Fire in the Sky

Rating:
Summary: great movie to watch over and over and over!!!
Review: "Fire in the Sky" is a very awesome movie!!! Well done!!! Aliens looked very real!!! "Fire in the Sky" will put you on the edge of your seats!!! Although the experiance is much different from what really happened to Travis Walton it was still an awesome movie!! I recommend read the book also, "Fire in the Sky: The Walton Experiance"...it is really scary in its own ways!!! The search is really detailed more than the movie shows..and the accounts of being in the UFO is even more documented!!! I thought that D.B. Sweeney, did a wonderful job in this movie!! Along with "liquid-man" from Terminator 2...Robert Patrick(I believe-he also played a great part as Mike Rogers. Movie was really great...I've seen it 15+ times already...and it never gets old!!! Is one of my top favorite movies of all time!!! Thank god I saw it at the movies when it came out!!! That made it even more scary!!!

Rating:
Summary: Keep watching this "Sky"!!!
Review: As amateur pyrotechnicians, my friend and I were intrigued by the title "Fire in the Sky." We eagerly watched the movie to see how the filmmakers accomplished this difficult special effect.

Lo and behold, it was actually a movie about alien abduction--and it's based on a (supposedly) true story! Riding the leading edge of the "extraterrestrial" wave of the mid-1990s, "FITS" dramatizes the story of logger Travis Walton, who claims to have been abducted by aliens in rural mountain country. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Now, most movies of this sort tend to dance around the aliens' purpose--which makes sense, since nobody actually KNOWS the aliens' purpose. What sets "FITS" apart is its flat-out depiction of what the visitors are after: they eat people. Travis is cocooned in a honeycomb (not the cereal) style cell, but wakes up and frees himself. He discovers the half-consumed corpse of a fellow abductee, and freaks out. He is then re-captured by the aliens and probed. That seems like an odd progression of events, but hey--they're aliens.

Of course, Travis escaped this ordeal so he could tell the story--which means we get to see some of the fallout when he tries to re-acclimate himself to non-probing, human society (I'd imagine his next trip to the proctologist would ignite an intergalatic version of a Vietnam flashback). As one would imagine, the trauma played havoc with his personal and professional lives; nobody wants to hire a logger with a history of alien-abduction. Interestingly, the film stops short of showing how Travis' life was improved by selling the major-motion-picture rights to his story.

D.B. Sweeney ("the Maestro"), Robert Patrick, and James Garner all contribute salt-of-the-Earth performances, and what special effects there are do a decent job of making the movie kind of spooky. I'm on the fence about whether or not Earth, and in particular any low-population-density area, has ever been visited by otherworldly beings...but I can't deny that it's fun to watch movies about 'em.

I just hope the aliens don't read THIS!

- cousinpaco

Rating:
Summary: BEST ALIEN ABDUCTION MOVIE EVER!
Review: BEST ALIEN ABDUCTION MOVIE EVER!, thats all that needs to be said!

Rating:
Summary: Awesome UFO Adventure
Review: I believe if I have an inkling of belief that UFO's exist this movie does it for me! Well acted and played out by D.B.Sweeney and Company. Look for supporting role with James Garner. I know this movie is based on the book,which I have not read, but definitely will buy now. As far as pure escapism entertainment it is great. Never (outside of Alien) has there been a more scary and realistic alien experience laid down on film. At least not as believable as this one. A must see if you love sci-fi..and pretty damn good if you don't! Based on a true (?) story, it portrays a group of log cutters in Northern Arizona, whose buddy is abducted before their eyes, and the aftermath. Fine acting!

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I have seen the movie so many times. I find my self renting it every year, or at least seeing it some how, this year I have seen it 3 times already. When I talk about aliens, and UFO's with people this movie always comes into the equation. I'm a major in Film in college, and this is my number 1 in the alien abduction categorey. Dont worry folks you should be seeind more then a few great alien movies comming out in theaters with me alive! so get ready, I'm starting my second as we speak.

Rating:
Summary: Why did they choose to shoot it this way?
Review: I'm still struggling to not hold it against a movie when they take a supposedly true story, keep a basic skeleton, and basically rewrite it. I should try to see if the movie stands on it's own. With fiction, this is easier. With supposed true stories, I have a bigger problem.

Yes, the movie strays big time when it comes to the part we really want to see, which is what Travis Walton claims to have seen in the spaceship. The movie completely ignores that he claims to have seen human-looking creatures as well as aliens. Why this wasn't even tried to be portrayed, I have not idea. So if I'm seeing this big omission as something to be critical about, yes, I'm disappointed.

But what if I didn't know the "actual" story? How does the film stack up on it's own. Well, first, they spend way too much time setting up for the "good" parts. We didn't really need to see that Travis is somewhat of a free spirit. We don't need to see how he wants to marry his boss's sister. And we don't need to know the chemistry of the crew he works on.

What we do need to see is more time inside the spaceship. I don't know if the movie had budget problems, but once they constructed the set, why not use it more. And yes, throw in the human-looking creatures. And spend more time with the adventures AFTER the incident, instead of too much before it.

That aside, it's not that bad a movie. We do care about the characters, and the D.B. Sweeney portray of Travis does show fear well, both as the incidents happen, as well as the aftermath. It also shows a good performance by a pre-"Terminator 2" and pre-"X-files" Robert Patrick. And James Garner delivers his usual comforting performance.

I wish they could have seen the movie, tossed it out, and started all over again.

Rating:
Summary: Good But Has Exceptions.
Review: The Travis Walton case remains one of he most popular in the folklore of alien abduction stories. I think the mere fact a movie was actually produced about it proves it's resonance. But, alas, the movie almost works if not for two main problems: It has too much of a vague, quick pace and it is not even accurate as according to Walton's description of the abduction experience in the book. The movie as a movie isn't too bad, there's some good acting, and some story elements which might seem cliché don't seem too out of place here. The best scenes involve the encounter with the UFO and the frightening experience within. These are, one must admit, some of the most realistic scenes of supposed alien abduction ever made. They are indeed intense and scary, making one wish he/she never gets abducted by aliens (even if you don't believe in them). However, the fault for someone who already is familiar with the Walton case is that these scenes both disappoint and effect. They affect because they are realistic, but they disappoint because they never resemble for a second what Walton describes in his book. In it he writes about the aliens looking like humans and giving him a tour of the ship etc. etc., pretty nice and hospitable extraterrestrials, but in the film they are small, hairless beings who treat Walton like helpless cattle and force him to go through a horrible exeprience involving medical experiments. What's the deal? Does the movie want to entertain us or make us believe? The movie as a whole successes in keeping the viewer wondering, especially in the scenes where Walton is still missing and everyone theorizes where he has gone. The ending is too quick and answers nothing, a few more minutes and we might have at least gotten information on Walton writing the book and going back to a normal workday. But alas, this is all we get, it works, but deserves a little more.