Outland (1981)
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Outland (1981)
The REMAKE of HIGH NOON (1950) for outer space. Sean Connery plays the Gary Cooper role, a Marshall whose new territory is a mining outpost on Jupiter's moon, Io. The premise is that outer space, in the future, is the new frontier, with not too much government or civilization because it's still pretty far and removed from Earth. There is mysterious death and corruption, mostly represented by Peter Boyle's character, the general manager, and involving illegal drug use. The premise is the familiar profit-over-safety inherent in depictions of most movie corporations. The Marshall's only friends are played by James B. Sikking, his sergeant, and Frances Sternhagen, who plays the local doc. Connery is also isolated because his wife just left him with his son, so he's a little depressed.
I haven't seen this in a few years; if you're familiar with the plot of HIGH NOON, then you probably know it boils down to the Marshall being targeted by the bad guys and, in the last act, trying to survive the actions of a couple of sent assassins. From what I recall, this tried to get by a lot on style - that gritty hardware look of outer space that became popular after ALIEN (1979) - but ends up on the slow side. Connery's star quality is there, of course, while Boyle underplays the villain role. Sikking and Sternhagen are very good in their roles. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
Outlandish Trivia: I do remember that Steranko illustrated a graphic novel-styled presentation of this film; I remember some of the pages were in his magazine Preview (or a similar magazine) or at least portions of it; it consisted mostly of full page spreads, an interesting approach. It was serialized fully in Heavy Metal magazine.
I haven't seen this in a few years; if you're familiar with the plot of HIGH NOON, then you probably know it boils down to the Marshall being targeted by the bad guys and, in the last act, trying to survive the actions of a couple of sent assassins. From what I recall, this tried to get by a lot on style - that gritty hardware look of outer space that became popular after ALIEN (1979) - but ends up on the slow side. Connery's star quality is there, of course, while Boyle underplays the villain role. Sikking and Sternhagen are very good in their roles. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
Outlandish Trivia: I do remember that Steranko illustrated a graphic novel-styled presentation of this film; I remember some of the pages were in his magazine Preview (or a similar magazine) or at least portions of it; it consisted mostly of full page spreads, an interesting approach. It was serialized fully in Heavy Metal magazine.
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Base of Galactic Science Fiction :: SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA :: Bronze Age of Science Fiction Cinema
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