FARSCAPE: THE PEACEKEEPER WARS

PLOT SUMMARY

The complicated plot begins with Rygel, the Dominar, swimming down to a sandy ocean bottom where he retrieves and swallows bits of red crystal. It develops that these are the fragments of crystallized John & Aeryn. When he returns to a boat on the surface, Ka D'argo helps him aboard and he vomits up the fragments. Later, in a hall ashore, aliens painstakingly assemble the fragments inside a chamber where John and Aeryn are restored to life.1

Meanwhile, Peacekeeper ships are engaged in a fierce battle with an armada of the Scarran Empire. The Peacekeepers are winning when Scorpius suddenly orders his flagship to retreat. He confides to Sukozu (?) "John Crichton is alive." HCrichtom had been hounded by both sides for his presumed knowledge of how to create a wormhole weapon. That pursuit resumes, and the Peacekeepers soon track him down — as does Emperor Staleek, thanks to a Peacekeeper spy. Scorpius joins Crichton aboard the living starship Moia, hoping to persuade him to give up the secret.

John and Aeryn, along with Ka D'Argo, Chiana and Rygel, are now prisoners of the Eidelons. These are descendants of a race that learned, millennia in the past, how to influence people toward peace. They have lost the ability, and believe they are the only Eidelons left. But U-Naranti reveals that some survive on their watery homeworld. They head there in Moia and find a living elder in the temple who agrees to use his powers to end what looks to be the final war.

The group is captured by Emperor Staleek and the elder, Yondalao, begins to have some success. But he is killed by Staleek's assistant, and the Emperor returns to his warlike ways. Stark acquires the powers of the dying Yondalao and is unsettled by them. D'Argo and Chiana, shadowing the Emperor's flagship in a cloaked vessel, are cast into space when their vessel is detected and blasted. But D'Argo's son arrives in a ship with better cloaking ability and rescues the pair in time. D'Argo gives him plans of the flagship showing its weak spots, which lets him disable it and free the prisoners aboard.

The group descends to the surface of the water planet, where they find more Eidelon survivors. But soon Moia is surrounded by Peacekeeper ships, and a ground assault begins. D'Argo is killed in a fierce battle. His son returns the others to Moia and departs on another errand. Moia tries to starburst but is damaged. Cricton boards his module and heads through the wormhole to meet Einstein, who reluctantly gives him the secret. He returns to Moia and tells Pilot how to build what he needs. Repelled by the idea, Pilot refuses. But as Moia comes under increasing fire, he reverses himself. Crichton deploys the weapon. As the wormhole grows larger and more menacing, threatening Moia and the fleets of both opposing sides, will they agree to end their war? Will Crichton be able to stop the wormhole if they do?

Capsule review: This movie has a coomplicated plot that is hard to describe — or to follow if you missed the TV series Farscape (1999-2003). However, it has impressive space battles, action-filled firefights, intriguing2 alien characters, and outstanding acting — especially by Ben Browder and Claudia Black, It is a fitting end to the Farscape saga that I think everyone will enjoy.