I remember seeing bits of this movie way back when it hit HBO. Watching it again in its entirety my immediate reaction was, "This is like the Netflix movie 'Bright'" or more correctly, "'Bright' is like this."
An alien slave ship that gets lost ends up hovering over the Mojave Desert of California. After a three year quarantine the aliens are allowed to be naturalized and melded into society. What the idealists say is one thing, but the average joe's reaction is totally different--they were taking jobs, some didn't know English, they had weird customs, etc. The speech was very analogous to what you'd hear from people about legal or illegal aliens.
Although it is said in the movie that their numbers were 250,000 it seemed more like a million or more. Most of, if not all of them live in L.A. and at a glance I'd say they numbered around one in four.
When Detective Sykes's partner and a couple aliens (called Newcomers officially, or Slags pejoratively) were murdered by another alien he gets a Newcomer partner named Francisco (Mandy Patinkin). The two of them investigate the Newcomer murders and find that there is a bigger crime brewing that will put all Newcomers in jeopardy.
"Alien Nation" is really about putting aside prejudices and getting to know those who are different than us. Instead of going for a Black/White or any other culturally, ethnically, or racially different people, "Alien Nation" went human/alien. It's a break from tradition in two ways: it casts two different species instead of two different people, and it casts aliens with very human features and qualities. Honestly, the Newcomers could easily be distant cousins to the human race. Besides an odd shaped head and some different organs they were very much human. Cassandra (Leslie Bevis) for instance, would easily turn on any man from the neck down.
As a cop movie this was about average. Sykes (James Caan) was the typical divorced, heavy drinking, slob of a cop and he gets paired up with a straight-laced, albeit alien, partner. The alien element of the plot was its only distinguishing characteristic. It did make it more interesting than it would otherwise be, so for that I give it seven stars out of ten.
An alien slave ship that gets lost ends up hovering over the Mojave Desert of California. After a three year quarantine the aliens are allowed to be naturalized and melded into society. What the idealists say is one thing, but the average joe's reaction is totally different--they were taking jobs, some didn't know English, they had weird customs, etc. The speech was very analogous to what you'd hear from people about legal or illegal aliens.
Although it is said in the movie that their numbers were 250,000 it seemed more like a million or more. Most of, if not all of them live in L.A. and at a glance I'd say they numbered around one in four.
When Detective Sykes's partner and a couple aliens (called Newcomers officially, or Slags pejoratively) were murdered by another alien he gets a Newcomer partner named Francisco (Mandy Patinkin). The two of them investigate the Newcomer murders and find that there is a bigger crime brewing that will put all Newcomers in jeopardy.
"Alien Nation" is really about putting aside prejudices and getting to know those who are different than us. Instead of going for a Black/White or any other culturally, ethnically, or racially different people, "Alien Nation" went human/alien. It's a break from tradition in two ways: it casts two different species instead of two different people, and it casts aliens with very human features and qualities. Honestly, the Newcomers could easily be distant cousins to the human race. Besides an odd shaped head and some different organs they were very much human. Cassandra (Leslie Bevis) for instance, would easily turn on any man from the neck down.
As a cop movie this was about average. Sykes (James Caan) was the typical divorced, heavy drinking, slob of a cop and he gets paired up with a straight-laced, albeit alien, partner. The alien element of the plot was its only distinguishing characteristic. It did make it more interesting than it would otherwise be, so for that I give it seven stars out of ten.