Moon 44  was the 4th film Roland Emmerich made in Germany. Like his previous films Joey  and Hollywood Monster , the film was targeting an international audience, so it was made in English language with many American actors.

Here's a short synopsis I found on the web:

In the year 2038, the Earth has no natural resources left and mining must be established on other planets. Pyrite, a renegade company, is attacking the planetary shuttles with the help of inside information. Agent Stone is dispatched to determine where the leaks are coming from but finds that Pyrite is not the only enemy on Moon 44 .

A bit more info on the plot:

As Pyrite is also attacking the moons where the "Global Mining Corporation" is harvesting ressources, it's hard to find people to work there. The company has already lost several moons, and Moon 44  is their most important ressource moon left. So, they hire prisoners to fly the moon's defence helicopters.

Each helicopter pilot needs a navigator in the home base to guide them through the moon's narrow canyons. The navigators are intelligent computer freaks, mostly kids still. There's a lot of aggression between them and the brute prisoners, as they arrive on the moon. But still, the prisoners depend on their navigators.

The company's agent Felix Stone goes undercover as one of the prisoners, and with the help of his navigator Tyler discovers a conspiracy by the station's commander Major Lee and Training Sergeant Sykes. They also find out that a real attack on Moon 44  is imminent...

Moon 44  marks a major breakthrough for Roland Emmerich, for it was this film that attracted the attention of Mario Kassar, the executive producer of Roland's following project, his first real Hollywood movie: Universal Soldier .

It was also this film that brought Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich together as they discovered their common passion for the same type of films: American popcorn movies. Dean stars as 'Tyler', the navigator of the main character, Agent Felix Stone, who's played by Michael Paré.

1400 drawings have been created for the film's storyboard. The effects work was done by Volker Engel, who later supervised the visual effects on Independence Day  (for which he won an Academy Award) and Godzilla .

written by Stefan