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D–E Entries Faith Domergue David Duchovny David Duncan Harlan Ellison Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark Roland Emmerich Maurice Evans   EMMERICH, ROLAND (1955– ). German director, writer, and producer. SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, AND HORROR FILM CREDITS Directed: Das Arche Noah Prinzip [The Noah's Ark Principle] (and wrote) (1984); Joey (and wrote with Hans J. Haller and Thomas Lechner) (1985); Hollywood-Monster [Ghost Chase] (and wrote with Oliver Eberle and Thomas Kubisch) (1987); Moon 44 (and story with P. J. Mitchell; script Eberle and Dean Heyde) (1990); Universal Soldier (1992); Stargate (and wrote with Dean Devlin) (1994); Independence Day (and wrote with Devlin) (1996); Godzilla (and wrote with Devlin; story with Devlin and Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio) (1998). Produced: The High Crusade (Klaus Knoesel and Holger Neuhauser 1994); The Visitor (tv series) (1997–1998); Godzilla: The Series (animated tv series) (1998); The Thirteenth Floor (Josef Rusnak 1999); Eight Legged Freaks (Ellory Eklayem 2002). Appeared in: The Making of Universal Soldier (tv documentary short) (1992). Whenever I watch a Roland Emmerich film, I am reminded of the old Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Chevy Chase as a "land shark" who would knock on apartment doors and patiently offer one reason after another for his visit—"Pizza delivery," "Repairman," "Candygram"—until hitting upon the right pretext that would inspire the resident to open the door. Emmerich wishes to emotionally connect with every single person in his audience, and he will, in the course of a single film, briefly try almost everything he can think of in order to do so. Thus, he says to those watching the film that first manifested his signature style, Stargate: are you responding to the satisfying story of a likable nerd finally finding true love with an exotic beauty? No? Then how about the moving tale of a father embittered by the death of his son who finds a new reason for living by bonding with a bold and energetic young man? Or the expansive saga of a nation of enslaved people finding the will and the means to rise up and claim their freedom? Theme after theme is splashed on the screen for about five minutes, interspersed with ample doses of mindless action. The problem with this approach is that all these disparate motifs are each given too little time, and are so visibly contrivances unsupported by conviction, that they cannot possibly have any emotional impact. Could anyone but a moron, for example, believe that some genuine affection for his adopted country motivated that sequence in Independence Day when a worldwide battle against alien invaders was briefly and bafflingly linked to all-American values? It was just Emmerich pushing another button—patriotism—before returning to glimpses at Will SMITH's love life or Jeff GOLDBLUM's problematic relationship with his father. It wasn't always this way. As a young director in Germany, and then in the United States, Emmerich initially specialized in making the sorts of low-budget, low-profile films that gather dust on the shelves of video rental stores awaiting a daring customer willing to take a chance on an intriguing but unknown title. Such films, considered in their context, are hard to castigate, and some might even discern a sort of dopey charm in films like Joey or Moon 44, making them believe that their two dollars weren't wasted. But Emmerich then hooked up with rising action star Jean-Claude Van Damme and unexpectedly hit the big time with the sci-fi shoot-em-up Universal Soldier, the undeserved success of which led to bigger budgets, the establishment of a profitable alliance with producer Dean DEVLIN, and another unexpected and undeserved hit, Stargate. Like a later exercise in mediocrity, Stephen SOMMERS's The Mummy, the film somehow scored by combining faux Egyptian veneer, relentless action, and razzle-dazzle special effects despite its obvious problems in casting (this was the film that proved James Spader couldn't carry a movie) and both narrative and scientific logic (its villain being an ancient alien combining vast superscientific powers and the common sense of a four-year-old). Despite his emerging status as the major Hollywood director specializing in science fiction films, Emmerich irksomely makes films that seem especially ignorant of and contemptuous toward science; even his own characters cannot bother to make sense of the perfunctory, muddled scientific explanations, generally cutting off the blather by saying something like, "Look, just tell me where to shoot, and we'll figure it all out later." While no one would have identified Emmerich as a rising star on the basis of Stargate, his next film, Independence Day, led many to hold precisely that opinion, inasmuch as it became for a while the highest-grossing film of all time. Yet in terms of its overall design and execution, the film was just as slipshod and senseless as his previous hits; its success must be attributed to its unusually evocative imagery of immense alien spacecraft hovering above major cities—if nothing else, Emmerich's films can occasionally look interesting—and to its remarkably talented lead performers, Smith and Goldblum, who unlike Van Damme, Spader, or Kurt RUSSELL had the power to imbue the film with some sense of conviction and direction. With Emmerich's track record, a proven property with built-in appeal, and a lavish budget for production and promotion, everyone knew that his next film Godzilla was absolutely, positively sure to be a huge hit. It wasn't, because at this point Emmerich's desperate desire to touch every base and please every customer had disastrously gone into overdrive. It seems the sort of film that had not four, but dozens of screenwriters, a steady stream of uncredited industry veterans who each added one more sure-fire gimmick: "Let's have a fisherman feel a pull on his line, and then out comes Godzilla!" "Let's use the old rolling marbles trick to stop the miniature dinosaurs!" "Let's put Godzilla in a big car chase sequence." Its titular monster stripped of all symbolic or political significance in order to avoid offending anyone, its potpourri of boring subplots beyond the control of ineffectual leading man Matthew BRODERICK, Godzilla is a risible mess, and one can be thankful that the planned second and third films of the Godzilla trilogy have been indefinitely put on hold. As if newly unsure of his power to deal effectively with science fiction, Emmerich uncharacteristically retreated to American history with The Patriot while placing more emphasis on his second career as a producer, with uneven results. The High Crusade, more fodder for the impulse-buyer at the video store, is a dreary evisceration of Poul Anderson's delightful novel; The Thirteenth Floor and Eight Legged Freaks had higher profiles, better advance buzz, but disappointing ticket sales; and the state of television entertainment was not exactly improved by The Visitor and an animated Godzilla series. (He is not officially credited, and hence officially cannot be blamed, for the relentless dull Stargate SG-1 series, inexplicably still on the air.) He is reportedly now working on another science fiction epic in the tradition of Irwin ALLEN, a disaster film about a future New York City imperilled by a new ice age. Its anticipated release already postponed from 2003 to 2004, one hopes that its movement toward theatrical release will continue at a glacial pace.

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