3022 (2019)

I find myself watching movies about people on spaceships.  I usually end up complaining about it because it’s usually the same plot.  A half-dozen or so people are stuck on the ship.  Either humanity is wiped out or the ship is destroyed, meaning they can’t go back.  Chaos ensues and everyone or almost everyone on the ship dies.  The only notable exception was Europa Report.

3022 is a little different in that more than one person survives.  In the end, Earth is still gone and there’s that existential crisis of not being able to go home and a very small group of people being the last of humanity.  It’s a lot of hand wringing and fighting and whatnot.

The plot is that four people are on a space station which serves as a waypoint between Earth and the Europa Station.  Each team of people stays there for a decade.  One day, communication with Earth is cut off.  They soon realize that something bad has happened.  They keep trying to contact Earth and the Europa outpost to no avail.

Two of the original four die.  Three more people make it out there midway through the movie, but don’t expect to see any of them if there is a sequel.  The futility of it all has a profound effect on the characters.  I suppose that part is believable.

However, several questions remain.  First, why a ten-year shift?  I get that it’s probably expensive to send people out there and there’s probably a lot of training, but ten years?  If it’s serving as a way station, that means ships are coming and going.  Why not make it two years?  Even five years would be better.  Ten years on a space station seems cruel.

For that matter, why even have anyone there at all?  There don’t seem to be a lot of ships coming and going.  Do they really need to have someone there all the time?  Couldn’t they automate it?  If you’re going to have people that far out in space, at least keep them busy.  It seems like all they do is goof around.

Also, it’s never established what happened on Europa.  I find it odd that both groups of people were affected simultaneously.  There’s no implication that there’s an alien threat or anything.  Maybe an earlier draft had that.  There might be some other reason.  I don’t know.  It just seems odd.

There are a few other things that seem to be there only to add to the tension.  For instance, if one member of a crew is pulled, the entire crew goes back.  When the captain shows signs of stress, it’s a threat to the other three, all of whom made sacrifices to be there.

I’d recommend skipping this one.  If you’ve seen Love and hated that movie, you’ll probably feel the same way about this one.  3022 isn’t as esoteric, but is probably going to be as pointless.  In both cases, I couldn’t get past the fact that humanity was practically extinct.

IMDb page