Cosmic Slop (1994 TV Movie) User Reviews

"The Space Traders"

[totallygaynoreally · 7/10 · 11 December 2005]

Having recently read Derrick Bell's "The Space Traders" and then viewed this adaptation of it, I am pleased to see that the TV version corrects or modifies many of problems I have with the original short story. Also, I feel much of the humor of the story is augmented by the inclusion of visuals, such as with the alien herald who resembles Ronald Reagan and the ridiculous alien space craft.

Also, the few additions made to the plot by the adaptation are both appropriate and very often hilarious. The brief scenes involving Stryker O'Rourke are side-splitting, and I still find that name to be the most appropriate moniker ever ascribed to a pretentious, story-seeking news caster. Robert Guillaume is also show-stopping as Gleason Golightly, especially as he addresses the black congregation.

I also appreciated the way the TV version treated the serious issues presented in the original with a bit more taste and discretion. For example, I was glad to see that the plot was modified so that the departing African Americans are permitted to board the alien vessels completely clothed, rather than, as in the story, reduced to their under garments, a painful and blatant reference to the slave trade. In all, I think the TV adaptation does a fine job of tightening and improving upon the story without losing any of its social relevance or impact.

Cosmic Slop

[Millennialprince · 7/10 · 24 October 2019]

Worth watching for the Space Traders segment alone. All the other stories in the anthology pale in comparison. Space Traders is about an alien invasion, but the only difference is this particular invasion has a social agenda attached to it. The alien leader gives the President an ultimatum: deliver all the black people of Earth to the aliens and he'll share his resources with the Earth. This is probably one of the most thought provoking satires I've ever seen in my life. It really makes you think about the nature of humanity and the absurdity of racism. Personally, I would love to see Space Traders extended into a movie. Maybe a talented filmmaker like Jordan Peele could do the remake? Definitely worth a watch for anthology fans.

Required Viewing to Understand Bad Societal Logic

[gengar843 · 30 April 2015]

Before I get started on the rant, let me just say this is a well-produced anthology from HBO, with some good name actors (Nick Turturro doing his usual fine interpretation). Now let's get to the meat of this:

(1) SPACE TRADERS. You can tell liberal/progressive/Democrat/leftist thought was at work here, desperately trying to show how evil Republicans are, when it is well-known, or should be, that the Republican Party, beginning with Lincoln, fought tooth and nail for civil rights, from before the Civil War to the present, and that the Democrat Party voted to block civil rights well into the 1980's, and actually began the Ku Klux Klan, which it fostered into the 1930's and beyond. Thus, when the Republican Party in this vignette gleefully sells out the black population of the United States, it just ain't so, even if people believe it. The piece is well-orchestrated on film, showing how government in general is filthy and corrupt in the hands of a few men, but I was perplexed why the black folk were shown as docile for the most part, and why no white Americans were shown either as dissenters. In order to make a particular point, the writers emasculated every Republican, Democrat, white, and black! Are these people ALL on Prozac? One more thing: melanin content also includes Native Americans, Indians, Filipino, Latino, and tanned whites. So the logic is missing. The story is not racist as much as it is politically and socially abhorrent. And honestly, the question must be asked, why is it the writer believes black people are so valueless that white people would want them gone? Is this true? Why? Whose fault is that? If the answer is that we must have sympathy, when does that run out? This leads to the next chapter:

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT: Well-played but in this one we get a view that the white priest is "stealing" the Santeria "culture" from Puerto Ricans. Point to be made: Santeria possibly predates Christ, but not the law of God given to Moses, so the sympathy parlayed on the antiquity of Santeria does not withstand further pressure of truth, or assumed truth. Santeria itself involves pagan rituals not portrayed in this portion of the film, and therefore the filmmakers omitted anything prejudicial against Santeria to, again, make a point. Attempting to officiate names for Virgin Mary may appear clever but it is mainly juvenile, simple rebellion. The question must be asked, why is Santeria right? Why is possession of human souls good? Why not simply follow God's Law?

TANG: Realistic portrait of black thought process and culture, one wonders how this fits with SPACE TRADERS, as it completely justifies the point resisted in Chapter 1, that black people have horrible views of whites, themselves, women, men, violence, law, and revenge. It does not glorify gangster lifestyle, being in 1994 a bit too early for that, but it is starkly in-your-face "this is it." When Tang thanks God for the bullets to start the so-called revolution, your brain may literally explode. Really? God provides guns and bullets? If this is so, why is it bad for whites to have guns but not blacks? But then the gun is used to kill each other, as the entire neighborhood is doing. What is God saying? That blacks need to off themselves? The fact that the gun was delivered by a ghostly being makes it crazier. If that was a minion of the devil, is that point that blacks can't tell God from the devil?

All in all, this is required viewing, not for the production, the message, or anything really unique, but simply to gape in awe at how skewed people can be, and how hopeless it probably is to expect the human race to come to terms with its own anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-history perception. After watching this, you should ask if making a difference even makes a difference.

The functional word is "slop"

[ghlist7876 · 1/10 · 9 March 2012]

I watched this movie on breitbart.TV's bighollywood site after Derrick Bell's story hit the news. I can't imagine how anyone could imagine a bigger bucket of racist hogwash in my entire life. Shame on HBO for financing and producing this clichéd piece of filth. Start to finish, this movie plays out one racist stereotype of Caucasians after another. The coup de gras is a bunch of white men sitting around a walnut paneled room in leather wingbacks chomping on cigars wondering how much business they'll lose selling afro-centric goods to blacks after they trade them all away to aliens in exchange for vacuum cleaners that suck all the dirty water out of Lake Michigan. Not. Kidding. It's unbelievable to think that the guy that wrote this piece of dogmatic nonsense was once a Harvard Professor. Yes, you read that right. A Harvard Professor, and apparently a mentor to President Obama, wrote this incredibly racist anti-white and anti-Jew diatribe. Here's one of the "witty" jokes from the film; "The American dream is all blacks swimming back to Africa with a Jew under each arm." Again... Not. Kidding. If you want know the plot, all you do is take the Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man", substitute a Max Headroom version of Ronald Reagan in place of Richard Kiel as the evil Alien, and then, only blacks are forced on the spaceships to the alien sausage factory... "It's a cookbook for blacks, Robert Guillaume, don't get on that spaceship!" Just sickening.