MILLENNIUM

US, 1989, 105 minutes, Colour.
Kris Kristofferson, Cheryl Ladd, Daniel J.Travanti, Robert Joy, Lloyd Bochner, Brent Carver, Maury Chaykin.
Directed by Michael Anderson.

Millennium is one of those enjoyable science fiction time-travel features - no better than others, no worse. Kris Kristofferson is easy as the flight disaster investigator. Cheryl Ladd first appears as a glamorous stewardess but then has a more substantial role. Daniel J. Travanti appears as the professor obsessed by time-travel. The film was directed by Michael Anderson, the veteran of many decades whose science fiction films include the elaborate Logan's Run.

The film offers all the paradoxes of time-travel. This time a group comes from 3000 AD, where the human race is facing extinction, and comes back to save people just before they crash in air disasters. However, an implement is left behind and has to be recovered - which leads then to the drama and to the romance.

For fans of the genres.

1.The blend of disaster film, time-travel, science fiction?

2.The title, time-travel, the paradoxes explained about time-travel and influencing the future in the past, being able to meet people and then go back before one had met them, etcetera? The future and extinction of the human race?

3.The settings: 1989, 1963, 3000? The dome in the year 3000, the special effects for the people, the sterility of the age, the technology, the gate? The air disasters? The final explosions? Musical score?

4.The opening with the plane, hitting the other plane, the crash, the bodies, the investigation, the meetings, the reconstruction of the crashed plane? The technical background?

5.Bill Smith, his efficiency, tired, handling the press, the hearings, the tape, his initial encounter with Louise and her going, coming back with the coffee, meeting her on the escalator, the sexual encounter, the return and her disappearance? Her later coming back and the struggle for the implement? His puzzle, the reconstruction of the plane, going to hear the lecture by Dr Meyer, to Washington? His explanations? The importance of re-seeing the encounter with Louise with all its uncertainties on her part and the touches of humour? A new interpretation on what we had seen? Her return, the explanations, his decision to go, his finally being with her and the risk for the future?

6.Louise: the glamorous hostess, the slightly odd behaviour, the date, the smoking, her return? Seeing her at home? The person in charge in the future, her going to consult the council, the help from Sherman? Going back to 1963, saving the plane, Bill as a young boy? The implement and its being lost? The hijacking and the shooting? Her return? Her having to go back to 1989, to meet Bill again? Seeing everything again from her perspective, the comedy about the alien trying to cope with ordinary things in 1989, language, food, smoking, sex?

7.Dr Meyer, his arrival, the press conference, his lecture about time-travel, the end, getting the two pieces of the implement, his death?

8.The person in charge in 3000, decaying? The council and their being on life-support systems? Sherman as the robot? The decision about saving as many people as possible?

9.The contrast with human behaviour in 1989, ordinary people, inquiries into air disasters?

10.The special effects for the crashes, the changes? The finale with the explosions? People saved - hope for the future?