Screamers
SOURCE:
Buy this!
“Second Variety,” by Philip K. Dick
After years of nuclear warfare between America and Russia, Earth is a wasteland, populated only by soldiers fighting for barren ground. In order to win the war, the Americans have developed “claws,” deadly mobile machines with the sole purpose of hunting down and destroying human targets. In a short time, the claws have wiped out the majority of the Russian force. The Russians send a messenger to the Americans, asking them to send a representative. Base commander Hendricks goes, but when he arrives at the Russian base, he doesn’t like what he finds…
SCREEN:
Buy this!
Screamers (1995)
Byranium, the universe’s current most valuable resource, was discovered in huge deposits on the planet Sirius 6B; but when the company sent men in to mine it, they also discovered dangerous radiation levels. When the miners refused to keep digging, the company attacked their settlements; the miners formed the Alliance and fought back. After years of stalemated, planet destructing war, the Alliance develops a mechanical attack dog called a “screamer,” and sets it loose. Now, Joseph Hendricksson (Peter Weller) and his men aren’t sure what’s going. A messenger from the company (the New Economic Block) asking for a meeting and a crash landed “civilian” transport carrying soldiers and nuclear weapons, muddies the waters still further. Hendricksson sets out for the NEB base, with the only survivor from the transport along for the ride, but what he finds out in the wasteland is not at all what he was expecting…
COMPARE/CONTRAST:
“Second Variety” is the first Philip K. Dick short story I’ve read, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Dick’s novels are a breed apart, strange surrealist nightmares that often seem written under the inducement of heavy narcotics. His prose is level-headed and clear, but his characters and their motivations aren’t, and you never, ever know what will happen next. In his best novels (The Man in the High Castle, A Scanner Darkly), he alienates and inspires in one and the same breathe- and while he isn’t for everybody, it would be a shame to go through life as a fan of science fiction (or challenging in fiction in general) without having at least taken a look at his stuff.
A number of his novels and stories have served as inspiration for movies. Last summer’s Minority Report comes from a story of the same name, Total Recall from “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale,” and Blade Runner from the novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sleep. None of these adaptations have been particularly faithful, which isn’t surprising; if one had to use one word to sum-up Dick’s oeuvre, that word would be “ambiguity,” and god knows, we can’t have that in studio product. However, they have worked to varying degrees, and so it was with some interest that I went into tonight’s subject.
“Second Variety” is grim, violent, and suspenseful. There’s enough characterization to keep the protagonists from being indistinguishable, but not much beyond that. While most of the twists are easy to spot once you discover the main plot- basically a “Are you or aren’t you a machine” deal- they still have an impact, and Dick makes his point quite clearly. Which isn’t something you can say for much of his other work- “SV” is the most user friendly piece of his I’ve read. There’s enough uncertainty to know it’s Dick; questions of identity keep popping up, and the good guys/bad guys line is pretty well obliterated by the end. But the plot is logical, and there is a point A to point B to point C evolution that you can follow without too much trouble.
It isn’t too surprising, then, that Screamers is one of the most faithful adaptations of Dick’s fiction I’ve seen. The basic plotline is almost entirely there, with the biggest changes coming in the back story and in the film’s conclusion, which is were the only real troublesome patch occurs- but I’ll get to that in a moment.
First things first. Changing the Russian/American conflict to Company/Union is one way of updating the tale to modern times. The Russian’s in Dick story, while sympathetic, are clearly products of their time- they are the aggressors in the nuclear war that lays waste to Earth, and no real motivation for this is given aside from the fact that, well, they’re Russian. That’s a no-no these days, so inserted in the place of the Evil Commie Rat is the Evil Capitalist Scum, without altering a bit of their attack plan. NEB, while having a clearer reason for bombing the miners (we are told over and over that byranium is incredible powerful and valuable), is still dastardly and almost entirely unseen. There’s never any doubt who started the conflict, and there’s never any doubt who you should be rooting for.
Or is there? Along with the plot basics, Screamers also keeps much of the trademark ambiguity of its source, and that’s one of its strong points. The Russians/NEB may be the bad guys originally, but it’s the Alliance that develops the ultimate weapon of the plot, just as the Americans did, leaving the usual “good” guys indirectly responsible for all the death that follows.
I like that- I like that they didn’t make the bad guys the creators of the killing machines. It woulda been easy, but it wouldn’t of been, y’know, Dick.
In fact, so terrified was the Alliance at the machines it had created (shades of Frankenstein) that once the factories have been built and turned on, the humans left them to their own devices, essentially washing their hands of whatever happened next. And here’s another nifty element kept from the original story: not content to stick with their original design, the screamers begin to modify themselves, evolving into better and more effecient forms in order to serve their main function. Science wise, this is absurd; as Lyzard right points out in her review of The Terminator, all the brain power in the world isn’t worth much if you don’t have the physical resources to back it up. Just how the hell are these new machines getting built? The original screamers that we see obviously don’t have the necessary resources to construct new production lines.
Implausible as it is in realistic terms, as an idea, the self-improving weapon is pretty damn cool. It suggests the certain futility of all violence; when pushed to its conclusions, the end result is always going to be ultimate annihalation. There’s an implication, too, that as they improve, the screamers get closer to being living things, and that when their human targets are gone they will begin targeting each other. That’s just creepy enough to stick in your head, and give both versions’ essential anti-war stance a deeper impact.
(Sidenote: the above mention of The Terminator is relevant for another reason. When the claws/screamers start changing, their newest models take human forms for much the same reasons the T-800 was created. Harlan Ellison sued the production for its similarities to two of his own stories ["Soldier” and “Demon with a Glass Hand"], and won his case. Cameron’s lucky Dick died two years befor his movie was released, or he might have had another lawsuit on his hands.)
There’s a lot more swell stuff here, and even with my reservations about the last twenty minutes of the picture (which, like I said, we’ll get to), Screamers is a well-made B-movie, free from much of the crap that haunts genre pictures these days. The characters are stock but they’re good stock, and you feel comfortable spending your time with him. Weller is great, as usual, and I’m just happy to see him on screen.
The screamers themselves are created through jump-cut editing, sleight of hand, a few POV shots, and one terrific sequence of stop motion animation that’s only flaw is its shortness- I would’ve liked to have seen more of that thing, but this is a low budget movie, and certain skimping is understandable. Hell, I’m just grateful that they didn’t go the CGI route; there is some computer trickery, but it’s mostly used to augment existing make-up, and it never becomes garish.
Not only does the movie stick to the story in terms of plot, it keeps the grim feel, while adding some humor to lighten the load. Jefferson, the survivor of transport crash, threatens becoming the odious comic relief, but Hendricksson shuts him down- most of the successful humor comes from his occasional sarcasm, and nobody but nobody does deadpan like Weller. (Jefferson isn’t in the original story, and his presence is mostly to offer a way of easy exposition; he doesn’t know a whole lot about Sirius 6B, so Hendricksson has to explain it to him. It’s smoothly done, too- wasn’t till three quarters through the film, after all the back story was established, that I figured it out.)
There are flaws, of course. The threat of the screamers is there, but it’s not nearly as overwhelming as it should be, especially during the all out attack that comes two thirds of the way through the film. Again, this is most likely due to budget constraints than anything else, and you can overlook it if you aren’t expecting Aliens-level setpieces.
What’s more difficult to overlook, however, is that ending I keep hinting at, the final fifteen minutes or so that, while not ruining what came before it, at least does you the disservice of leaving a bad taste in your mouth. I don’t want to give too much away in case you want to see for yourself- suffice to say, when the screamers start taking on human forms, they start taking on personalities, and it is here where the screenwriters (Miguel Tejada-Flores, and Dan O’Bannon) resort to the irritating clichés they avoided for the rest of the picture.
To sum up: one of the human type screamers goes all gooey, sacrificing itself to save a human, even though it’s entire purpose in existing is to kill. I found this sappy and forced. The writers were trying for something better, though, and honestly, the change doesn’t come out of nowhere- so I can understand and accept the risk, even if I don’t enjoy the results. What isn’t nearly as understandable is when another screamer becomes the wise-cracking psycho we’ve seen so many times before, grinning and spouting catch phrases that have you reaching for the fast forward button. It’s trite, and it doesn’t fit in with the tone of the rest of the movie, distancing you at the exact point when you’re supposed to be the most involved with the fate of the heroes.
There’s also an annoying kicker ending, but hell, if I couldn’t handle those, I would’ve stopped watching these movies years ago.
Problems aside, this was an entertaining film, and what made it even more enjoyable for me was the intelligent way it handled its source material. For once, nearly all the changes made were made for the good, and if there was some faltering at the end, I can live with that. I’ve lived with worse.
SOURCE: QQQ
SCREEN: QQQ
Still, I have no idea why Hendricks became Hendricksson. Did somebody spill ink on the script?