“Great. Another malfunction.”

Drake’s rating: A good cast that gets lost in space

Drake’s review: There are just some times when you know right away that you might be in trouble. One of those times is when you start up a movie and it opens with the New Concorde logo. New Concorde is, of course, Roger Corman’s motion picture company (now known as New Horizons). In its 40+ year lifespan has churned out dozens and dozens of low-budget features meant for the video rental market. To be fair, some of the movies turned out to be, if not necessarily good, then at least watchable.

And to be even more fair, Star Quest, a.k.a. Terminal Voyage, was in fact made by Saban Entertainment with New Concorde only serving as the distributor. Saban itself may be best known for producing the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television series and working with Marvel on the X-Men cartoon from the ‘90s. They also produced a bunch of movies that I’ve never heard of, with names like Terrorism USA and Virtual Seduction, and I’m suddenly right back where I started: Full of regret about pressing the play button on my remote.

It’s the far-off year of 2035, and Earth’s climate is breaking down. Okay, hold on a sec… Nope, this is not a documentary from the future. All right, then.

In the search for a habitable world for humans to live on, scientists have found a planet called Trion and dispatched an international team of astronauts on a hundred-year journey to go and check it out. What they’re supposed to do after that I’m not sure, considering a full century will have gone by and it will theoretically take years for communications to get to Earth and back again, and by that time everyone is living on Waterworld anyway.

Unfortunately the captain’s stasis pod was faulty and he ends the trip looking like 150 lbs. of overcooked bacon. Command is turned over to the first officer, Hollis (Gregory McKinney), who minutes later commits suicide. I’m really starting to lose faith in this command structure.

But the reason for Hollis taking his own life is that he had found out that Earth went kablooey in a nuclear holocaust while our crew was in stasis, so there’s no one left back on Earth anyway and the families the crew left behind (also in stasis pods) now have a more than passing resemblance to the captain. Personally, if I just found out that my home planet had become a nuclear wasteland, I’d likely be throwing things and yelling, “What about my Blu-ray collection? You mean it’s all gone?!” But our stalwart crew takes the news calmly, probably because there wasn’t the budget for anyone to have a tantrum and start breaking things. Instead, they retreat to dwell on the news with solemnity and, in the case of Dr. Han (Ming-Na Wen, Street Fighter), start shooting up like she’s a rock star.

I’m really starting to think this astronaut program needs a better vetting process.

Fortunately the crew has some nifty ‘90s cutting-edge tech to keep them occupied in the form of virtual reality goggles. Some use the VR goggles to feel like they’re back home on Earth. Reese (Steven Bauer, Scarface) uses them to play Grand Theft Auto VI (which might be out by 2035) and look at naked women, instantly making him the most believable character in the movie.

As the flick progresses, Zinovitz (Brenda Bakke, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) smokes a lot (on a starship, mind you) while sitting at her keyboard. There’s a surprising amount of typing in this movie. Lt. Jammad (Alan Rachins) takes command, and on occasion even remembers that he has an accent. Granier (Cliff De Young, Secret Admirer) talks constantly and never forgets he has an accent. Even when you desperately wish he would. Zinovitz continues typing, the pressure builds, the crew falls apart like we all knew they would five minutes into this flick and then we get to the “Welp, we ran out of ideas” twist ending that really makes this feel like nothing more than an extended episode of the Twilight Zone.

One written by Rod Serling’s eleven year-old nephew. The kid who still eats paste.

Intermission!

• Don’t forget to take your Teddy bear into stasis with you.
• “He died about 75 light years ago.” LY are a measurement of distance, not time. It’s like saying, “Yeah, he bit it 20 miles back.”
• The men are totally into the re-population idea. The women are all, “Nah, bro. We’re good.”
• Could there be an android hiding out among the crew a la Alien? I’m not telling. But, yes. Yes there is.
• Granier’s breaking down! Watch out! He’ll flail his arms like a toddler!
• Stabbed by a half-naked belly dancer? I’ve known several belly dancers. This should not have been a surprise.
• Stick around until the very end if you want to see a truly horrendous matte shot.