Species is a 1995 American science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dennis Feldman. It stars Natasha Henstridge (in her debut film role), Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Marg Helgenberger. The film's plot concerns a motley crew of scientists and government agents who try to track down Sil (Henstridge), a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid, before she successfully mates with a human male.
Species | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Roger Donaldson |
Produced by |
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Written by | Dennis Feldman |
Starring |
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Music by | Christopher Young |
Cinematography | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
Edited by | Conrad Buff |
Production company | Frank Mancuso Jr. Productions |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 108 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $35 million |
Box office | $113.3 million |
The film was conceived by Feldman in 1987, and was originally pitched as a film treatment in the style of a police procedural, entitled The Message. When The Message failed to attract the studios, Feldman re-wrote it as a spec script, which ultimately led to the making of the film. The extraterrestrial aspect of Sil's character was created by H. R. Giger, who also responsible for the beings from the Alien franchise. The effects combined practical models designed by Giger collaborator Steve Johnson and XFX, with computer-generated imagery done by Richard Edlund's Boss Film Studios. Giger felt that the film and the character were too similar to Alien, so he pushed for script changes.
Most of the principal photography was done in Los Angeles, California, where the film is set. Several scenes were filmed in Utah and at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The film was met with mixed to negative reviews from critics, but nevertheless turned out to be a box office success, grossing US$113 million ($182 million in 2017 dollars). It spawned a franchise, which includes one theatrical sequel (Species II), as well as two direct-to-video sequels (Species III and Species – The Awakening). Species was adapted into a novel by Yvonne Navarro and two comic book series by Dark Horse Comics, one of which was written by Feldman.
Screenplay
During the SETI program, Earth's scientists send out transmissions (shown to be the Arecibo message) with information about Earth and its inhabitants, DNA structure, etc., in hopes of finding life beyond Earth. They then receive transmissions from an alien source on how to create endless fuel effortlessly. Therefore, the scientists assume that this is a friendly alien species. From a second alien transmission, the scientists receive information about an alien DNA along with instructions on how to splice it with human DNA. A government team led by Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) goes forward with the genetic experiment attempting to induce a female, under the (later proved to be mistaken) assumption that a female would have "more docile and controllable" traits. One of the hundred experimental ova produces a girl named Sil, who looks like a normal human but develops into a 12-year-old in 3 months.
Sil's violent outbursts during sleep make the scientists consider her a threat. They try to kill her using cyanide gas but she breaks out of her containment cell and escapes. The government assembles a team composed of anthropologist Dr. Stephen Arden (Alfred Molina), molecular biologist Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger), "empath" Dan Smithson (Forest Whitaker) and mercenary Preston "Press" Lennox (Michael Madsen) to track and destroy Sil. Sil matures rapidly into an adult (Natasha Henstridge) in her early twenties and makes her way to Los Angeles. Her body strength, regenerative ability and intelligence make tracking her extremely difficult. The scientists fear she may mate with human males and produce offspring that could eliminate the human race. Sil is intent on producing offspring as soon as possible, and kills several people to prevent them from notifying the authorities or simply to use their clothing.
Sil first tries to mate with a man she meets at a nightclub (Anthony Guidera), but after sensing that he is diabetic, she rejects him. Unsatisfied, he tries to rape her, prompting her to kill him by puncturing his skull with her tongue. She then tries to mate with John Carey (Whip Hubley), a man she meets after a car accident. They swim in Carey's pool where Sil forces him to open his swimming trunks in order to mate, but he refuses. This act is interrupted by Preston and Laura. She kills Carey, morphing into her alien form, a bipedal mutant with tentacles on her shoulders and back, and flees naked into a forest without being seen by the team. She pretends to be a rape victim to kidnap a woman (Marliese K. Schneider) in order to assume her identity. Sitting in the car near Carey's home, she reads Fitch's lips, as she had done earlier, learning of their plan to stake out the Nightclub for her return. There, she is seen by Dan, prompting a car chase. She fakes her death by crashing the car, which she has previously filled with gasoline containers, into a high-voltage transformer, using the kidnapped woman as a stand-in for her own body.
After cutting and dyeing her hair, Sil takes an attraction to Preston, having dreamt of him the previous night. After the team celebrates their apparent victory, she stalks them in their hotel, and they do not recognize her. Arden, who is upset at being single, walks into his room to find Sil waiting there. She has intercourse with Arden, which results in her instantly getting impregnated by him, then kills him when he realizes who she is. Dan senses that Sil is in the hotel and he alerts Preston, Laura, and the rest of the team. She morphs again and escapes and they follow her into the sewers where Fitch is subsequently killed. Sil gives birth and Dan finds her offspring in a cavern behind the sewers. The child attacks him and he incinerates it, also killing Sil. The trio leaves the area. The last scene shows a rat chewing on one of Sil's severed tentacles; it starts to mutate into a vicious beast and attacks another rat.
- Natasha Henstridge as Sil
- Michelle Williams as Young Sil
- Ben Kingsley as Xavier Fitch
- Michael Madsen as Preston "Press" Lennox
- Alfred Molina as Dr. Stephen Arden
- Forest Whitaker as Dan Smithson
- Marg Helgenberger as Dr. Laura Baker
- Whip Hubley as John Carey
- Anthony Guidera as Robbie
- Matthew Ashford as Guy in Club
Given Sil grows rapidly and kills humans with ease, at a certain point film character Dr. Laura Baker even speculates if she was a biological weapon sent by a species who thought humans were like an intergalactic weed. Feldman declared that he wanted to explore this theme further in the script, as it discussed mankind's place in the universe and how other civilizations would perceive and relate to humanity, considering that "maybe not a potential threat, maybe a competitor, maybe a resource." He also declared that more could be said about Sil's existentialist doubts, as she does not know her origin or purpose, and only follows her instinct to mate and perpetuate the species.
Writing for the Journal of Popular Film & Television, Susan George authored a paper that dealt with the portrayal of procreation in Species, Gattaca and Mimic. George compares the character of Fitch to "an updated Dr. Frankenstein," and explores the development of Sil's maternal aspirations, which convert the character into an "archaic mother" figure similar to the xenomorph creature in the Alien series, both of which are, she claims, portrayed negatively. George further states that a recurring theme in science fiction films is a response to "this kind of powerful female sexuality and 'alien-ness'" in that "the feminine monster must die as Sil does at the end of Species." Feldman himself considered that an underlying theme regarded "a female arriving and seeking to find a superior mate."
A five-year investigation into accounts of the chupacabra, a well known cryptid, revealed that the original sighting report of the creature in Puerto Rico by Madeline Tolentino may have been inspired by the character Sil. This was detailed in paranormal investigator and skeptic Benjamin Radford's book Tracking the Chupacabra. According to Virginia Fugarino of Memorial University of Newfoundland writing for the Journal of Folklore Research, Radford found a link between the original eyewitness report and the design of Sil in her alien form, and hypothesized that ", which did see before her sighting, influenced what she believes she saw of the chupacabra."
Writing and development
Dennis Feldman had the idea for Species in 1987, as he worked on another film about an alien invasion, Real Men. Having read an article by Arthur C. Clarke about the insurmountable odds against an extraterrestrial craft ever locating and visiting Earth, given that stellar distances are great, and faster-than-light travel is unlikely, Feldman started to think that it was "unsophisticated for any alien culture to come here in what 'd describe as a big tin can." Thus in turn he considered that the possibility of extraterrestrial contact was through information. Then he detailed that a message would contain instructions from across the void to build something that would talk to men. Instead of a mechanical device, Feldman imagined wetware. The visitor would adapt to Earth's environment through DNA belonging to Earth's organisms. Mankind has sent to space transmissions "giving out directions" such as the Arecibo message, which Feldman considered unwary, as they relay information to potential predators from outer space. He pointed out that "in nature, one species would not want a predator to know where it hides."
Therefrom emerged a film treatment called The Message. The original script had more of a police procedural approach, with the alien being created by a "bathtub geneticist" who had just had his project aborted by the government, and a biologist who had worked on the project getting along with a police officer to search for the creature. Eventually Feldman came to believe this concept had some credibility issues, and instead changed the protagonists to a government team. After coining the name "Sil," Feldman initially thought of forming an acronym, but in the end chose only the three-letter name after learning about the codons of the genetic code, which can be represented in groups of three letters. Sil would originally emerge from a DNA sequence manipulating human DNA, and constantly mutate as she used the human junk DNA to access "all the defenses of the entire animal kingdom that evolved through – including ones that had never developed, plus ones don't know about that have become extinct." Among the research Feldman did for the script included going to sessions of UCLA's Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life (CSEOL), talking to SETI scientists, and visiting the Salk Institute for Biological Studies to talk with researchers working on the Human Genome Project. The Message was offered to several studios, but was passed up.
In 1993, Feldman reworked his ideas into a spec script. This was sent to producer Frank Mancuso, Jr., who had hired Feldman to adapt Sidney Kirkpatrick's A Cast of Killers. The producer got attracted to the creative possibilites as the film offered "the challenge of walking that fine line between believability and pushing something as far as it can go." Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer got interested on the project, and while Feldman had some initial disagreements on the budget, after considering other studios he signed with MGM. In turn, the now retitled Species attracted director Roger Donaldson, who was attracted to its blend of science fiction and thriller. The script underwent eight different drafts, written over an eight-month period, before Donaldson was content that flaws in the story's logic had been corrected. At one point another writer, Larry Gross, tried his hand with the script, but ultimately all the work was done by Feldman. Feldman would remain as a co-produc
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