A direct sequel to Auton 2: Sentinel:
Driving away from the scene of the last movie, psychic Natasha (Jo
Castleton) wonders whose side professor Lockwood (Michael Wade), a psychic
affected by the Nestene intelligence, is on, and the mere fact that
Lockwood isn't all sure himself doesn't make it any easier. Still, he
tries to fight the Nestene intelligence (the force that controls the
Autons) - but then none other than Natasha lures him into a trap, as she,
too, has been taken over to some extent by the Nestene intelligence. It
seems the Autons have taken over a small town somewhere in the English
countryside, where they perform tests on Lockwood. Natasha soon gets
control over her mind again, escapes her Auton captors and runs around the
village to look for help. In the meantime, Professor Sally Arnold (Bryonie
Pritchard) and the psychic Palmer (Graeme DuFresne) have hit town in
search of Lockwood, and so has UNIT soldier Ramsay (Andrew Fettes).
Somehow everybody knows that the Nestene intelligence plans something
massive with Lockwood, and once they meet up, Palmer and Natasha try to
prevent this ... but when trying to mentally reach Lockwood, they also
open their minds for the Nestene intelligence, and while Lockwood manages
to close his mind to the Nestene's intrusion, the others are less lucky. Ultimately,
the Nestene intelligence breaks Lockwood's mental defenses and use him as
a gateway to the world's entire computer system (or something), but now
it's the non-psychics Sally and Ramsay who remind him he's still human by
way of their friendship, and ultimately he kills himself this way not only
sabotaging the plans of the Autons but destroying the Nestene intelligence
(and the Autons with it) for good. This conclusion to the Auton
Trilogy is a bit of a mess, mainly because it does not work at all
as a stantalone film. All the events in this movie are based on things
that happened in the previous episodes, especially Auton
2: Sentinel (which worked rather well on its own by the way), none
of the characters are properly introduced, just taken over from earlier
stories, and the plans of the Autons and the Nestene intelligence are
never properly explained - so if you haven't got the benefit of having
seen the previous episodes before this one, you'll be lost, and even if
you have, Auton 3: Awakening is not a very good film, id's
basically a very feeble story padded out to one hour of running time by
some people running around. The whole thing is not all bad though, it's
got some old fashioned low budget alien invasion charm rarely seen in the
1990's anymore, it just would have worked a whole lot better with a more
coherent script.
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