First Encounter
THE STORY: Hey, when you rent a cheap direct to video space movie what do you expect? when the movie is entitled "First Encounter" do you expect to have earthlings meet aliens and an adventure? Maybe an Alien rip-off of some kind? Sure ya do! We all do! What if the video box even says that its a Roddy Piper Movie? you expect kick ass fight scenes don't you? Well, like Flav-R Flave said "Don't believe the Hype!" This movie is largely a boring affair with a generous amount of teasing flesh shown. well, not all that generous...that's no full female nudity....not even a decent breast shot....but the movie goes out of its way to show off female bodies, probably to keep adolescent boys happy. Well, not that happy. Almost any other flick would have more "booty-shots" to keep them happy. Too bad this movie didn't have a story good enough to keep the Inferno happy.
An alien ship has been detected in space near our solar system. Earth's space forces send the closest ship, the Gallant Fox to investigate. The fox is commanded by Captain Ramsey Travis. Most of the crew it seems are females...at least most of the ones that get any screen time. The only guys that matter in the whole thing are the captain, the Doctor (sounds almost like star trek, huh) and Lt. Gantz.
When they catch up to the alien ship the first officer, Lopez, Lt. Gantz and Lt. Rebecca Poole are sent aboard. Then the movie goes into padding time. I mean, nothing really interesting happens. Yeah, there are cutaways to earth, showing the President talking about the discovery and there are many unneeded scenes showing females in various undergarments, but nothing interesting really happens. Its stupid, really. Rebecca gets stunned by an alien device....but she's okay and professes love for the doctor. The captain is boinking one of his crew. Gantz has visions of an alien killing him....oh, yeah, the aliens...
Well, we don't see them all that much. The aliens are all in suspended animation. The crew of the Gallant Fox discover that the aliens have far superior technology but the "clock" that was supposed to wake them has malfunctioned. So they are all still asleep. They even discover a device that raises the IQ of whoever uses it....but NOTHING important happens with this, so they may as well have never found it.
The meat of the story, which comes far too little and too late to make this movie any good is when Captain Travis decides to fix the clock and wake the aliens after the Gallant Fox is headed away. Its the moral thing to do, he argues. Gantz is totally against this....he feels the aliens are evil. Based on a vision he had of the aliens attacking him. This vision is nebulous if it means anything at all. Which I doubt. Anyway, the Captain gets his way, but while headed away from the alien ship, it explodes! Travis says he knows it was booby trapped and he knows who did it. Using video tape surveillance he catches Rebecca Poole planting a bomb in the alien ship. But he also has a trump card to play. He knew someone would try and destroy the alien ship, so he faked a transmission of its destruction onto the viewscreen. The alien ship is in reality, intact. The alien ship sends a transmission to earth, that when first deciphered says something about a galactic federation. The news crews ask the president if its an invitation for the Earth to join. Not sure the president says he doesn't know.
The last thing we know is another alien ship emerges from hyper space and the communications officer on the Gallant Fox tells captain Travis that they have problems....
Man, what a freaking [unwrite]ing waste this movie was! First of all, they may as well have just had all the females wear nighties and prance around for the whole thing. That was the only good thing about this sorry flick....and the thing that showed me how sorry it was gonna be. Females in sexual situations within the first ten minutes....that's not good. Not good at all. Especially when there's no real plot! Nothing happens that is interesting in the least! Why show a brain boosting machine and do nothing with it? Why have this big question about what the aliens want and not even try to give it an answer? Why wait until the last 20 minutes of the film to go into the "we've got to kill them!" thing? It was a waste! A real waste! I suspect that this must have been one of Roddy Piper's first movies. He doesn't do anything really and his character isn't even seen that much. By the time Gantz (Piper) does pipe up its too late in the film to care. Don't go for this first encounter...it will stand you up.
Best Lines: "Hey you sexy commander-thang, you!"-The doctor after he tries the alien brain booster thing. I guess it not only increases your IQ but it also makes you even hornier.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.) This movie just started and already we've seen about four different women in various states of undress. this might be kinda painful.
2.) What the hell are they saying? the sound is horrible! This movie is going to suck! I can tell! Man, I'm dreading this! Only about 8 minutes into it and I want to shut it off! Female nudity and a really bad 80's disco-like soundtrack-music video scene within the first ten minutes might earn this flick a place in the flames of the pit at the get-go. Only a real kickass adventure happening can save it now, and I doubt that even Roddy Piper can help it now.
3.) I don't go minute by minute with most reviews, but with about 15 minutes into this movie I've figured out that Rode Piper is probably the best actor in it. Not that I don't like Roddy Piper, but I'm pretty certain that this movie is really really really going to suck bad.
4.) This isn't Star Trek. But it might as well be. The Ship's bridge is tiny and cramped but the crew all have their own quarters and they're spacious by comparison! Who designed this ship? A retard!? The crew have nice ass single rooms but the bridge is in a broom closet? Not to mention the crew is mostly made of gorgeous babes that the movie didn't hesitate to show half nude and having sex with the male crew members at the start! I'm not saying that women aren't suited for exploration or space travel, but these women? No freaking way. They're more suited for exploring clothing stores in Beverly Hills.
5.) When the Away team discovers the aliens in a suspended animation chamber what's the dip[unwrite] crewmember do? Start dinking around with a control panel. It blasts her. That was monumentally stupid. First off, what if you wake the aliens up? They might be pissed. Not to mention that most sane people wouldn't screw around with unknown alien technology. Just for common sense sake, I would have figured a vital control panel in a suspended animation chamber may be boobytrapped in some way. Its a sad day when a few knuckleheads off the street would probably have better sense than the crew of an interstellar exploration crew!
6.) Get the flippin' hell out of here! After Rebecca gets blasted and returns to the ship to be checked out by the crusty old doctor, we see her on the examination table in revealing red and sexy undergarments. Now, Rebecca is nice looking, and hey, I have a penis, I think she's pretty hot. So does the Doc. He makes an offhand comment on her beauty. She in turn tells him that she likes him more than a friend! What the hell is? The starship of horny high school students? Everyone is getting laid on this ship!
7.) Okaaaay....this movie obviously is hoping to get by on cheesecake alone. The story so far (45 minutes into it) is not very interesting, but we get to see a lot of skin from the female crewmembers. This became apparent during on of the segues to Earth. They show the president talking to a newswoman about the discovery of the alien ship. When the seen starts the camera starts right on the news lady's legs. Her nice, sexy legs. Not to mention that the woman is a bubblehead and has one of those "Take me, I'm easy." voices.
7.) Dagnabit! these people are really stupid! they're a danger to themselves and others! not having gained any kind of warnings from the incident with Rebecca, First Officer Lopez and another crewmember find an alien brain probe thingie. Lopez elects to try it on herself even though they aren't even sure what it is! Funk Dat! NO ONE would be that stupid! "Yeah, I'll hook my brain up to this alien device to see what it does!" What an idiot! Even though its only a cheesy movie I can scarcely believe this! How does she know its not an alien Retard-Making Machine?
NUDITY AND SEX: No real nudity, but lots of cheesecake.
HUH?: Some intrepid crew of space explorers. When Gantz, Lopez and the other chick find the aliens in suspended animation Gantz starts shouting "They're monsters! Like out of a nightmare!". Um, what would you expect them to look like? Fuzzy little ewoks? They evolved on a different freaking planet. As I said before, this isn't Star Trek! Any aliens we may find are most likely going to appear as monsters to us! (As we probably will to them!) You'd think a first contact team would know that!
The crew has a debate about whether or not to wake the aliens, let them stay in suspended animation or destroy the ship. Gantz is all for blowing their ship up because he thinks they're evil. But the Captain wants to wake them up. It seems to be a moral dilemma about what to do. Geez....its not that hard to figure out. If they're worried that the aliens might pose a threat to earth, but yet not convinced that the aliens aren't friendly why not just let the ship go on its merry way with the aliens still out cold? The engineer even says she can set their "clock" to wake them in a decade or so, so its not like they are condemning the aliens to oblivion. That's the safest course and the one I would have picked. Gantz is irrational about wanting to kill the aliens. For no other reason than to make him look like the guilty party when someone does sabotage the alien ship.
The brain booster device has little to nothing to do with the plot....if you can call it a plot.
THE TALLY: As bad as this movie is, the Inferno doesn't want to cast it into the pit. But it doesn't rate more than one devil and that's being generous! Watch it at your own risk, but remember....in space no one can hear you groan.