Enemy Mine (1985)
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
A soldier from Earth crashlands on an alien world after sustaining battle damage. Eventually he encounters another survivor, but from the enemy species he was fighting; they band together to survive on this hostile world. In the end the human finds himself caring for his enemy in a completely unexpected way.
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What critics compared Enemy Mine to
While built on elements from Alien Nation , Enemy Mine , and even David Cronenberg’s The Fly , District 9 transcends its inspirations by focusing on story, character, and the very human disregard for others until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
Although Blomkamp and company have obviously drawn from previous films including "Close Encounters," "Enemy Mine," "Aliens," "Starship Troopers and even a dash of "I Am Legend," their film is the first in a long while that shouts out for series treatment à la "The Terminator" and "Alien."
Rather, this ham-fisted Apartheid allegory involving beleaguered insectoid space aliens herded into the eponymous South African ghetto wins several points because it craftily hybridizes much that was cool about '80s sci-fi (V, Alien Nation, Enemy Mine, plus a huge debt to The Fly -- these creatures seem to have flown in directly from Planet Brundle), whilst rocking both the action and the truly unusual setting.
District 9 takes an attractive premise and approaches it from an unconventional angle resulting in a wildly entertaining sci-fi satire that melds bits and pieces of The Fly Midnight Run Starship Troopers Enemy Mine Alien Nation and TV’s Cops .
There’s a seam of Enemy Mine (1985) in the story’s DNA, though sci-fi fans will likely giggle at how quickly the language barrier is overcome.
While “The Arena” is an obvious source for this episode, it also owes at least a little to the 1985 film Enemy Mine (which was itself pretty obviously inspired by “The Arena”). Dennis Quaid stars as a human pilot who’s stranded on a planet with a reptilian archenemy from a hostile planet played by Lou Gossett Jr. Their antipathy melts away as they get to know each other.
But this is not a big step away from Enemy Mine, 27 years ago.