Earth II

I saw Earth II as a Friday Night movie of the week back in 1971 as an eleven year old. The special effects and production design gave this film a great look, but the story charting the establishment of an independent nation on-board an orbiting space station lost me.

Forty years later, I had the chance to see it again through adult eyes. Surprisingly, I remembered several scenes and plot points, but, the entire production was brought down by one simple fact: it's boring. The film has a lot of incident but little action. The cerebral dialog is interesting, but the performances are wooden in the extreme. Only Anthony Franciosa's opinionated character rose above the colorless performances of the rest of the cast.

While I understand this was an effort for an intelligent SF series, the lack of human drama kept that series from happening.

After setting up the cast and situation, the majority of this movie is almost entirely a bomb-defusing procedural, padded out with Mariette Hartley's dead-doll impression. (Seriously, I don't think she makes a single expression even once, despite committing a majorly emotional act mid-story. Gary Lockwood looks like he wishes he'd gone into selling life insurance instead of acting. Almost nobody seems to feel anything, and every room is devoid of personality or interest; I guess sterility seemed futuristic in 1971.

Despite this, the show clearly had some real intelligence going into it, and actually made televised political debates interesting by adding subtext commentary. Less bomb defusion and warmer characters could have made this a minor classic.

This is a very rare made for TV movie with a great story and excellent special effects. The only thing that might be considered wrong about this film is that even though it is supposedly set in the future, this film is now very much dated. This film was made during the height of the Cold War and at a time relations between The U.S., the then Soviet Union and China were not very good. In fact, the U.S. is almost looked at as a pawn in the struggle between the other two super powers. However, this film does provide a good glimpse at the future and how space travel could eventually be routine and the possibilities of global cooperation in outer space.

I saw this TV-movie when it aired in 1971. I liked it then and saw it a few times in syndication. Now I own it on DVD.

The premise is that an orbiting space station is created by the United States and then is set up as an independent nation named Earth II. This nation is completely democratic, with a council that executes policies for the station. If someone disagree, they can challenge that decision and all the citizens can vote.

A situation occurs where the "no weapons" policy is challenged. A nuclear bomb is orbit around Earth, and passes close to the station on every orbit. The citizens have to make a choice whether to interfere with the bomb, in order to protect themselves and Earth.

The movie stars Gary Lockwood of "2001: A Space Odyssey" fame, Hari Rhodes and Scott Hylands. In a supporting role is Gary Merrill. Since this was probably a pilot, the guest cast included Tony Franciosa and Mariette Hartley.

While the film is dated and some of the science not so accurate, it is still very well done and for science fiction fans, should be seen.

One complaint is that there are two excellent actors playing Chinese representatives. These are Soon-Tek Oh and James Hong. They are uncredited, which is unfortunate.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Tom Gries; Screenplay and Produced by Allan Balter and William Read Woodfield for MGM release, telecast by ABC-TV. Photography by Michel Hugo; Editing directed by Buddy Small and executed by Henry Berman; Music by Lalo Schifrin; Special Visual Effects by J. McMillan Johnson;Technical Advisor: R. Buckminster Fuller. Starring: Gary Lockwood, Tony Franciosa, Mariette Hartley, Scott Hylands, Gary Merrill, Hari Rhodes, Inga Swenson, Edgar Bell, Lew Ayres, Bart Burns, John Carter, Diana Webster and James Hong.

Straight sci-fi extrapolation, made with NASA cooperation, extensively uses "2001: A Space Odyssey" techniques (especially docking in space seen externally and internally with models) in telling a story of a space station/"nation" orbiting Earth and facing nuclear bomb difficulties with Red China. Direction is good but story is too straightforwardly told, with soap opera lapses, to be a current theatrical release. Slipups: in the first reel a key plot feature assumes that Red China is not in the UN. Presence of numerous guest stars and a minor episode plot indicate that this is a TV pilot.