Before watching the movie:
Among the cinematic debacles, this is one of the most infamous failures. I recall it’s supposed to be ridiculous, and maybe with a heavy handed Scientologist message? All I know for sure is John Travolta hasn’t worked much since.
After watching the movie:
In the year 3000AD, humans mostly live in tribal hunter/gatherer groups. Jonnie’s tribe of Rocky Mountain cave dwellers rarely venture outside their crudely walled settlement for fear of the Demons from the sky that have ravaged the world since the Gods abandoned them, but Jonnie dismisses the Demons as myth and goes further than anyone in his tribe has gone before looking for supplies. Then an alien ship captures him and takes him to their base in the remains of Denver, now domed to provide the atmosphere the Psychlos need to survive without nosepieces. Jonnie immediately proves himself to his captors as surprisingly intelligent, managing to disarm a guard and kill him with his own advanced weapon. The Psychlos conquered the planet ages ago in a nine-minute war and have been mining it for resources and using the “man-animals” as support slaves. Security Chief Terl, perpetually passed over for promotion off this backwater, schemes with his assistant Ker to use the human slaves to mine a vein of gold that Head Office doesn’t know about, but they need a human to lead them, which requires finding one with enough potential and then getting leverage over him. Terl puts Jonnie in a Learning Machine to teach him the Psychlo language and the skills necessary for mining, but Jonnie quickly realizes that learning as much about the Psychlos, their technology, and the fallen human civilization as possible could be the key to throwing off their oppressors.
I think the biggest problem with this movie is the tone struck with the humans versus the tone struck with the Psychlos. The resourceful underdog humans hatching a plan to liberate themselves through knowledge is a fun, inspiring, if self-congratulatory story. The Psychlos are cruel, backstabbing, bureaucratic idiots who would be an entirely different kind of fun if this was Red Dwarf or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Together in the same movie they don’t work, and I kind of resent the Terl and Ker double act taking away focus from what the humans are doing.
I was expecting this movie to be a screed about clearing oneself of Thetans, but I really didn’t pick up on anything that reminded me of the religion while watching, though I suppose that the angle is in the idea of liberation through knowledge of the enemy. Which is pretty generic and owes at least as much to Sun Tzu as L. Ron Hubbard.
The Psychlo design is both ridiculous and cowardly. They’re various levels of caricature of pretty normal humans, just very tall, with high foreheads, weird hair and sausage claws for hands. Travolta and Whitaker are barely alien at all, which makes them less believable and more relatable in a way you don’t really want the alien slave masters to be. I don’t know Barry Pepper at all outside this movie, but I found his enlightened caveman Jonnie interesting while once he’s uplifted by the Psychlos he’s just another stoic action leader.
I came in expecting an embarrassing mess and my expectations were pleasantly exceeded. This is a fun summer action movie, though kind of unbalanced and generally in need of more quality control. I’d watch either movie in this movie again, but the two together just don’t gel.
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