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writers/long.messages #283, from ksheldon, Tue Aug 29 10:06:49 1989
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First, you take a perfectly good short story by John Varley--"Air Raid"--which appeared in the first issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Then you turn the protagonist--let's call her a "recruiter" from the far distant future--from a rapidly deteriorating cynic, into a confused time-stewardess played by Cheryl Ladd. Give her a uniform from a Harkonnen thrift shop, and a hairdo like Billy Idol on follicle steroids.

Now mix in Kris Kristofferson, whom you may recall started his acting career by acting like a folk-singer.

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY FIGURED OUT WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS MOVIE AND YOU STILL CARE.

Here's the premise: time travelers come from the future to rescue people who are about to die in plane crashes, and replace them with clever bio-forgeries. The travelers come from a time when the earth is wracked by pollution, disease and devastation: it looks like Newark in 1992. Anyway, they figure that people who are about to die in airplane crashes won't be missed, and given the alternative, Newark may not be such a bad place after all.

The problem is, one of the future travel agents leaves her stun-gun behind on the doomed plane. Kristofferson finds the stun-gun in the wreckage of the plane. The gun still works, nearly giving Kris a hairdo to match Ladd's in the process, and proving that the Timex corporation will still be in business a thousand years from now and that even time-travel doesn't void the warrantee.

Ladd comes back to retrieve the stunner, but Kristofferson recognizes her, which means that she has met him before, which confuses her, since she hasn't met *him* before. Back to the future, where Ladd's "personal robot", Sherman (Son- of-the-Tin-Man meets C3PO) explains the paradox to her, since the one part of her that seems to be deteriorating (in keeping with the original story) is her brain. Sherman tells Ladd that she'll have to go back again and try to prevent Kristofferson from finding the stunner, using Whatever Means Are Necessary. (Whoo-whoo, eyebrows raise, could we possibly be talking S, E, X here?)

Sherman sets the wayback machine for T-minus 1 day, and the audience gets to see about half-an-hour of movie that they've already seen, this time through Ladd's eyes. This is a neat device that cuts down on the amount of dialogue that the screenwriter had to think up, plus it gives you a chance to catch some subtle nuances that you might have missed the first time through if you were under the influence of a major narcotic. To be honest, the only person who may have trouble following the sequence of events seems to be Ms. Ladd.

Unfortunately, Kristofferson manages to enjoy Whatever Means Are Necessary (I think he has that written into the contract for every movie he makes) and still find the stunner. As if that weren't bad enough, the rescue team proceeds to lose *another* stun-gun, on a plane that goes down in 1963. (Can't you hear the officer in charge of requisitioning stun-guns? "What? Another one? You people are just going to have to be more careful with your stun-guns!")

Kristofferson manages to locate the earlier stun gun, in the possession of a nosy Nobel prizewinner. The Nobel scientist puts the two stun-guns together, creating a major malfunction in the Fabric of Time (which appears to be made of polyester, so easily is it malfuncted.)

Future Newark undergoes sudden, massive urban renewal, and Kris and Cheryl escape to the even farther-distant future, along with a whole bunch of really confused TWA, Delta and Continental passengers. ("Your luggage? I'm sorry, but it appears to have been sent to the Middle Ages.")

Bottom line? This is an entirely adequate SF movie that almost overcomes its casting. Ms. Ladd is, as you may recall, a co-founder of the Bubbleheaded Bimbo School of acting (see "Methods, Mirrors and Makeup", Charles Angelis, NBC Press, 1973.) Still, Ladd makes some astounding discoveries in the process of travelling through the time warp (a kind of giant ginsu blender), the chief of which is that TIME TRAVEL DOES NOT MUSS YOUR HAIR! (Pictures of Einstein notwithstanding.)

Sherman the robot, in spite of having almost as much makeup on as Ms. Ladd, manages to have more personality, though Ms. Ladd does indeed have her nice parts (which Kristofferson gets to see, but we don't, so don't bother going to this movie if that's what you're looking for.) As for Kristofferson--a graduate of the Clint Eastwood Drama Academy ("Never confuse your audience with more than one facial expression,")--I have a sense that he peaked somewhere around the second verse of "Me and Bobby McGee" and should have quit right there.