Threshold

Sure and steady patience and vigilance delicately guide a medical research team, as the leading American Heart Surgeon (Donald Sutherland as Dr. Thomas Vrain) searches for ways to save essential lives.

Not just in the United States but research teams engage proactively worldwide, and freely share their incredible findings with the goal of encouraging international comprehension.

It's cool to remember the public impetus to forge consensus in complex situations, and look for solutions to intricate problems far beyond one's trusted jurisdiction.

The ways in which scientists and various researchers constructively collaborate to solve compelling mysteries, in the interest of humanity gathered from Buenos Aires to Addis Ababa to Perth, Australia. 

Collective goals peacefully coinciding with affordable applications of the ingenious discoveries, so if someone gets sick they don't break the bank trying to recover from their pressing illness.

Such a blueprint seemed progressively paramount in the hopeful spirit of the '80s and '90s, and no doubt still efficiently elucidates, I just don't hear about it as often.

In Threshold (1981) it efficiently functions as Dr. Vrain attempts to save patients with troubling heart defects, heart transplants still in incipient stages, dedicated teams working on artificial alternatives.

He hires the romantic Dr. Aldo Gehring (Jeff Goldblum) to join his understaffed yet versatile team, and they create a brilliant short-term replacement for the old tactile ticker that keeps brazenly beating.

It must have seemed like an impossibility it still does to this day how is such a thing possible?, but then again how is the natural version capable of prolonged existence as it persistently pulsates every second of every day?

With all the talk about artificial intelligence and the theoretical worlds where cyborgs flourish (The Matrix etc.), it makes me wary that horrifying experiments will be secretly conducted to create cyborg brains.

The brain is indubitably organic, computers exalting metallic technology, how can they seamlessly function in unison, especially when so little is known about the brain, and its extraordinarily complex intricacies?

Beware enticing lucrative cash payouts which promise enormous sums if you participate in a study, hopefully the more scrupulous scientists remain vigilant and don't asks tens of thousands to give up their lives for cyborg research which may lead to nothing.

The body may be more robotic but how do we organically catalogue the mind?

The price is too high in my opinion.

The ends do not justify the means. 

Medicine Man

Laidback far off in the jungle, ensconced within an Amazonian tribe, a doctor searches for the cure for cancer (Sean Connery as Dr. Robert Campbell), as encroaching industry rapidly assails.

He's been on his own scientifically speaking for the past 3 productive years, when a research assistant comes querulously calling, hoping for an update on his progress (Lorraine Bracco as Dr. Rae Crane). 

She's unaccustomed to field research but she's a gamer and athletically makes do, initial quarrels gradually mutating into spry collegial conversations.

It helps that Campbell's well-versed in freespirited adventurous exploration, and can expertly guide her through the forest at a variety of elevations.

But his last research assistant was also female and he cantankerously drove her away, unable to let himself be forgiven, for introducing a viral element.

Fortunately, he's found the cure, there's just one pesky problem, he can't synchronously reproduce it, and neither can diligent Crane.

It's a dedicated romantic tale confrontationally composed through agile wonder, promoting biodiverse necessities and the essential need for wildlife preservation.

There's a thoughtful acclimatizing scene where Crane observes Campbell interacting with his tribe, not with the intent of spoiling his fun, but rather out of respect for his cohesive integration.

While Campbell's work is extremely important and his potential discovery of paramount depth, his Indigenous hosts suffer for his research, one tribe lost, another forced to relocate.

These tragedies take place even though he takes every resolute precaution, so many lives lost through effects unforeseen, even when proceeding with the best intentions.

Don't confuse this with the horrifying legacy of Canada's residential school system, Campbell has respect for the Natives and has no desire whatsoever to assimilate them.

I don't think the people who ran those schools ever considered taking painstaking precautions, otherwise we wouldn't have found so many grass graves (new ones every week), imagine one child died at school in our time, due to mismanagement, the outrage would last a generation. 

And we've found four mass graves so far, it's clear something they were doing at these schools wasn't working. And they didn't try to change their methods. Most likely hoped that God would intervene.

I ask you, is medical science not what people have been praying for since the beginning of time?

Why didn't these schools have trusted medical resources?

I doubt children died at comparable rates in similar rural circumstances. 

Skylines

An alien/human hybrid lives nonchalantly off the grid, remorse constricting personal ambitions, due to a failure to act in battle.

She's diligently sought after however à cause de her extraterrestrial expertise, a new mission having been spearheaded to search for booty on an alien homeworld.

A war was fought between human and alien in the not so distant past, from which terrans emerged victorious, the military mind still engaging recalibrated hypotheticals as it worries about the future.

After the war, abundant alien pilots were freed from coerced somnambulism, making their home on planet Earth thereafter, perhaps fighting to protect animal rights.

But a virus is transforming them back into mindless grasping automatons, who rile and ravage everything they see, in chaotic grand decrepitude. 

Rose (Lindsey Morgan) accepts the mission and soon it's off to the far reaches of space, her compatriots bluntly unveiling envy, while wondering if she'll freeze once more.

But something much more sinister is recklessly salvaged after they furiously crash land, embittered genocidal knowledge which facilitates lofty commands.

Will they outwit Deep Space Nine's Alexander Siddig (Radford) in time to stop the raging pandemic?

Or will coldhearted unaccommodating vengeance seal the fate of millions?

It's emphatic fast-paced sci-fi abounding with hyperreactive apocalyptic import, scene after scene fuelling kinetic reconnaissance through altruistic embellished endeavour.

Astronomical odds extenuating precision displaced diasporas conceived reconciliation, the low budget spirit ascending judiciously through wave upon wave of nimble creation.

Perhaps somewhat too catastrophic inasmuch as genocide is always distasteful, the grim sadistic paranoid leadership unimpressed with interspecial acculturations. 

Nuclear strikes etcetera aren't well-timed with the current political climate, since just a short time ago disarmament goals were radically scoffed at.

Nevertheless, it is just a film operating outside political theatre, perhaps still commentating on jingoistic pretensions in order to encourage less destructive initiatives. 

In fact in the final moments political prisoners are discovered and their release encouraged, a collection of soulful dissenting voices who vigorously critiqued warlike passions.

Cool sci-fi thoughtfully nurturing multilateral collegiality. 

We can think the same way about animals.

And bring those on the brink back from extinction.