.
No Red Herrings in this Pool
What is Rick doing all alone on Titan? What does he eat? Where does he sleep? Does he care? Is he really more creature than man now?
Was any of this a good idea?
(Remember The Martian?)
The detachment problem of this film begins at the very start. The situation of a dying planet Earth is introduced to justify the Titan program. It is completely isolated from the people we’re going to meet. So much so, that it doesn’t matter. The plot does not use it to humanize its characters, or to make its escalation more credible. It could easily have done without it.
However, if you’re going to throw around big lines like “no longer trying to terraform planets”, we need to feel the effect of that, maybe see a campaign for another attempt at it, and protesters rallying against it.
Amidst those protesters: the Janssen family.
We need to feel the tension to go into this dystopia with emotional responses. We know nothing of the personal lives of the protagonists, so we don’t connect with them. At least give us an opening scene, that demonstrates their fighting spirit, their bond to each other.
My speculations were for the experiment to be aimed at second generation. Why else would you bring the partners along, aside from emotional support?
There was no twist, just procedure.
Abi’s investigation into Professor Collingwood’s methods reveal what he has been promising from the start.
“My husband is changing” is just stating the obvious. The escalation from enhanced human to tailor-made species is not drastic enough to make us feel betrayed.
In order to do get a reaction, best hide your grim truth in a mystery box, or a neatly disguised pack of lies.
“There’s something alive inside of him” is no red herring, but simply a mistake, that might or might not be a remnant of an earlier script version. As a doctor, Abi should be able to recognize an enzyme.
My further speculations for a plot twist to present us with an alien organism from Titan, as the true catalyst for the genetic changes, were also disappointed.
The make-up was well-done, but felt shaved down and minimal to a point of looking as bland as the titanic aliens from Prometheus.
Judging from the very different design on the movie’s original poster, the creature design must have been more aquatic at some point. Maybe it had come under pressure to be as distinctive as possible from The Shape of Water, as the unofficial Abe Sapien spin-off advanced on its timeline.
TL;DR:
I find the intention of the film unclear and its execution confusing.
For a sci-fi horror flick it’s too tame, for a thought-piece too superficial, for an epic sci-fi utopia too depressing.
