VOYAGERS

VOYAGERS is a science fiction thriller about a spaceship from Earth traveling to a distant planet. The spaceship is run by 30 young adults, bred in isolation by scientists back on Earth, who become unhinged when the constraint on their lusts is removed. VOYAGERS is absorbing and suspenseful, with provocative and sometimes even profound themes about human nature, rules versus chaos and good versus evil, but it’s marred by a Romantic, godless premise, some sexual situations, and violence.

The movie opens by telling viewers that global warming is heating up and starting to destroy the Earth, including creating deserts. So, the people of Earth decide to look earnestly for another planet to transplant some representatives of the human race. In 2063, they find another planet, but it will take 86 years to reach it.

So, America decides to create a group of 30 children artificially, using artificial wombs, to send into space. The idea is that their artificial grandchildren will be the ones to land on the new planet, thus saving the human race. The people leading the project don’t want the children to grow attached to Earth, so they won’t be raised by mothers and fathers, but raised in isolation in large group pods that resemble the spaceship taking them into space.

Several years into the program, however, Richard, the only man who has any personal contact with the children, decides he wants to go with them. Richard has been providing guidance to them and wants to continue doing that. It will be good for their mental health, he argues.

At the age of eight, the children are sent to the space station from which their spaceship, The Humanitas, will be launched. Richard is with them. After their spaceship departs the station, the movie cuts to 10 years later. The children are now young men and women, and Richard is their beloved mentor and friend. However, Richard seems closest to Christopher, Zac and Sela. Also, Richard seems even closer to Sela. Their relationship seems like that of a father and daughter.

Christopher and Zac discover that Mission Control back on Earth and Richard are hiding some things from them. The first thing they discover is that the blue liquid they are being given for drinking water is medicated to control their pleasure centers, including their sexual passion. The blue medication also keeps them more docile. Mission Control wants them to use artificial means to create their children and grandchildren, to avoid any personal chaos from wrecking the mission. So, Christopher, Zac and another of the young men, Kai, decide to stop drinking the water with the blue medication. As a result, Zac and Christopher start to develop feelings for Sela.

Meanwhile, Christopher also discovers a large secret compartment on the spaceship. The contents of the compartment are classified. He confronts Richard about the compartment, but Richard says he doesn’t know what’s in the compartment. He tells Christopher he assumes it’s something that the crew’s grandchildren will need when they land on the new planet.

Christopher isn’t satisfied with that answer, however, especially when Richard tells him to just accept the idea that he will never be there when his grandchildren will don the things they have to do to live and survive. He tells Sela the same thing by showing her a photo of his father with his grandparents. The goal, he says, is to live a good life in the present and not worry about what your grandchildren will do when they go out into the world.

Periodically, as the spaceship sails through space, the young men and women hear strange sounds in the ship’s hull, like they’re coming from outside. Could it be an alien, they wonder? Christopher and Richard calm their fears, saying that it’s just the workings of the ship. Zac and a few others are skeptical, though.

One day, after hearing these sounds, the ship suddenly suffers a jolt. Richard discovers that two of the panels helping them communicate with Mission Control on Earth has become damaged. Richard picks Zac, the ship’s chief engineer, to don a spacesuit and help him fix the two panels. However, when Sela tries to instruct Zac on putting on the spacesuit, he starts to grope her and hold her down, with the obvious intent on raping her. Richard comes along, however, and knocks Zac off Sela. He orders Zac locked in his quarters while he takes Christopher with him to fix the panels.

After fixing the first panel, something attacks Richard, knocking him unconscious. At the same time, parts of the spaceship’s systems room suffers an electrical blast of some kind and catches fire. Christopher brings Richard’s body inside the ship, where Sela, who’s the chief medical officer, tries to save his life. The right side of Richard’s face and torso have been burned, however, and he dies.

The young crew gathers in the mess hall to decide what to do. After reading the manual provided by Mission Control, they elect Christopher the new chief officer over Zac.

Zac pretends not to be upset, but inside he’s seething with jealousy. He tells everyone about the blue medication in their water and convinces them to stop taking the medication. After the crew is freed from this constraint on their emotions, emotional chaos starts breaking out among them. The guys start engaging in wrestling matches, and one girl hooks up with one guy, then hooks up with a second guy, which enrages the first guy. At the same time, Zac starts accusing Christopher of bringing the alleged alien monster that may have killed Richard onto the ship. Zac says they should search the ship, find the alien and kill it. Christopher believes there is no alien. Sela supports him, but the others aren’t so sure.

More chaos ensues, often instigated by Zac, and the rest of the movie becomes a battle between Christopher and Sela versus Zac and his followers.

VOYAGERS is absorbing and suspenseful, with interesting, provocative and sometimes even profound themes about human nature, rules versus chaos and good versus evil. In fact, the whole movie seems like an allegory of Lord of the Flies in Space, based on the famous novel by William Golding about a group of British schoolboys stranded on a deserted island who try to govern themselves in a perilous situation. Unlike Golding’s novel, however, VOYAGERS has a more hopeful ending. Eventually, goodness prevails, and the remaining crewmembers continue their voyage toward their destination, chastised by their experience yet much wiser.

The hopeful ending in VOYAGERS provides a satisfying conclusion to the story, where kindness and reason prevail over personal lust and chaos. However, there’s no transcendent foundation to this outcome. Neither God nor the Bible is mentioned in the script. Instead, it’s the kindness and reason that Richard, who was the crew’s mentor and father figure throughout their childhood, brought to the young crew that saves them. Thus, despite its positive moral attitude stressing kindness and reason over lust and chaos, VOYAGERS has a strong Romantic, godless premise. Despite his innate good ness, Richard and his bosses back on Earth have placed the young crew in an artificial, faulty and ultimately corrupt environment. When the blue medication in the water is removed, it unleashes the corruption in the crew’s human nature. Goodness and reason only prevail because the filmmakers seem to be under the mistaken Romantic notion that, deep down, people are basically good. In a world without God and deprived of His guidance, this might make sense to people. However, given the tragic facts of human history, it’s a huge, ultimately untenable assumption without any evidence.

Surprisingly, VOYAGERS has no obscenities or strong profanities. A light but muffled profanity can be heard from Richard, the mentor character in the movie. Sadly, though, VOYAGERS contains some sexual situations. One brief scene seems more appropriate for an R-rated movie than a PG-13 movie, which is the final rating that VOYAGERS has been given. VOYAGERS also contains some strong images of violence. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.

That said, although VOYAGERS has a Romantic premise that’s godless and supports the false notion of the global warming apocalypse, it promotes some good values. For example, it extols kindness over hate, self-control conquering lust, rules instead of moral chaos, and liberty and a representative form of government over tyranny. VOYAGERS also shows that natural childbirth and natural child-rearing is better than the artificial techniques that many modern, antiseptic, godless scientists, technocrats and leftists often try to impose on people.