SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES THAT ARE 'DIFFERENT' PART 1 FIRST SEGMENT

 Although this is only a two-part series, I had to break each part into two entries because there was so much research involved. Each post presents a movie from the sci-fi genre that never got a lot of mainstream recognition, but that I find intriguing for one reason or another. The first is the 1984 film Starman, starring Jeff Bridges.

I wasn’t surprised when I started to research science fiction and learned that most of the genre is about either outer space or technology. I already knew that. What I didn’t know was how long the subject has been around. In “Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy” Ada Palmer, a professor of European History at the University of Chicago, states that many people consider Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1816) the first example of science fiction. However, Palmer thinks the honor might actually go to Voltaire for a tale he wrote in 1752 named “Micromegas” (1752) which is about two aliens who visit Earth. The decision, she says, depends on whether you believe science fiction needs to include technology. If so, the correct answer would be Frankenstein, but if not, it could be “Micromegas.” Whichever position you take, there is no denying that later authors like Jules Verne, (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), H.G. Wells (The Time Machine), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), and George Orwell (1984) all included scientific innovation in their works and warned of the dangers they posed to humankind.

https://www.wired.com/2022/01/geeks-guide-ada-palmer/

The first film to portray humans venturing into space was George Melies’ (1902) fifteen-minute film short named A Trip to the Moon. It presents a group of astronomers that build a humongous cannon, climb into a giant bullet, and shoot themselves onto the moon. Once there, they fight a bunch of moon monsters, then fall back to earth. Although it’s a silent film, it comprised quite the feat because it had a cohesive plot and included special effects.

What Was The First Science Fiction Movie? (gamerant.com)

Melies’ creation soon caught on, and other artists began experimenting with ways to employ his concept. One of the most well-known instances occurred on October 30, 1938, when a young Orson Welles adapted H.G. Well’s novel The War of the Worlds into a play and broadcast it over public radio. Although some people panicked, the event started a new trend in the entertainment industry. By the 1950s, American television and movies were presenting all sorts of scenarios about what might happen if aliens and humans met face to face. Most were low-budget black and white B flicks like The Thing From Outer Space (1951), The Blob (1968), and I Married A Monster from Outer Space. They didn’t make a lot of money or attract a big following, but they did provide some intriguing ideas that would lead to more sophisticated films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and 2001: A Space Odyssey along TV shows that included The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek. The upscale media offered better stories, better actors, and most importantly, better effects because most were in color. By the late 60s and 70s science fiction movies had become so popular, they often had multimillion dollar budgets and cast actors that either were stars (Gregory Peck and Richard Dreyfus, for example), or were destined to become so (Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver). Marooned, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars, and Alien, some of which remain in syndication today, are good examples.

https://bookriot.com/war-of-the-worlds

 

Starman – 1984

1984 was a good year for Jeff Bridges. He carried the starring role in Against All Odds, which Rolling Stone ranks as number 20 out of (at least) sixty-eight movies. Even better, he portrayed Starman, a role that won him an Academy Award nomination for portraying a naïve and benevolent, but not to be toyed with, alien. Anyone who loves this actor as much as I do, knows that he’s had an incredible career, appearing in movies and on television (sometimes doing both at the same time) since he was a year old. He is also an accomplished musician, the Academy nominated him for an Oscar six times, and won the Oscar for his portrayal of country singer Otis “Bad” Blake in Crazy Heart, where he played guitar sang.

In the fall of 1977, NASA launched two Voyager spacecrafts, each carrying a “golden record” that contained pictures and sounds that include music and phrases spoken in fifty-five languages. There was even a recording of 6-year-old Nick Sagan, son of Carl and Linda, saying, “Hello from the children of planet Earth.”  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-is-on-voyagers-golden-record-73063839/. This movie opens with Voyager climbing into the stratosphere, followed by shots of another spaceship passing close enough to perceive the sounds and images of the recording it plays. Suddenly, artillery explodes in the void. The craft plunges through the Earth’s atmosphere as a ball of flame and crashes into the forest of Champagne Bay, Wisconsin, setting the landscape ablaze.

A few miles away, Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), a young widow who is mourning the loss of her husband Scott, watches a video of their life together and drinks wine until she passes out. As she slumbers, a bright-blue-light rises from the flames, floats across a lake, unlocks Jenny’s front door, enters the house, and flips through a photo album where it finds a lock of her deceased husband’s hair. The disturbance awakens Jenny, and she stumbles into the living room, where she sees a baby lying on the floor. As she attempts to grasp what she’s looking at, the infant grows into an adult that looks just like her husband. Only knowing what it’s heard on the golden record, the “Scott replica” speaks to her in garbled phrases, and she faints. While she’s out, the clone watches the video to learn how to sound like her husband, but since it’s never been human before, its speech and intonation are stilted and robotic.

Overhead, the blades of a helicopter whip the cloudy midnight sky into a black froth. It carries United States government personnel Major Bell (Robert Phalen), George Fox (Richard Jaeckel), and Sergeant Lemon (Tony Edwards), as well as scientist Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith), an authority on extraterrestrial intelligence who works at the SETI Institute. While the men scour the countryside for signs of the UFO, back at the house Jenny regains consciousness. The “Starman” tells her that they have to leave and produces one of the silver orbs that he brought in case of emergency. He had started with seven but had to use one to notify his mothership about the crash, leaving six. Now, he employs the second to make a holographic map, so Jenny can see where he needs to go. She recognizes the location as Barringer Crater near Winslow, Arizona and tells him it is a long way from Wisconsin. Starman, who senses that the military is getting close, ignores her caution, however, and insists that she help him get there.

Unable to refuse, Jenny takes him to her car, and they start out on what constitutes an awfully long trip. Suddenly, she says they are low on gas (which she explains means fuel) and have to stop for a fill-up. While the attendant washes the windshield and checks the oil, Jenny tells Starman that she has to go to the bathroom. He doesn’t understand, but senses that it is important, so reluctantly lets her go. She uses the seconds of privacy to write a note, but before she can give it to anyone, Starman comes in to check on her. She stashes the piece of paper and walks out, hoping someone will find it. Once they are ready to get back on the road, Starman insists on driving, As he takes the wheel, he asks what the word kidnap means, and shows Jenny that he has her gun. Noting her terror, he removes the weapon’s bullets and promises not to harm her.

Although Starman has learned the mechanics of driving, he doesn’t understand subtle mores like using stop signs or obeying traffic lights. Needless to say, he causes several accidents which require police to respond. Government agencies have tapped into police frequencies, and in that way track the alien’s movements. Unaware of the peril he’s in, Starman uses his time with Jenny to explain that he only has three days to meet the mothership in Arizona. He can’t live on Earth, and if he’s stranded here, he will die. To gain his trust, Jenny confides in him as well, by talking about her husband’s death, then says she is hungry, needs fuel, and asks him to stop food. She points out a truck stop, and when they pull in, the first thing Starman notices is a dead deer tied to the hood of a truck. Curious, he walks up for a closer look, causing the owner (Ted White) to rush over and warn him away. At Jenny’s urging, Starman follows her inside where he enjoys his first taste of Dutch Apple pie, but he can’t forget the dead animal. He keeps looking at it through the restaurant window, telling Jenny that where he comes from, there is no killing because his people consider life precious.

While Starman talks, Jenny surreptitiously slips him a credit card and some cash, says she’ll be right back, then sneaks into the kitchen in search of a back door. As the cook points it out, she informs Jenny that her friend went outside and is in the parking lot. Having a good idea what he’s up to, Jenny rushes after him, arriving in time to see him use an orb to revive the deer, which scampers away. Unfortunately, the hunter witnesses this as well, gathers some other men, and leads an attack on Starman. As he has never been in a fight, he doesn’t know how to defend himself, so Jenny pulls her (empty) gun and stops it. She and Starman drive away, but the hunter is unwilling to give up, and the police. Unaware that they are now fugitives, Starman and Jenny stop at a motel for the night. Before they can settle-in, a couple of hotshot cops try to arrest them and Starman drives away. Tragically, one of the men starts shooting, hits Jenny and kills her. Starman pulls onto a back road where he intentionally crashes the truck into a gas tanker and when it catches fire, he disappears into the cloud of smoke. He employs another orb to evade capture, leaving him with three, and carries Jenny’s lifeless body into a mobile home sitting on the bed of a semi. Using another orb, he brings her back to life, meaning he’s down to two.

By this point, Jenny has come to trust Starman, so she calls the police and asks them to stop attempting to rescue her. Meanwhile, Mark, who has become increasingly suspicious of Major Bell’s intentions regarding the alien, tries to figure out a way to save him. Unaware that there is someone who wants to help, however, the fugitives continue to run, encountering more difficulties like roadblocks and foul weather. As they near their destination, they hop a train, and having privacy, make love. For Jenny, this is like being with Scott one last time, whereas for Starman, it’s a way to repay her for the kindness she’s shown him. At an earlier point, she had confided that she wanted to have Scott’s child but couldn’t get pregnant. Starman says that he “gave” her a baby. It will look like Scott but have his abilities.

They fall asleep, miss Arizona altogether, and wake up in Las Vegas. They can’t buy bus tickets because somewhere along the line Jenny lost her wallet, so Starman uses her pocket change to make all the slot machines in a nearby casino pay off. During the commotion it causes, he and Jenny escape with their winnings, purchase a car, and hit the road one last time. This is where I stop. To find out if Starman can get to the crater before the military gets to him, you’ll have to watch the movie. I will give you one hint, though. I hate unhappy endings, and seldom rewatch movies that leave me feeling sad.

When I summarize films, I usually seek help from other authors because even though I re-watch the movies, making notes as I do so, I often miss things. I used this one to help me out with Starman but added a couple of points that I found meaningful.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0088172/synopsis?ref_=tt_stry_pl

 

Summary

The tale of getting Starman made is as convoluted as the history of the feud between the Hatfield and the McCoy families of Kentucky. Technically, John Carpenter directed the film, but not before seven writers rewrote it, and at least six directors tried to complete it. One of the biggest problems was that during the years Columbia Pictures was trying to get Starman off the ground, it purchased another script with a similar theme named Night Skies. People thought it was pointless to make both films, so the studio concentrated on the Night Skies, which opened in theaters June 11, 1982, under the new title E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Meanwhile, Starman languished for another two years before Carpenter had it ready to go public. Although there are similarities between the two movies, however, there are key differences as well.

Most notably, E.T. was a story about children and primarily made for children, whereas Starman was clearly a movie for mature audiences. Though it’s true that both of the aliens have close contact with humans, E.T. primarily interacts with and relies on kids for help, whereas the only child in Starman is the infant at in the opening. Everyone else in the film is an adult. In point fact, Carpenter, who was known for scary movies like the Halloween, The Fog, and Village of the Damned, liked the script because it had an adult love story/road trip vibe that gave him the chance to make a film reminiscent of It Happened One Night rather than horror. Did he meet that goal? In some ways, yes. The theme of two strangers that fate throws together in exigent circumstances, survive numerous crises, and end up falling for each other is definitely there. From a woman’s perspective, however, I find this whole female abduction scenario troubling.

If this weren’t about an alien, people could consider Starman a criminal. He breaks into a woman’s house, takes her hostage, forces her to come with him, steals her car, and uses her money to finance his escape. He watches her every move, even follows her into the bathroom, takes her gun, and decides when she can eat and sleep. Furthermore, he has sex with her without asking her permission (she’s really not in a position to say no) and intentionally impregnates her without her knowledge. All this causes her to realize that he's really a great guy who the police misunderstand, and she can't help falling in love with him. Excuse me? Did I miss something?

From a sociological standpoint, this sounds like Stockholm Syndrome, an anomaly which occurs when hostages develop bonds with their captors. Thus, the plot has as much potential to be horrific as it does to be romantic. Something else that I found interesting is that, to me, certain bars of the beautiful theme song sound hauntingly similar to the opening of “Over the Hills and Far Away” by Led Zeppelin. It could be a fluke, or I could just be wrong, but it is true that Starman and Jenny become enmeshed in something unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.

You can check out the music at: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LNk6OgQ1rE (Starman) and 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60iwmyhV8pQ (Over the Hills and Far Away)

You can read about Stockholm Syndrome here.

https://www.history.com/news/stockholm-syndrome

In a couple of weeks, I will add the second segment of Part 1 which will talk about the use of technology in science fiction. The movie I’ll discuss will be Runaway, which also came out in 1984 and stars Tom Selleck.

“I’ll be back.”