Monday, June 28, 2010

Star Quest- The Odyssey Movie Review 130


Star Quest- The Odyssey is a science fiction movie directed by Jon Bonnell and written by Carlos Perez. No, I do not know who they are! It stars Adam Rini as a Captain Jack Tanner who is basically a copy of James T. Kirk but with a title like Star Quest, it's obvious this is a copy of Star Trek! This is very low budget sci-fi so you will see lots of things stuck to walls to make them look futuristic!!


The story for what it's worth is about the Odyssey which is the ship heading back to Earth after a war has finished and is now just for exploration. The war that has finished was between the humans and he Chrome or was it Krone, I'm not too sure! They are basically cyborgs and a cross between The Borg and Klingons! They snarl and love to fight but they are big guys with wires strapped to them!! The opening title sequence is well done and tells the tale of what the future is now like. Then we go into a hilariously bad fist fight and things go on from there. If you read the threads and user comments on IMDB for this, you would think the movie makers were shooting the new Star Trek movie as people really expect too much for a low budget movie. That being said, Star Quest is very bad and seems to shoot itself in the foot.


For a shoestring budget, some things are okay. The story is a copy of the pilot of Star Trek- Voyager and the bridge of the Odyssey looks quite good. The make up effects are okay once you get past the wires hanging out of a guy to make him look like a cyborg! The animation inserts showing the ship in space are well done but allo a sudden seem to just freeze now and then. So, after a promising opening sequence, we get a ropey fist fight then dodgy CGI. You could live with that until the Captain visits the engineer who is looking at the hyper drive. He quite literally pulls a bolt put of the hyper drive that has gotten loose! Then he says a washer has gone missing! Later they pick up a signal from a planet and investigate. This is very like the original Star Trek as they walk around a desert with bushes. They find a monolith that talks to them in a hilariously bad computer voice. After they get threatended by it, they destroy it and while using their hyper drive they get caught in a Supernova. They are now far from home and get threatened by a huge compass in space! The second officer says " I didn't think it could get much worse" and the Captain replies "It looks like it just did." This is one of the most unintentionally funny ends ever!!!


Sci Fi is hard to do and it is hard to get it looking even half way decent on a low budget. This is why I sort of like Star Quest. They tried and a few things were okay but they let themselves down in a lot of areas. A quick look at the script would have sorted these out and it's a shame. The hyper drive missing a bolt and washer is very silly and the  CGI just needed a bit more effort to lighten it up. This is a movie that is begging for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment! In the end credits, there are some funny out takes and the whole movie is only 81 minutes long. Only if you  love sci fi and Star Trek would you even be able to get through this movie! It's a movie that is so bad that it's good. They give special thanks in the credits to Gene Roddenberry so it is obviously a homage to him and Star Trek., Watch this one with friends and a few drinks and I bet you will have a good laugh. This is a bad movie but something about it made me like it a small bit. I cannot really recommend it but in saying that I have seen worse movies. The ideas of a hyper drive missing a bolt and washer makes me laugh ever time I think about it!!!!As a sci fi movie it gets 3/10 but for comedy a 6/10.

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