Director: Fernando Colomo
Writers: Fernando Colomo and Andreu Martín from a story by Andreu Martín and Miguel Ángel Nieto
From: Sci-Fi Invastion (the last one!)
An alien spaceship visits a medieval land and is mistaken for a dragon.
The movie stars Klaus Kinski and Harvey Keitel. It’s everything I can do to not write this whole post in a Werner Herzog voice.
Opens with a scroll invoking alchemy and the pursuit of “The Secret of Secrets.” Then we cut to Kinski, the alchemist, calling for an angel to arrive and show him said Secret of Secrets. What luck, an alien spaceship passes overhead right at that moment! Many people see it and the story of its passing evolves into that of a dragon harrying the countryside. The people refuse to pay their taxes unless the count and his knights (led by Keitel) do something about the dragon.
Within the castle, there’s a powerplay being orchestrated by the priest who resents Kinski’s presence and closeness to the Count. Likewise, Keitel is angling to be made a knight and marry the Count’s daughter. The princess is chafing against her father’s overprotectiveness and keeps trying to sneak out to experience the world. Now you have all the background.
The princess sneaks out, is captured by the spaceship, and then returns in a catatonic state. Kinski brings her out of it and gets her story about being inside the vessel and falling in love with the man piloting it. Kinski goes to where the ship is and is given a crystal ball (a computer for all intents and purposes) that has instructions on how to make the elixir of immortality.
The alien comes to the castle, leaves with the princess, and the Count promises her hand and half his land to whoever saves her. Kinski manufactures the elixir, but the priest and Keitel have organized a coup inside the castle and kidnap him. They all go to the ship where Keitel challenges the alien to a duel for the princess’ hand. She wants the alien to accept to prove his love, but he instead lets her leave. The ship flies off and the group head back to the castle.
On the way, the alien arrives with a horse and weapons to face Keitel. They fight, but Keitel removes the alien’s spacesuit by using a code he learned from the crystal. The suit transports onto Keitel’s body and the alien dies. Keitel and the priest return to the ship hoping to seize control of it, but it closes up once they board and flies into space. Kinski gives the little of the elixir that he has to the alien which resurrects him and allows him to breathe Earth air. The three return to the castle, the alien periodically manifests a halo causing him to be seen as a saint, and he’s given the princess’ hand and half the country. Meanwhile, Keitel and the priest are flying through space headed to parts unknown. THE END
So everything in the movie is said in Ye Olde English which gives the piece a strange, goofy tone. This isn’t helped by the fact that, in terms of content, it feels like the movie is trying to be a comedy, like it’s aping Monty Python and the Holy Grail except with one central plot. Even worse, Keitel can’t pull off the accent. He sounds like he’s trying to cover up a Brooklyn accent, like Stallone moonlighting at Medieval Times.
The comic effect is problematic because, in terms of production, the movie feels like it’s trying to be serious, like it wants to be a good, sincere fantasy movie that’s maybe even making a political statement. The priest is mean-spirited and conniving, ranting to Keitel at the end about how difficult it will be to convince a whole new group of people to give up part of their income for no reason whatsoever. I have no beef with religious criticism, but I don’t quite see how it factors into your alien and dragon movie.
Beyond the religious angle, I had the sense that the movie was trying to satirize chivalry and medieval governance, which, so? Golly, you really stuck it to those 14th-century monarchists. Since I could never put my finger on what the movie was trying to do, I never really got engaged by it.
None of this, by the way, was helped by the fact that the alien communicated telepathically so he never speaks. He only gives goggling, fish-eyed stares at everyone. Imagine Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, except mute. It wasn’t fun.
Which is unfortunate. I was excited when I saw the cast list and the basic plot synopsis. I think it’s a neat idea, a particularly good one for a D&D game. People in the region start spreading stories about a dragon and a strange magician menacing their lands, but it turns out to be an alien here for its own inscrutable purposes. Is it exploring, taking samples, planning an invasion? How do the characters find out about it, encounter it, react to it? What are the alien’s powers—does it have its own magic, psychic abilities, high technology? You can do a lot with the idea. This movie, I think, wanted to, but didn’t pull it off. I’d recommend skipping it. There is some fun to be had riffing it, but because it seems to be trying to be funny on its own, you’d be spending a lot of time noting how jokes fall flat.
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