Movies - Alien Nation

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	Movies - Alien Nation

Alien Nation is a 1988 science fiction movie written by Rockne S. O'Bannon and directed by Graham Baker. It stars James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, Terence Stamp, Kevyn Major Howard and Leslie Bevis.

The movie was made into a television series in 1989 and a book series in 1993. In the late 1990s five television movies were made as a continuation of the series.

The movie is set in 1991, three years after a flying saucer bearing enslaved aliens (the "Newcomers") has crash-landed in the Mojave Desert. Los Angeles becomes a new home for the aliens, who take Earth-like names (such as "Rudyard Kipling"). Caan plays Los Angeles police detective Matthew Sykes, who loses his partner when they try to stop two Newcomers in what appears to be a robbery of a small Newcomer-owned store. The next day Sykes' commanding officer informs his squad that they will have to work with the newly promoted Newcomer detective, Sam Francisco, played by Patinkin, and if someone doesn't volunteer to work with him the commanding officer shall choose someone. Sykes volunteers to work with Francisco, feeling that as he investigates crimes involving Newcomers he will find opportunities to also investigate his partner's death, which he is officially forbidden to do.

Sykes tells Sam that the name given him by an immigration official is embarrassing, and calls his partner George. As the pair continue to be assigned cases which mainly deal with Newcomer criminals and victims and as the cases progress, Sykes is able to learn to appreciate his partner.

Analysis

The Tenctonese/Newcomers have been bred to work in a wide variety of environments, readily adapting to conditions. As a result, they rapidly assimilate American culture and even become viewed by some human characters in the film as an economic threat when they begin to advance through the education system and workforce. The film (and the subsequent television series even more so) is a metaphor for immigration, assimilation and suspicion of new arrivals.

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Movies - Alien Nation

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