I admire Roger Christian enormously and rate this film at a 7 purely for creativity, fortitude and bravery because I dig the hugely ambitious nature of the concept he had at the time. I remember him rattling off all these fascinating ideas in interviews about a 'sci-fi western'. I also love the rawness of the young actors some of whom did a really good job.
It was originally to be called '2084' (taking a cue from Orwell's 1948 novel '1984' was a hugely pompous mistake and luckily the fact that the film didn't come into fruition until 1985 must have helped seal the fate of that particular name). It was released under that name in Australia however.
The original tag-line was "In 2084 all who oppose the system must die or become outlaws" The English language VHS versions I have seen both in the UK and USA releases are edited heavily, some key scenes and at least one character have been completely deleted, this leaves gaps in the plot and the continuity. Also both these VHS releases have been dubbed. Tony Bank's score being replaced with a dribbling, tawdry load of old giblets composed and performed by Craig Huxley. The droid character with the annoying voice was originally called 'KID' but for some reason every instance of his name has been clumsily dubbed over with the name 'GRID' It's annoying as the dubbed-in single word stands out a mile, sometimes I think it is another actor impersonating the right voice.
I know that on a German TV channel they have aired the full version of the movie with no deleted scenes and with the original score although with a dubbed German soundtrack. I do not know if the foreign language VHS releases are edited versions or not.
Donogh Rees was great despite the limits of her role and acted rings around everyone else, she really should have been the lead and indeed in many ways she ends up being the hero in the end. As for Lorca played by John Tarrant. He is unfairly hampered by the poor script (some of his lines are just awful) and no amount of 'acting' could make them convincing, but actually when you see him in less scripted scenes like scrambling over moving monster truck in the desert he is very compelling and during some of his weepy moments he shows a degree of talent for displaying emotion far beyond the sort of actor that you'd expect to find lurking in the murky sediment of Australian TV like 'A Country Practice'.
As the only real women in the film are part of this mining community they all have no makeup on and wear boiler suits all the time which makes them look more like men... you get the impression that (even as a straight guy) if you were actually stuck on Planet Ordesa you'd probably find yourself casually dropping the soap in Tarrant's direction in no time at all. He single-handedly provides the eye candy as he was by far the prettiest thing in the cast besides Toyah Wilcox, who appears on a holographic video jukebox in the 'Miram Bar' (despite writing a very intriguing song with Tony Banks especially for the movie that was a whopping 7 minutes long she only appears for about 5 seconds! It is a shame as she probably spent about 5 hours on hair and makeup for the shot).
I get the impression that Toyah's cameo appearance ended up being so small in order to make way for the Peter Gabriel cameo appearance (which was not part of the soundtrack or actually written for the film). The final song performed by Tony Banks and sung by Jim Diamond "You Call This Victory" is just a typical, unremarkable bit of eighties fluff, but if you enjoyed the eighties, as I did, you'll appreciate it.
Everybody universally seems to hate the teacher droid midget played by Deep Roy. His crummy voice combined with a mouth that the budget didn't allow to move makes him very difficult to engage with. There is a scene in the desert where Lorca is doing all his scrambling over a moving truck macho action stuff and in the background the stupid droid is dangling from a cable and squeaking 'Lorca, help!' again and again and AGAIN!!! It's like a demented parakeet. Then when the truck crashes the little runt's head flies off and you feel two emotions: relief and joy. When Lorca walks towards the head you half expect and half hope he will kick it way off into the desert, but instead he (of course) repairs the droid who 'lives' on until the end.
The other characters are pretty much one-dimensional and really not worth mentioning. I rather like the robot soldiers, in a way their human clothing and army boots makes them a bit more sinister than clunking metal bodies would.
Some of the scenes like the church one are quite poignant and symbolic and very well done, (although this scene is shortened on the US and UK VHS releases) others like the death of Abbey and the death of Lorca's mother seem clumsy and untidy. Tony Banks wrote a great piece of music for the death of Abbey scene, (Original score not present on some VHS releases) but the scene itself just doesn't have any of the polish and poignancy it deserves. Not in this case due to a lack of props or effects, it is just badly shot.
On the special effects side of things they are limited, but well done.
Even accepting all its shortcomings I still have a big soft spot for this film, I am not sure what it is but there is something special about it that very few people seem to get!
I am glad I am one though, even if I am the only one and I am glad Roger made it! Thanks RC!
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