OUTLAND (1981) (film review by Evelyn C. Leeper)

[Philip De Parto]

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from

THE MT VOID
04/17/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 42, Whole Number 2428

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OUTLAND (1981) (film review by Evelyn C. Leeper)

Sometimes you just watch to watch a trashy science
fiction movie, which is why I watched OUTLAND. Described as HIGH
NOON in space, this gets the science rather spectacularly wrong,
as well as being a totally unoriginal plot. Were it not for Sean
Connery and Frances Sternhagen, there wouldn't be any reason to
watch this at all.

For starters, they are on Io, which the introduction says has
one-sixth Earth gravity. But everyone is clearly operating in
normal 1G Earth gravity. Partway through, they introduce a
zero-gravity room, entirely surrounded by a 1G environment. I
suppose this implies they have anti-gravity, but nothing is ever
said about this, and even some of the scenes outside the base
(including falling) seem to be Earth gravity. Certainly it would
be easier to work in a lower-gravity environment. On the other
hand, having people firing projectile weapons (or playing golf) in
a non-familiar gravity would be near impossible, so the filmmakers
were stuck.

Also, in the zero-gravity room, blood flows *up* rather than just
hangs there.

Having projectile weapons in a station on a zero-atmosphere moon
seems ill-advised, especially since the villain's "best men" don't
seem to realize that shooting a hole in an outside wall is a bad
idea. For that matter, in this movie (as in many others) vital
tubes and connectors to the spacesuits seem very tenuously
attached.

I also have a real problem with the whole idea that if he has a
one-year tour of duty, and his wife doesn't like it, that's the
end of the marriage. Apparently the writers never knew any
military families. (Later on, it turns out that the one year on Io
is apparently in addition to one year deep sleep each way. This
makes no logistics sense.)

And while Sternhagen is an interesting character, this film still
fails the Bechdel test. (Connery's wife and son serve no useful
function in the plot. You expect that she will come back, or they
will be threatened somehow, but nothing of that sort happens.)

Released theatrically 22 May 1981.

Film Credits:
<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082869/reference>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/outland>