Category Archives: Beyond Earth

Saturn 3 (1980) | Stanley Donen



In the future, Earth is a polluted wasteland. People have resorted to drugs and promiscuity while relying on off-world food production systems for salvation. Research chemists Major Adam (Kirk Douglas), his young assistant/lover Alex (Farrah Fawcett), and their dog Sally are the sole residents of the subterranean Experimental Food Research Station on Saturn’s third moon, Titan. Unable to maintain quota for the last three years, Earth decides to dispatch another scientist to help them meet Earth’s food needs.

That scientist is a mentally unstable opportunist, Captain Benson (Harvey Keitel), a flunky from astronaut school who usurped the pilot position after killing the intended dispatch, Captain James. While Saturn 3 goes into a 22-day blackout period in the eclipse, Capt. Benson’s puts together the first of a new line of “demigod series” helper robots, Hector.  Hector’s memory utilizes unprogrammed human brain tissue and receives its programming via a connection to an electric probe in Benson’s head. Unfortunately, Hector also assumes the same traits of Benson, a flawed, murderous, lustful individual who secretly desires to take over the lab and use Alex for his pleasure. Hector has no such secret, proceeding to terrorize all three of the humans in his quest for dominance.

Stanley Donen directs from a Martin Amis script, based on a story by John Barry.


Outland (1981) | Peter Hyams



Sometime in the future, humans establish a mining operation on Io, a volcanic moon orbiting Jupiter, a week’s distance from the nearest space station. The mining base is currently shattering records for productivity.  Sean Connery is William T. O’Niel (Sean Connery), in his second week of a one-year stint as the federal district marshal of this isolated space community. “Work hard, play hard” is the motto of the mining operation’s general manager, Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle), who touts production numbers as proof his philosophy works. The marshal is alarmed by the increasing rash of suicides and violent outbursts among the miners. No autopsies are ordered and the bodies are loaded on departing shuttles, disposed of through a ‘burial in space’.

The marshal’s wife (Kika Markham) says she’ll leave him if he continues his new assignment, so that their young son, who has been shuttled around in space all of his life, can experience a normal life on Earth. No one else, not even his deputies, wants to rock the boat to get to the reason there are so many suicides. By monitoring Sheppard’s goons, the marshal discovers that the company is selling the workers an amphetamine-like synthetic narcotic that produces hyperactivity. This exponentially increases their productivity, each of them averaging the sum of doing fourteen hours’ worth of work during a six-hour shift. This is great for their bonuses, but the drug carries a nasty side effect for some of them, bouts of severe psychosis after nearly a year of taking the drug. When the marshal decides this can’t continue, the company will do anything to assure he’s out of the way so their gravy train keeps rolling along. Peter Hyams directs from his screenplay.


Total Recall (1990) | Paul Verhoeven



Set on Earth of the future, where we’ve already mastered the ability for space travel to through the solar system, and even set up colonies on Mars, Total Recall surrounds a lowly construction worker named Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who has recently been plagued by a recurring dream of being on Mars.  His doting wife (Sharon Stone) tells Doug it’s just a dream, but there’s something in the events of the dreams that makes him curious to find out more about the red planet.  Seeing an advertisement for a company called Rekall, an establishment that will implant the memory of vacation into the mind in vivid and perfect detail, Doug decides to choose the “secret agent” package set on Mars. 

No sooner than the implanted thoughts enter his head, Doug finds himself in what he perceives to be a real-life espionage drama involving himself and his role in a Martian underground society of spies, all seeking to end the stranglehold of a megalomaniac corporate businessman named Cohaagen (Ronny Cox).  Fighting for his life, Doug makes his way to Mars to try to uncover the secret to who he really is, but not everything is what it seems to be, both on Mars and in his mind.

Paul Verhoeven directs.