Luke
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CibbuanoEnemy Mine
October 31st 2006 08:36
Enemy Mine (1985)
This is one of those films that I used to watch over and over when I was a kid. I'm always surprised to find that hardly anyone I talk to these days has even heard of it. It's a good film, dammit!
The always dependable Dennis Quaid plays Davidge, a human starfighter pilot. It's the 21st century and Earth is locked in an intersteller war of colonial acquisition with the Dracs, a reptillian breed of aliens. Davidge manages to get into a dogfight with one of the Dracs (Lou Gossett Jr), and they both crashland on a remote planet. What ensues is a story of survival and prejudice as the two must learn to co-exist in this harsh new environment of brutal storms and giant ant-lion-like monsters.
Unlike a lot of popular sci-fi films, this story is more about the hatred that feeds off difference and a friendship formed against the odds. It's an unusually touching and moving story, but never boring. The harsh climate of the planet and the eventual contact of the survivors with 'civilisation' make for plenty of action-packed sequences.
The story is the kind of story that will remain timeless, even if the special effects are dated or the science-fiction aspects of the story become quaint and objects of curiosity. It's central themes are universal and this film will continue to be relevant to our world and society while any form of prejudice or culture-based hate exists. It's just a shame that this film didn't get wider exposure!
TRIVIA: Apparently the film was originally shot in it's entirety in Iceland, only to be completely scrapped due to that old bugbear - "creative differences". The film was reshot by a new director (Wolfgang Peterson - better known for 'Das Boot' and more recently 'Troy') in a new location in the Canary Islands.
Producers originally wanted to add a subplot involving an actual mine as they were worried that audiences would be confused by the title.
'Enemy Mine' was a book before it was a film, written by Barry B. Longyear in 1980. The book won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards - quite a sweep for a sci-fi book!
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Comment by Cibbuano
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I rewatched it recently - a great, unusual sci-fi movie... how fucked up is that world?
The end gets a little too much, really.
Comment by Luke
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