I have the day off today. The internet and cable are not working. This is awful. So here is a sci-fi film, title courtesy of Brian Fitzpatrick. He also suggested “Dick Jones is Jonesing for a Dickings” but I decided this would be better.
One Step From Oblivion
Scrolling text on the screen explains the world. Aliens attacked the planet. We have been fighting a war for years. There are no families, there are no regular people, you are born into the army and you fight for your whole life.
We open on a huge battle that isn’t going well for the humans. A small group breaks off in retreat. Our main character Jack is the best fighter and has to be pulled away. He doesn’t want to leave wounded. Walking back into the base he yells at the others about duty and honor. How there is nothing in this life but the fight. Then he sees Lucy.
She is getting ready to head out and Jack pauses and can’t look away from her. Later that night he paces back and forth thinking about her. Another soldier tells him she’s not coming back. She was with a deserter platoon. They are soldiers who tried to run, captured and forced to do suicide missions, they hardly come back. The next day Jack waits by the entrance and Lucy and 2 others return beaten. He follows her.
Lucy turns a corner and as he comes around she grabs him and they fight. She is strong and skilled. She chastises him for being so brainwashed and devoted. The fight is over and they should try to live. She leaves. The next day Jack is being sent out and Lucy and the remnants of her platoon go with. Jack is hesitant in battle as he see’s his men die so quickly. He runs and grabs Lucy and they both flee into the distance.
He tells her he is sorry. That he never before had a reason to live except fight. They have sex. They walk the next day and Jack shoots two aliens. Lucy screams and they fight. She finds supplies on them like they were fleeing, just like them. Jack feels awful and drops his gun and we hear a strange cry. In one of the packs they find a small alien child and Jack breaks down. Lucy picks it up and brings it to him to hold. “This is life Jack.” He decides that they must protect and raise the child.
We then see that their own people who want to bring them back are hunting them, but also an alien group who wanted to bring the ones they killed back. Both groups are very interested in the child. Rest of the movie is them fleeing and fighting, trying to protect the baby. Jack has to kill his old squad mates.
They make it to an alien facility and as the two forces fight they place the baby in a rocket and send it off superman style. They rig some shit up deciding that this world and the people and aliens on it are undeserving of life and send rockets into the core. As the baby flies off to a distant world a note pinned to him reading “for a better future, moving one step from oblivion”, Jack and Lucy kiss, the Earth explodes.