Classic Movie Review: 'Fire in the Sky'

Fire in the Sky (1993)

Directed by Robert Lieberman

Written by Tracy Torme

Starring Robert Patrick, D.B Sweeney, Craig Sheffer

Release Date March 12th, 2023

Published June, 2023

A group of friends worked together on a scam to convince the world that one of them was abducted by aliens. For me, this is a much more interesting story than treating the lie these men told as if it actually happened. Unfortunately, that's the approach director Robert Lieberman and writer Tracy Torme went with in making Fire in the Sky, pretending the lie was the truth. By pretending that this man was actually abducted by aliens, the filmmakers cosigned the lie and colluded to provide credence to the grift of these men that, for at least one of them, continues to to this day.

Fire in the Sky asks you to believe that in 1975 a man named Travis Walton was abducted by aliens while his friends watched in shock and horror. The 'friends' ran away, leaving Travis seemingly for dead. Several days later, a naked and traumatized Travis was found a full town away shivering inside of a shed. In Fire in the Sky, D.B Sweeney provides a reasonably shaken and angst ridden performance as Travis Walton. And, because he's an actor whose been given direction on how to portray this trauma, he makes it look as if this is what really happened to Travis Walton, perhaps better than Walton himself ever could.

The story of Travis's disappearance is told in a dimwitted flashback. Apparently the filmmakers half-watched Rashomon and took a minor inspiration that pretends toward high art but falls squarely into melodrama. Familiar faces Robert Patrick, Peter Berg, Craig Scheffer and Henry Thomas play Travis's friends who, for a time, were suspected of having killed Travis, at least according to the movie. The real story of what happened to Travis Walton is that he and his friends perpetrated a hoax that Walton has exploited for financial gain for years.

They sold the story to The Enquirer, a disreputable tabloid that claimed that Walton and his friends passed a lie detector test. The reality is, The Enquirer had just as much to gain from Travis Walton's made up abduction story as he did. Skeptical investigators who performed tests on Walton found that he was trying to beat the lie detector through various means that had been shared in books out around that time. One lie detector test that Walton took, with a genuinely independent test administrator, ended with the administrator calling Walton's story a 'gross deception.'

You can choose to believe Travis Walton if you want but there is zero actual evidence to back up Walton's claim. Walton's grift earned him a book deal, speaking tours, and convention appearances that have paid him to be there. He can claim to be telling the truth but he can't deny that his story, true or not, it's not true, has been a great benefit to him. He also got paid for his life rights to make this movie, Fire in the Sky, which portrays him as he wants to be portrayed, as a victim of an alien abduction. The movie contains zero skepticism. Travis Walton was abducted and his story is true. That's the story that the film settles on.

And why does the film settle on that story? Because it's a more commercially viable story than the truth. The filmmakers have essentially 'printed the legend,' ala The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Travis Walton's version is a sci-fi adventure story filled with touches of horror imagery, all with a wide appeal among core youth audience moviegoers. Fire in the Sky has a built in marketing campaign, it's based on a famous story, essentially a profitable Intellectual Property, before such things became common in Hollywood lingo.

Of course Hollywood chose to print the legend and not question the truth. There is no profit in debunking Travis Walton. Debunking him is probably a better story overall, but it doesn't have the inherent box office appeal of a sci-fi alien abduction story. It doesn't have a plainly obvious marketing hook. Fire in the Sky was a business driven choice by the studio releasing it and no concern was held over whether or not the story was true or not. Everyone involved already knew the story was phony.

I guess, in fairness, Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware. If you don't already know that Travis Walton's story is not, in fact, 'based on a true story,' it's kind of on you. You have to choose to be duped by Fire in the Sky. You have to choose to take this nonsense story on face value. If you do, then I am happy for you. Just recognize that you have made a choice to believe this. It's not about being convinced, it's an active effort you are making to buy this as a true story.

Fire in the Sky was recently the subject of my new podcast, a spinoff of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, Everyone's a Critic 1993. Each week, myself and my co-hosts, teenager M.J and Gen-X-er Amy, watch a movie from 1993 in chonological release order, one per week. It's been tremendous fun and it has been fascinating to see how movies and popular culture have changed in just the last 30 years. Join us by subscribing to the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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