Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Creepily effective, you judge if it's true, December 20, 2004
Based on the supposedly true account of alien abductee Travis Walton, Fire in the Sky is creepily effective in it's storytelling and presentation. D.B. Sweeney plays the logger who, along with his co-workers, witnesses bizarre lights hovering in the sky. Travis attempts to get a closer look, and is seemingly beamed aboard and never seen again until five days later. While the events in the film differ from Walton's own account, Fire in the Sky manages to get under your skin once Travis has a flashback of the events that transpired aboard the spaceship. The alien beings are surprisingly well designed, and the ordeal Travis goes through will make your skin crawl despite the film's PG-13 rating. It's not perfect, but the cast (including T2's Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Craig Sheffer, and James Garner) makes it work. All in all, if you are one of the many people who zone out to the X-Files and UFO phenomina, give this a look.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional direction, cast, and realism, January 20, 2007
I've seen this movie 3 times now over the past decade. I'm probably more impressed with each viewing.
The story is presented very clearly and with no wasted time. A strong cast has been assembled: this is no "B" movie. Reportedly it has only made $20 million domestically since its 1993 release which is a shame. I can only assume it wasn't marketed well.
I hadn't realized that one of the leads, Robert Patrick, had been T-1000 in Terminator 2 (in 1991). It is indeed hard to recognize him here from that earlier role. He's as convincing as possible as Mike, the best friend, of the abductee Travis. James Garner has a key role as an investigator. Henry Thomas, "ET"'s Elliot and by this time a teenager, is one of the loggers who witnessed the UFO. I hadn't recognized him either until this viewing.
The episode aboard the UFO, presented in flashbacks, was the work of "Industrial Light and Magic". It's eiree enough that, unlike Travis, you would think twice before stepping out to go up to a UFO.
As in the book, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the polygraph tests. It's easy to accept the movie as entertainment: in the book Walton is insistent on the truth of what he experienced. But a polygraph, as I understand it, is not scientifically accepted as a reliable lie detector.
Travis Walton participated in the movie production but accepted a completely different presentation of the abduction sequence than his book presents. His book's version, supposedly what really happened, would not have been as interesting. If you had been abducted, would you care that Hollywood used your story as input for a yarn that distorted what the aliens were like or would you want people to see what really happened. I wonder if many people who saw the movie didn't read the book and so came away not knowing how the aliens actually seemed to Travis.
But Hollywood didn't need a true story, just a story that they could present as if true.
Travis Walton has a web site which was operational at the time I am submitting this review.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome and scary as hell!, September 7, 1999
I was lucky enough to catch this at the theaters before it went to video. It was out for weeks, and was on it's last week when I saw it. I must say, the movie was awesome. Not only was the movie good and frightening alone, but the taqline states "based on the true story", suggesting the possibilities that everything you will witness may have actually happened! What truly gives the film it's meat is the sequence inside the alien spacecraft. Although the events inside the ship were changed from what the real Travis Walton said had happened, the scene succeeded in as Travis put it, "conveying" his feelings to the audience. I could watch that scene a million times, and still never be able to figure out how they did it. There were no fake CGI effects, and that honestly made it much more realistic and believable. "Fire in the Sky" is not a masterpiece, but it was well done, and the alien sequence stands out as one of the best pieces of film history! I was a little disappointed with the video though. It's not letterboxed, and it's improperly framed. I remembered vividly what it looked like in theaters, so watching this modified version seemed like a totally different movie to me. Thankfully I got the widescreen laserdisc, which brought back memories of what the film looked like on the big screen. They should press some widescreen copies of this on tape, or better yet, DVD! That would rule if this came out on DVD!
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