Alien Nation: Dark Horizon

This is the only Alien Nation made for t.v. movie that I believed has been released. I have it on VHS and I have played it so many times that there are lines running through it. I thought it was a very good follow up to the series (I was bummed when it was canceled)and I'm looking forward to the other movies being released, hopefully on DVD. The movie explained that although the slave ship had landed five years previously, slave over-seers were still looking for their "lost cargo." They sent an aggressive over-seer to scout out the location and hopefully retrieve some of the slaves. Needless to say, the survivors of the ship were not going willingly back to a life of servitude and humiliation. The movie was a entertaining piece.

And they never knew it.

This film, the first of five alien nation films made for Fox, serves the primary purpose of settling the cliffhanger from "green eyes".

But where one threat ends, a new threat begins.

This film starts with the ominous view of a huge Tectonese military vessel. The same ship which was detected in the episode "contact", now we know that the signal sent from JPL was successful. The ship carries worse than the KleesonSun (click), it contains highly trained agents that are bent upon retrieving the 250,000 "Drega"- and more.

When we first meet Ahpossno, he appears to be overseer slime. He is slime.

But then something remarkable happens, he meets the "Sam" Francisco family, and all of the people associated.

We start to see that as evil as he appeared to be, he had feelings. But he does not realize this until it is way too late.

It's too bad because this character would have been a great addition to the ever growing Francisco family.

Susanna Thompson, who played the role of the Borg Queen in Star Trek Voyager a few times, takes over the role of Lorraine Clark formerly done by Barbara Bush. She does not convince me that she is the same character and she reveals religious hypocrisy that is quite distasteful, especially to Matt "Sykes".

Sykes was the first one to see that there was something non-kosher about Ahpossno, who infects Susan and Buck with Some bad Tectonese-only ideas. As well as wedging himself in between Kathy and Matt.

It's too bad that they could not keep the character in the series.

Amazingly, everybody who had been in the show reprised their roles- all except for Lorraine. It would not have hurt the story to just omit the very small part she plays.

This movie is such BS. You mean to tell me that some 250,000 aliens landed in L.A., were naturalized, and melded within the society in five years when Blacks and other people of color couldn't get to the same point in 400 years!? I saw more aliens than Black people in "Alien Nation: Dark Horizons" and they were doing rather well. They were doctors, cops, businessmen with human friends and allies. There were Newcomer services and we even broke down their anatomy and had medical services for them-- all within five years. The movie was like the aliens had been a part of American society from its inception. Oh, there were cases of discrimination, anti-alienism, alienophobia, etc., but it was child's play. I didn't see any unarmed aliens getting shot by police, or having their necks kneeled upon for eight minutes and forty-six-seconds, or any other host of atrocities. I guess being alien is better than being Black.

Maybe I should become Tanktanese or whatever they're called.

I loved this movie! It gave us a true insight into the background and history of the "Alien" race. It was nice to see the relationship between Matt and Cathy explored. They are a perfect "inter-species" couple. (The book "Cross of Blood" that is sort-of a sequel to this movie was a real disappointment though!) This movie allowed us to see the spiritual heritage of the Newcomers. It was interesting to see the similarities to the "human" world of spirituality! God did create All "Man" in the same light - regardless of whether or not they were born on "Earth"!!

"Alien Nation" was a TV show based on a movie that in turn had TV movies based on the TV show. Having seen this film, I thought it was just okay. It was weird how they sort of abandoned the plot about the virus killing the newcomers. I understand that this series is fairly popular. It just isn't for me. It's at least passable. It came off as kind of boring to me. It would be easy to dismiss this as just another easy analogy for racism. At the time of the film's release, the trope wasn't nearly as developed.

There are definitely good scenes. I especially like it when the characters talk about religion and God's plan. The newcomers themselves have their own beliefs about souls. They wonder if the aliens even have souls. There's certainly nothing about it in the Bible. I appreciate how it is pretty charming how the human character falls in love with the newcomer. It's interesting to see how they understand Earth culture and it isn't rushed like in most other movies. It's fine for what it is. **1/2