Enemy Mine: Deep Thoughts About Subverting Sci Fi Tropes, Prescient Gender Discussions in 80s Pop Culture, and Brilliant Practical Effects Artwork

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

80s and 90s movies and early 2000s tv may be called stupid shit by some, but you know it matters. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, sister podcasters who love well-crafted fiction and one another. In this comedy podcast, we look at the classic movies of our Gen X childhood and adolescence, analyzing film tropes to uncover the cultural commentary on romance, money, religion, mental health, and more. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, comedy to drama to horror, we use feminism, our super smart brains, and each other to uncover the lessons lurking behind the nostalgia of pop culture. Come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.

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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Enemy Mine: Deep Thoughts About Subverting Sci Fi Tropes, Prescient Gender Discussions in 80s Pop Culture, and Brilliant Practical Effects

March 10, 2026 • Sister podcasters raised by 80s and 90s movies: Tracie Guy-Decker, lover of animation, Muppets, comedy, and feminism & Emily Guy Birken, storytelling nerd, mental health advocate, and pop culture aficionado • Episode 127

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Earthman, your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie delves into a forgotten sci fi gem from her Gen X childhood: Wolfgang Petersen's 1985 film Enemy Mine. A commercial flop when it debuted, Enemy Mine never quite reached cult classic status, in part because it is a sci fi film that's remarkably light on space battles and much more interested in theology, interpersonal relationships, dignity, and parenting.

This film is also the pop culture that first introduced baby Tracie and Emily to the idea of nonbinary individuals. The heroic agender aliens (that reproduce asexually to the confusion of Dennis Quaid's Will Davidge) seem like prescient cultural commentary in a sci fi film forty years removed from our current political "discourse" about whether gender is binary. If only more people had seen this little-known film when it came out, perhaps they may have learned that truth is truth.

We promise not to say you look terrible. Please just listen!

Welcome & Why Enemy Mine

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Whoever did the makeup and the prosthetics for Lewis Gossett Jr. did an incredible job because there's this heavy prosthetics, and yet they sort of move and breathe and whatever. And Gossett, his performance underneath of all that makeup, damn really impressive. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just up culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. This is Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit. Because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1985 science fiction movie Enemy Mine with my sister, Emily Guy Birkin, and with you. Let's dive in. Okay, um, I know you've seen this one because pretty sure we saw it together, probably more than once, because this is one of our stepfather's favorites. So tell me what's in your head about Enemy Mine. Oh, that's funny. I remember watching it with dad, not with our stepdad.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Our stepdad really loved this movie. Okay, okay. So what's funny is um I feel like I've only seen the beginning of it once, but I've seen like halfway through to the end many, many, many, many, many times. So I don't really remember how it begins. The things that are in my head, I remember Dennis Quaid. I remember that his character's name is like Willis David or something like that. Yes, Willis E. Davidge. Yes. And in part because Lewis Gossett Jr., who plays the Drac, the alien, has a child, and the child ends up naming their child after Willis. Not exactly, but yes. Okay. Not precisely. Not precisely. And something along those lines. There's a voiceover at the end where it's talking about that, about something like that, about how Willis's name is is added to the lineage. Oral history of the crack. The other thing I remember is the child, because uh Willis goes back to rescue the child who he has raised because Lewis Gossett Jr.'s character dies in childbirth, I believe. And so goes back, and when he finally is reunited with the kid, the kid goes, who is called him Uncle, goes, Uncle, you look terrible. And I remember being delighted by that as a small child. I know that it was directed by Wolfgang Peterson, who directed the never ending story, and that some of the sets from the never ending story were reused for this film.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Oh, really? I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah. And so if you watch them back to back, you can actually see it. And the Drac aliens I know were non-binary. They were they were actually singular gender. I don't know what what you would call that.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah. Unigender? They have um neither sex nor gender.

Plot Setup And First Impressions

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Because neither yeah. Yeah. And each one gives birth to a singular child, I believe. That is the implication. And I remember finding that fascinating as a child. And I remember when because Dennis Quaid's character and Lewis Gossett Jr.'s character are marooned on a planet together, and they're enemies, but they have to work together to survive. And um, the drak it is their time to have a child, and Dennis Quaid is like freaking out a little bit and saying, like, women are always worried when they're about to give birth, and Lewis Gossett Jr. is like, I am not a woman, and is like very offended by that. And I remember that really striking me as a child, and it's something that's looking back, I think is was actually quite progressive and an important moment to talk to think about like the problems of misgendering when you are stuck in a binary way of thinking about things for 1985. Although considering the fact I haven't seen it in, I don't know, at least 35 years, I have no idea if it holds up. Yeah. I do wonder if it if it has any, if it was at all influenced by Ursula K. LeGwyn, because I know she wrote about aliens.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

It's based on a story, a short story by Long Ear, Barry Long Ear, a novella.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Okay. So there's quite a bit in my in my head. I also remember Dennis Quaid mentions the Houston Oilers who ceased to be after the film. So I was like, oh, I got dated. Yeah. So uh there's a lot in my head, apparently. But tell me, what's at stake for you for this film?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, this one was, you know, it was on the list because it was one of our shared childhood films. And I don't have a good reason for doing it now, but it's funny that you remember watching it with dad. I re I remember it being one that that our stepfather really loved and like things about it that I can sort of remember him sort of talking about different scenes. Like there's a scene where they're talking about their cultures and they're sort of insulting one another's cultures. And um, Dennis Quaid's character, Will, has said that Mickey Mouse, he has identified Mickey Mouse as like an Earth philosopher. And our stepdad thought it was really, really funny when the Drak character, Louis Gossip Jr.'s character, Jerry, says, Oh yeah, well, Mickey Mouse is a big, dumb dope person.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

His attempt to insult Earth culture and like Will just like kind of busts out laughing, you know. So, and I remember our stepdad like really being very amused by that.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

And and I I sort of have fond memories of watching it with him. So that was kind of part of what was in my head about it was that relationship. So let me share with you some of the postcards from the destination. I think in some ways this movie holds up a lot better than I expected. In particular, actually, the like practical effects like really hold up. Like the whoever did the makeup and the prosthetics for Louis Gossett Jr. did an incredible job because there's this heavy prosthetics, and yet they sort of move and breathe and whatever. And Gossett, his performance underneath of all that makeup, damn really impressive. So I want to talk a little bit about those things that hold up. I also want to talk about some of the things that maybe don't hold up as well. I think there's some intention about the power of empathy and cross-cultural understanding that I think is great. And obviously, we still need that message. And also in that third act where Will goes to save the child, Zemis, there's some at least like odor of saviorism. So I want to talk about saviorism versus agency of the oppressed in this movie. I also want to talk about sort of the rugged individualism that we see from Will from the beginning that like I think we were meant to sympathize with him as a result. I had the opposite response. Maybe it was, in fact, supposed to be the opposite response. Like maybe we were supposed to, we were supposed to think he was an asshole in the beginning because and see his interaction with Jerry change him. I'm not sure. So I want to talk about that a bit. I think there's also some because you know, I'm always interested in this, like there's some interesting stuff around religion and culture that I think would be interesting for us to unpack a bit.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Jerry talking about truth is truth when they they end up like connecting about how the drak religion sounds familiar to Will. Sort yes, sort of.

Crash, Survival, And Growing Trust

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yes, and like though we'll get into it. We'll get into that. So that's where we're going. Let me try and give a synopsis of the plot. It is a much more linear and straightforward storytelling than some of the films that we talk about. So I think maybe it should be, we'll see. I say this every time, but I'll do my best to keep it, if not brief, at least coherent. So it is the late 21st century, and we hear in voiceover and Dennis Quaid's voice that by now, like humans of Earth have like put our differences aside and have learned to work together. That was the first piece of science fiction. And we are exploring the universe. We only have 80 years to go. We can do it. Yeah. It's less than that. It's supposed to be like 2092 when this movie starts. Okay, it's not happening. It's not happening. So, like as a species, we are like exploring the universe and like colonizing, he says. And it turns out we're not alone. And then the like we have voiceover, and we're seeing like a scene from space, and then there's space debris, and then there's like a dead human pilot, like in a like a busted-out astronaut thing. So we hear that there's one other species who are this reptilian race, and we are at war with them over resources, which fighting over territory in space, like that's like, I don't know, it's it's like me putting up a fence against, I don't know, Californian invasion here in Baltimore. Like it just doesn't make sense. But anyway, so then we meet Will. He is a fighter pilot. He's never even seen Earth, uh, or he doesn't remember. It's just a memory. And he lives in this fortress where a lot of the time they just are waiting around as in all war until it gets really busy. And we see him jump into a fighter plane, these sort of classic science fiction and I guess actual reality, two-person fighter craft. So he's the pilot, he has a co-pilot, and they're out and they're fighting these Drak who are in similarly, you know, alien spacecraft and you know, that sort of classic, what's it called, air battle. And the Drak take out one of his colleagues and he takes it very personally. Will takes it very personally, and ends up sort of chasing this specific Drak ship all the way into atmosphere. The two ships manage to damage each other, and they both go down on this planet. The co-pilot dies in the crash, which, oh, by the way, in the scene with the co-pilot before the crash, there's some really, really gross dialogue. The co-pilot Joey, who's younger, says, Let's get this done quickly because I have a date. And he says the name of the woman that he has a date with, her last name. She's a nurse. And Quaid's character says, Wait, isn't she the one we called the white balloon? And Joey's like, That's not fair. She's lost a bunch of weight, or something like that. Like, it's fat shaming. And I'm I'm going back to say that because a gross B, then Joey's dying on the planet's surface because he's taken some injuries in the crash. And his last words to Will are don't call her that anymore. It really hurts her feelings. And don't let the guys do it either. Promise me. Promise me you won't let the guys like those are Joey's last words. Once Joey has been buried, Will's still set on revenge. So he sees the like smoke rising from the crash of the drack ship and goes to find him. And that's when we we first see Louis Gottes Jr. in the full makeup. Like he's even taken his flight suit off. He's got a little bit of a tail, it's this sort of reptilian, and he's got this he must have had like a dance choreographer working with him because even the way he moves is this sort of just different enough that you kind of believe that it's like an alien species.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

I remember it being an immersive performance.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

So the two of them, like, Will tries to kill the Drak in kind of devious ways by like pouring jet fuel on the pool where he's swimming and then lighting it on fire. It doesn't work. The Drak is fine, and Will like goes to try and take something out of the escape pod and ends up electrocuting himself. So he becomes the prisoner of the drak. Pretty quickly, though, a meteor shower starts and big pieces are falling, and it's very dangerous. So they have to take shelter together in a little cave nearby. So that starts sort of a long, like it's a combination of scenes and montage of them like needing to work together to survive. We know time is passing because Dennis Quaid's beard and hair are growing. Um, they build a shelter, it falls over. Then there's a whole scene with this like scary monster that lives underground that eats these little crab turtles, but can't eat the turtle shell. And so they build their shelter out of the shells because they realize the shells are super strong and probably can withstand the meteors. The scary monster almost gets Will, but Jerry actually saves him. Jerry is what Will calls the Lewis Gotz's Jr.'s drag character. He has a longer name that I did not bother to remember. I apologize. But, you know, neither did Will. So at least in the beginning. Oh, it's sorry, I have it up on my screen. It's Jereba Shigan is Jerry's full name. So we see them like starting to like have to work together in order to survive. So the first act is that a deepening friendship, like to pass the time. They're learning each other's language a little bit. There's the scene where the Mickey Mouse thing that comes up because Will says, you know, it's like they always say, if you at first you don't succeed, try again. And Jerry says, that sounds like the prophet, whatever his prophet's name is, which I don't remember at the moment. And he said, No, that was Mickey Mouse. And that's how the Mickey Mouse thing comes about later on when they're fighting. So we learn that there's a religion, and eventually, even like they've sort of become these grudging friends. Jerry's always reading out of this little silver book that he wears around his neck, like a Bible. And Will is like, What are you ever gonna get tired of reading that? And Jerry's like, No. And they eventually in that scene, then Jerry agrees to teach Will how to read it. And from the book, he actually like puts the necklace with the book around Will's neck, around Dennis Quaid's neck, and says, the book is given to the pupil. And I am unqualified to teach, but I'm the only one here. It's actually a really sweet moment. It's one of those like really standout acting scenes. Yeah.

Faith, Language, And Truth Is Truth

SPEAKER_02 15:29

I'm getting goosebumps just remembering it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So they're learning, and we see Dennis Quaid like reading from the book. And then Jerry says, now translate. And he says something like, When someone does something hateful to you, do not do hateful back, but rather give him love and love will open. I don't know, something like that. And Will says, I've heard this before. This is what you remember. Will says, I've heard this before in the human Talmud. Talmon is the name of this Bible, this alien Bible. And Jerry says, Of course, because truth is truth. But you haven't heard the way Drak expressed the truth. And then he sings it in the Drak language. Oh, I remember the dra, yeah, the Drac singing. There's like trilling and stuff. And throughout, there's really interesting, like almost code switching where they'll say a few words in this like Drac language and then say it, say something else in English. It's it's really, really that piece of it, I feel like is really well done.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

And that part where um when Will is like rescued by humans, he's sing singing in drak. Sort of. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get to it. You get to it. Yeah, no, I'm just like, I'm remembering how much I liked that. It's making me tear up.

Scavengers, Agency, And Power

SPEAKER_01 17:07

So Will is having a dream. He keeps having dreams that like a ship is coming, and he wakes up and he can still hear the ship. And like things are fine, but also not fine. Like they're out on a like a beautiful cliff, and like Jerry is is singing from the Talmud, and then the a meteor strike hits, and they're like running for shelter, and Jerry's having a hard time, and they have a big fight. And afterwards, after this fight, Will says, We're going crazy. We need to move because we can't just stay here. We're going crazy. If if the meteors don't get us, we'll kill each other. We need to move. And Jerry says, uh Jerry doesn't go with him. So he ends up striking out on his own. Jerry says he he just doesn't, he wants to stay. They want to stay. So Will goes out on his own. See these like big scenes of him walking in this like sort of sandy expanse. And then he finds humans. There's like a Pepsi can with this weird shape, which this weird product placement right in the middle. And it turns out they're human scavengers and he finds a Drac skull among them. And these scavengers, like they're mercenaries, and they just strip planets of their natural resources and they enslave Drac to do it. And we can see that Will is repulsed by this in a way that he would not have been at the beginning of the movie. So he heads back to Jerry. And in voiceover, he's like, I don't know how I was going to tell him. He gets back, it's snowing, it's super cold. And it turns out Jerry is expecting. That's why Jerry didn't go with him, was because he's expecting. And we like we are told, like Will like freaks out and laughs, like, don't look at me. How did it even happen? And Jerry says, you know, you humans get to choose, but we don't get to choose. It just happens when it's time. And it is time. So the super scary monster that lives in the ground, like somehow manages to get into their shelter, like underneath their shelter and nearly kills Jerry. Will manages to save him. Like he throws with bare hands, throws coals into the monster's mouth, and they escape. They run through the snow up to a cave, like up in the mountains. While they're hanging out there, while you know Jerry's getting bigger, closer to giving birth, Jerry teaches Will to sing Jerry's lineage, the lineage of Jariba. And this is an honor that Jerry is giving to Will. And then we learn that the child's name will be Zami's because there's like a specific order, there are five names, and so they recycle every you know, sixth generation. It's the same name, and we we hear all the names. And then when it's time, Jerry is like all sweaty. And again, like Louis Gossett Jr.'s performance is amazing. And he's something is wrong. You're going to need to be a parent. And that's the bit you remember, where Will is like, no, no, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. Women are always nervous before childbirth. And that's when the line you remember, I'm not a woman. And so Will like edits himself and says, Well, people who give birth are always nervous before they give birth. But Jerry's right, something is seriously wrong. So he he makes Will swear that Will will raise zombies and will take zombies back to Dracon, the home planet, and recite the lineage before the council so that zombies can be accepted as a member of the of the society. So he swears it, and then Jerry says, You're going to have to take him out, take it out of me, take zombies out of me. Jerry dies, and Will's like, I can't do it. But then he can see movement in the abdomen. And so he does basically cut this baby out. And then we see him, you know, raising this infant, which again, the effects were like, especially for 85, were like really good. He ends up like chewing the food for the baby, like a baby like a mama bird. He grows very quickly. Zombie, zombies, they grow very quickly. We realize later it's only been three years since he crash landed when he gets picked up again. So very quickly, and he says that in the voiceover, we see very tender moments with them. Like they play football, football, I'm putting quotes around it. Like, like you remember the Houston Oilers, where trees are the other teammates and stuff. And they just are having fun together. We see him call, we see the child call Will Uncle, and they compare and contrast each other their hands and their hands. Zami's has three fingers, and Will has Uncle has five. And Zami's like, wishes he weren't Jack. He wishes he had five fingers and he wishes he looked like Uncle. And he's never even seen another Jack, only his own face in the water. And then we see a ship sort of go over their cave, and Will freaks out. And zombies is like, why are you scared? What if they they're humans like you? And anyway, Uncle makes zombies promise to stay in the cave. He and Will goes, and it's it's the same scavengers that he had seen before. He sees them abusing drag slaves. And he talks to zombies, and zombies is like, maybe they were friends. Maybe they asked them to work. And Will's like, I wish that were true, but it is not. He says a word in the alien language. The next, I don't know if it's the next scene, but we then see that while Will is sleeping, Zamis goes to see what he can see. Will wakes up and realizes that Zamis is gone and like follows after him. When he finally gets there, Zamis is being sort of taunted by two humans, the scavengers, and Will ends up killing one of them with a he has like a makeshift bow and arrow, and he puts an arrow right through the guy's throat. So it kills him, but it also keeps him from crying out. Zamis has scratched the face with his three talons of the head bad guy, whose name I think is Subs or Stubbs, something like that.

Jerry’s Pregnancy And Death

SPEAKER_02 23:34

It's the same guy who plays Leon in um Oh gosh. Ridley Scott. Blade Runner? Blade Runner, thank you. Leon and Blade Runner, same actor.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

Sorry. So Subs or Stubbs, the same guy who played Leon, ends up shooting Will multiple times and taking Zamis away, the child away. And I was really surprised. Like I was watching it last night, I had no memory of that. And I was like, oh my God, but he has plot armor. How is he dead? Also, he's my narrator. What is happening? Not dead. He gets picked up by like a surveillance group from the, you know, military force that he is with. And he's about to be given a very unceremonious funeral, like space funeral, when they don't have dog tags for him. And so the guy working the it's like literally a conveyor belt funeral, like opens the body bag to try and look for it, and he sees the silver, the chain for the silver book around his neck and he tries to take it. And in the time while he's trying to pull it off, the so-called corpse, like Dennis Quaid, like reaches up his arm and grabs his throat. Because, you know, after you've been like mostly dead for days, you have enough strength to choke a man.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Well, they were going for the Talman. Don't touch a man's Talman.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah, I guess. So they rush him to, you know, Sick Bay and like his friends from before, who we really didn't see very much, but apparently they were close friends, are like, trust Will to show up where you least expect him. The advanced medical technology of the 21st century makes him write his reign. They shave his beard off, they cut his hair back to regulation.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

How much does he owe for the medical technology? I mean, does is he gonna have to pay back for pay that pay for that for the rest of his life?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

No, it's an advanced world, remember?

SPEAKER_02 25:23

Okay. So it's he's not American.

Parenting Zammis And Moral Shift

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Right. So we see him like in his uniform the way he was in the beginning. He's trying, he's like back on the hangar bay and he gets into a plane, a new plane, and the guy in the tower or whatever is like, uh, you're not authorized. And he said, I'm going. And the guy's like, no, stand down, turn off the engines. And he's like, I'm going, open the doors. They don't open the doors. He blasts the doors and he goes back to the planet. He lands near the mining organization operation. He kills some humans, he talks to the Drac who are there, the enslaved Drak. He's like showing them his talent and he's asking for zombies. And they're like one of them goes, You are uncle. Finally, one of them says, You are uncle. Of course we know you're zombies. He only spoke to me because I'm the only one who speaks the Earthman language. Where is he? Will wants to know where he is. He says, Well, he's in their ship if he's still alive. So Will uses the coat of a recently murdered guard to get into the ship. He finds zombies who's a like unconscious, kind of in like a cell underneath grating. He gets him out, and just as he gets the unconscious child out of this spot, the bad guys come and find him. And there's this very tense, like back and forth where the bad guy sort of sadistically wants to kill the child while Will watches, but Will's fighting back, and so it's it's not that straightforward. And it's like part all in like the mining operation. So he keeps sticking the child's body into this, like I don't know what to call it, like the front loader of a bulldozer, but it's on big chains and like rocks are gonna be poured on top and stuff. And we did see a man, a human, like die in the in the mining operations prior to this moment. So we know it's deadly. And eventually it ends when the big bad guy is shot. He's about to shoot Will, but he's shot by one of the Jack. Meanwhile, the three friends from the BTA, the whatever the military organization, they have shown up looking for him because they figure something's up, right? So they actually witness the full reunion when Zommies finally does wake up, as you remember, and says, Uncle, you look terrible. And like they hug. And then the final scene of the movie, there's a new narrator. So it's not Dennis Quaid anymore, who says, as you remember, that Will actually kept his promise to Jerry and took Zommies to the Drak home world and recited the full lineage in front of the council so that zombies could be accepted as a part of the society. And this is what you remember. What the narrator tells us is that when Zommies has its own child, and they use the pronoun it, and brings the child to the council, Willis E. Davidge is added to the lineage of the Jabriel line or whatever. So he didn't name the child after him, but he does include Will as a part of the family line, which they know for hundred like a hundred generations or something, they remember and sing. So that's what happens in the movie. Not concise. Not concise, but that's okay. There's a lot of I think fairly comprehensive. Yes. So I think I'm gonna actually start with the Dennis Quaid's character from the beginning. So we have that horrible fat shaming and just kind of misogyny in general. Like one gets the impression that I get the impression that if Joey's girlfriend hadn't been overweight, there would have been some other reason that Will would have given him a hard time about her. And the sort of like rugged individualism and the like manifest destiny kind of a feeling, you know, like I'm paraphrasing, but it was something like, you know, these reptiles want the best resources that these local planets have to offer, but they're not gonna get it without a fight. And it's like later we hear Jerry say to Will, like, we've been here for a thousand years. Like, this is not like you're the ones taking our stuff, not the other way around. And as I was watching it last night, I was like, I guess in 1985 I was supposed to be like, rah-rah, way to go to that kind of attitude. Like, we're not gonna let them have it without a fight and whatever. Now, as I'm talking to you about it, I wonder if that's true. Like maybe we were meant to think he was an asshole even in '85 when we watched it. Because I think part of the arc of the story that the movie makers wanted to tell was a redemption arc. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, from this man who, like, even after his friend has died, like he's still bent on damage. He's bent on revenge to this person who, by the end, the only thing that matters is his child. So maybe I was mistaken in thinking that that sort of jingoism was meant to be applauded, admirable. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Capture, Rescue, And Reunion

SPEAKER_02 30:52

I don't know. I will say, like, the reason why I have such fond memories of this is because I love love stories. I like romance because that is the most consistent place I can get them. But this is one of the love stories that I loved as a child. Like the friendship between Jerry and Will was something that just really touched my heart. And then the the parenting, the fact that Will, who was not someone who was like parent material, yeah, who then became a I will stop at nothing to make sure that this child is okay and that I will fulfill my promise to my friend. And the the love between him and the uncle, you look terrible. Like after Zamis has been through such a traumatic event because of his love for his guardian, that is what made me just adore this movie as a child. So I think that there is something to that. Like, I think we're supposed to see him as like at least, at the very least, kind of self-centered jerk.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Even if we sympathize with why he is. Even if we're like, yeah, okay, he has a point, but you know, you're taking a little far there, Will. I think that there is something to be said about like I think you're you're right that he it's supposed to be like we're seeing this person become better. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Definitely. And I do think if we break this into three acts, with you know, act one, the crash and they're still fighting and whatever, and then act two is them becoming friends, and then that ends at with Jerry's death, and then act three is the parenting and the rescue. Act three is like off script for sci-fi in the 80s. Like that's totally unexpected. I think we've seen that before. One commentator that I read pointed out that that next generation episode that we have referenced before Shaka when the walls fell is actually that. It's that same, you know, these these enemies like forced to work together and like become more culturally competent, interculturally competent in order to survive. We've seen this before. Adding the child in, that's different. It's not a part of that usual forced to work together to survive script. And I actually found it very interesting. I think there are other commentators who don't like it, but I actually I quite liked it. And I think your memories of it are accurate, that it's very moving and it's meant to be moving. In fact, the implication, like we see the three friends like in the flight suits watching, and they are visibly moved by this. And there is implication that this relationship between Will and Zommies, well, Will and Jerry, and then Will and Zommies, actually like turns the tide of the conflict, right? Because Will is there on the home world, on the Dracon homeworld. So there is like definitely suggestion that this love across difference can turn the tide of wars, which is like a really inspiring idea. You know, it's no wonder then that it gets tied back to religious ideas, to prophetic ideas, like this idea that truth is truth and that there's something universal about it, just gets expressed differently. Like I think the movie makers were trying to show that as much as tell.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Well, and it it fits with the fact that Wolfgang Peterson also made never-ending story. I mean, like he has uh ideas that he's drawn to that these big ideas that uh that imagination is what can help us survive, you know, heartbreak, and that's the truth of turning the other cheek and the truth of loving across difference is what can help end a horrific conflict.

Saviorism Versus Real Agency

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Right. While we're there though, I'm gonna stay there because I think now one commentator I read said that because like it is a drak who actually like fires the shot that kills the big bad guy, that proves it it's not guilty of white saviorism. Not sure I agree with that, right? Like I think that does mitigate the saviorism, but we still hear in voiceover from a narrator, not no longer Will himself, that Will took Zamis and the rest of the drak back to the home world, to their homeworld. And then this sort of idea that he then becomes, you know, a part of the line of Zamis. And even the fact that these other white people, because they're white humans watching, like are moved to change their ways, like there's still sort of that inflated sense of the power of this one person whose mama bear energy, like burned down the world. And it's mitigated by the fact that, like, it's mitigated and not mitigated because the you know, chosen one stories are always about an ordinary guy. And so I feel like though the saviorism, the dangers of saviorism remain. There is some mitigation in the fact that we got there not through he got to being the chosen one, not through being really good at sword play or by training really hard, but by opening up to love. I think that mitigates it. It does. And also, he's still responsible for like saving, in a literal sense, these like several dozen enslaved drak and and maybe like ending the war. And he does so with this like complete disregard for life. For you know, he's like he's there's pretty high body count once he gets to the mining operation when he's trying to save zombies. And I'm not criticizing him for doing what he needed to to save his kid. I'm criticizing the movie maker for saying to us, like, if someone hurts you, then you come back with love, except these miners.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

So is the body count entirely the human mercenaries? Yes, entirely human mercenaries.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

So I feel like it's in the context of 1985, I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

With 2026 eyes, there's some things that like I might have written differently to more fully underscore the point that I think the movie was trying to make. I would have given the enslaved Drac even more agency. I would have written, even if the action stayed the same, but the voiceover say the drak took a ship and allowed Will to come along in order to sing the lineage.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

You know, like they could have left the the actual action exactly the same, but like made it clear that the because the Drac are perfectly capable of getting themselves back to their homeland, uh, with the exception of the the children, but the adult drags.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

If they have access to a ship.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Yeah.

Nonbinary Drac And Pronouns

SPEAKER_01 38:38

So yeah, so I stand by what I just said. For 1985, I'm impressed. For 2026, looking back, I think there are ways to make changes, to give Drac more agency, to make to more fully actually show what I think the movie makers were trying to convey without changing a whole lot of the action. So, so that's something that I I just wanted to name. I'd love to talk about the non-binary. That's exactly where I was going. That was exactly where I was going. Non-gendered aspect of the drag. So one of the things that like stood out to 2026 ears that I was like, oh, in the voiceover, Will is saying these, you know, creepy, totally not a human reptilian drak who don't even have men and women, but somehow weirdly both wrapped up together in a scaly body. And I was like, um, I don't love the way you said that, Will.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

But that is also part of his journey.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yes. And I think part of what jarred was that comes within, I don't know, two minutes of him saying it by the late 21st century, you know, humans were so much more evolved that we stopped fighting. And yet this like very early 20th century is sort of necessarily include trans people. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Which again, 1985 was not top of mind in the way that it is today. And like it jarred as I was listening it to it now. That said, the movie, especially in voiceover, is very careful not to gender Jerry, not to use he, him pronouns about Jerry. It uses it pronouns, which again like felt like a bit of a speed bump because in Will's voice, which it is Will's voice for most of the movie, the narration is that sounded like an objectification, but not sexual, like a dehumanization. Yeah, it sounds offensive. A derogatory pronoun. I don't think it was intended that way. It was intended to be gender neutral. And therein lies the challenge of the English language and how deeply entrenched gender is in the way that we talk about people. But I was struck by how careful the movie was, not always Will, but the movie to not misgender Jerry. So there's the moment you remember I'm not a woman, but there's also this voiceover that does not use gendered pronouns about him, which in some ways feels prescient today. Though I'm really glad we don't use it about non-binary folks. And they can be confusing because we use it as plural and and it becomes like just linguistically it becomes confusing. But it does not work.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Makes me wonder how the film in translation for like Spanish or German or French, where there are only gendered pronouns. It's an interesting question. I did I did not do that. Yeah, I have wondered um just how non-binary folks who speak those languages, I'm sure they have there things like Z and Xer in English.

SPEAKER_01 42:09

Which has not caught on much, really.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

No. But I'm sure there must be things like that that have because there's no other way. Anyway, it's that's a sidebar that we don't need to go down right now. But yeah, I that is very interesting, and I can see where in some ways that makes the drax seem more alien, because to English-speaking humans, that sounds dehumanizing, desolizing. Like, you know, it makes you sound like an object.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

Yeah, it implies a lack of sentience.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Because even about animals, we use gendered pronouns.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

Exactly. Whereas for a drag, it would be completely non-offensive because there is no gender, there is no sex. So like it is the correct pronoun if you're using English. And I'm sure that whatever the drak language is, it doesn't, you know, it's just not offensive. Whereas like saying she or he or calling Jerry a woman is extraordinarily offensive. Because it misgenders. Because it misgenders.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

I think that dissonance is actually helpful in telling the story in some ways.

Craft, Prosthetics, And Performance

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because viewers, though, I think it was sort of like a speed bump, which initially it's interesting. My initial response to that speed bump was, oh, he's still, he's still like denigrate kind of a jerk, Jerry. And then I was like, oh no. So there's an interesting two-step process, at least there was for me, in the use of the non-binary but also non-person pronoun about Jerry that I think I agree with you that for viewers, at least those for whom like language matters, that did help kind of register the both genderless and sexless state of Jack. So yeah. So the last thing I wanna just mention, which I said briefly, but I actually want to spend just a little bit more time underlining. It is Lewis Gossett Jr.'s performance, and actually the young person who plays zombies also underneath all of those prosthetics, it's amazing. I mean, like the depth of emotion that Gossett was able to convey underneath those prosthetics. I am so impressed with his acting. And the prosthetics themselves, they were like these little, I don't know what to call them, but like sort of these circular indentations on the sides of the mouth that sort of breathed. Like they moved with his facial movements. Like there was a dynamic quality to the prosthetics that was the attention to detail, so careful. That's I think what you named as immersive. The experience of the viewer, like the space battles. I have to be like, okay, suspend your disbelief. Like, okay, just hit the I believe button. It's fine. Just keep going. The alien face. I did not, at no point was I like, yeah, okay, it's an actor. Like, I was like, oh, Jerry.

unknown 45:43

You know?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

Like, yeah. I mean, it was just really, really powerfully done. And I like, especially for 85, that it was all practical effects. Like, this was not CGI and post to make those things breathe. Damn. Like, really, wow. I the more I thought about it, the more I was like, holy cow, really, really remarkable. And I think that's worth noting because I oftentimes we talk a lot about sort of the lessons, but I also like to talk about like the craft. And I think that was a piece of like taking the craft very seriously. Like, we're gonna give you an alien. Like, you're gonna believe that this is an alien. So I just wanted to like bring that back. I mentioned that it was good, you know, in my postcards, but I I did want to come back to that.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Like you were saying, it's uh like probably worked with a choreographer to to with the movements, but then also the language and singing, there was something very like there were almost kind of trail. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and they were all sounds that could be made with a human throat, obviously, because they had to be, but they still felt very other alien, other, yes. And I remember like believing that Jerry was having a child, too.

What Holds Up And What Doesn’t

SPEAKER_01 47:10

And all when we made the other drak, like in the mine, their makeup is all different, right? So there was it it there also was a attention to detail so that these people are all obviously the same species, but it's not the exact same mold every time. I was really impressed with that piece of this film. So there's some other things I want to talk about, maybe, but I'm gonna save it for the shit we forgot to say for our Patreon because we're running a little short on time. So let me just go back and give you the highlights of what we talked about, and you can fill in anything that we missed. So, in many ways, this movie really holds up, especially just the actual like effects of it, like the sets, the prosthetic, the makeup, even the animatronics of the infant alien, like very believable. Three cheers for practical effects. Yeah, yeah, really great. I think there's a way in which Jerry and the Drac species non-binariness, they're both sexless and genderless, and their asexual reproduction was meant to be sort of foreign, but this sort of idea of neither and both, in some ways was prescient of a human experience that we're having here these 40 some years later, where many folks are realizing that the gender binary just doesn't serve them. And I that feels kind of exciting when I think about that in that way, especially since coming to accept and love this non-binary person was part of the growth arc for our protagonist.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

Our rugged individual, masculine macho man.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah. Protagonist.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Yeah.

Wrap‑Up And Patreon Tease

SPEAKER_01 49:03

Who, you know, with the misogyny and the fat shaming from the beginning, and yet, and then, you know, by the end, he's, you know, burning down hell and earth to get to this child who is the child of his mortal enemy. So that's pretty neat. I think there are some ways in which I think the intention, this sort of showing us the ways in which love across difference, platonic love in this case, across difference, and even across what's the word, antagonism is the way to end conflict and big conflict. And that the movie does show us that. And also with 2026 eyes, there are ways in which I would have edited, especially voiceover, in order to give more players more agency, in order to reduce the saviorism effect that ends up stealing agency from the people, or Drake in this case, who the savior saves. I noted that the first two acts of this film are fairly expected. We've seen it before in science fiction and even in non-science fiction, where we see field operatives who, you know, spies who have to end up working together in order to survive. Adding the third act with this child, adding this parenting component is the piece that is subversive of expectations. And the movie maker suggests is what subverts the antagonism. And that's really interesting, I think. We spoke briefly about the showing us that truth is truth, including religious truth, where the aliens Talmon sounds a lot like the Talmud. Well, the word sounds a lot like Talmud, but the actual messages sound a lot like Christian scripture. I mean, it sounds a lot like Jesus, but it also sounds, yeah, I mean, I think you're pointing to the fact that it sounds a bit like Hillel. Or just just Tanakh, you know, love the stranger as yourself. Like, as Jerry says, like, truth is truth. It just gets expressed differently, which is, I think you found really beautiful, it sounds like when you were a kid watching this. I think the movie maker tried to show us that and not just say it through Jerry's mouth, but actually like show us with the storyline. The last thing, I guess, is like, I'm not sure how much we were meant to sympathize with Dennis Quaid's character from the very beginning. I did not particularly, but I don't know if I felt that way, you know, in the late 80s and early 90s when we were watching it regularly. I don't know how much of that is sort of my contemporary view and how much was intended in the 80s, but for sure he gets a lot more likable by the end. Even though he looks terrible, according to uh zombies. So what are you bringing me next week, Em?

SPEAKER_02 52:12

So next week I'm bringing you for something completely different, my deep thoughts about Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, that is completely different. Cool.

Credits And Support

SPEAKER_01 52:20

All right. Well, listener, please head over to our Patreon where you can actually hear more thoughts about Enemy Mine or any of our recent deep thoughts. We look forward to seeing you there. See you there. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes. Or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture. And shouldn't you know what's in your head?