SPACE TRUCKERS

SPACE TRUCKERS (vt. STAR TRUCKERS). Stuart Gordon, dir., co-story. USA/Ireland: Pachyderm Production (prod. and dist.) et al., 1997. Gordon, Ted Mann, (Peter Newman?), script. HBO-TV, Jan. 1999. Dennis Hopper, Stephen Dorff, Debi Mazar, Charles Dance, Goerge Wendt, Barbara Crampton, featured players.

Independent production (complexly financed) intended and formatted for theatrical release, finally appearing on HBO. "Set in 2196, the film stars Dennis Hopper . . . as John Canyon, a blue-collar deep-space trucker who is coerced into making a covert run to Earth," according to Dennis Fischer in previews of the film, Cinefantastique 27.8 (April 1996): 6; also Cinefantastique 27.11-12 (July 1996): 16-17. See Clockworks index for Terran trucks; cf. and contrast the space truck in ST with the Nostromo space tug in ALIEN (film). Note also Captain Macanudo's prosthetics. Rev. by Frederick C. Szebin puts it that the secret shipment "turns out to be the bio-mechanical [H. R.] Geiger-inspired super killing machines created by scientist Macanudo (Dance)" whose own creation "turned against him" and who "rebuilt himself into a cyborg space pirate with a crew that does everything pirates do except say 'Arrg'!" (Cinefantastique 31.5 [June 1999]: 59).

[category: drama]]