Enemy Mine

Posted By Jason on Aug 22, 2018 | 1 comment

108 minutes. Rated PG-13.

“Earthman, your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!”

Based on the award-winning 1979 novella by Barry B. Longyear and directed by Wolfgang Petersen (notably of Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story fame) Enemy Mine is one of my favorite hard science fiction movies from the 1980’s. I call it hard sci-fi simply for the excellent examples of xenobiology, the alien flora and fauna, and the detailed creation of another sentient, alien race, complete with its own history, culture, and language. For an eight-year-old boy who loved ANYTHING extraterrestrial, this movie was the bomb, and 28 years later, it still holds up fairly well.

In a future where humanity has left Earth to explore the stars, we find that we are not alone. As human beings start to colonize other planets and grab up resources, they discover that another sentient race of reptilian creatures called the Drac who are also claiming planets, and inevitably, a war breaks out between the two races. The two great empires, Terran and Drac, far from their home planets (Earth and Draco respectively) go all out, dog fighting in space using huge space stations as launching pads and waystations out in the cold blackness.

From the outset, we get a small taste of an actual space battle; a small squadron of Drac fighters attacks a Terran space station and a few ships are launched to repel the onslaught, led by Willis Davidge (Dennis Quaid) and co-pilot Joey Wooster (Lance Kerwin).* Some excellent moves aside, a human ship gets blasted and Davidge gets super-pissed. Blinded with rage, he guns a little too hard for the offending Drac ship. The two ships spiral into the atmosphere of an uncharted planet, leading to a messy crash landing. Luckily, both human and Drac pilots manage to escape alive but for poor Lance, it’s the end. Davidge grabs a few supplies and spotting the rising column of smoke spiraling into the sky in the distance, sets off to track the Drac.

By the time Davidge gets to the crash site, the other pilot has started a fire and is also organizing its supplies as well, and the human begins to slowly creep down to the makeshift camp with murder in his eyes. There is a small body of greenish water next to the crashed ship, and when the Drac decides to go in for a swim, Davidge quickly runs down, pours fuel into the water, and lights it up, hoping to kill his mortal enemy. He fails, and is captured by the Drac instead. The Drac does not kill the human right away but instead they exchange names and try to communicate in a rudimentary fashion, the Drac named Jeriba ‘Jerry’ Shigan (Louis Gossett Jr.) even feeds Davidge a disgustingly enormous and slimy white grub-like thing that bleeds greenish blood. Gross.

Even though these two find opportunities to kill each other (Davidge even getting free at another point and squandering his opportunity to slit the Drac’s throat), they do not, and instead, after witnessing a deadly and devastating meteor storm, realize they need to move their camp to a more secure location. So Davidge, captured once again, and Jerry, leading him along, trek deeper into a forest and begin to build a shelter, their communication skills improving slowly but surely. Strong evidence of this can been seen through Davidge’s first attempt at a shelter. Jerry takes one look at it and gargles out one word, “Sheet,” which is only a slight mispronunciation of the correct word. Davidge is confused and annoyed and goes up and gives it kick to show how solid it is and then must agree with Jerry as the entire thing comes tumbling down in an avalanche of timber and rocks.

Time passes (and it is here we are introduced to the ‘hair calendar,’ where the audience marks the progression of time by observing Davidge’s beard growth) slowly, and the two get on with hunting and foraging. They successfully build a shelter and even learn each other’s language enough to communicate quite well, and it is here we learn more about the Drac race. We also get introduced to the strange flora and fauna of this hostile volcanic planet as well, the crazy creatures and wild ecosystem that makes survival so difficult for these two.

This story is more about mere survival, and it certainly is no Robinson Crusoe, although a fair comparison could be made. Strong arguments of a marooned Crusoe and Friday aside, these two mortal enemies must lean on each other to keep going, both physically, mentally and emotionally. There is a lot of cross-pollination of philosophies between the two cultures, and both Davidge and Jerry discuss the commonalities of their cultures, and begin to see more similarities than differences.

The seasons change and the weather turns, and Davidge realizes that the pair of them will be calling this planet their grave if they don’t think of some way out, and that they should explore the planet to see what they can find. Jerry, looking a little green around the gills (don’t worry, the Drac don’t actually have gills) decides to stay behind, and Davidge heads out. Along the way he discovers traces of humanity and has some faith that they might actually get off of this rock, even though some of the things he finds lead him to believe that the planet has been visited by Scavengers, who use Dracs as slaves to mine precious resources from planets while the Terran Empire turns a blind eye. After all of his time spent with Jerry, this perturbs him, but he presses back to camp to tell the Drac of his findings. However, upon his return to their shelter, he discovers something truly shocking.

In the second half of the film, Davidge is a different man. His hatred for all Dracs has been tempered by his time here on the planet. So what happens next? Does he ever get off of this planet? What of Jerry and Zammis? You’re just going to have to go DRAC to the future and find out yourself.