The film is based on the alleged 1975 abduction of Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney), a logger from Snowflake, Arizona who went missing for five days after his co-workers claimed he was zapped by a flying saucer. The plot of the film centers mainly around the ensuing investigation and manhunt that took place, headed on-screen by the fictional Detective Frank Watters (James Garner), as well as the drama in which Walton's co-workers, including his best friend Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick), are accused of murder by their families and neighbors. Only the climax of the film (which was dramatically changed from the real Walton's story) focuses on Walton's experiences onboard the UFO.
Not to be confused with A Fire In The Sky, the 1978 TV Movie about a comet impacting the Earth.
Fire in the Sky contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: Released in 1993, set in 1975.
- Adaptational Villainy: The real Travis Walton believes that the aliens were actually healing him after he had been severely injured by their craft's engines. In the movie they just torture him some more.
- Alien Abduction: Naturally since the plot is about Travis Walton's abduction.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Though you might want to note that humans do the same things we saw the aliens do to other living beings out of science.
- And I Must Scream: Travis while going through a painful autopsy performed on him by the aliens screams out of fear and pain. The aliens get tired of his screaming and shove a
tar-like substance down his throat.- Additionally, the mutilated man he finds in the other cocoon seems barely sentient and it's hard to tell if he's being moved by Travis' panicking trashing or is actually trying to lean towards him.
- Best Friends-in-Law: Played With because Travis and Dana get married while he and Mike are estranged, but they reconcile by the end.
- Big Bad: The aliens.
- Bittersweet Ending: Travis is left traumatized by his abduction, Mike's life is ruined, and it's widely believed the loggers' story was a hoax. However, Travis does recover to an extent and marries Dana, and he and Mike reconcile.
- Body Horror: The experiments Travis is subjected to by the aliens are nothing short of violation. Tubes are shoved down his throat, his jaw is violently clamped open, a sharp device is shoved into his neck, and he is forced to endure an ocular probe. Suffice it to say, there's a reason why many call this scene one of the scariest ever put to film.
- Break the Cutie: Travis starts off as an optimistic Keet. After he's returned, he's left a joyless shell of his former self.
- Decoy Protagonist: The film initially focuses on Walters before he interrogates the loggers, at which point Mike becomes the protagonist until Travis is returned by the aliens.
- Establishing Character Moment: Travis has two, before and after his abduction. The first has him arrive at Mike's house to say hello to Mike, his family, and his sister Dana, with whom he is in a relationship, which quickly establishes him as an optimistic, kindhearted Keet. The second has him sitting alone in a car, traumatized and lacking all of his former energy, but still signing an autograph for a kid despite his obvious discomfort, showing that he's retained his kindness.
- Flashback: Most of the first act consists of Travis' friends recounting what happened; and then, near the end, Travis' flashback of what actually happened on the alien ship.
- Exposed Extraterrestrials: Subverted. What looks to be a regular example of The Greys turns out to be what their spacesuits look like. They are naked during the operation, but that's at least justified as being on the safety of their own spaceship in controlled environmental conditions.
- Eye Scream: Travis' flashback ends with a needle approaching his eye at an agonizingly slow pace.
- Genre Shift: The first and third acts are sci-fi, but the middle is mostly a cross between Police Procedural and small-town drama.
- The Greys: Subverted. When Travis first sees the slumbering aliens on board their ship, at first they look like this (grey all over, naked, large heads, huge black eyes, tiny mouths) but it turns out that those are just their suits. The actual aliens look a bit different, having slightly more humanoid faces and round heads with a beige skin tone.
- Hidden Depths: Lt. Walters initially addresses him self as from the Arizona Criminal Investigation Division. However at the end it's revealed he's actually from Montana. Montana was the alleged location of the Air Force's Project Bluebook, a catch all term for its investigative efforts related to UFO's. In other words the movie is suggesting that Lt. Walters was one of The Men in Black, sent to oversee and shift public attention away from the abduction story.
- This is actually referenced throughout when he suppress the polygraph test results, and continued to present the theory The Loggers killed Travis, even though the polygraph exonerated the loggers. Additionally, you can see a look of pure frustration on Walters face when Cy discusses the results of the test. note It also explains why Sheriff Davis is so intimidated by Walters, refusing to stick up for the group when Walters was questioning them; even though he does so against everyone else in the film. Thankfully for all parties, everyone buys the hoax theory so Lt. Walters decides cover-up isn't necessary and simply leaves, vowing to return in they slip up.
- Incriminating Indifference: The biggest reason Allan Dallis was suspected for murder was because of his indifferent attitude toward Travis.
- Inscrutable Aliens: Whatever the Aliens are truly after, no explanation is given. Sometimes they take people and let them die on their ship, sometimes they return them with only severe psychological damage.
- Inspector Javert: Walters is convinced that the loggers murdered Travis, and refuses to consider that they're telling the truth. After Travis is returned, Watters instead decides, against all possible evidence, that they must have faked the whole thing for publicity and vows to return should they ever slip up.
- Jerkass: Dallis.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The only supernatural elements we see are in the Flashbacks; technically, the audience can imagine that these events didn't really happen, though the film is certainly implying that they did.
- Organic Technology: Parts of the ship look more like a beehive than a technological space craft.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: After Travis escapes from his cocoon aboard the alien ship, he ends up entering another cocoon and finds a badly decomposed human inside, much to his visible terror.
- Police Procedural: The real focus of the film is not the abduction but the police investigation.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: At one point the aliens bind Travis to a surface with a vacuum-sealed material, force open his mouth, and put a nasty tool up close to his eye.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The last few scenes are set 2-3 years after the abduction. The movie also ends with the note of what happened to the Real Life versions of Travis and Mike, and notes that they and Dallis later took another lie detector test and all passed.note
