James Caan Hated His '80s Sci-Fi Movie That Launched A Multimedia Franchise
by Witney Seibold · /FilmAdd SlashFilm on Google:
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James Caan only made six films from 1980 to 1988, which was a dramatic downturn from the 18 movies he made during the 1970s. True, Caan appeared in the deeply beloved Michael Mann movie "Thief" in 1981, and he made movies with Claude Lelouch and Francis Ford Coppola, but his career, whether intentionally or not, experienced a slowdown. In the early 1990s, he began to thrive once again, kicking off the decade with a stellar performance in Rob Reiner's "Misery." He remembered "Misery" as one of the most painful films of his career.
In 1988, however, Caan made a sci-fi film that he wasn't too proud of. It's hard to say why, because Graham Baker's "Alien Nation" is excellent. It led to a TV series, TV movies, comics, and books.
"Alien Nation," for neophytes, posits that a massive alien spacecraft crashes on Earth in 1988 (specifically in the Mojave desert), carrying 300,000 members of a humanoid species that are colloquially referred to as Newcomers. The spacecraft was actually a slave ship, so the Newcomers are facing freedom for the first time on an alien world. Fast-forward to 1991, and the Newcomers have settled in Los Angeles, taking human jobs and attempting to assimilate into human society. James Caan plays a bigoted L.A. cop named Sykes who is, after the death of his partner, paired with a Newcomer officer named Sam Francisco (Mandy Patinkin). Newcomers were given "funny" human names by U.S. naturalization. In true mismatched-cop fashion, the two characters forcibly overcome their differences while investigating a mystery.
James Caan wasn't fond of the movie, something he admitted in a 2013 interview with the A.V. Club. When the interviewer brought up the movie, Caan's immediate reaction was to say, "Why the f***... Why would you bring up that?"
James Caan was not terribly fond of Alien Nation
"Alien Nation" was a modest hit when it was released, making about $32 million on its $16 million budget. Reviews were middling (the film only has a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 34 reviews, and Roger Ebert only gave the film two stars (our of four), noting that the filmmakers were too focused on the ins-and-outs of a police procedural and not enough on the sci-fi elements of the story. Despite the reviews, "Alien Nation" still attracted a passionate following. Indeed, the A.V. Club rightly pointed out to James Caan that "Alien Nation" was actually deeply beloved by a large number of people. Caan just wasn't one of them. His halting response was:
"Yeah, well, I don't know. I don't have too many ... I mean, I loved Mandy Patinkin. Mandy was a riot. But I don't know. It was a lot of silly stuff, creatively. And we had this English director who I wasn't really that fond of. I mean, nice guy, but it was just one of those things where, you know, you don't quit, you get through it. It certainly wasn't one of ... I wouldn't write it down as one of my favorite movies. But it was pretty popular."
Caan clearly wanted to say that he hated "Alien Nation," but being diplomatic got the better of him. He was less diplomatic back in 1990 when he spoke with the Los Angeles Times. Caan said "Alien Nation" "made me gag so badly I'd rather say gonorrhea. [...] I always look to do something different. But I didn't want to do another potato-head movie." This was in reference to the large, smooth heads sported by the Newcomers.
Alien Nation rocks
Caan had nothing to do with the 1989 "Alien Nation" TV series that followed. The TV series starred Gary Graham as Sikes (they changed the spelling) and Eric Pierpoint as the rechristened George Francisco. The TV series delved into the sci-fi aspects of the film that critics seemed to be missing. Although it only lasted for one 22-episode season, Newcomer society was finally explored. It was explained that Newcomers, or the Tenctonese, get drunk on sour milk, for instance. Humans and Tenctonese can indeed have sex, although it tends to be dangerous for the humans. It was already established that saltwater is like acid to them. In one notable episode, we saw how Tenctonese give birth: a woman carries a small, shell-encased pod for the first half of the term, then transfers it into a marsupial-like pouch on the man's body for the rest of the term.
The show was canceled in 1990, but it retained enough cultural presence to warrant five TV movie follow-ups released from 1994 to 1997 (called "Dark Horizon," "Body and Soul," "Millennium," "The Enemy Within," and "The Udara Legacy").
As mentioned, there were other pieces of "Alien Nation" media as well. Through 1992, Malibu Comics published a series of titles, one of which was a crossover with "Planet of the Apes." Because why not? Also in the early 1990s, Simon & Schuster published a short run of tie-in "Alien Nation" novels. /Film reported back in 2016 that Jeff Nichols would remake "Alien Nation," but that project never got off the ground. In 2024, we reported that the planned remake of "Alien Nation" had been repurposed back into an original sci-fi film.
Those who saw "Alien Nation" in the late '80s and early '90s still love it. We vehemently disagree with James Caan.