After "Star Wars", Harrison Ford went on to make a lot of good movies and some ok ones. Mark Hammil's career descent is legendary amongst b-movie lovers ("Time Runner", "The Guyver", "LaserHawk"). While Carrie Fisher has been in some notable movies ("Blues Brothers") the fact that she was in this little 1987 sci-fi flick seems to have escaped most people, especially b-movie and sci-fi films.
The movie is
The Time Guardian, an apparently Australian production from 1987, which also has Dean Stockwell in a small role. Interestingly, this movie was co-wrote by Brian Hannant, whose short list of writing credits includes "The Road Warrior". What is interesting about that is that the writing and story
in this movie are not anywhere in the vicinity of the quality of that film.
Other than Fisher and Stockwell I didn't really recognize anyone else in the cast, although a quick trip through IMDB revealed that most of the actors had been in quite a few other movies, but since I didn't reconginze many of the movie titles, I suspect they were also Aussie productions that never made it to these shores. (Although the main character, 'Ballard', was played by Tom Burnlinson, who also played in "Flesh & Blood", which I've seen, with Rutger Hauer, Brion James, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, so I suppose there's some 'six degress of seperation..' trivia there).
OK, so...where's our story? I really wish I knew. There are so many story elements thrown in here that I really suspect the two writers wrote their parts of the story independently, and then the two directors filmed whichever parts the felt like, and then the editor sorta pieced together something as coherent as possible.
At some point in the future, mankind has been pretty much wiped out and all the known survivors live in one city. This city is constantly under attack from some alien cyborg creatures called Jan-Diki. The city has an unsual capability to travel through time, and the Jan-Diki can follow them. So, "Tanelorn"-like, the city is constanly travelling through time, under attack from the evil hordes outside who want the city. Why they want to capture the city is rally never explained, I guess it's just what they do. Unlike Tanelorn, however, most of the inhabitants of this city spend most of their type quabbling, bickering, and playing one-ups-manship games against each other. Not exactly a good survival tactic when your race faces near constant extinction
For some reason, the city leaders decide that they need to go *way* back in history, to about...1988 (conveniently close to when the movie was filmed, so the production costs will drop). The local expert on 20th century culture is "Petra" (Carrie Fisher) so she goes along for the ride with Ballard as some sort of 'advance scout' to prepare for the arrival of the city. Another plot point that is made and then forgotten is that Petra did something that Ballard didn't like in combat (never really clear what, althogh tit was on-screen; much of the cinematography is very dark, and the action pretty jumbled) So Ballard's against her coming along, although the animosity never really comes up again.
They (Petra and Ballard) get to 1988 and find the Jan-Diki have already started arriving as well. The do manage to destroy the Jan-Diki machanism of getting back in time, but not before several have made it.
Most of the rest of the movie plays out fairly predictably. Ballard befriends a cute local archeologist (Annie). They run afoul of the local law because of a series of murders caused by the Jan-Diki but blamed on out two heroes. (Petra is injured and stashed out of town in hiding) They manage to get things setup for the arrival of the time travelling city while the Jan-Diki mass and attack the local town, looking for Ballard whom, along with Annie, has been jailed by the local law.
The city arrives, the Jan-Diki attack, and Ballard's mentor, wounded in the fight, tells Ballard of a secret way to defeat the Jan-Diki using technology from the time-travelling device the city uses, which he does, and everybody lives happily ever after as the city fades off into the moonlight (and yes, Dallard and Annie fall in love)
Now! The problem(s) with this movie. Sheesh. I've rarely seen a movie where so many ideas came up and were dropped. The basic premise of a time-travelling city of the last survivors of the human race fighting for their existance has some real potential. The problem is that the story never really develops it out well. The constant fighting between various factions of leadership of the city is fairly implausible, and anyway, it never really effects the story. Again, the conflict between Petra and Ballard, reason being never too clear in the first place, is fairly quickly dropped. When Annie first appears in outr movie, she is looking at some ancient rock paintings of a futuristic city and when Ballard shows up, she shows him the pictures. No where was it ever implied that the city had been far enough in the past for aborigines to see it, nor do there seem to be plans to. The total size of the Jan-Diki population seems to be about...30. After a brief firefight at the end, it seems like the conflict is at an end. Ballard's mentor (forgot his name, reminded me of the old teacher in "Remo Williams") manages to infer that they can get some sort of power from the time-travel 'stream' that seems to run through part of the city. So Ballard goes down, looks at this energy stream (think 'warp core' :)...and bursts out of the city with some weird raygun with which he mowes down the Jan-Diki. huh? Where did *that* thing come from?!? Ballard and Petra wear special arm bands which...don't seem to do anything. Petra loans hers to Annie when they head to town. They don't do anything with them. When they are caught by the police. the police start playing around with them, against Ballard's warning. Somehow, the Jan-Diki are then alerted to the presence of Ballard (whom they call "The Time Guardian", ok, now we have our title), and they come to assult the town looking for him. At one point, Ballard tells the sherrif to give him back his arm-band and maybe they'll survive. However, when Ballard gets back his arm band...he puts it on his arm ...and does nothing, preferring to use an Uzi to try to stop the Jan-Diki who have tracked him to the jail. Why Ballard is called "The Time Guardian" and what he does in that role is never explained. *Much* of this movie is never explained.
If you happen to see this and you say to yourself "ah...foreshadowing! I'll have to remember this" along the way, chances are you are wrong.
In conclusion:
Um, the movie wasn't really painful (damning with faint praise). This movie would go over well with those who enjoy things like "A.P.E.X." or "X-29A Prototype" in that the lighting is bad, the plot makes no sense, and you have a bunch of cyborgs loose trying to kill our heroes, whi manage to not be annoying along the way. The main actors do a decent job. I'm not sure how Stockwell and Fisher got involved in this. Dean Stockwell has been in a wide variety of stuff but Carrie Fisher has seemed to avoid having her career dragged down to the b-movie sci-fi gutter that Mark Hammil has, so this seemed a bit out of character for her. Their parts in the movie were also pretty minor and could've been carried by just about any decent actor, allthough kudos that the video box did not try to exploit their names.
If you like low budget sci with time travel, cyborgs, an interesting premise, poor lighting and incomprehensible plot points, this one's for you
Post Edited (08-18-03 12:15)
