History Film / EnemyMine

* BigStupidDooDooHead: In a moment of anger, the Jerry attempts to provoke Davidge by furiously calling MickeyMouse (who he believes is the human equivalent of Shizumaat) "ONE BIG STUPID DOPE!"

%%* ABoyAndHisX: An Earth soldier and his parthenogenic reptilian alien adopted child. %% Add more context to describe their relationship and what effect it has on them. %%

* ArchEnemy: Willis Davidge has Stubbs, an illegal mine owner who enslaved his adopted alien child. The feeling's mutual, since Davidge killed Stubbs' younger brother to protect Zammis.

* FantasticRacism

* MuggingTheMonster: Davidge attempts to sneak-attack both Jeriba (to steal his supplies) and the slavedriver (to rescue Zammis). To say the least, neither ends well.

* RevengeBeforeReason: Davidge does it ''twice'' in quick succession

* AdaptationalDumbass: "Dumbass" is a mite harsh, but the novella's Zammis is almost worryingly intelligent, to the point that it completely throws Davidge for a loop by holding a deep, very verbose philosophical discussion about existence at barely a year old (and creates a bit of a PlotHole, because ''who taught it all that'' if Davidge didn't?). The film version gives the young Drac a more believable intelligence level on par with a 10-12 year old human child.
* AllHailTheGreatGodMickey: Alien Jeriba Shigan assumes that Mickey Mouse is a great spiritual figure.

* HateSink: Stubbs is an illegal miner who takes advantage of the human-Drac war to enslave the latter, trapping them in hellish conditions where they're worked and starved to death. Stubbs even does this to children, leading a stranded soldier named Davidge to go after him when he kidnaps his adopted Drac kid. When Davidge shows up to rescue the boy, Stubbs tries to kill him for an advantage in the fight.

* HonoraryUncle: Davidge. It loses "honorary" when his name is added to the line of Jeriba.

* OnlyMostlyDead: [[spoiler:Davidge survives being shot.]]
* PapaWolf: Never mess with Zammis, [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge ever]].

** When one of the human pilots gets shot by Jeriba, despite having malfunction of his own engine and against suggestions of the co-pilot, Willis goes on a chase after the Drac. This gets him and the alien stranded, while the co-pilot dies during the crash.
** Right after the crash, his very first decision is not to fend for own survival or do anything else - he heads straight to the crash site of the Drac's fighter to finish off the survivor. Somewhat justified, as making sure your mortal enemy is not still alive is a reasonable course of action, though it shouldn't necessarily be the ''very first thing'' you do.

The Drac, whose name, Jeriba Shigan (Creator/LouisGossettJr.), gets shortened to "Jerry" for the film, forces Davidge to slave away at building shelter and such, as he managed to hang onto his sidearm. But when the danger from deadly terrain, storms and predators gets to be too much, Jerry and Davidge end up working together, and then becoming friends.

* TheGoldenRule: The aliens' holy book has a version of the quote. Davidge remarks that the [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] has a similar quote, and Jerry isn't surprised. "Truth is truth." It highlights how neither of them practiced this (being at war) until they were forced to as well.

A 1985 Sci-Fi film, directed by Creator/WolfgangPetersen and adapted from a Barry Longyear [[Literature/TheEnemyPapers novella]].

* HumansAreBastards: The Dracs tend to think so. They claim that the humans are actually the aggressors in the war. But the humans believe otherwise.
** This is more or less inevitable, since the common folk on both sides have little to go on but propaganda intended to make them more willing to support the war effort. The Drac, however, claim the region being fought over on the basis that they were there first, by a wide margin, and the humans are upstart interlopers. The brief narration at the start indicates the Dracs seem to have the truth on their side.
--->'''Davidge''': A race of non-Human aliens called the Dracs were claiming squatters rights on some of the richest star systems in the Galaxy. Well, they weren't going to get it without a fight...
** The human military also looks the other way when it comes to humans enslaving Dracs, according to Davidge.
** The novella's final chapters involve Davidge traveling to the Drac home planet, where we see ample evidence that [[NotSoDifferent Dracs can be just as bigoted against humans as humans are against them]].

* AdaptationalDumbass: "Dumbass" is a mite harsh, but the novella's Zammis is worryingly intelligent, to the point that it completely throws Davidge for a loop by holding a deep, verbose philosophical discussion about existence at barely a year old (and creates a PlotHole, since ''who taught it all that'' if Davidge didn't?). The film version gives the young Drac a more believable intelligence level on par with a 10-12 year old human child.

** The novella's final chapters involve Davidge traveling to the Drac home planet, where we see ample evidence that [[AliensAreBastards Dracs can be just as bigoted against humans as humans are against them]].

* AdaptationalDumbass: "Dumbass" is a mite harsh, but the novella's Zammis is worryingly intelligent, to the point that it completely throws Davidge for a loop by holding a deep philosophical discussion about existence at barely a year old (and creates a PlotHole, since ''who taught it all that'' if Davidge didn't?). The film version gives the young Drac a more believable intelligence level on par with a 10-12 year old human child.

* AdaptationalDumbass: "Dumbass" is a mite harsh, but the novella's Zammis is worryingly intelligent, to the point that it completely throws Davidge for a loop by holding a deep philosophical discussion about existence at barely a year old (and creates a PlotHole, since ''who taught him all that'' if Davidge didn't?). The film version gives him a more believable intelligence level on par with a 10-12 year old human child.

-->'''Davidge''': "A race of non-Human aliens called the Dracs were claiming squatters rights on some of the richest star systems in the Galaxy. Well, they weren't going to get it without a fight......"

* FairyTale: Very subtle, but the film ends with a Narrator essentially saying everyone LivedHappilyEverAfter.

* IdiotBall: Davidge, at first. He hounds Jerry down and inflicts a fatal wound on his fighter with his blasters. What does Davidge do? Follow him right into the planet's atmosphere. ''When he sees Jerry ejecting'', he just powers straight ahead, right on into Jerry's now-abandoned craft, causing the crash that kicks off the story proper. He doesn't do much better on the planet at first...did he not have an inkling that maybe the Drac escape capsule and/or sidearm would have ''security features'' to them to incapacitate potential ambushers?

* EnemyMine: The two main characters must join up against the elements to survive, in spite of being enemies. The movie is not the TropeNamer, however the novella this was based on is, in fact, the TropeNamer. Despite common confusion, it does not originate from the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - it is an original phrase that the author, [[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/169122/how-come-enemy-mine-be-a-short-version-of-the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend/169368 Barry Longyear, came up with randomly]] as a poetic way of saying "my enemy".

* EnemyMine: The two main characters must join up against the elements to survive, in spite of being enemies. The movie is not the TropeNamer, however the novella this was based on "is", in fact, the TropeNamer. Despite common confusion, it does not originate from the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - it is an original phrase that the author, [[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/169122/how-come-enemy-mine-be-a-short-version-of-the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend/169368 Barry Longyear, came up with randomly]] as a poetic way of saying "my enemy".

* EnemyMine: The two main characters must join up against the elements to survive, in spite of being enemies. The movie is not the TropeNamer, however the novella this was based on 'is', in fact, the TropeNamer. Despite common confusion, it does not originate from the phrase "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" - it is an original phrase that the author, [[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/169122/how-come-enemy-mine-be-a-short-version-of-the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend/169368 Barry Longyear, came up with randomly]] as a poetic way of saying "my enemy".

And for the record, not actually the TropeNamer for EnemyMine.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: Caused by ExecutiveMeddling. "Enemy mine" is a phrase referring to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." The climax of the film also features a mine full of enemies.

* EnemyMine: The two main characters must join up against the elements to survive, in spite of being enemies. It's not the TropeNamer, however. [[OlderThanTheyThink The movie was named for the phrase that named the trope]].%% Now let's leave this like this, because if we remove the incorrect information completely it'll just get added back in.

** Humans were calling Dracs "it" without knowing they were hermaphroditic, however, so it's more initially a case of ItIsDehumanizing that just happens to be justified for once.

The Drac, whose name, Jeriba Shigan (Louis Gossett, Jr.), gets shortened to "Jerry" for the film, forces Davidge to slave away at building shelter and such, as he managed to hang onto his sidearm. But when the danger from deadly terrain, storms and predators gets to be too much, Jerry and Davidge end up working together, and then becoming friends.

* PragmaticAdaptation: The literal mine filled with enemies that factors into the finale was demanded by studio executives and wasn't present at all in the source novella, where the main characters are simply found and rescued. Because of the way film plots are typically structured, though, [[TropesAreTools a direct adaptation of the novella's ending would have been seen as somewhat unsatisfying in a movie, as there's no real set of climactic events that lead up to the resolution]].