Just in time to spread some holiday cheer, John and Eugene are taking a look at 1968’s The Green Slime.
Synopsis
A member of the crew aboard the UNSC Gamma 3 space station utters those inevitably fateful words, “nothing exciting ever happens around here,” and fast than you can say, “sir, I’ve got something on the screen,” the asteroid Flora, six million tons of rock, is hurtling towards a certain collision with the Earth.
With only 10 hours to go before it collides with Earth, former Space Commander Jack Rankin is called in for one last suicide mission. Go to Flora, blow it up, and save the day. His first stop on the way is Space Station Gamma 3, where he is put in full operational command for the duration of this mission. They’ve outfitted a ship, bombs, and a crew to accompany Rankin on the mission.
There is, of course, a moment’s drama. The current commander of Gamma 3, Vince Elliot, is an estranged friend of Rankin’s. Formerly an unbeatable space team, they’ve fallen out over a woman, Dr. Lisa Benson. She was formerly Rankin’s main squeeze, and now she’s engaged to Elliot and the head doctor aboard Gamma 3. There’s more to their animosity than just that, though.
Gamma 3 Space Consultant Hans Halversen also worms his way onto the mission, which leaves immediately for Flora.
On Flora, the bombs are planted successfully, but strange pools of liquid contain a seething glean slime that fouls the surface vehicles, causing the teams to run back to the spacecraft on foot. Halversen realizes that the slime is alive and collects a specimen for return, but Rankin throws it away, shattering the specimen’s container. Unbeknownst to anyone, a small bit of green slime has attached itself to one of the spacesuits.
It looks like a job well done, but then Earth radios them, alerting Rankin that Flora is accelerating. They will have to detonate the bombs early, and everyone knows that doesn’t leave enough time for Rankin’s team to escape. Nonetheless, Rankin accelerates the spacecraft to Ludicrous Speed, and they escape by the hair of their teeth.
Back on Gamma 3, Rankin and Elliot begin butting heads. The mission is over, so Elliot should be back in charge, but Rankin is hanging on for a while and giving orders like he’s still in command.
When the spacesuits are placed in decontamination, the energy causes the slime to grow.
The crux of the problem between Rankin and Elliot is revealed at the obligatory celebratory party for successfully saving the Earth. Elliot made a poor command decision. He decided to save a member of his team, resulting in the deaths of ten others. Rankin is the one who wrote up the report, which nearly destroyed Elliot.
In decontamination, a creature breaks out, killing the technician via electrocution. Halversen finds a sample of green slime for study. Later, in a service corridor, another man is killed, and eventually, they track the creature to the power room. Rankin orders it killed, but at Halversen and Lisa’s insistence, Elliot takes command and orders it captured. That goes about as well as you’d expect, and more men are killed. Rankin moves to kill it with a laser, but it doesn’t work, either. Nonetheless, he declares himself in command while they try to hunt down and kill the creature.
Halversen makes a terrifying discovery. Give the creature’s blood any form of energy, and it grows new creatures at an alarming rate. Rankin hasn’t hurt it by shooting it with a laser; he’s given it more energy to spawn.
The creature attacks the medical section, and after a pitched battle that involves some lasers, they trap the creature in an isolation ward. Still, with alien blood all over the infirmary, they secure the whole area. Watching from the monitors, they see more of the creature’s form.
So far, the creatures are contained in Section C, so Rankin hatches a plan. Shut down the power in the section, then use flashlights to draw the creatures into a storage area where they can be captured. That works, more or less, but they forgot the ones trapped in the infirmary, which have now broken out. They eventually manage to trap them behind a pressure door, and I think the plan is to space them, but Halversen insists on going back in to get his notes and manages to get trapped on the wrong side of the door. Elliot and Lisa fight back against Rankin’s unreasonable refusal to rescue him, and in an act of open defiance, they open the door. Halversen is, of course, dead, the stupid idiots, and now the creatures are out.
New plan: Evacuate, and destroy the station. The creatures have moved outside and are absorbing solar radiation and multiplying. The evacuation hits a snag as the space doors are jammed. Elliot defies orders again and goes out with a team to clear them off. He succeeds with minimal casualties, and the station personnel is evacuated.
Rankin turns control over to Earth to destroy the station, but there’s too little power; it’ll have to be done manually. Rankin, of course, is the man for that job. Elliot learns what his old friend is doing and goes to help, saving Rankin but dying in the process. Rankin escapes with Elliot’s corpse, and the station is plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, spreading the green slime across the entire planet.
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