#commando elite

I used to watch this movie often on VHS, and tonight I revisited it as a YouTube rental. I always did like the "monstrous" Gorgonites being the more sympathetic side and the "human" Commando Elite being the aggressors, and now I see an additional layer of meaning to that beyond what the filmmakers probably intended.

If you compare the Gorgonites' designs to those of the Commando Elite, you'll notice that, while the Commandos have the attire, accessories, and spoken vocabulary of modern-day US soldiers, the Gorgonites' trappings and accessories are much more "tribal" or medieval. The Gorgonites use bows and arrows, clubs, spears, or claws whereas the Commandos wield modern firearms, bombs, and rockets in addition to the various mechanical contraptions they invent in the film. The conflict between them amounts to a technologically advanced faction based on the US military persecuting one which is at a technological disadvantage.

The Gorgonites were peacful explorers and avid learners, searching the universe for their lost homeworld of Gorgan, until, while chronicling a distant forest world,  they were assaulted by the vicious and untrusting Commando Elite -- mercenaries determined to destroy them for their alien appearance and in-order to steal the secrets they've gathered to sell to the highest bidder. 

Small Soldiers fan art