I’ve wanted to see this one for a long time.
Just not quite enough to go out and actually watch it.
It seemed like a big deal at the time: it was the highest rated movie ever shown on the Sci Fi Network (still correctly spelled), and even beat out the Dune miniseries which ran the year before.
And, what’s more impressive, it accomplished this entirely as the result of an ad campaign on the Sci Fi Network.
I can still remember just how impressive this film seemed at the time (not that I’m certain I saw any of the TV ads), thanks to its iconic image of what looks like a tornado frozen in stone, hovering above the Earth. It appears to be made of stone, or perhaps some sort of crystalline substance, and we all know that something the size of an upside down mountain isn’t supposed to be floating in midair.
The plot itself is best described as “familiar”: a mysterious four-million year old structure thrusts itself up out of the Earth in the remote wastes of Bhutan, and the U.S. sends in the usual team deployed in these circumstances: a whole bunch of soldiers…and two scientists.
I guess they had extra seats on the plane.
Now we’ve all seen 2001 (and Quatermass and the Pit…), so we already know that the thing was sent here by aliens to speed up our biological development.
But, let’s face it, it’s hard to come up with a completely original science fiction idea any more, and it makes a lot more sense these days to judge science fiction by how well it uses it ideas, rather than on its mere novelty.
The basic approach here is one that starts with the background politics, gives us a quick intro to our hero (although, oddly, one which does not explore his background or basic skill set, which we are eventually told about in a throwaway aside), and then follows the scientific investigation into the “Torus”, while the Chinese army draws closer and threatens to seize the strange artifact.
Now I have to admit that I’m puzzled by the name “Torus”: supposedly the local inhabitants (of Bhutan, remember) picked the name, but it is a Latin-derived word. It seems even more confusing when you look at this thing and think that it doesn’t look like a donut, which is perhaps what most of us think of when we hear the word. However, in botany, it also refers to the structure on a flowering plant which contains the ovaries and connects them to the main stem.
And, I’ll admit the Torus does sort of look like one of those.
I am not, however, puzzled by the presence of James Hong, who gets one of the best moments in the film in a very funny scene involving noodles. And a fortune cookie.
Not that I think you’d be allowed to do it in a movie these days.
I think I also need to comment about the ending here, although hopefully in a spoiler-free sort of way: a lot of viewers find it a bit disappointing, even anti-climactic. While I can understand that — particularly for those looking for a big shoot-em-up ending with lots of action and effects and maybe an alien or two thrown in — it is an ending that answers most of the major questions, while still leaving a lot about the Torus shrouded in deep mystery, before stinging us with one more last minute revelation that raises all sorts of uncomfortable possibilities. I find it on the whole quite satisfying, and it is hard to imagine a better resolution that would have presented their ideas and themes as clearly.
Now I’ll confess that I’m not a big fan of the “aliens as god” theme but it is well presented, and the film makes good use of its mostly familiar (from the Sci Fi Network) TV grade cast — and, of course, the usual fading older star, Ryan O’Neal. They obviously put a bit of care into this one and it looks quite good, particularly when it dwells on that iconic image of the Torus. I’m not sure that the interior is really impressive enough, although it is suitably alien and inexplicable, something we’d think was entirely natural if it weren’t in a giant stone tornado levitating above Bhutan. Nor do we ever get much of a feel for how the central control room ties in with the rest of the structure.
If it is even inside the Torus and not in some other non-real space.
On the whole I liked this one, as a far better than average TV movie. I’m not sure the Dune miniseries wasn’t better, but it’s still a pretty good way to spend an hour and a half.
It does seem a shame, though, that Sci Fi didn’t continue to make films this good, rather than their endless series of cheap knock-offs and creature-of-the-week features. It’s a nice change to find a reasonably intelligent science fiction film that was made for television.
But it shouldn’t be.
Not if they’d tried…
rivets on the poster 