Not since Captain Picard learned that Darmok and Gilead could be found at Tenegra has there been a decent entry into the astronaut and alien trapped together on a harsh planet genre. Really, the definitive take is Wolfgang Peterson's excellent 1985 sci-fi classic Enemy Mine with Dennis Quaid and Louis Gosset Jr. Production Weekly says filmmaker Paul Catling will try to top it.
Catling is the director of an award-winning short called Tomo, the story of a drunken, angry astronaut marooned on an ice planet with only a mischievous cyborg to keep him company. What's most impressive about the short is the way it blends motion-captured CGI with live action to create incredibly realistic effects shots.
Catlings plan is to take that short, and turn it into a full-length feature film. He starts shooting in the spring. If the story's as good as the effects, this could be brilliant. Watch a video clip from the short below, to see what I mean:
