A group of astronauts crash-land on an Earth-like planet where they proceed to build a village and repopulate it with their offspring. Jumping years into the future, the film explores the myths, rituals, and religion of this society of extraterrestrial humans, the Selenites. When they become enslaved by the planet’s native inhabitants, bird-like creatures known as Szerns, the globe’s human inhabitants must grapple with the arrival of a new stranger, another astronaut—their new God.