Faster Than Light is a kind of spellbinding short film. You might want to look away just out of boredom thinking it’s another mission to Mars that went wrong, but it becomes something else that’s hard to describe at first since the film is doing its absolute best to be something entirely different. It works really since you feel so sad that the astronaut is suddenly stranded at the far edge of space without a working ship, a hull breach, and no chance of getting home to see his family. Then the strange alien ship he’s resting in front of, about to die in front of actually, sends out two shimmering, scintillating probes that approach his ship and then with some kind of ray deatomize him as he disappears from the cockpit, leaving only the picture of his wife and son that he’d been holding behind.
In some ways this seems like a warning about the hubris of mankind when it comes to being able to travel faster than the speed of light, meaning faster that physics will typically allow. But then it seems to inspire hope, as well as caution. The astronaut reaches a vector within space that is unknown to those back at the command station, and he cannot be reached or found at all once he jumps for the second time. The question is though, did his equipment malfunction, or did the drive come to life thanks to the effort of the strange presence that he found at the edge of space? Did they detect him and decide to bring him in for a look? Maybe it was an oddity to the strangers that humans would have found a way to wander out so far so fast without thinking about the possible consequences.
The strange ship didn’t seem malevolent in any way however as they did manage to save the astronaut’s life and, through some use of technology that humanity isn’t even close to replicating, sent him home to his family. Skeptics might bother to ask how the strangers knew where he lived and where to put him down, but really, a race that can create a ship at the edge of space, devices that can somehow teleport a body in such a manner that he seems to disintegrate, and then rocket back through what looks like wormhole should be able to figure out how to locate a person’s home. The type of GPS on those craft would have to be something unique and spectacular but anything that advanced seems like it would be fully equipped with all the bells and whistles that it needed.
Really and truly though this still seems like another cautionary tale to mankind to not stretch too far too soon. The idea that our imagination outstrips our ability is still very true since despite the movies, books, and other media depicting visions of the future, not everything we’ve seen has come to pass yet. Remember back in the 90’s when visions of 2015 showed us in flying cars? Yeah, let’s let our imaginations wander a bit for a while.
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