Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Encyclopedia
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone is a 1983 pulp, action-comedy, science fiction
film. The movie stars Peter Strauss
, Molly Ringwald
, Ernie Hudson
, Andrea Marcovicci
, and Michael Ironside
. The film's executive producer was Ivan Reitman
, and it was directed by Lamont Johnson
. The film had an adventurous music score composed by Elmer Bernstein
.
When the movie came out in theaters, parts of it were shown in 3-D
and the film became part of the 3-D movie revival craze of the early 1980s.
The movie is about a bounty hunter who goes on a mission to rescue three women stranded on a brutal planet and meets a vagrant teenage girl along the way.
. The only apparent survivors are three beautiful women – Nova (Cali Timmins
), Reena (Aleisa Shirley), and Meagan (Deborah Pratt
) – who get away in an escape pod
and land on the nearest habitable planet. There, they are quickly accosted by the hostile natives and taken aboard a sail-driven vehicle resembling a pirate ship on rails.
In space, an alert goes out for the safe return of the women with a reward of 3,000 "mega-credits". A small time salvage operator named Wolff (Peter Strauss
) intercepts the message and heads to the planet. Joining him is his female engineer Chalmers (Andrea Marcovicci
), who learns the planet – called Terra XI – is a failed colony that fell victim to a deadly plague and civil warfare. Wolff risks the dangers believing the reward will solve his debt problems.
After landing on the barren world, Wolff and Chalmers set out in a 4-wheel drive vehicle called the "Scrambler". Soon, they join a battle in progress between a group of marauders (called the "Zoners") and a band of nomads (the "Scavs"). The Zoners take the women before Wolff can stop them and fly away on jet-powered hang-gliders. Wolff learns from the Scavs that the women were taken into "The Zone" which is ruled by "Overdog" – their sworn enemy. Returning to the Scrambler, Wolff finds Chalmers has been "killed". However, it is revealed she is really an android. Wolff continues on alone, but soon catches a teenage Scav named Nikki (Molly Ringwald
) trying to steal his Scrambler. She convinces Wolff that he needs a tracker if he is to survive The Zone and Wolff reluctantly takes her lead.
In the meantime, the three women are taken before "The Chemist" (Hrant Alianak
), the chief henchman of Overdog who administers pacifying drugs to the girls and prepares them for Overdog's pleasure.
Elsewhere, Wolff and Nikki make camp, but soon come under attack by a strange plow-like vehicle. Wolff manages to disable the machine and learns the driver is a former military acquaintance of his – a soldier named Washington (Ernie Hudson
), who reveals he too has come to rescue the women. His only problem is that he crashed his ship and has no way off world. Wolff refuses to help his rival and leaves him to fend for himself.
Back in The Zone, the women are taken to see the Overdog (Michael Ironside
), who is revealed to be a hideous cyborg
, almost entirely machine, with two metal claws for hands.
Still led by Nikki, Wolff gets into more predicaments – from being attacked by mutated blob-like beings, to strange mermaid-like women and their giant water dragon. He even loses his trusty Scrambler and is forced to continue on foot. Eventually, they are found by Washington and Wolff finds the situation reversed as he now begs his rival for help. Washington assists, but only if Wolff cuts him in 50/50 on the reward.
Wolff and Washington team up and sneak into Overdog's fortress where they find the Zoners entertained by captured prisoners forced to run through a deadly maze of lethal obstacles, hazards and traps. Wolff spots the women being held in a cage and forms a rescue plan, but a bored Nikki (who was left out of the rescue for her safety) decides to snoop around. She is captured and sent into the maze. Wolff spots Nikki in the maze and tries to rescue her, but she uses her prowess to reach the end where Overdog congratulates her and drags her back to his lair. There, she is hooked to a machine that slowly drains her life energy. The energy in turn recharges Overdog. Wolff comes to the rescue and jabs a sparking power cable into one of Overdog's claws. The power feedback fries Overdog and thus causes cascading blowouts throughout the entire fortress.
As the complex explodes, the three heroes, and the three rescued women, manage to get away. In the end, Wolff invites Nikki to stay with him and she agrees since they made good partners.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
film. The movie stars Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...
, Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald
Molly Kathleen Ringwald is an American actress, singer and dancer. Having appeared in the John Hughes movies Sixteen Candles , The Breakfast Club , and Pretty in Pink , Ringwald has been frequently named the greatest teen star of all time...
, Ernie Hudson
Ernie Hudson
Ernest Lee "Ernie" Hudson is an American actor known for his roles as Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters film series, Sergeant Albrecht in The Crow, and Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's Oz.-Early life:...
, Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
, and Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
. The film's executive producer was Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman, OC is a Canadian film producer and director. He is known for the comedies he has directed and produced, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.He is the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 2000.-Early life:...
, and it was directed by Lamont Johnson
Lamont Johnson
Lamont Johnson was an American actor and film director who has appeared in and directed many television shows and movies. He won two Emmy Awards....
. The film had an adventurous music score composed by Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career which spanned fifty years, he composed music for hundreds of film and television productions...
.
When the movie came out in theaters, parts of it were shown in 3-D
3-D film
A 3-D film or S3D film is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception...
and the film became part of the 3-D movie revival craze of the early 1980s.
The movie is about a bounty hunter who goes on a mission to rescue three women stranded on a brutal planet and meets a vagrant teenage girl along the way.
Plot
Set in the 22nd century, the film opens with the destruction of a space cruise liner that collides with a meteorMETEOR
METEOR is a metric for the evaluation of machine translation output. The metric is based on the harmonic mean of unigram precision and recall, with recall weighted higher than precision...
. The only apparent survivors are three beautiful women – Nova (Cali Timmins
Cali Timmins
Carolyn "Cali" Timmins is a Canadian actress, best known for her work in the soap Ryan's Hope as Maggie Shelby, a role she played from 1983 to 1989....
), Reena (Aleisa Shirley), and Meagan (Deborah Pratt
Deborah Pratt
Deborah M. Pratt is an American actress, writer and television producer. She was a co-executive producer and a writer on the Quantum Leap TV series which was created by her then-husband, Donald Bellisario, and acted in television series including Quantum Leap, Magnum, P.I. and Airwolf...
) – who get away in an escape pod
Escape pod
An escape pod is a capsule or craft used to escape a vessel in an emergency, usually only big enough for one person. An escape ship is a larger, more complete craft also used for the same purpose...
and land on the nearest habitable planet. There, they are quickly accosted by the hostile natives and taken aboard a sail-driven vehicle resembling a pirate ship on rails.
In space, an alert goes out for the safe return of the women with a reward of 3,000 "mega-credits". A small time salvage operator named Wolff (Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss
Peter Strauss is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s.-Personal life:...
) intercepts the message and heads to the planet. Joining him is his female engineer Chalmers (Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Marcovicci
Andrea Louisa Marcovicci is an American actress and singer.- Biography :Marcovicci was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Helen , a singer, and Eugen Marcovicci, a physician and internist of Romanian descent. In her teens, she decided that she wanted to be a singer, but instead...
), who learns the planet – called Terra XI – is a failed colony that fell victim to a deadly plague and civil warfare. Wolff risks the dangers believing the reward will solve his debt problems.
After landing on the barren world, Wolff and Chalmers set out in a 4-wheel drive vehicle called the "Scrambler". Soon, they join a battle in progress between a group of marauders (called the "Zoners") and a band of nomads (the "Scavs"). The Zoners take the women before Wolff can stop them and fly away on jet-powered hang-gliders. Wolff learns from the Scavs that the women were taken into "The Zone" which is ruled by "Overdog" – their sworn enemy. Returning to the Scrambler, Wolff finds Chalmers has been "killed". However, it is revealed she is really an android. Wolff continues on alone, but soon catches a teenage Scav named Nikki (Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald
Molly Kathleen Ringwald is an American actress, singer and dancer. Having appeared in the John Hughes movies Sixteen Candles , The Breakfast Club , and Pretty in Pink , Ringwald has been frequently named the greatest teen star of all time...
) trying to steal his Scrambler. She convinces Wolff that he needs a tracker if he is to survive The Zone and Wolff reluctantly takes her lead.
In the meantime, the three women are taken before "The Chemist" (Hrant Alianak
Hrant Alianak
Hrant Alianak , also billed as Harant Alianak or Grant Aljanak, is an Armenian-Canadian actor and playwright. In 1988 he was nominated for the Genie Award "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role" for his role in the 1987 film Family Viewing. He played Pete in the 1995 movie with Adam...
), the chief henchman of Overdog who administers pacifying drugs to the girls and prepares them for Overdog's pleasure.
Elsewhere, Wolff and Nikki make camp, but soon come under attack by a strange plow-like vehicle. Wolff manages to disable the machine and learns the driver is a former military acquaintance of his – a soldier named Washington (Ernie Hudson
Ernie Hudson
Ernest Lee "Ernie" Hudson is an American actor known for his roles as Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters film series, Sergeant Albrecht in The Crow, and Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's Oz.-Early life:...
), who reveals he too has come to rescue the women. His only problem is that he crashed his ship and has no way off world. Wolff refuses to help his rival and leaves him to fend for himself.
Back in The Zone, the women are taken to see the Overdog (Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside
Michael Ironside is a Canadian-born actor. He has also worked as a voice actor, producer, film director, and screenwriter in movie and television series in various Canadian and American productions. He is best known for playing villains and "tough guy" heroes, though he has also portrayed...
), who is revealed to be a hideous cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
, almost entirely machine, with two metal claws for hands.
Still led by Nikki, Wolff gets into more predicaments – from being attacked by mutated blob-like beings, to strange mermaid-like women and their giant water dragon. He even loses his trusty Scrambler and is forced to continue on foot. Eventually, they are found by Washington and Wolff finds the situation reversed as he now begs his rival for help. Washington assists, but only if Wolff cuts him in 50/50 on the reward.
Wolff and Washington team up and sneak into Overdog's fortress where they find the Zoners entertained by captured prisoners forced to run through a deadly maze of lethal obstacles, hazards and traps. Wolff spots the women being held in a cage and forms a rescue plan, but a bored Nikki (who was left out of the rescue for her safety) decides to snoop around. She is captured and sent into the maze. Wolff spots Nikki in the maze and tries to rescue her, but she uses her prowess to reach the end where Overdog congratulates her and drags her back to his lair. There, she is hooked to a machine that slowly drains her life energy. The energy in turn recharges Overdog. Wolff comes to the rescue and jabs a sparking power cable into one of Overdog's claws. The power feedback fries Overdog and thus causes cascading blowouts throughout the entire fortress.
As the complex explodes, the three heroes, and the three rescued women, manage to get away. In the end, Wolff invites Nikki to stay with him and she agrees since they made good partners.