Perhaps the strangest sci-fi film since The Star Wars Holiday Special, Werner Herzog’s The Wild Blue Yonder is an utterly unique experience.
Herzog has constructed a fictional story primarily based around pre-existing footage from NASA and Henry Kaiser’s work as a research diver. That he has chosen sci-fi, the genre more reliant on special effects than any other, makes the feat all the more impressive. Brad Dourif, whose performance and narrative are the bulk of the original material, plays an alien who has tried to make a life on earth after leaving his sea planet The Wild Blue Yonder following an ice age. He tells the story of how mankind attempted to populate his home planet.
The Wild Blue Yonder has beautiful images in abundance, a bizarre Senegalese / Sardinian score and a suitably exaggerated contribution from Dourif. The message is clear; humanity is doomed without earth. But any concept of entertainment is nullified by forty minutes of excess footage.
