SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Academy Award® winner Halle Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all — but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, “Midway”) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley, “Game of Thrones”) believe her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Moonfall Plot Summary and Synopsis
Astronaut Brian Harper is working on a satellite on a 2011 Space Shuttle mission, when a mysterious black swarm attacks the mission and kills a crewmate. Back on Earth, nobody believes his explanation, human error is blamed, and Harper is fired.
Ten years later, conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman, who believes the Moon is an artificial megastructure, steals time on a telescope and discovers that the Moon’s orbit is getting closer to Earth. He attempts to share his findings with Harper, who dismisses him, leading K.C. to go public on social media.
NASA mounts a mission launched on an SLS Block 2 to investigate the abnormality. The swarm attacks and kills all three crew members, after they drop a probe into a kilometers-deep artificial hole in the Moon.
As the Moon falls closer to earth, cataclysmic disasters mount: tsunamis, gravity abnormalities, and atmospheric dissipation. It is revealed within NASA that Apollo 11 discovered the abnormalities in the Moon, and the two-minute blackout was to block out inexplicable data, in which the Moon supposedly resonated strongly from the impact of Apollo 11’s jettisoned fuel tank.
A program called ZX7 created an EMP to attempt to kill the swarm, which is brought out of storage. A Space Shuttle is brought out of a museum and prepared for launch. KC, Harper, and deputy director Jocinda “Jo” Fowler launch with the EMP, narrowly escaping a tsunami.
As they enter the Moon, they discover that the swarm is siphoning off energy generated by a white dwarf at the center of the Moon, causing the artificial megastructure’s orbit to destabilize, due to its power source being compromised.
The megastructure was constructed by ancestors of humanity, who were more technologically advanced than their present-day descendants, billions of years in the past, as an ark while fleeing artificial intelligence that grew too strong and attacked. The swarm is one of those AIs that found the Moon, which was the last ark.
Following the Moon impact with the Earth which resulted in a total catastrophic destruction, The President gave the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jenkins order to launch a Nuclear Strike towards the Moon. However, the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Doug Davidson refused to carry out the Nuclear Strike order, so that he can save the lives of his former wife, Fowler, and both Harper and Houseman.
K.C. sacrifices himself to lure the swarm to the EMP, and detonates it. With power restored, the Moon returns to its regular orbit.
Moonfall Ending Explained [SPOILER!]
The operating system of the Moon reveals that it has stored K.C.’s consciousness, appearing to him as his mother, and states that they need to get to work.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).