Hangar 18 (1980)

After 38 years, you might think that everything will ring false in the depiction of an ET encounter. But actually, the film stands very well together. I was expecting a campy ET suit with an obvious human shape not too well hidden - but instead, there is a logical explanation why the ET looks almost human (spoilers...). This is one of these old movies where there was a scenario and special effects were just a support of the scenario. I also like how they portray the investigators... and how the actors portray their reactions in very realistic ways. Worth watching!

Someone once observed that any piece of art is inherently the product of the time that it was created in. Not that I am going so far as to call the 1980 science fiction/conspiracy thriller Hangar 18 art, the very fact that it was a selection for spoofing by Mystery Science Theater 3000 should speak to the fact that it isn't. Yet between its echoes of Watergate, the still brand new NASA space shuttle, echoes of Erich Van Daniken's Chariots Of The Gods and the then recent revelation of the so-called Roswell Incident it is without a doubt very much a product of its time.That is especially true of its cast believe it or not as many of the cast members are recognizable from their roles during the 1970s and 1980s. Gary Collins and James Hampton play the two NASA shuttle astronauts who, after themselves set up as a cover-up for a UFO incident, go on the run to try and unravel the cover-up. The movie very much follows them and that is not necessarily a good thing as neither of them seem to have a whole lot of range and are anything but convincing in their roles. Much more successful are Darren McGavin (Kolchak) as a NASA official who is charge of investigating the incident and Robert Vaughn (The Man From UNCLE, Superman III) as the President's chief of staff who is charge of the cover-up. Both McGavin and Vaughn do pretty well given the material they're given. The rest of the cast ranges from okay (William Schallert as Professor Mills) to bad (any of the actors playing a government agent) to utterly forgettable. The cast though is pretty indicative of the rest of the movie.Hangar 18 also has a dated feel thanks to its production values, which look cheap. The entire opening sequence of the film involving the space shuttle mission gives this away blatantly: the interior set of the shuttle cockpit is ludicrous while there is a hilariously bad attempt at zero g (by having the actors walk around in slow motion) while outside the shuttle is represented by a model that looks as though it was bought right off a store shelf. Things improve somewhat when the movie comes down to Earth thankfully. Many of the Earthbound locations look pretty good including the NASA mission control room, the office of Vaughn's character and the title hanger itself while the UFO and its contents are a bit of a let down. The rest of Hangar 18 has the feel of a low-budget TV movie out of the late 1970s in every other way which bogs the film down and makes the 97 minute running length seems to be much, much longer. Cheap and definitely effective overall then.Perhaps there is not greater place where Hangar 18 is dated then in its script. The basic premise though is interesting: during a space shuttle mission to deploy a satellite ("the first" according to dialogue but never mind), said satellite collides with a nearby UFO which then crashes to Earth. With a Presidential election just two weeks away, the White House decides to hold off announcing this and instigate a cover-up for fear of political repercussions. While a group of NASA scientists and technicians go about investigating the UFO and make surprising discoveries, the two surviving astronauts are effectively framed and set out to unravel the cover-up. A nice idea right? Maybe but definitely not in the way its done here. There are some sizable plot holes and leaps (a most unscientific examination of the UFO and its contents being a prime example) throughout that make it just a bit too difficult to suspend disbelief on top of all the aforementioned issues the movie has. Not to mention quite a bit of cringe-worthy dialogue especially from the two astronaut character's that are so much the focus of the film. There are also perhaps too many ideas being thrown into the plot as well. The script feels like a smörgåsbord of late 1970s conspiracy theories and science fiction clichés: you have the two astronauts trying to unravel the cover-up, the NASA team investigating the UFO, the political machinations of the chief of staff and then the NASA team starting confirming bits and pieces of Van Daniken and others theories about ancient astronauts. The result is that the script and the movie feel very unfocused and very dated.Where does that leave Hangar 18? Well it's a mixed bag all around from its acting to its production values and its script. Above all else though is a dated piece of work that proves that it is very much a product of the time it was created.

Low-grade, but slightly riveting slow-going conspiracy-laced government cover-up thriller that sees an UFO colliding with an American satellite being launched in space and then crash-landing in the Arizona desert. To hide the truth because of an election campaign, the astronauts are blamed for the incident which saw one of their colleagues killed. So the two men go about trying to find out the truth which the government officials would do anything to keep it a secret, while studying what they have just found.The clunky story goes about three separate parts; that of the astronauts trying to clear their names (this is when the action kicks into gear --- "Come on we got to get that rock."), the political big-heads villainously scheming (doing things behind closed doors) and then you got the NASA scientists trying to learn from their alien discovery. While ambitious in context, it just seems too simple and cautious in its presentation (a telemovie of the week feel) but it does stick to its strengths. The whole novelty of the discovery of the flying saucer and its occupants is interesting (theories are chucked around), if at times a little disappointing. A good cast is assembled. Gary Collins and James Hampton are sturdy as the two astronauts. Darrin McGavin chips in with a bright performance as the NASA official in charge of the project in investigating their new spacecraft toy and Robert Vaughn in a weasel performance heads the dirty tactics.

(Some Spoilers) Not as bad as it looks now some 25 years after it's release. "Hanger 18" is the first major motion picture to bring on the screen the Eric Van Daniken hypothesis from his best selling book "Chariots of the Gods" and the recent, back in 1980, revelations of the mysterious 1947 Roswell crash brought out in the William Moore's UFO classic "The Roswell Incident" and fuses the two subjects together into a movie. Out in space astronauts Bancroft Price & Gates, Garry Collins James Hampton & J.R Clark, are about to launch a satellite from their space craft when this UFO suddenly appears and hovers over their spaceship. Unable to prevent the launch it goes off and slams into the UFO. The explosion of the satellite cause Gates to be ripped from out of the craft and end up dead. The NASA crew monitoring the launch, back on earth in Huston, catches the entire scene on tape but it's soon deleted, or erased, by orders from higher ups and both Bancroft & Price are implicated in Gates death due to their negligence . With two weeks before the presidential election President Duncon Tyler's staff headed by Gordon Cain & Frank Lafferty, Robert Vaughn & Joseph Campanella, want the incident to be kept from the public in order not to hurt Tyler's chances for re-election. The UFO that caused all this nervousness in both the White House and the Pentagon wasn't destroyed by the space-crafts satellite it landed safe on earth in Bannon County Arizona with it's two alien pilots, or spacemen, dead of asphyxiation. The news of that amazing fact can well destroy Tyler's chances.President Tyler made a big issue of his opponent believing in UFO's now just 14 days before the election there's solid evidence that they do exist! With both Bancroft and Price trying to find NASA deputy director and friend Harry Forbes, Darren McGavin, to exonerate them in Gates' death Forbes, and his staff at NASA, are then sent to Wolf AFB in Midland Texas at the facilities Hanger 18 where the UFO is being held.Not knowing what's happening in the outside world Forbes & Co. were kept in the dark about what was going on with both Bancroft & Price. Forbes and his assistants Paul Bannister, Steven Keats, and Neal Kelso, Andrew Bloch, decipher the alien hieroglyphs and come to the startling conclusion that their not only studying the Human Race but in fact created it tens of thousands of years ago! The aliens may well be the "missing link" between man and ape! Forbes shocked at what he found out astoundingly says of the aliens to his stunned and shocked staff: "Were Their Children!" Back outside Bancroft & Price who are trying to get to Wolf AFB and Hanger 18 are cased by government agents which results in Price, as well as four agents, getting killed. Finally Bancroft reaching the Wolf military base and getting in touch with Forbes, who found out about what was going on by listening to a radio, and his staff to go pubic with what's been happening at Hanger 18 and how the US government is trying to cover it up. Feeling that their control of the information about the captured UFO is slipping away from them and that it's only a matter of time before the US, and world, public will know the truth Cain & Co. have a jet, loaded with high explosives, flown into Hanger 18 by remote control in order to destroy the evidence as well as Bancroft Forbes and everyone else in there; planes crash every day a diabolical Cain tells his fellow criminals and future cell-mates.Cain's scheme is only partly successful because what he didn't count on is that the UFO is not of this earth and thus not subject to the damage that the explosives on the runaway jet plane can do to it. Even more disturbing, to Cain & Co., Forbes Bancroft and Forbes entire NASA staff were in the UFO at the time that the plane crashed into Hanger 18.