All language subtitles for (indoxxi.net) Phase IV (1974)

That spring, we were all
watching the events of space

and wondering what
the final effect would be.

Astronomers argued over theory

while engineers got
pretty excited about variables

and magnetic fields.

Mystics predicted earthquakes

and the end of life as we knew it.

When the effect came

it was almost unnoticed

because it happened to such a small

and insignificant form of life.

One biologist, an English man, Ernest Hubbs

saw something, got nervous
and started investigating.

While I was playing around with
number theory at the university.

Hubbs was already on to something.

Ordinary ants of different species

were doing things ants don't do.

Meeting, communicating.

Apparently making decisions.

By summer the rest of the world
had moved on to other things

but Hubbs kept making notes.

While the threat grew.

Only fragments of what he knew got out

he kept most of it to himself.

So when I got into it,
I didn't know a damn thing.

"Memorandum to alf launder smith"

"secretary, national science foundation"

"committee on biological controls."

"From E.D. Hubbs, senior fellow
Coronado institute"

"subject - biological imbalance
in an upland Arizona Valley."

"Facts on hand - traditional antagonisms,"

"amongst several ants species
have come to a dramatic halt."

"At the same time there has
been an apparent disappearance"

"of those insects which prey on ants"

"specifically mantises, beetles,"

"millipedes and spiders."

"If these conditions persist
they must inevitably"

"lead to increases in ant population."

"Proposal - an immediate full scale attack"

"on the threat of biological
imbalance to other life forms"

"in the subject area."

"Mode of operation - an experiment station"

"to be built and maintained with equipment"

"sophisticated enough
to control the problem"

"and any potential consequences."

"Personnel - one senior scientist, myself."

"Plus one associate"

"a qualified information specialist"

"with cryptological background."

"In this connection I have been impressed"

"with the recent work of J. R. Lesko"

"at the naval under sea
centre of San Diego."

"Location of installation -"

"it is suggested the experiment station"

"be placed in the locale"

"of the most recently observed phenomena."

"Conclusions and recommendations -"

"speed is of the essence."

This is the place.

This is the place.

This is it.

No bodies I hope.

The population moved itself out
some days ago.

We've got some pretty powerful friends.

Just another desert development

which did not develop.

You did your major work

applying game theory to
the language of killer whales.

Well, it seemed cheaper
than applying it to real air.

Did you actually succeed
in making positive contact

with the whales?

Only with the emotionally disturbed.

How were you able to determine that?

We talked.

Is that a joke?

Look, I'm sorry, I'm strictly
a pencil and paper guy

I wouldn't know the front end of a whale

from... A hole in the ground.

I know that game's your business, James,

you play them very well.
That's why you're here.

But this is a serious game.

Well, that's the best kind, isn't it?

Wednesday, three o'clock,

further discoveries this afternoon

on a nearby farm.

To be added to those observed earlier.

I might have pointed them out to Lesko.

But it would be better to
let him learn at his own pace.

There are certain equatorial ants

that would attack anything -
insects, mammals -

anything at all that threatens
their food supply.

The smell triggers their behavior.

Yeah.

They are picky eaters.

Now this thing here.

You see what we're doing,

we're running lines from these fuel tanks

and if those ants get over that water trap

we're gonna set fire to this here ditch

and watch 'em all burn.

What do you think?

Done a lot of good work.

I'd say they started pulling out
three, four weeks ago

a couple of families at a time.

What else?

That's about the size of it.

I guess it must have been
some kind of infestation

but... Well, I couldn't say for sure.

Maybe the heat got too much for 'em.

There's a collapsed house down there.

Well, I wouldn't know about that.

I didn't really get to know those people

they were... They were city folk mainly.

Tell me about the towers.

Don't know, wasn't there.

Of course it's been a dry year.

You know we do get ants in dry years.

Hmm.

I talked to an entomologist

up at the state department
of agriculture at one time,

he said these things were cyclical.

They weren't talking about those ants.

Mildred, come on out here.

That's alright. It isn't alright.

These people will think

I've got you chained up in there.

These gentlemen are from the university,

they're gonna develop
a new spray for those ants.

You know what I think.

Ha! You know if she didn't have
something to worry about,

she wouldn't know what to do with herself.

I'm afraid you're gonna have to
leave for a few days.

Mr. Eldridge.

Evacuation?

Look I... Mr. Eldridge.

I... I... I don't understand this.
It's for your own protection.

Evacuation? What's this all about anyway?

Why this isn't right.
They can't just push us off...

Didn't you hear what the man said?

It's for our protection.

When do they get their farm back?

That depends.

Friday, eight o'clock,

the zone should now be clear of population,

we can proceed with the next step.

The facility is completely self contained,

except for a primary power source

and the generator in our trucks
supplies this,

the experiment has begun.

What's wrong?

Well, I guess they're not ready to play yet.

Dr. Hubbs,

there's already been a twelve day over run

which averages out at 36%

when projected over the course
of the total program.

The controller would like
to get the final figure

before the fiscal period ends on the 14th.

Shall we put you down for one more week?

I'm sorry, this is not a precise business.

Well, can you give us an estimate?

We cannot study the ants
until they make an appearance.

Can we put you down for ten more days?

This is not a controlled experiment,

in our judgment another
occurrence in this area

is highly probable.

But we cannot command the ants to appear.

Well is there something
you could do to hurry them up?

We have been thinking about that.

You know, of course, there is concern

over possible outbreaks in other areas?

Ah, I share that concern.

My associate, Mr. Lesko,
has something to say.

Listen, I want you to do me a favor -

I want you to call Miss Dobson, d-o-b-s-o-n.

6-6-2-0-7-9-9 in Los Angeles.

Tell her not to take
the plane to Vegas on Thursday.

Tell her it'll be a couple more weeks and...

She'll hear from me, okay?

Did you say a couple of weeks?

That's right.

Mr. Lesko, that's not going to be possible,

accord...

Let's see some activity.

Hi, there?

Clete!

Ants.

They got the horse, Clete, light the fire.

Kendra. Oh, my god.

Grandpa, can't you something?

Oh, my god.

Clete, get over here.

Can't you do something?

Give me the gun.

No, no, no. Let me go.

Clete, get her in the house,
get her in the house.

Don't kill him.

Don't kill him.

All set?

Keep down now. That's right. Hang on.

Now this is really interesting.

You see what I do is I get to
the parameters of the problem

by breaking down the movement of
a vector of a single anthill.

Now, I don't know what
they're doing, I don't care,

I'm just breaking down
their simple basic move.

Stop, go.

Turn,

duration. That's it period, okay?

Now I take my ant signals,

I run them through the digitizer,

I record them on tape,

I write them down and
I search for a correlation

between what they say and what they do.

Now assumption.

What we're seeing and hearing are commands

being directed at the central mass.

They warned us.

Relax.

I forgot to turn out the light.

Stop! Cut it out! What's the matter?

Cut it out!

Come back here.

Goddamn it, will you sit...

They're all over the place.

Clete, take care of the women.
Get some help.

Now I make various adjustments,

make up for time lag
and a couple of other things

don't worry about it.

Then I come up with...

Ha, are you ready for this?

I come up with a positive
correlation on the order of 80%

between this little squiggle

and the command we commonly know as stop.

And a positive correlation
between that little squiggle

and go.

And that means these little mothers

talk to each other.

Now I think if I... Hey, the lights.

They've got into the generator. Don't move,

the back up unit cuts in automatically.

I'm going to counter with 100% yellow.

You're letting some get away.

Maybe they've learnt something.

Come over here, James,

this is really fascinating.

People are dead back there.

Yes, a tragedy.

I don't understand it,
they accepted the order,

why should they come here?

Irrational behavior, very sad.

Now just look at this, James.

Consider the execution of this maneuver,

in order to explode the generator,

they had to create a living chain...

Listen, Hubbs, those people
are dead, don't you understand?

People get killed sometimes.

I think this yellow should hold it's potency

for three or four days.

We can start collecting now.

Little sons of bitches.

No, no, no.

They're not individuals,
they are individual cells.

Tiny functioning parts of the whole.

Think of a society, James,
with perfect harmony,

perfect altruism and self sacrifice,

perfect division of labor,
organized for preordained roles.

Think of the building,
elaborate and complex structures

according to plans
that they know nothing of,

but can execute perfectly.

Think of their ability to evolve and adapt

in ways that are so beautiful,

and still so unknown

and all contained in one simple form.

So defenseless in the individual,

and so powerful in the mass.

Well...

Let's begin with
the first behavioral series,

heat, cold, isolations, starvation,

slow pressure,

and threat.

Mantises prey on ants, as you know.

Now if...

If you're still with us, James.

When are we gonna get her out of here?

That's going to be
a little difficult, I'm afraid.

Um... turn on the microphone, please?

Call in and have them send out a helicopter.

I'm afraid the bureaucrats
will be rather unhappy

with all of our casualties.

Now...

Mantises, at this end of the maze,

the ants are at the other.

What are we gonna do with the girl?

What is your concern with her?

She's in shock,
we can't just... she's a kid.

Don't shout.

This is a problem that
will have to be dealt with

over the next few days until we're finished.

If you won't call the base, I will.

I'm very much afraid that that
will end our mission.

Screw our mission.

I've finished eating.

You know, I don't know your name.

Oh, Kendra. I'm Jim.

That's Dr. Hubbs.

Come in, come on.

You sort of had a close call
out there, didn't you?

How do you feel?
Well, I'm ready to go home now.

Um... I'll send a message today.

Somebody will come along
and pick you up tomorrow,

if that's convenient.

They killed my horse.

Kendra, I'm sorry.

Kendra!

Stop it, stop it.

Back away.

Don't touch anything.

It's alright.

That should do it.

You've been bitten.

So we thought if you
knocked down one of the towers,

taking proper precautions of course,

you might get an interesting reaction.

We'll consider it.

Just an idea doctor. Appreciated.

Oh, one other thing. Yes?

We got a report about a family
in your vicinity;

You haven't contacted
any civilians, have you?

No.

Monday, 2:00 a.m.

Lesko continues to make progress,

deciphering the ant language

from the tapes recorded
during the first skirmish.

If he maintains this pace,

we should be ready for their next move.

It's a rather crude language,

I think if I keep building up
my library of sound words

I might even...

Strike up a conversation with them.

Of course then the ants
would have to come back.

We'd have to be here for a while.

When's the helicopter coming?

Oh, it'll be here.

I'm sorry about that. Oh, not your fault.

Listen, you really wanna see something?

Another way of visualizing their signals.

Watch this.

I don't have the faintest idea
what it means.

Hey?

Remember me?

Oh, y... y... yeah!

How do you feel?

Oh... Better. That's good.

H... h... how is um...

Dr. Hubbs? Yeah.

Oh, he'll survive.

I'm really sorry about that I...

Listen, if I were you
I'd have popped those ants

pretty good myself.

You know you've got a mean swing.

Well, the main thing is you're alright.

We'll get you out of here today.

What's the matter?

Don't tell me you like this place?

My grandparents are dead, aren't they?

Yeah, they are.

What? Don't you have parents?

Well, you must be hungry.

Come on, I'll get you some breakfast.

Okay.

Follow me through the hardware department.

Can I ask you a question?
Yeah, sure, go ahead.

What do you do here?

Just a little research into
statistical probabilities.

Really? It must be interesting.

Well, we've got powdered eggs,
powdered milk,

powdered juice, dehydrated bacon,

just like home.

James?

Are you alright? Oh, yeah.

See you in a little while. Okay.

Good morning James.

As you can see we're under siege.

What the hell's that?

It's more than reflected sunlight.

Our temperature is already up five degrees.

There's another interesting detail.

How do you suppose those ants
managed to build

on a poisonous strip where they
absolutely cannot live?

Did you say five degrees? Hmm.

In an hour and a half.

And of course the sun's
not yet at full strength.

Now watch this. An hour and a half?

Oh, you must watch this,
this is fascinating, there.

Beautiful adaptation, isn't it?

We challenge with yellow chemistry,

they respond with yellow creatures.

We're gonna fry in here.

Question, what do they want?

What are their goals? They have no goals.

Well, you saw how they disabled the truck.

Listen, Hubbs, I came down here

to get in a couple of weeks
of science in the sun,

I did not sign up for a war
against a bunch of goddamn ants.

And furthermore, why the hell

did you leave the truck
out there in the first place?

Bait.

Bait?

Well, I had to get them
to attack us, didn't I?

They're rather intelligent, you know.

I thought you'd observed that
geometric pattern in the field?

You mean you saw it?

Of course I did.

Why didn't you say something?
Why didn't you?

Well, I didn't think you were
smart enough to appreciate it.

With all your high class bug talk.

I was afraid that
you'd be terrified and run away,

and I need you.

Well, you're right about that.
When's the helicopter coming?

James, we are faced with a power

that has appeared and is exerting itself.

We have the opportunity to study it,

to learn from it, to teach it
its limitations.

We can, in a word, educate it.

You said you called.

We can try the blue, of course,
but they'd only re-adapt again.

So we have to consider other alternatives.

You mean you didn't call?

It is absolutely vital that
we give them the opportunity

to try their strength against ours,

and learn from its consequences.

I'm gonna call in, Hubbs.

And I'm gonna tell them not only
to take that girl out of here,

I'm gonna tell them to take me
out of here too.

You wanna call?

You're just as fascinated
by this challenge as I am.

Ah!

We're cut off.

Then our success will be all the sweeter.

Sunday, one o'clock,

the battle is on,

lesko is preparing the counteraction.

I have indicated.

The air conditioner is being adjusted

to take account of the temperature rise.

Human beings can exist
in temperatures of 120 degrees

or higher.

But our computer shuts down at 90.

Kendra?

You wanna see what we're doing?

Come on, I'll show you, it's interesting.

The name of the game today
is king of the hill.

You see over there?

Now we wanna knock them down
before they burn us out, okay?

What's that?

White sound.

That's every sound in the world
all pushed together

to make one really terrific noise

which we're broadcasting
to those mounds out there.

And that's what it looks like
as we send it out.

Okay?

Now when that sound
gets out to those mounds,

it bounces right back here
and winds up down there.

Good. Something's missing.

One of the sounds we sent out
didn't come back.

Now let's just see if we can
find out what that sound is.

There it is.

Now that's the sound we're gonna
broadcast to those mounds.

And when we do, interesting
things better happen.

If you think that's loud for us

think about how those ants are gonna feel.

That'll do it.

They're going crazy.

James?

James?

Damn air conditioner.

I'm afraid I'm feeling rather... Ow!

It's on fire. Get away from it.

Get out of the way.

I just... I can't believe it.

To know our plans,

our strength, our weaknesses.

Even the one machine
that everything else depends on.

How could they know?

This is impossible.

They knew.

I am choosing one of my less painful moments

to record these notes.

Our equipment only functions now

for a few hours at night.

Lesko believes we're being allowed this time

for some purpose.

A hypothesis, I do not share.

If this were so

it would raise questions.

I had not considered.

"Transfer to..."

"Nag tape unit three."

"Go straight six units."

"Right 120 degrees"

"four units."

"Right 60 degrees"

"four units."

"Right 120 degrees"

"six units."

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

I'm doing something my way.

I'm sending a message to the ants.

Yes, I've been thinking about that.

The conditioning process must be working.

But they're not all affected as yet.

They must be informed of their losses

and their suffering

so they can draw
the appropriate conclusions.

Where is your message?

On the plotter.

This is no message.

Mathematics is the universal language

among intelligent creatures.

If there's an intelligence there

I want it to know
there's an intelligence here.

Go away.

Please go away.

Hubbs: We're reviewing data.

Previous analysis show...

Do you wanna drink this? Analysis...

What?

Clear, they failed to achieve a...

They will learn we've made up our mind.

How did they know? How did they know?

You!

Kendra: Jim! Jim!

Jim: What's going on back there?

Hubbs. Hubbs. Come on, come on.

I am not helpless, I will not be humiliated.

Got him!

I'm sorry.

Come on, come on.

Could you hold me for a minute?

James?

James?

If I was irrational during
the heat of the day,

I apologize.

Why don't they kill us?

Why roast us in here all day,
dare us to come out at night?

Why play these games?

What do they want?

I've been thinking about specialization

among certain insects.

Take it easy.

Try to get some sleep.

In every ant colony...

Workers, winged males and the queen.

Ants are organized by the queen.

Keeping her alive.

She's the heart and soul of their lives.

She's at the centre. It is she who speaks.

If she died,

discipline, organization would crumble.

The war's over, Hubbs.

They have the power.

Only hope now is if they answer
our message in the morning.

Convince them we're worth keeping alive.

I think I could locate the queen
and kill her.

Lock the tracker onto her voice
when she speaks.

What makes you think she'd speak to you?

What is it?

Th... the... the...

Lights.

Ha-ha, it's just a...

Bare in mind we still have our hard suits.

Yeah, two of them.

They're sending back my message.

Hubbs, there's more.

What does it mean?

What the hell does it mean?

A circle with a dot.

Now I know how a rat feels in a maze.

Rats in a maze.

It's almost like a controlled experiment

in which we are the subjects.

Find out which rat is the smartest.

The strongest.

An intelligence test.

Could the circle be this place?

And what does the dot represent?

Could the dot be a person?

Someone they want.

Who could they want?

They want somebody?

I think so.

But why would they want somebody?

To talk to them.

You mean they...

They might be angry at someone
who did them some harm?

What would they do with that person?

I don't know.

Would they let the others go free?

James.

Come here.

I believe I've located the queen.

She's in there.

♪ Oh, sweet to walk ♪

♪ In the pilgrims way ♪

♪ Leaning on the everlasting arms ♪

♪ Oh, how bright the path ♪

♪ Grows from day to day ♪

♪ Leaning on the everla... ♪

Where are the grenades?

Used up when you destroyed the towers.

All of them?

Then we must devise something else.

James, please I...

My boots I...

Would you please, I can't...

You're gonna walk out of here?

Trek miles through the desert?

Destroy a colony full of poisonous ants

and a deadly queen?

You can't even get your boots on.

Come on, Hubbs, sit down.

What we're gonna do is send another message.

You must go!

You must show them

we will not...

Man will not give in.

Did I tell you I figured out
their first message?

The dot is you.

They want you.

And they shall soon have me.

I'm sorry, Hubbs,

it's not gonna happen your way.

Kendra.

Stop! She's there.

That hill, the queen.

Hubbs, you can't do it.
Now come on, come on!

Queen!

Hubbs!

Hubbs!

Hubbs!

Hubbs!

Goddamn you.

Hubbs!

I would still like
to believe that given time

we could have come to an understanding.

Some rational accommodation of interests,

some agreement.

But that's not the way it's going to be.

I've made some calculations
about their rate of expansion

using their intelligence and
their powers of organization,

and their network of communications,

their poisons.

Their ability to adapt genetically.

I believe that after this test run now

they'll move rather quickly
into desert areas.

Taking over the countryside first

then laying siege to towns and cities.

I believe they will learn as they advance,

anticipating our moves and
continue to stay a move ahead.

We have only one chance,

the counter attack
suggested by doctor Hubbs.

A direct assault on their queen.

Jesus, I wish it wasn't me.

There you are.

They wanted...

Us.

We knew then, we were being changed

and made part of their world.

We didn't know for what purpose.

But we knew we would be told.