MovieChat Forums > Screamers (1996) Discussion > Certainly not great, but watchable... my...

Certainly not great, but watchable... my 2cents


Like so many movies I see, I sat shaking my head in bewilderment at some of the logic leaps, but overall I enjoyed it for some decent time wasting.

First the good...:
*Peter Weller is awesome in about anything, and carries this flick no doubt.
*Jennifer Rubin is pretty cute IMO.
*I like Roy Dupuis from La Femme Nikita series... he is not great in this but at least cool to see him in something else.
*I liked the bleak landscape, and uniforms they wore

Now the bad (or part of the bad, too much to mention all):
*The FX are bad, but that did not bother me as much as the pathetically weak sounding guns they were using... our cap guns as kids sounded more powerful!
*The Roy Dupuis characters actions make no sense... ok he is a robot, so why wait until when he did to start killing? It makes no sense... he already knew he had no chance of getting into Peter Weller's HQ as it was already taken over, so why did he join in on killing the other robots and only after that reveal himself? Really bad writing.
*Robots using vulgarities - i dunno why but this bothers me.
*How the heck did the robots know where he was at the end and just happen to show up in time to try to thwart his escape attempt? And why even try if they knew one of their own was already with him (they did not know she had turned 'human' yet)

Ok, I'll stop there.

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*The Roy Dupuis characters actions make no sense... ok he is a robot, so why wait until when he did to start killing? It makes no sense... he already knew he had no chance of getting into Peter Weller's HQ as it was already taken over, so why did he join in on killing the other robots and only after that reveal himself? Really bad writing.

Presumably he was hoping that Hendriksson had a way off the planet and was planning to use it to get to Earth. As for why he started killing, he was damaged by the plutonium bomb; we're shown pretty clearly that he was malfunctioning. No bad writing there.

*How the heck did the robots know where he was at the end and just happen to show up in time to try to thwart his escape attempt? And why even try if they knew one of their own was already with him (they did not know she had turned 'human' yet)

(a) They were following him -- again, presumably in hopes of finding a way to get off the planet and get to Earth. (b) Not all the Screamers were on the same side, and they couldn't all go to Earth on one little escape vessel.

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Lazy + smart = efficient.

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Ok, maybe you 'got it' more than did I... so you are saying that Dupuis and the chick robots are 'deep under cover' so much that it is ok for them to kill their own in order to further gain Weller's trust so one of them can get to earth.

Yet when wounded, the robot Dupuis reverts back to what he was originally programmed for, which is to 'act' painfully wounded, then when a human tries to help, kill them... yet he wasn't really reverting he was malfunctioning??? Not sure about all that still.

What about the original guy that gets sliced and diced at the start? Was he a human, or a robot plant to lure them out?

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so you are saying that Dupuis and the chick robots are 'deep under cover' so much that it is ok for them to kill their own in order to further gain Weller's trust so one of them can get to earth.

It's not so much that they're undercover as it is that they're two different types of Screamer and they're not necessarily on the same side. Hell, it's entirely possible that neither of them knows the other one is a Screamer at all; we just don't know. But we can't just assume that it's okay with either of them if the other one happens to be the one to get to Earth.

Yet when wounded, the robot Dupuis reverts back to what he was originally programmed for, which is to 'act' painfully wounded, then when a human tries to help, kill them... yet he wasn't really reverting he was malfunctioning??? Not sure about all that still.

We don't know that for sure either, but I think the suggestion is that when the Roybot is damaged, he loses some of his "advanced" functionality and reverts to more primitive programming. Even if he's not a Type 2 himself, the Screamers may retain their earlier "code" as they develop and evolve.

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Lazy + smart = efficient.

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I agree with you about the FX. Very poor stuff. It killed the movie for many viewers. At the beginning of the movie it wasn't necessary to add the hilariously bad shot of the screamers approaching the NEB soldier. They had plenty of decent shots already of the screamers dismembering him. The part where Becker dies is also equally bad.

I thought Peter Weller and Roy Dupuis put in decent performances. I like how Becker antagonizes Ross in the tunnel. What's the matter rat got your tongue? Just get off my back! You gotta expand your vocabulary! Ju..jus. Just stay off my back! The look on Becker's face after that is priceless.

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[deleted]

Just some thoughts here, not neccesarily accurate answers:

>the pathetically weak sounding guns they were using...
The Alliance guns sound as if they've been made to shoot fairly quietly. A too-loud report can give away your position. These look well-designed for a space-infantry unit. By contrast, the NEB guns are nicely loud and damaging, but big and cumbersome. Clearly, in the hands of a competent shot, both work well enough to destroy Screamers so it's probably good enough. Any failings in the weapons are probably indicative of tech built to a corporate budget. They're happy to leave soldiers behind, so why bother giving them really good weapons?
Perhaps it's just one more thing to distinguish the differing technology between the two factions...


>The Roy Dupuis characters actions make no sense...
He's programmed to play a wounded soldier. So until he is actually wounded by something (in this case the Mini-Pluto), he just plays a soldier. He has to integrate himself into a squad, so that when he does get wounded, the squad will care for him enough to try rescuing him... and BAM - The trap is sprung!

>Robots using vulgarities - i dunno why but this bothers me.
If they're programmed to mimic humans, then why not.

>How the heck did the robots know where he was at the end and just happen >to show up in time to try to thwart his escape attempt? And why even try >if they knew one of their own was already with him (they did not know >she had turned 'human' yet)
The Alliance built the Screamers... yet most of the human types we see have NEB uniforms. Perhaps the NEB 'turned' some Screamers, Terminator 2 style, to their own side which started off the conflict between types?

>What about the original guy that gets sliced and diced at the start? Was >he a human, or a robot plant to lure them out?
Who knows... Perhaps that's one of the things left to our own interpretation.

A quick one about "Bad FX" - So what?
If a film has a decent plot and is acted well enough, then the quality of FX shouldn't make a difference. You just have to appreciate that not every production can afford top drawer SFX, CGI and all. Certainly those films I have seen where everyone raves about the wonderful effects - That's ALL those films have to offer. The FX are great, but the plot, production quality, acting and everything else is usually utter dross.

Rarely does a film achieve a decent balance of all things.

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Good points. But I tend to be a lazy viewer who is willing to overlook some plot contrivances if the overall movie is entertaining enough.

Usually sci-fi keeps me mentally occupied while I try to piece together the universe they exist in which is highly unlikely unless there is a quantum leap in space travel technology or the NWO has already created a shadow civilization that has already colonized other worlds.

Leap of logic I will not tolerate is in horror movies, those tend to have characters that behave just too counter intuitive (read=stupid) for me to suspend disbelief.

Anyway, I thought it was a good flick.





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I think that Becker was a human and the dead Becker was a robot created afterwards. Come on, "Rat got your tongue?", the robot has to be pretty awesome to come up with such a pun.

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"*The Roy Dupuis characters actions make no sense... ok he is a robot, so why wait until when he did to start killing? It makes no sense... he already knew he had no chance of getting into Peter Weller's HQ as it was already taken over, so why did he join in on killing the other robots and only after that reveal himself? Really bad writing."

Did you not hear the things he said? The Shakespeare he kept quoting? Aside from that, he was obviously imbalanced or perhaps his entire model is imbalanced... It's an attempt to make him appear that much more human. Humans often don't make sense either...

"*Robots using vulgarities - i dunno why but this bothers me."

From the previous question/problem, this one and the ones that follow I think it's obvious that you missed a major, yet subtle part of the story.

"How the heck did the robots know where he was at the end and just happen to show up in time to try to thwart his escape attempt? And why even try if they knew one of their own was already with him (they did not know she had turned 'human' yet)"

I think we are to understand that they knew because they were being tracked by type 1 screamers throughout the movie. As for why they did something, this goes back to what you missed. The screamers had evolved beyond their design and possibly beyond the intention of their designer (apparently some autonomous AI). They had become a true life form in many ways. "We can smile, we can cry, we can bleed, we can *beep*." Jessica and Becker were likely not allies. They possibly didn't even know that each other was a screamer. She wants to get off the planet. So does her "evil doppleganger", the difference is that she was willing to let Hendrickson go instead (Why even suggest it, if not? She could have easily killed him right there if she wanted to).

One of the points of the movie was that the screamers had started out as a weapon, (like a sword...) and they didn't just get out of control like the nuclear weapons they are compared to throughout the movie, they are out of control in that they are evolving where they apparently are capable of working against each other, just like humans often do.

Sure the movie had problems, but the logic/apparent intentions of the screamers (and most of the humans as well) was not one of them. I think that aspect of the movie was very well thought-out, even if it's only because a lot of it is something we will never know.

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[deleted]

Somehow that 1-seat scenario was a tad predictable. That's ok but she makes an issue of it. Next thing we 'find out' is she is a robot and presumably didn't need the life-support system anyway. . . . I didn't get the obstacle.

Partly there just isn't room for two people. Mainly, though, she doesn't want to go to Earth at all because she knows she's programmed to kill kill kill and she doesn't want to. That's what the bit about her being afraid of what you'll do is supposed to convey to us.

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Lazy + smart = efficient.

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The point about screamers fighting each other is dealt with more explicitly in Dick's story, where the various Types are shown as being interested only in their own survival - everything else, including other Types, is the enemy. In fact, in Dick's story, the fact that they're fighting each other (and that it'll be to the death) is seen as being the only hope humanity has.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, although it's not a classic. The FX didn't really bother me either way - it was the story itself I was more interested in.

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