The 1985 movie Enemy Mine tells the story of two troopers—one human and one alien—who develop into unlikely allies when they’re stranded collectively on a desolate planet. TV author Andrea Kail says that even a standout efficiency by Louis Gossett Jr. can’t save the film.
“I keep in mind actually liking this film after I noticed it nonetheless a few years in the past, but it surely didn’t stand as much as my reminiscence,” Kail says in Episode 490 of the Geek’s Information to the Galaxy podcast. “It was shot like a B-movie. Dennis Quaid was over-the-top, the music was overwrought. I simply discovered it a lot much less pleasing than it ought to have been.”
Geek’s Information to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley agrees that the movie is lackluster, which is a disgrace contemplating that it’s based mostly on an award-winning novella by Barry Longyear. “The [novella] is absolutely, actually touching,” Kirtley says. “It’s the story of this man studying to grasp one other tradition, after which passing it on to a baby. That’s what it’s about. It’s stunning.”
The film builds to a corny, tacked-on finale wherein the human soldier goes on a gory rampage. Humor author Tom Gerencer says the ending is especially odd given the pacifistic themes of the remainder of the movie. “The entire half the place he’s killing everybody, I’m like, ‘What’s the purpose right here?’” he says. “Now he’s realized to be peaceable, and he’s simply killing all these individuals?”
Science fiction creator Matthew Kressel says the time is true for a brand new model of Enemy Mine that stays nearer to the supply materials. “I believe this film could possibly be remade, in the event that they did it with fashionable particular results,” he says. “I believe it’s a timeless message—that we shouldn’t dehumanize any individual simply because they’re unfamiliar to us.”
Hearken to the whole interview with Andrea Kail, Tom Gerencer, and Matthew Kressel in Episode 490 of Geek’s Information to the Galaxy (above). And take a look at some highlights from the dialogue beneath.
David Barr Kirtley on The Final Starfighter:
“Once I noticed it as a child, it appeared far more severe and dramatic to me, and watching it now the tone is extra like Galaxy Quest. It’s actually, actually foolish—in a enjoyable method. … I believe they are saying it is a federation of 800 worlds or one thing, they usually solely have 12 fighter pilots to battle for them? After which they’ve this wall of satellites to defend them from the dangerous guys, and it’s like, ‘No, dudes, we’re in outer house.’ I imply, presumably it must be a sphere round all 800 worlds. So what number of of these items are we speaking about? Possibly that’s why they solely have 12 fighter pilots—as a result of they spent all their cash on this gigantic wall.”
Matthew Kressel on Enemy Mine:
“Each time we battle one other group, we dehumanize them so as to have the ability to kill them. ‘Oh, they’re inhuman monsters!’ While you see them as one other particular person—on this case it’s an alien—however whenever you see the soul of them, nose to nose, and that they’re similar to you, and in some methods higher than you, I believe that’s a robust message. … [The alien] says, ‘We have been right here a thousand years earlier than you,’ and clearly it’s a type of issues the place either side suppose they’re proper, however they each primarily need the identical issues. So once we get to the tip, the place Davidge is reciting the traditional lineage on the Drac homeworld, I discovered that unexpectedly shifting.”
Tom Gerencer on Flight of the Navigator:
“I had solely ever seen the half the place he’s flying round on the spaceship with Pee-wee Herman speaking to him, so I used to be like, ‘That film is completely silly.’ After which after I had to return final week and watch this film from begin to end, I used to be like, ‘Holy crap, that’s so cool that he exhibits up, and he hasn’t aged, but it surely’s eight years later, and his mother and father are all bereaved.’ I used to be like, ‘Wow, I had no thought this film had one thing cool about it.’ So I actually loved that, and by advantage of that I loved watching the remainder of the film too, as a result of I used to be like, ‘Now there’s context, and I perceive what’s happening.’ So I actually loved this film, however principally as a result of I had solely ever seen the half with no plot in it.”
Andrea Kail on Quick Circuit:
“I’ve very fond reminiscences of this film. I keep in mind after I was a youngster pondering it was completely hilarious. There was one line that I hadn’t considered in years, however as quickly as Fisher Stevens stated it, I used to be like, ‘Oh my god. I keep in mind saying that backwards and forwards with my good friend on the time,’ as a result of we thought it was so hilarious. It was the road, ‘I’m sporting an amazing woody proper now.’ And we might say it in that horrible Indian accent. I assumed it was hilarious then, and I see it now and it’s so cringeworthy and terrible. We’ve been doing all these ’80s motion pictures—the dangerous ones, the great ones—and it feels to me like we’re not solely being nostalgic, but additionally confronting the ghosts of our previous: the informal racism, the misogyny that was so prevalent within the ’80s.”
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