Outside, a ship materializes on a landing pad for an unnecessarily long and noisy amount of time. An older, ugly (I mean, ugli-er) Psychlo steps out, by the name of Zzzt. Because they stayed faithful to all specific names and terms in the book, Terl and Ker have to idiotically address the guy by that name. Of course, his name said aloud sounds like "Zit". Zzzt calls Earth "one of the ugliest crap-holes in the entire universe!" proving that his alien vocabulary is no greater or more advanced than my own. He then posits that once all the gold is mined from Earth they should exterminate everything on the planet, which leads he, Terl and Ker into more idiotic laughing. Don't you hate when you're with friends and they laugh loudly at a joke but you don't think the punchline is THAT funny? That's what hanging around Terl and Ker must feel like.
The laughing Psychlos next appear in a heavily blue-tinted room, which made me think James Cameron directed this scene. Of course he didn't, otherwise the scene wouldn't suck so badly. They review an old picture of a guy driving a car with a dog sitting in the back seat, leading them to believe that dogs were the dominant species on Earth. This leads me to disbelieve that these morons could have conquered Earth, much less a small Boy Scout troop.
Anyway, Zzzt gets down to business, as he's here to discuss Terl's future plans. Terl had been hoping for a "long overdue transfer" away from his dreary job supervising gold mines on Earth to someplace important. Terl looks hopeful as Zzzt admires the job he's been doing, before dropping the bombshell, "… we've decided to keep you on (Earth) for another tour of service!" Terl instantly wears a pained expression, similar to that of someone sitting through this film. Over his objections, Zzzt assures him that "The home office does not make mistakes". I don't know what David Letterman's talk show has to do with this either.
Zzzt then improves Terl's mood by jokingly telling him, "We've decided not to keep you here for another five cycles!" Terl smiles and laughs with Ker. Zzzt then shits on him again, with the punchline, "We've decided to keep you here for another FIFTY cycles… with endless options for renewal!" That last sentence echoes several times, which sounded so odd I thought it was just echoing from my head at first. Zzzt laughs in Terl's pained face while I wonder how this film could get any worse, having now transformed from a lousy action film into a lame sitcom.
It gets explained to Terl that his misfortune is thanks to a Senator pissed at him for sleeping with his daughter; "The Senator has a lot of friends." Zzzt grins evilly and tells Terl to look on the bright side: "One day you're going to die." I agree that death can be viewed as something positive, if watching this story were the only alternative.
Zzzt gets back in his ship and it noisily de-materializes. Cut over now to planet Psychlo, which looks much like futuristic Los Angeles did in Blade Runner, sans the presence of good acting or sensible dialogue. Zzzt disembarks from his ship and then… the scene ends. Thanks for that thrillingly informative scene, annoying movie.
Back on Earth, Terl drowns his sorrows as he and Ker drink a fluorescent green alcoholic beverage called… ughh…. 'Kerbango'. Yeah, I know. Anyway, Terl's giant, ugly hands are shown in detail here. They look like the 'hand' part of a giant Halloween lizardman costume. Those long claw-fingernails look like an old fat person's toenails suffering from some gruesome condition you might shockingly stumble upon on that medical channel on cable. Terl pouts to Ker that he always wanted to be someone of greater importance, leading armies of conquest all over the galaxy. Ker sits there like a lump, probably dreaming of one day appearing in good movies again (you will, Forest, don't worry!). The bartender sets down a bunch of drinks that Terl ordered. Like the other 'Psychlo' actors in the film, Travolta has a laughably hard time picking up anything with those ghastly hands, in this case several tall glasses of, ahem, Kerbango. In the book, Kerbango wasn't a liquid served in glasses; it was some slimy slop served in pans, like a dessert casserole gone horribly wrong. Since the film had to stay idiotically faithful to the terms in the book, Terl, Ker, and the bartender still refer to the glasses as "pans", which could've only served to confuse those sensible members of the audience who never read the book.
Johnny and dozens of other humans are now locked up together in large prison cells in what I suppose looks like a drunk tank in Boston on St. Patrick's Day. It's feeding time so lots of green vomit-like slop comes out of a big hose. Some punk gang-leader type who's been in prison for a while walks over to Johnny and says he eats first, followed by his men. Only afterwards does anyone else get to eat, if any food is left. Personally, I'd tell him to chow down on as much of the chunky green diarrhea as he'd like while I'd eat my shoe for lunch instead. Johnny has a problem with the rules, however, as he gets in the punk's face to tell him "That's how it used to work!" before they start fighting each other. Oddly, none of the punk's men come to his aid, so I guess they weren't exactly crazy about the goo-eating privileges either. Johnny winds up winning the fight, dunking the punk guy's face in the green poop food. Johnny heroically tells all, "From now on, we eat at the same time!" while heroically lifting a big handful of slop. All that's missing is John Belushi humming "The Star Spangled Banner" in the background. Some of the formerly downtrodden folk take their fair share of the pukey slop from Johnny's hand.
In his office (not to be confused with the HOME office!), Terl admonishes Ker for lying to him about a vein of gold that was recently discovered. Terl secretly observed Ker's plans thanks to his, well, not-so-secret cameras as we get a close-up of one. They are about as hidden as a ceiling fan and also make loud buzzing noises when activated or focused, so this makes Ker look pretty dense. Now get ready for another round of unnecessarily hyphenated babble. Ker whines that 'picto-cameras' shouldn't be used to observe other officers. Terl doesn't care and tells Ker to look at the map of the vein to check its 'compo-gradients'. Ker discovers that the gold is located in a radiated area; he informs Terl that "No Psychlos could get there without his breath-gas exploding!" At this point I'm starting to feel my brain-function exploding!
Terl gets even more pissed and clubs Ker over the head a few times before drawing a weapon on him. He calms down a bit as he formulates an idea to have some humans mine the gold for them, even though mining is a paid profession only performed by Psychlos. Soon enough though, Terl and the reluctant Ker offer their plan to a really old and ugly, big necked Psychlo who I guess is the official head of the whole mining operation. He adds his own dumb hyphen-word, as he asks Terl if he has blown a "head-gasket"! Hey, Psychlos, that's one of OUR hyphenated words, stick to your own! Ugly big-neck guy nixes the plan and sounds like a Wal-Mart manager when he points out it's against regulations to pay humans for labor.
The next day, or later that day, or sometime during the day, I guess, the humans are led outside to go… somewhere. For some reason a Psychlo ship sideswipes an old industrial chimney, scattering debris everywhere and creating chaos. Johnny takes the opportunity to smash his chain and runs off (in slow-motion of course!) only to get shot by an Atari-esque green blip again. The guards decide to terminate him in a fun way, by removing his boogerish-looking breathing mask, timing how long he can run before suffocating. Johnny takes off and runs full-speed for a minute or so without air, which I'll just assume is technically possible, before running into what looks like a foundry. Some humans there share their breathing masks with him. The guards are angry, saying that Johnny cheated; what a poor sport he is! They start firing at him, which apparently causes Johnny to fall back into his slow-motion gallop.
Meanwhile, Terl and Ker strategize, at least to the point where those two morons are capable of strategizing. Terl is angry with the ugly big-necked guy and says he hopes to dig up some dirt on him, to provide "leverage". This may be the first time but it's far, far, FAR from the last time the word "leverage" will be used in the film. Ker is upset that Terl doesn't plan to share his profits from the secret gold mine, telling him, "I don't want to partner up with an idiot!" I think you should've directed that statement to your agent before filming began, Forest. Terl secretly activates a picto-camera (AKA 'camera') before asking Ker to explain the whole plan, which he does like a doofus. Terl now tells Ker he has a recording of him as insurance, so "If any unfortunate accident were to befall me, this would go straight to the home office!" He doesn't proceed to toss a blue index card through a fake window and exchange banter with Paul Shaffer, however.
Next, Terl watches the still-running-without-air Johnny on a security monitor. We cut to Johnny, as he finally reaches a storm drain where he is able to breathe air. Unfortunately, the guards have finally caught up to him. Just as they are about to shoot him with the deadly version of the green blips, they are shot by Terl. Terl tells Ker that Johnny seems resourceful, but because of his defiance, "We'll need LEVERAGE over it." I feel like a bell should be rung for every time the word 'leverage' is used, sort of like the commotion that would follow when the 'secret word' was uttered on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
After locking up Johnny, Carlo (you remember, the over-the-top mensch), Punk (I eat the slop first) guy and some other humans, Terl gets into some of the specifics of his plan: "Man is a primitive species, so we'll need something primitive for LEVERAGE!" (Ring those bells!) Terl decides to let some humans loose and then observe as they pick out their favorite food. Once Terl and Ker know what that favorite food is, they'll be able to dangle that food as LEV… well… you know.
Next we watch as Johnny, Carlo and Punk guy struggle across the frozen, snowy mountains. Yeah, Terl, lots of food options here; what a brilliant plan, dumbass. Eventually the men make their way into some shelter and Johnny, in ultra-dramatic-as-ever slow-motion, attacks and begins eating a rat raw while the others hesitate to join in; I guess Punk guy is homesick for the green slop. Inside their ship, Ker immediately declares that rats must be their favorite food. Proving he's no less a dumbass than Ker is, Terl proclaims, "We're really going to have LEVERAGE over them now!" (Ring, ring!)
Johnny, proving he has ears, notices the little picto-camera buzzing away in a button on his shirt. These Psychlos are REALLY way too dumb to have conquered Earth; I can only guess they've been de-evolving as a species since the conquest. Ker warns Terl that Johnny has discovered the cameras but Terl blares "Don't be a knot-head... It's a man-animal!" Once he sees all the screens go blank he angrily stands up and bangs his head on the ceiling, yelling "crap-lousy ceiling!" I guess we've veered back into the painful comedy portion of the film, to provide another respite from those painful dramatic portions.
The three men move through the mountains some more, passing an old sign that reveals they were in Aspen, Colorado. Aspen sure looks in bad shape in the year 3000, but at least it's less expensive and obnoxious. The men make their way to a tall cliff overlooking a river. They hear a Psychlo ship approaching and Johnny decides to jump for it rather than be captured. As he starts to leap in equally shitty-looking blue screen and slow-motion effects, Terl appears in front of him, piloting the ship.
Back inside the ship, Terl sits Johnny into a learning machine, which will rapidly increase his knowledge and intelligence. Apparently no human ever sat in one, certainly not anyone involved in making this movie. A hologram of a member of a conquered alien race appears and guides Johnny as beams of light shoot into his eyes. Soon enough, Johnny can understand the Psychlo language. After Terl has left, Carlo walks in and wants to discuss a plan to escape. Johnny says to wait because he wants to stay in the chair to seek out more information; yeah right Johnny, I bet you're just checking out lesbian websites most of the time.
As the human prisoners seem to be left alone most of the time now, Johnny takes the opportunity to teach them math, geometry, security protocols and all sorts of things. Didn't Terl just want them to know enough to be able to mine gold? Why would he stop supervising them? Stupid movie. Anyway, figuring they now know enough to try to escape, they break the code to the weapon and security camera room and grab everything they can from there.
Over in Johnny's mountain village, Chrissy has had enough worrying and takes off on horseback to look for Johnny. Yes, the old man is still at his post to moan and yell at anyone who decides to leave, like a reverse bouncer.
Next, Terl keeps yelling at and beating Johnny for not yet understanding the Psychlo language. Ker hypothesizes that Johnny may only be faking his ignorance: "Maybe it's secretly listening, trying to get LEVERAGE (ring ding!) over on us." Nearing an hour into the film, Ker finally shows evidence of possessing a brain, if not verbal originality. Terl won't have any of it, though: "A man-animal getting LEVERAGE (ring-a-ding-ding!) over a Psychlo? That'll be the day!" Terl considers terminating the whole operation and is about to shoot Johnny, who suddenly starts speaking Psychlo. Johnny tells Terl he is now taking him prisoner and his smelly fellow 'man-animals' all show up with guns.
