Awesome Movie

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

My main gripe is that the logging crew are portrayed as 1990s types, rather than rural 1970s people. If you look at the photos of the actual people from Travis Walton's website, they don't look at all like their portrayals in the movie. The acting was good, with strong emotional demonstrations by the logging crew; without that, this movie would have been really weak. The only star I recognized was James Garner, whose presence added greatly to the movie's credibility (ironically, his character was the main skeptic). The Walton encounter occurred before the wave of interest in UFOs that arose in the 1980s, following the publication of Shirley MacLaine's "Out on a Limb" in 1983, and especially the broadcast of the TV movie in 1987. It also preceded "Close Encounters" by two years; perhaps it inspired some elements of the movie? While there was considerable interest in the press about UFOs in the 1950s, plus some movies, etc., there was little non-fiction about abductions until decades later. So Walton's account would not have been "inspired" by other descriptions. However, it also seems to vary from the more common accounts of abductions. If people independently describe similar details, this strengthens their credibility. Without reading the book, there is not enough detail in this movie to make any judgment about the credibility of Walton's account. Aside from the movie special effects re-enactment, there is no actual talk from Walton describing in his own words what happened. There is a whole lot missing, like how he got out of the UFO and wound up naked at a cross- roads in the rain.It is interesting to see how the townsfolk reacted. Perhaps the strongest scene in the movie was when Mike Rogers confronted the townsfolk in the church. I'm not sure how accurate that all was, this being a Hollywood movie. As to motive, so-called skeptics are too quick to accuse people like Walton of seeking publicity with made up stories. I can't believe Walton would make up a story like this back in the 1970s, especially in a small town, etc. Most abductees don't want to talk about these things publicly. But Walton's five-day disappearance begged that question. However, the folks making the movie apparently wanted to cash in on the wave of interest in UFOs, post-MacLaine. I think the movie presents the events in a fairly reasonable fashion, though, again, I'm not sure how accurate it is. But I would not say it is a particularly realistic presentation of the abduction experience compared to the more common, mainstream accounts. I see from the discussion on IMDb that Walton now believes the aliens were not as malevolent as he thought, initially, and perhaps were trying to help him. This makes sense. As to the so-called theory that UFO sightings are more common in rural areas, nonsense. UFOs have been seen in and around New York City, including along the Grand Central Parkway and hovering over the New Jersey Palisades, directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan. And then there was the sighting from the Brooklyn Bridge of a woman being abducted from her apartment. Perhaps New Yorkers are just a bit more blasé about oddities. While rummaging through my brain for other similar accounts, I started to remember old images and descriptions like those in the film of the cavernous area. The trouble is, I don't remember the specifics. It is possible I am just remembering having seen the movie years ago on VHS, or having read the book. The irony is there is so much stuff out about UFOs now, that anyone now would have difficulty telling whether it was a bad dream inspired by some movie or book or TV show, and anyone claiming to have had an encounter might face similar questions. On the other hand, there are now thousands of people describing UFO encounters, often with common threads, all over the world, including Presidents, governors, high ranking military brass, and scientists. This, in retrospect, probably vindicates Walton's account. But while missing time is common, it is very rare to show up days later, naked. And most people simply don't remember their abduction. How Walton recalled it is not made clear in the movie -- did the doctor put him into hypnosis? There would probably be many more descriptions of UFO encounters, but most people who know keep their mouths shut. Why? Just look at this film, and you will see why.The bottom line: While this movie is reasonably interesting, compared to other fiction and non-fiction movies about UFOs, it comes across as a bit weak and not terribly enlightening.

Robert Lieberman directed this based on fact account of logger Travis Walton(played by D.B. Sweeny) who is on a job with other loggers(played by Robert Patrick, Henry Thomas, among others) who mysteriously disappears in the forest after seeing a light from the sky, only to turn up days later dazed and confused, eventually telling a tale of alien abduction aboard a spaceship, and strange experiments conducted on him. The sheriff(played by James Garner) is skeptical, but Travis never recants or changes his story... Though based on Walton's book, film apparently embellished the story for dramatic purposes, which is ironic because dramatically it falls flat, only coming to life during the UFO sequence, which doesn't comprise enough of the film.

The centerpiece of this movie, the ten to fifteen minutes of Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney) inside the UFO, is so fantastic that it's a crushing disappointment that the rest of the film is completely worthless. Most of the film is made up of endless scenes of the other five guys who were in Walton's logging crew either bitching at each other or loudly declaring their innocence. Who cares about these guys? But, seriously, how friggin' horrifying is that sequence with the aliens? Gorgeously shot and directed, with great art direction and excellent special effects and puppetry. Robert Patrick and James Garner also co-star, but don't really need to be there at all.

I must have gone thru Netflix sci-fi section for tens of times and never really finding anything worthwhile to watch. I've either seen them all or the rest just don't light a spark. I've looked at this title for many many times without even thinking of watching it, I've never heard of it and the cover looked a tad cheap.Yesterday I noticed it's got a pretty nice cast, big names in it and I'm quite fond of 90's flicks at the moment.. why not give it a go. I was dragged into it quite quick, very interesting, well made beginning. The movie went on and I was totally hooked and I found myself thinking "why haven't I heard of this movie before". I know movies, it's not often I run into an older movie that has somehow slipped my eye and still be worth looking at, but this is one of those. This really is.The movie has an interesting story, it's very (and I mean very) well acted and the direction is on par with many bigger name directors. I don't know why this guy doesn't have more movies under his resume. He seems to have been quite active on TV tho. I've never been that big a fan of Robert Patrick, but he is great in this movie. Great performance, I must say I look at this man in a completely different light from now on. DB Sweeney on the other hand was miscast in my opinion. Not that he doesn't do a good job, but he's a bit of a comedian in my eyes and a bit of a goofy one at it. In some dramatic scenes he looked a bit funny twisting his face, even tho he did quite a good job most of the time.I'm not quite sure if this movie was ever even released in Finland when it was new, it may be that it was completely overlooked. The story is something that might not appeal to a big audience tho, it's quite a lot on the drama side and the characters are 70s "regular people", not Fox Mulders or Men in Black. Anyway, despite the movie being mostly character driven drama, it's got one of the most striking alien scenes I've seen on screen, I was genuinely horrified and really not expecting anything like it. It was a bold choice from the writers and director to combine such strong drama to a more - how should I say it - mainstream appealing scene. It's a weird combo, but works like a charm here.Don't miss this.