• Written and directed by Paul Mayersberg, based (ostensibly) on the short story by Isaac Asimov
• Starring
  • David Birney
  • Sarah Douglas
  • Alexis Kanner
  • Andra Millian
  • Starr Andreef
• Produced by Julie Corman

Here’s the thing about different media: they’re different. You can do things in one medium that you can’t in another. That’s patently obvious if you compare, say, landscape painting with dance choreography. But sometimes people forget that even the narrative media — short fiction, novels, poetry, theater, film — each exist for a reason; to wit, each can do things the others can’t. Sometimes you can’t translate a narrative from one medium to another and have it retain what made it noteworthy originally. And sometimes, when you technically could translate from one medium to another, it still isn’t done with enough skill or horse sense to make the exercise worthwhile.

The original “Nightfall” is a short story, which necessarily means that it’s short on plot. At best, one might be able to stretch it out to the length of, say, an Outer Limits episode by dramatizing the embedded exposition. Any longer than that — for instance, if someone were to attempt to make a full-length motion picture out of it — and you’re going to end up adding a lot of plot to take up the running time.

But wait — if all three suns are visible on one side of the planet at once, that means that as the planet rotates… Gah.

In this case, though, writer/director Paul Mayersberg, couldn’t confine himself to adding to the core plot; instead, he grafted in enough ephemeral subplots that they manage to completely eclipse any main plot line, as well as the core idea that has kept the original story story popular for (at the time of production) almost fifty years.

I’ve said it before, and sadly, I’ll probably have occasion to say it many more times: if your movie starts with a long voiceover to get the audience up to speed on a half-dozen plot threads, you probably don’t have enough of a focused story to hold their interest to the finish line. Such a voiceover begins this movie, informing us of a planet with three suns (what a place for a budgetary cutback), and a city run by Aton (David Birney), astronomer/statesman. He’s been derelict in his duties of late (whatever those might be — is staring at the suns really an 8-to-5 job?), thanks to a mysterious desert woman named Ana (Andra Millian), who’s bewitched him with the standard feminine wiles to the point of utter distraction and obsession. Meanwhile, the followers of blind prophet Sor (Alexis Kanner) are spreading about a prophecy of “nightfall,” a coming time of doom in which the planet’s three suns will all vanish, and darkness will spread. Aton, naturally, poo-poohs the idea when he isn’t busy sucking face. His ex-wife Roa (Sarah Douglas), though, is as much a believer as Aton is a skeptic, and has gone off to join the cultists in their doomsdaying.

“I just stand around, looking stunned… and I get paid for it!”

Lotta background to absorb at once, isn’t it? It’d be best if you took notes, because coming up there are long stretches in which nothing in particular happens, and you’ll have plenty of time to go back and mull over this expository blob.

In fact, so little happens for so long that it’s difficult to recap the plot and not have it sound like a half-hour short. Aton spends far too much time drinking and nuzzling Ana, so his own people kidnap her and drag her back to the desert where she belongs. Sor’s followers spend a lot of time chanting. Aton’s son-in-law, Kin (Charles Hayward), a professional bell-forger and bell-player, spends a lot of time playing his bells. (Gripping cinema, I tell you.) Aton and Sor visit one another and trade barbs phrased in a manner that’s supposed to sound all deep and philosophical but which really reminds of that friend you had in high school who thought he was getting in touch with Cosmic Truth whenever he was stoned and thus regales you with inane observations in serious tones. (I hope you remember that friend, because if you don’t, odds are you were that friend.)

Then something happens: One of the suns disappears! (I’m assuming it dips below the horizon, or fails to come up again, or something. It’s only referred to obliquely. Who needs a plot when we’ve got bell-ringing to watch?) Aton has to come to grips with the idea that Sor might actually be on to something. Sor’s followers, meanwhile, chant and mumble with renewed vigor.

Didn’t these guys have a couple of Top 40 hits in the late ’80s?

Right about here is the movie’s sole memorable scene. Roa, determined to progress to the next level of “illumination” (odd word for a blind prophet to fixate on) through voluntary blindness. So she lies in a coffin, and a metal mask is placed over her face, on which two hawks perch. The hawks proceed to cheerfully peck out her eyes for lunch. It’s a haunting image. Too bad it was wasted in such a lame movie.

Let’s see. What else happens? Aton sends Kin out into the desert to find Ana again, while Aton tries to come up with some way for the people of his city (who seem to number maybe two dozen) to survive the vague coming doom. Over the course of several scenes (separated by Aton and Sor separately pontificating, naturally), Kin finds Ana among her people, doing what desert nomads do best, i.e., interpretive dance. Then he and she go through a cutesy scene of falling in love while playing with a variety of burlap facemasks, and end up rutting beside the campfire. (And then Kin gets bitten in the groin by a snake. But Ana helpfully sucks the poison out. And if you think I’m going for any of the obvious jokes, you’re crazy.) Eventually, he persuades her to come back to the city for Aton’s sake. (And, I suppose, so that his wife, Aton’s daughter, can take care of his laundry.)

Peekaboo.

Dear lord, is there still more of this movie? Unfortunately, yes. Somewhere along the way they lose another sun (check the couch cushions), an assassin tries to kill Aton, the city people build an underground bunker lit by wind power, and as night finally falls, people start lighting fires. No, not big city-destroying ones like in the short story; there isn’t the budget for that kind of thing. Just a few bonfires here and there. That frustrates Sor, as he was expecting big apocalyptic destruction to make that whole fanatical belief deal worthwhile for his fanatical believers.

Oh, and Aton discovers Kin and Ana playing kissyface, so they have a duel to the death with the crystal swords that everyone uses (even though they show many metal implements, no one on this planet has apparently had the bright idea of forging a blade). Oh, and Aton also throws Sor off a cliff. Did I mention that this is our noble protagonist?

The ending could well be termed “anti-climactic” if what comes before had been any kind of build-up. As it is, well, it’s just kind of there. The suns disappear, the stars come out, and Aton’s people all look up and say, “Huh. Stars. Nifty. Is that it?” Aton gives a little speech (the last of many, thank goodness) about how maybe, in the fact of such cosmic cosmicness, no one on their planet had ever done or said or thought anything truly significant to that point. I’m sure when Mayersberg was penning those words, he wasn’t thinking of how appropriately they fit this movie, but I couldn’t have summed it up better myself.

Welcome to “Write Your Own Caption Day” at Cold Fusion Video Reviews.

I do have to point out that, among the many sleepwalking performances here, Alexis Kanner as Sor brings a dash of talent to his part. Instead of being the normal ethereal blind prophet intoning Words Of Wisdom, he delivers his lines in a very matter-of-fact, understated tone. In fact, the actor brings so much more appeal to the character than Birney brings to Aton that one almost wishes that the arbitrary “protagonist” and “antagonist” labels had been reversed.

Of all the people to blame for this one, though, don’t blame Asimov. He knew, wisely, that film was a very different medium, and one in which he had very little experience or interest, and so he let the producers who paid for the rights do as they pleased. If he ever saw the movie that resulted, I’m sure he drew some comfort from the fact that the people who had and have read his story still outnumber the people who saw this dumped-to-video movie by a sizeable margin.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 4, plus 1 snake
• breasts: 2
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • David Birney (Aton) played “Senator Letant” in the DS9 episode “Tears of the Prophets”
  • Larry Hankin (”Desert King”) played “Gaunt Gary” in the Voyager episode “The Cloud”