Atlas Reborn: June 2025

Movie Title: Species

Director: Roger Donaldson

Year of Release: 1995

Copyright Holder: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.

To give sex education the seriousness it deserves, we must first understand that our parents aren’t sterile creatures. We have been asked to live up to their expectations, but there’s a deep-rooted desire within them that we don’t see. Sure, we’ve seen films on parental instincts such as Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), and Godzilla (1998), but did we miss the point? Did we not see the intrinsic needs of the dinosaurs and kaiju creatures all these years – that they had other drives before hatching children?

Often lost among monster movies is Species (1995), which fell into a crack between creature features and psychological / erotic thrillers. Its lead character could have been a household name like Alex Forrest, Catherine Tramell, Ivy, Adrian Forrester and Meredith Johnson, who built their reputations as cinematic home-wreckers. But it wasn’t.

These women have aroused our fears in Fatal Attraction (1987), Basic Instinct (1992), Poison Ivy (1992), The Crush (1993), and Disclosure (1994). If you have seen at least three of them, you know that these movies send a chill down your private parts rather than awaken your parental instincts.

Unlike the other crime films on femme fatales, Species was garnished by a pinch of science-fiction / horror. It starts out like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), with humans and extraterrestrial beings making first contact, and mutates into a never-ending nightmare a la Alien (1979).

The story begins with a glimpse into the lead character – a young, pre-pubescent Sil (played by Michelle Williams). She lives in a caged facility, the way Taylor (Charlton Heston) did in Planet of the Apes (1968). While the apes gratify him by providing a woman – that Taylor names Nova – the humans in Species plan to kill Sil with lethal gas.

Young Sil is seen through the eyes of her male captors, with her long, blonde hair in focus. The leader of this pack of captors, Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley), and his men watch from an office above, looking down on young Sil.

While the men seem to be in a position of power like the three bears in the Goldilocks story, only her reflection leaves an impression on them.

The nature of her true self is hidden within her, and it is first manifested through her survival instinct which helps her escape from the transparent cage.

The men’s attempts to make young Sil docile fail because her survival is at stake. She displays great potential to fight for her freedom with the ferocity that men are believed to possess. From the surroundings, it is clear that Sil is not conditioned by the outside world. She is far from believing that she needs to be submissive to the male-dominated facility.

The military starts a manhunt, on foot and via vehicles and helicopters. No ‘chariot,’ ‘ship’ or ‘train’ will help them conquer Sil, let alone what she represents.

But a train, which can be considered symbolic of colonialism, will save her for now.

A transient, who has also sought refuge in the train, gets aroused at the very sight of Sil. She is neither mature nor curious, and even if she was, the transient is not a suitable partner. So, he dies at her hands.

He becomes useful after dying – Sil’s survival instinct compels her to raid his belongings, starting with his clothes. Since she has no money – with no means for an income – she helps herself to a cash register on a train. Sil cannot remain a raider, though. The first major act she does is observe how items can be bought using currency notes and, in a more advanced way, a credit / debit card.

Now that her immediate survival needs are taken care of, her interest has moved on to seeing dynamics in male-female relationships through the media.

While all this is happening, in another part of the country, the most assertive male character in Species, Preston Lennox (Michael Madsen) is introduced. Before going on an unspecified mission, he leaves his pet cat, Lorca, with a neighbor.

The name Lorca could either allude to a place in Spain or a man from the dark corners of art history. If you dig deep, you’ll learn that Salvador Dali, a surrealist artist, had rejected the sexual advances of his close friend, Federico Garcia Lorca. Fans of avant-garde films will also recognize the name Dali because he had made Un Chien Andalou (1929). Species is loaded with avant-garde imagery based on the design work of H.R. Giger (who was also known for designing the creature in the 1979 Alien film). So, you need to read up more on what used to fascinate Salvador Dali if you’re wondering why sexual subtext is prevalent in Species.

Donaldson juxtaposes young Sil’s transition into sexual maturity with a bizarre train that can only be Giger’s handiwork. Changes happen to her skin, and she gets cocooned in a chrysalis. This transition is made evident by the train compartment becoming illuminated and dark and vice-versa in quick succession. By the end, we see a fully-grown Sil played by Natasha Henstridge. Once Sil matures, a repeated action is the way she observes children. This is the first clue as to what her heart truly desires.

At this point, Lennox meets his team, and they listen to their leader, Fitch, explain Sil’s conception process.

The idea was that, by creating a female, they would have a docile and controllable sample to study.

One of Lennox’s team-mates is a telepathic man named Dan Smithson (Forest Whitaker), who calls himself an empath. Despite Smithson’s valuable observation that Sil is a predator, Fitch’s behavior implies he is not inclined to listen. That Fitch is somehow tolerating his presence, almost as if he is treating Smithson as an alien, too. Or Fitch doesn’t want Smithson to read his mind, and the best way to do that is to build mental blocks.

Meanwhile, Sil kills a female conductor in a coach, wears her ill-fitting uniform and leaves a train station. Later, Dr. Laura Baker (Marg Helgenberger), one of Lennox’s team members, observes the crime scene. She notes that young Sil has been consuming a lot of food to store calories for something unknown.

The team dynamics gradually change when Lennox offers to assist Dr. Baker in a lab.

She says that she likes “a man of action.”

At Sil’s end, she is taking actions of her own, in the town, with enough money to survive. A shop’s screen window displays two mannequins – one male and one female. Both mannequins are in wedding attire. Logically, Sil’s interest in a wedding gown reflects her instinct to mate. During the purchase, Sil notices that the store clerk is pregnant, which hints at why she seeks partnership. So, she gets a wedding dress, with no mate around, and the only clue is her watching an anthropomorphic carnivore in the window display of another store. This carnivore is wielding a blade, and there is also a gun on display nearby. Does this mean Sil is hunting for a mate like a caveman?

After checking into the honeymoon suite of a motel, Sil puts on the television set. While channel surfing, she sees a car crash, a passionate love-making scene, and an ad on hair dye. All these observations will aid her as time passes.

Once Sil gets ready, she asks the motel manager where she can get a man. He mentions a club named Id which, coincidentally, is a term used in psychology to denote innate desires. In the case of Species, sexual drive is the one in focus. The way Sil requires it, though, has more to do with function than with pleasure.

Right before Sil’s first attempt at mating, Lennox is alerted to her location, just when he was watching ice hockey, a hardcore masculine sport. The main contrast here is, he is working with a team, while she’s playing her cards all alone.

At the Id club, Sil finds a rival, and eliminates the competition by killing her. Yet she doesn’t return to the man who was considering her rival. She leaves with another man, Robbie (Anthony Guidera), using a line that her rival had used when she was still alive.

Sil watches Robbie starting his BMW, a luxurious car. Later, at his place, she detects something unusual and wants to leave. Robbie asserts dominance, so she kills him, proving that she is the one in charge. Sil escapes in his car, which shows her disregard for his ability to afford a BMW and healthcare. Robbie’s dependence on medication surfaces during the analysis of the crime scene by Lennox’s team. Dr. Stephen Arden (Alfred Molina) adds that Sil has no social inhibitions that are associated with the human race.

This lack of inhibition leads to Sil meeting with a traffic accident. John F. Carey (Whip Hubley), who sees this, takes pity on her and rushes her to Parkbay Hospital. There, Sil witnesses a male doctor using a dominating tone to send the nurse away on a task. Rather than letting him treat her, Sil heals her own body and leaves with Carey.

At Carey’s home, he prepares a meal for Sil. This shows that he is capable of more than a superficial relationship with a woman, unlike how it was with Robbie. As a parallel, Lennox offers candy to Dr. Baker. They’re getting drawn to each other. But out of the four adults, only one person has feelings of attraction for a much greater purpose.

A living thing’s nature is a marriage of mating, parental and self-preservation instincts, and Sil knows when to use them, especially when Lennox’s team enters Carey’s home. Since Carey rejects Sil’s wish to have a baby, she chooses self-preservation and her own true identity when she kills him. She stops looking like her human self and displays her alien form.

While Lennox investigates Carey’s property, Sil watches Lennox from afar, like a predator, but for some odd reason, she does not kill him even though she could. When Lennox believes Dr. Baker is in danger, he rushes to save her, but it was not Sil. Even though it was a false alarm, Sil notes Lennox’s protective instincts for a potential mate. He exhibited these desirable qualities out in the open, without the luxury of a car or a house.

Before Sil can continue her mating and parenthood mission, she needs to work on self-preservation. She spies on Fitch from far away, from within the protective environment of a car. Sil learns the hunting team’s plans by reading his lips, much like a supercomputer, HAL, did in 2001: A Space Odyssey. She drives off in the car, kidnapping a woman in the process.

It is clear that Dr. Baker is also in charge of her life choices, driving her own car and going places. Lennox is a passenger who hears her admit that she pines for a man like him, but she presents it like a sad joke.

At a hotel (painted like the hotel in The Shining), where Lennox’s team is staying, Dr. Arden attempts to get closer to Dr. Baker – because they’re scientists. The attempt fails, because Dr. Baker is considering Lennox as her mate. Sil, meanwhile, fantasizes about Lennox, too.

The only person that Sil tries to sort out her feelings of confusion with is the abducted woman, not a man.

Later, at the Id club, Smithson tells Dr. Arden that Dr. Baker and Lennox like each other but do not like to express themselves. Sil attracts everyone’s attention by walking up to Smithson and exploiting his extraordinary telepathic abilities.

Using the abducted woman as a decoy to take her place, Sil fakes her death, dyes and cuts her hair, and becomes a brunette in everyone’s eyes.

Now that Dr. Baker and Lennox believe that Sil is dead, they are ready to dance with each other and take their mating to the next level. Since Lennox is not convinced that Sil is dead, Dr. Baker gets upset and goes to the washroom.

When Sil returns to the hotel, she looks like the rival she had killed at the Id club. In the hotel washroom, She and Dr. Baker share the same perfume. Dr. Baker later announces – in front of Lennox, Smithson and Dr. Arden – that she is going to bed. Smithson gently reminds Lennox that Dr. Baker wants him. As Lennox proceeds to meet her, Sil stalks him. Lennox gets a whiff of the perfume on Sil, and stops for a moment, wondering whether he has smelled it before.

Later, in Dr. Baker’s room, while Lennox towers over her, she gets on her knees, and they start making love, with Sil eavesdropping from the next room. The room is actually Dr. Arden’s, and this resembles a scene in The Shining movie, where Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) meets an otherworldly woman in a washroom. Sil seduces Dr. Arden and asserts her dominance by pushing Dr. Arden into bed and being on top.

In Smithson’s room, he sees the ads Sil had seen earlier, sees past them, and senses her presence. Meanwhile, Sil and Dr. Arden finish up, and she announces her pregnancy. When he realizes who she is, she kills him. Her work is complete – Robbie wanted things to move fast; Carey was slow with his commitment; and Dr. Arden was just right for her. Now that she doesn’t need to remain in human form, she flees.

It is only now that Fitch talks to Smithson. But Smithson is unable to give him satisfactory answers.

The hunters go through an underground tunnel much like the seeds’ journey into the womb. Sil kills Fitch, the man who had put her in this position, and watches the herd of humans like predators do. The survivors enter a womb-like cavern.

In a corner, Sil gives birth to a boy. This boy disguises himself as a human soon after, but Smithson manages to kill him. With the rage of a parent who lost a child to hunters, Sil resurfaces, in her alien form, and attacks everyone. Then it’s survival of the fittest. When Sil burns, she tries to take Smithson down with her, too. Lennox kills Sil, and the humans leave the cavern.

Later, unknown to all of humanity, a rodent eats a part of Sil’s son’s remains, and transforms into a half-alien creature – the cycle of parenthood doesn’t end.

Do parental instincts help gratify your desires? Do they fulfill your expectations? Is there a good answer even if you hunt for it?

Atlas Reborn

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Putting Your Body, Heart and Intellect into Parenthood

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