Taken
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| Taken | |
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| Genre | Drama, Science fiction |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Creator | Leslie Bohem |
| Starring | Dakota Fanning Elle Fanning Desmond Harrington Joel Gretsch Terry Chen Matt Frewer Adam Kaufman James McDaniel Heather Donahue Emily Bergl Gabrielle Rose Eric Close Michael Moriarty Julie Benz Jason Gray-Stanford Andy Powers |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Original channel | Sci-Fi Channel |
| Original run | December 2, 2002 – December 13, 2002 |
| No. of episodes | 10 |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Taken, also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Taken is a science fiction miniseries which first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002 and won an Emmy award for Outstanding Miniseries. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, it was written by Leslie Bohem, and directed by Breck Eisner, Félix Enríquez Alcalá, John Fawcett, Tobe Hooper, Jeremy Paul Kagan, Michael Katleman, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Bryan Spicer, Jeff Woolnough and Thomas J. Wright. It was executive produced by Bohem and Steven Spielberg.
Actors appearing in the program include Julie Benz, Emily Bergl, Terry Chen, Steve Burton, Eric Close, Heather Donahue, Dakota Fanning (who narrates, as well as starring as Allie Keys), Matt Frewer, Joel Gretsch, Ryan Hurst, Adam Kaufman, Ryan Merriman, Michael Moriarty and Anton Yelchin.
Contents |
[edit] Characters
[edit] Synopsis
Taken is a multi-generational story spanning five decades and four generations, centering on three families: the Keys, Crawfords, and Clarkes. World War II veteran Russell Keys is plagued by nightmares of his abduction by extraterrestrials during the war; the Roswell incident transforms Owen Crawford from ambitious Air Force captain to amoral shadow government conspirator; the unhappily married Sally Clarke is impregnated by an alien visitor. As the decades go by, the heirs of each are affected by the machinations of the aliens, culminating with the birth of Allie Keys, who is the final product of the aliens' experimentation and holds the key to their future.
[edit] The Artifact
The "Artifact" is a mysterious device connected to the aliens. The Artifact was initially kept on one of the alien ships flying over Earth in 1947, but for unknown technical reasons, the ship crashed and most of its crew died. The Artifact itself was thrown clear of the crashing ship and left half-buried in the ground in an area of ground scorched by the ship as it crashed. It was found and retrieved by Sue, a local young woman who was the estranged girlfriend of an ambitious Air Force Captain named Owen Crawford, when she investigated the nearby wreckage, all while being watched by the sole-surviving alien scientist (later known as "John").
Sue, recognising the small scrap of metal had alien writing on it, and hoping it would rekindle her relationship with Owen, took it to him. Owen, who at the time was being phased out of the investigation into the crashed alien spaceship (which itself was retrieved), proceeded to brutally murder Sue and take the Artifact. Owen then presented the Artifact to his superior; Colonel Thomas Campbell, and used it to make him a Major and lead the Roswell UFO Investigation Project.
Over the next 60 years, the Artifact remains in the possession of the Crawford family, with it being the guide of each of its members' efforts of investigation into the alien's mission on Earth.
The Artifact's true nature wasn't revealed until 2001, when the latest member and head of the Project, Mary Crawford, discovered new writing was still being formed on the Artifact's surface. This reveals to the government that the Artifact is the recording device of the aliens' greatest genetic experiment (to create a hybrid being possessing the alien's powers and more evolved consciousness, and humankind's emotional core, which they want to use to lead them to the next step in their evolution), and has been continuously recording the events of the alien's experiment over the many decades since its arrival on Earth.
When the hybrid, Allie Keys, departed with the aliens, the Artifact was teleported away by the aliens as well.
[edit] Implants
As part of their experiment, the aliens abducted thousands upon thousands of innocent humans (numbering exactly 46367 at its height), mostly at night or while they were in the air, in order to find humans properly compatible with their DNA, and suitable breeding pairs, to begin the process of creating the ultimate hybrid of human and alien. The implants also served as tracking devices, to allow the aliens to track down and abduct their human test subjects wherever they go. The implant was placed in a specific area of the brain that made it impossible to remove without killing or inflicting critical brain-damage on the person (at least by the standards of human science). The implants also (most likely) had a hand in manipulation of a human's memories following their abductions.
The implants remained undiscovered, until 1962, when two of the implantees, Russell and Jesse Keys, discovered the implants, after the former had a head x-ray to determine the cause of a seizure he suffered. The doctors attending to the two men initially believed it was a tumour, but Jesse, suspecting it might be related to the aliens (who repeatedly abducted them), demanded he have the same x-ray, and a similar implant was discovered.
Hoping to find a way to neutralize the implants and be finally free of the aliens' interference, Russell and Jesse arranged a meeting with Colonel Owen Crawford, knowing he was head of the UFO investigation project. Russell, in private, offered up his implant, despite knowing it would most likely lead to his death. Owen accepted, and Russell was escorted to a secret surgery. Upon arrival, Russell realized Owen, who at the time was desperate for physical evidence of the alien's manipulation of humankind, had betrayed him, but was physically over-powered by the guards and sedated. The project's head scientist; Doctor Kreutz, performed the procedure, and successfully removed the implant from Russell's brain, though mere seconds later it was revealed the implant exerts some form of negative psychic effect on human minds (most likely the signal broadcasting a human's location to the alien ships in orbit, but greatly amplified now freed of the confines of a human brain and skull), and the scientists and guards were driven insane and killed each other, with one guard firing his machine gun randomly at nearby oxygen tanks, causing the entire trailer to explode, killing Russell, Kreutz and all others within.
Learning from their mistakes, the UFO Project took precautions while retrieving and analyzing more implants from other test subjects or from their corpses. Eventually, a sophisticated tracking system was created by Doctor Chet Wakeman, which was used to great effect in tracking down taken humans.
The aliens also kept using them as part of the experiment, ultimately using them to bring the Clarke and Keys families together, in the form of Allie Keys.
When it was confirmed by the aliens that Allie possessed, and could handle, their abilities, they realized their experiment was "an unqualified success", and began preparations for retrieving her, and commanded all the other implants in other humans to deactivate and leave the abducted humans' bodies through nosebleeds, as they no longer saw any use for them.
[edit] Plot similarity
The plot of the central story bears striking similarity to the plot of 2001 British short animated film, Daddy.[1]
[edit] Episodes
| Episode | Title | Synopsis |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Beyond the Sky" | During an attack over the skies of Germany, Captain Russell Keys and his crew are abducted by the aliens. He spends the entirety of the film wondering what happened and why only he survived. He eventually runs away to become a hobo. Meanwhile, Owen Crawford investigates a UFO that crashed in Roswell. He blackmails his superior officer, Colonel Campbell with an alien device and a marriage to Campbell's daughter, Anne, into giving him the UFO project. Sally Clarke's marriage with Fred is strained due to his long absences, but when she shelters John the alien, she and John form a relationship and she ends up pregnant by him. |
| 2 | "Jacob and Jesse" | In the years after the initial encounters, Russell lives as a drifter trying to outrun the aliens, but is unable while also troubled by how he is still alive after having been taken countless times.
The aliens also start taking Russell's son Jesse and the two even appear on the same vessel, which is how Russell learns of Jesse's abductions. The two begin a wayward journey intent on discovering the aliens' intentions and what is happening to both of them. Jesse, however, is taken not long after their departure, turning Russell's ex-wife and her new husband loose on him. Colonel Owen Crawford continues his amoral pursuits revolving around the saucer and the missing fifth alien aka John that was thought to be hiding out in the Clarke household in Lubbock. All the attempts to fly the vessel fail leaving him in dire straits with the current administration unless he can find someone to fly it. He spots Sally and her son Jacob from the Quarrington convention, which leads him to going after Jacob to fly the ship. However Jacob knows Owen's intentions for him. He again uses his alien gift to scare Owen away. Afterwards, Tom and Becky take Jacob away to hide him from Crawford and others that will come for him if he stays with their mother Sally. She passes on the other earring to him while the first remains in John's possession since he left over ten years earlier. |
| 3 | "High Hopes" | Crawford's failure to recruit Jacob sours the prospects of getting the vessel to fly, but then Russell and Jesse Keys arrive with evidence of something in their heads left there by the aliens. Father and son discover there is something more dangerous than seemingly indifferent aliens, which is Crawford's motives and methods are not above sacrificing human for success. The implant removal has deadly consequences as it affects everyone in the room who turn mindlessly violent among other things. The disguised complex burns to the ground, killing everyone including Russell and Doctor Kruetz. Jesse is taken by the aliens and disappears.
Jacob again uses his powers to protect another life, but an alien in the form of human doctor warns him that continued use of these abilities will kill him. The human body, while able to use the alien abilities, is not able to handle the physical side effects of the mental power. Meanwhile, Jesse must cope with the death of his father and the continued abductions as their focus shifts entirely to him. Morality seems as foreign to the aliens as humanity looks at the aliens as strangers from another world. They are not that different, but there are differences. |
| 4 | "Acid Tests" | Sam Crawford goes north to Alaska to investigate the discovery of a Native American mummy. When he arrives in Alaska, he meets with the archaeologists. They tell him they've made a mistake. The mummy is actually a murder victim, wrapped up in bed sheets. As Sam looks into the murder victim's background, the locals become more hostile towards him and the archaeologists. It seems they're looking into something that the locals want to keep secret. Meanwhile, a local girl, Wendy, gets lost in the woods.
Sam eventually learns about the town's big secret, Lester and Larry. Lester and Larry were brothers. Their mother was a teenage girl from the town. One day, she met a human-form alien in the woods, and "bred" with him. Nine months later, she gave birth to Lester and Larry, but died in childbirth. The boys were raised by their grandfather. The locals never accepted Lester and Larry, fearing them. One day, Larry lost control of his alien powers and almost destroyed the town. He was shot by the sheriff. Lester buried Larry in the Indian burial chamber and drew alien symbols on the walls, hoping it would bring Larry back to life. Ever since, the townsfolk have been determined to keep Larry and Lester's existence a secret. Sam meets Lester in the woods. He takes Sam to his cabin where he's been keeping Wendy. He claims that he found her in the woods. She had tried climbing a tree to get her bearings, but had fallen out and broke her leg. Lester found her and took her back to his cabin, where he's been bringing her food and water. Believing that Lester is responsible for Wendy's disappearance, an angry mob shows up at the cabin, to burn it down and kill Lester. Sam takes Wendy outside to her mother. But neither this act of kindness, nor a few friendly words from Lester's grandfather, stops the mob from burning down Lester's cabin. Wendy is devastated. Sam tries to rescue Lester, but Lester doesn't seem to want to be rescued. Sam accidentally pulls off Lester's hood and sees Lester's true face (Lester is a disfigured alien-human hybrid). Sam screams in shock. Both die in the fire. A few days later, the sheriff blows up the Indian burial chamber, destroying any evidence of Larry and Lester's existence. Back home, Eric tells Owen that Sam was killed in Alaska. The shock causes Owen to have a stroke and die. Eric takes over his father's alien research projects. Meanwhile, Jesse Keys meets and falls in love with Amelia, a nurse who helps him over his heroin addiction. He still thinks the aliens are stalking him. |
| 5 | "Maintenance" | |
| 6 | "Charlie and Lisa" | |
| 7 | "God's Equation" | |
| 8 | "Dropping the Dishes" | |
| 9 | "John" | |
| 10 | "Taken" |
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Taken at the Internet Movie Database
- Official website hosted by the BBC
- Official website hosted by CBC
- Official website hosted by the SciFi Channel
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