Future War
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| Future War | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Anthony Doublin |
| Produced by | Dave Eddy David Huey K.Y. Lim |
| Written by | David Huey Dom Magwili |
| Starring | Daniel Bernhardt Robert Z'Dar Travis Brooks Stewart |
| Distributed by | Screen Pix Home Video |
| Release date(s) | 1997 |
| Running time | 90 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | unknown |
| IMDb profile | |
Future War is a 1997 science fiction film about an escaped human slave fleeing his cyborg masters and seeking refuge on Earth. It was featured in a 1999 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Future War begins with still sequences aboard what appears to be a spaceship that seem to imply that a revolt is under way. We see what appears to be an escape pod jettison from the ship and land on Earth. The pod contains "The Runaway" a nameless human slave played by Daniel Bernhardt. He is being pursued by his cyborg enslavers and the dinosaurs that they use as "trackers." Having been kidnapped from Earth's past, the Runaway has some familiarity with the English language and the King James Bible and regards Earth as a literal heaven.
The Runaway finds refuge with an ambivalent nun-in-training played by Travis Brooks Stewart, who had formerly dealt drugs and worked as a prostitute. Together, they band together to fight the dinosaurs and their robotic masters, seeking aid from a street gang.
Future War makes use of star Daniel Bernhardt's skill at kickboxing and features several kickboxing fight sequences, particularly against the Cyborg Master character, played by Robert Z'Dar.
After being arrested by the police (for reasons made unclear), The Runaway is interrogated by several federal agents. The Cyborg Master, however breaks into the police station (in a scene very reminiscent of The Terminator), and the Runaway manages to escape in the confusion. He teams up with Sister Ann and her friends from the street to attack the dinosaurs where they live, in what appears to be a water treatment plant. He is successful in dynamiting the plant and killing the dinosaurs, but the Cyborg Master attacks him once more while he is attending Sister Ann's confirmation. After he kills the Cyborg Master, he becomes a counselor for runaway teens.
[edit] Mystery Science Theater 3000
Future War was ridiculed in an April 1999 episode of movie-mocking television comedy series Mystery Science Theater 3000. Mike Nelson and his robot friends mocked the general cheapness of the movie (several scenes are filmed at a warehouse where people are stacking empty cardboard boxes), the use of forced perspective filmmaking for the dinosaur sequences, and the generally nonsensical nature of the film. As Crow T. Robot remarks at one point, "It's not the future and there isn't a war."
Perhaps ironically, MST3K's episode 1004 fulfilled one expressed aspiration of producer Dave Eddy, who allegedly remarked during filming that he hoped to see the movie used by Mystery Science Theater 3000. [1] Eddy also posted to the IMDb's comments section in defense of the film, revealing that they had been forced to shoot much of it in only a few days on virtually no budget when the version of the film presented to them by the director turned out to be only 40 minutes long, with no action sequences.
[edit] Notable cast
- Daniel Bernhardt — The Runaway
- Robert Z'Dar — Cyborg Master
- Travis Brooks Stewart — Sister Ann
- Kazja — Cyborg
- Ray Adash - Captain Polaris
