Customer Reviews

Lexx: The Dark Zone Stories

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

a suggestion: this movie is part two of a trilogy; it helps alot if you see the first part, I Worship His Shadow, before viewing the others; it helps explain the characters and the plot, and is a tremendous film in and of itself. You will enjoy Supernova much more.

I just loved the LEXX mini-series back in the days, so I got it on VHS as soon as it was released over here in Germany. Sadly, I had to find out those tapes contained versions of the movies that were quite heavily cut - something only too common for German releases. You might be surprised, but censorship on movies is really rigid in Germany. Even movies that are being released as NC-17 are very often cut-down versions. The latest example being "Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Beginning", which will hit German cinemas - and probably DVD-players - solely in a version that's about 10 minutes shorter than the original, although being rated NC-17!

Anyway, don't even think of buying this DVD, since the censorship is immanent here, too. For example, movie no. 3 is stripped of SIXTEEN MINUTES of fun, violence, and sex on this release; movie no. 4 is missing nearly 20 scenes... and so on. This is absurd. Apart from that, as another reviewer already mentioned, these DVDs contain only German language, what renders them completely useless. Sadly, that's another practice all too common in Germany.

If you want to see this great mini-series in the way it was intended, look for the british DVDs from kult T.v., "Lexx - The Movies" 1.1 and 1.2, containing all four films in their uncut, english language versions. They're a little hard to hunt down nowadays, though. I've also been told there's a more recent, uncut canadian release from "Koch Vision", but I don't know any details about that one.

5 stars for the movies, -4 for this release. Equals 1 star only. Too bad.

I had read another review that had said the first "season" of Lexx was not available on DVD. Hey! It IS out on DVD. Basically the first season is the 4 made-for-cable movies. They are called LEXX SERIES ONE -EPISODE ONE OF FOUR, TWO OF FOUR...etc. Hope this helps anyone who is looking for the beginnings of Lexx, one of my favorite shows ever.

This episode of Lexx takes us to the abandoned former home world of the Bruhnanji. There is no one on the planet except the holographic remains of a former disgruntled inhabitant, masterfully played by veteran actor Tim Curry.

While I found this episode enjoyable and mostly essential to any Lexx collection, because it shows you the prophecies of the time prophet, and you get to see Kai sliced into thin wafers, I just dont think it was as good as "I worship his Shadow" and GigaShadow.

I give it four stars for being great. I can't give it five stars, because it's just not quite as exciitng as the other films in the series.

If you can't speak German avoid this. You really can't understand these movies without knowledge of German language. I really wonder who was that genius who decided it is not possible to hear original english speech and soundtrack. Only dubbed German is available. 20 eur to the trash - wham!

This movie was a good starting point for the series, as well as a great start for the mini-series within the series itself. You must really be able to know what is going on in this movie especially in order to know what is going on in the main series, because this tells how all of the characters who ended up on the LEXX found their way there.For those of you who aren't familiar with the story: Stanley Tweedle is the self-proclaimed king of the cowards and smartasses who must donate several body parts or die. He takes neither and finds himself on the run.Zev is an ugly cow who insults a prince on their wedding day, so she is sentenced to have her body changed into a lustfully beautiful sex slave. Trouble is she got only half of the alteration and had a part of a cluster lizard embedded into her DNA.A robot's head got the second part of the alteration, the bit where she falls in love with the first person she sees. Of course, Zev was the first person it saw.The final person of our crew was Kai, the last warrior of a once proud race who has become an agent of death for the Shadow. Oh yeah, he's been dead for a thousand years.There are a few hitchikers on the ship, a beastly savage woman who lives on human flesh, and the brains of the last several dozen shadows.For those who like their science ficeion slightly twisted, this is for you.

When I first saw Lexx on Sci-FI, I knew I found a new show that I HAD to watch every week. I didn't know the movies came out before the show aired on Sci-Fi. I recorded the show and watched them twice. I hated having to fast forward through the commercials. Now I have the first movie and I am going to get the other three. If you like a good sci-fi movie, that is not a typical Star Trek or Star Wars format, then you will like this. I like all the characters, and I think it was cool when the Lexx took a bite out of South America in Season 4. Way cool!!!

Put aside all predisposed ideas about Lexx doubting space travelers and journey to a new universe where nothing in it can compare to anything previously known. Keep your imagination open in this new world. As with anything new it will be strange and a bit scary. Let the complex characters and storyline of "I Worship His Shadow" draw you deeper into this new galaxy and provide your adventure with many directions in which to turn. Don't let doubts deny you this voyage into a paralle world of fantasy and fun. True, this is a Lexx movie, and those of us who love these movies and the series think it a great introduction. But if you truly love science fiction, you won't give up an opportunity to see other worlds regardless of who's universe it is.

This was the second of the Lexx movies - the sequel to "I Worship His Shadow". Having escaped into the "Dark Zone" an with the Lexx now under the total control of Stanley Tweedle, the crew searches for Brunis, the lost homeworld of the Bruneen-Gee. Kai, as described in "I Worship" was last of the Bruneen-Gee and had been killed by His Shadow centuries earlier, but had been kept reanimated to serve His Shadow as an assassin. Sent to the Lexx to kill Tweedle and the lovely Zev, Kai reclaims his memory and joins Tweedle and Zev in escaping His Shadow. Slowly dying again for lack of "proto-blood", Kai spends much of his time in a stasis tube. When that's damaged, Zev, who loves Kai, convinces Tweedle to take the Lexx to Brunis in the vain hope that they may find proto-blood there. Instead, they find the preserved but lifeless planet a death trap. The shared memories of its inhabitants were long ago removed and stored on computer. One of these - The Poet (Tim Curry) has managed to become dominant. Accidentally choosing to follow The Poet's fate, Zev and Kai find themselves trapped in a machine that prepares to dissect them and remove their memories. Tweedle, characteristically, gets trapped in the sort of situation you'd expect him to (The Poet had long ago left his seed in the care of the planet's computer, programming it to impregnate the first life form it could identify as female, or at least not male). Also along is Giggerotta (Ellen Dubin), an escaped criminal like Zev, but not a criminal like Zev actually (Giggerotta is actually a vile cannibal), and one with plans of her own.

This was a disappointing follow-up to "Worship" - much of the action has Kai and Zev strapped to a slab while a buzzsaw keeps getting close and Tim Curry gloats on. It lacks the frantic action of "Worship" and not even the always enjoyable Tim Curry can give this outer the speed it needs. I actually first saw this episode after I had seen both "Worship" and "Giga Shadow" the film that ended the pre-series run, and realized that this episode was entirely superfluous.

In a distant future, mankind has been subjugated by the evil order of "His Divine Shadow". Ruling from his capitol on the the "cluster", Shadow ceaselessly regenerates himself by passing his essence onto other members of the "Divine Order". The brains of prior hosts are preserved as well, becoming the honored predecessors, all laboring to construct the Lexx, a doomsday engine powerful enough to eradicate worlds. His Divine Shadow has only one fear - extermination at the hands of the Bruneen-G, a noble race of poets driven almost to extinction in past millenia by an earlier incarnation of His Shadow. Eager to surmount the prophecy that tells of his end at the hands of the Brunnen-G, His Shadow reanimates the corpse of the last of its warriors, Kai, forcing him to become an assassin for the Divine Order, as if to disprove the prophecy and any imagined threat to his Shadow's existence.

Things go wrong when rebels attack the cluster with the intention of stealing the Lexx, which resembles a large wingless Dragongly, with appropriately organic interior. The attack disrupts the planned termination of a lower-class buraucrat, Stanley Tweedle who, despite his seeming insignificance (and due to his weakness of charachter) has much to do with His Shadow's dominance over much of the universe. (Suffice it to say that he's known to much of humanity as "Arch Traitor-Stanly Tweedle"). Given the key to the Lexx (by accident), Stan's joined by Xev, a once unattractive woman morphed into a beautiful, if fearsome woman, and 790 - an android head in love with Xev once he receives the sexual conditioning that was intended for her. Kai, sent to stop them, suddenly experiences total recall. He's still only an animated corpse, but with memories of himself as a warrior against his shadow...and the prophecy. With the Divine Order hot on their tails, Tweedle and comapny head for the fractal zone, the gateway into a parrallel universe through which his Shadow cannot follow.

Given that plot, it's incredible how unoriginal this story really is. A bunch of outcasts of a fascist order take refuge (and rebel) with the help of a super-starship (Blake's 7); One of the main charachters is a lovable coward who duels ceaselessly with a robot (Lost in Space); His Shadow's essence passes from body to body, constantly outliving his hosts (an idea already old when used in Dark Horse's Star Wars, Dark Empire). The creators don't so much as develop a story as put a new spin on old sci-fi cliches (mostly overt sexual references), while the special effects look like 1st generation CGI.

Still, despite myself, I had a ball - Kai is appropriately morose, but can manage a sly sense of humor. Stanley is perfect as a coward, and the writers no better than to try and make him sympathetic. Xev, for her sexual magnetism seems a perfectly victorian figure - if only because Stan's desire for her clouds his sense of self-preservation. It's a lot of fun as long as you don't try to take it too seriously.