Before I comment on the execution of this 1994 TV movie, I'd like to say something about the unbelievably pompous sermonizing this movie does by offering this hypothetical. Suppose Captain Kirk sent an unmanned shuttle to contact a planet that had never experienced an alien contact before, and then the aliens, not having any clue what this was, then shot the shuttle down. Captain Kirk then decides this is a hostile act and decides to nuke the planet and destroy all life on it.
Now if Captain Kirk did this, you'd think he was a madman and the epitomoe of all things evil. You would not as a matter of course blame the aliens for not knowing any better. So why then I ask, does this TV-movie serve up the exact same premise to us, and then deliver a scathing indictment about how this is all humanity's fault, and that our barbarism caused this, and that ultimately, as Sander Vanocur says before Washington blows up around him, "The fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves"? That kind of thinking is not merely insulting to one's intelligence, it's just plain dumb. Yet for some reason, Hollywood has long had a fascination with this incredible cliche of how aliens are always wiser than humans and that any normal reaction of fear on the part of humans constitutes barbarism making destruction by the aliens justifiable (this after all is the very premise of "The Day The Earth Stood Still").
Now setting aside the dumb philosophy, how does this work in terms of execution? Only so-so. I can't believe anyone would have fallen for this in a minute since it should have occurred to them to merely change channels and then remember that the last time Sander Vanocur was a serious journalist was a long time ago. But then again, the people who listened to Orson Welles long ago never had the sense to do that either so I suppose that can be forgiven. The problem with this fake newscast is that we are served up the most shallow of cliched characters to represent the different points of view in the scientific, military and political communities and you can't take them seriously for a second. This is always the greatest problem with any "fake newscast" style of drama. They spend so much time trying to make the newscasting sound authentic that in the end they forget all about trying to make the characters themselves have the ring of authenticity.
As mindless entertainment this film has its merits but for chilling authenticity in a fake newscast, try to find Buffalo radio station WKBW's 1971 update of the War Of The Worlds. THAT was a drama that knew how to push all the right buttons and come off with an air of authenticity.
