Starquest II (1996)

Beautiful, moving film.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I gave this a 2 instead of a 1 only because I got to see a lot of Adam Baldwin, and I do mean, a LOT. One has to wonder how on earth (no pun intended) they got ahold of him for this 'film', as well as Robert Englund.It was quite awhile before I realized the same actor who played Major Mitchell in 'ID4' is the same actor who played Jayne in 'Serenity'. I was so intrigued by my inability to see that they were the same actor (I'm usually very good at recognizing people), that I figured this Adam Baldwin must be one fine actor. When I saw he was also in this even-bad-for-a-Roger-Corman flick , I just had to watch, no matter how bad it was. And, it was. Bad, really bad.But, I endured, being the 'Firefly'/'Serenity' fan that I am. If I ever get to meet Adam Baldwin in-person, I will just have to ask him, "WHY?"

"Galactic Odyssey" - the American title of Starquest II - was a horrible movie. The plot was amazingly bad, and the writing was some of the worst that I've ever seen. The overall premise - a group of humans, kidnapped to start a breeding program on another planet - seems fairly standard. That's when everything starts to break down.First, the movie is interspersed with a lot of war footage from different places on the planet. None of it has anything to do with the people in the movie. There's a long montage at the beginning of various science fiction stories; none of it has anything to do with the plot of the movie.Second, the effects and sets are bad. I mean, "Manos, Hands of Fate" bad. The airlock that closes off to prevent the ship from decompressing? You can see the lights on the other side of the door because the door doesn't close all of the way. The "robot" pilot that gets blown out of the broken bridge window because of decompression? He takes a nice stroll over when he's "caught" by the decompression. Just horrible. The "alien" hands on the actors seemed to have been bought from the props department of another movie - another cheap, badly made movie.Third, the soft-core porn sex throughout this movie was a little bit of overkill. Kate Rodger, Gretchen Palmer and Jolie Jackunas are all hot, no doubt; but, did they really have to have sex every ten minutes throughout the movie? The women that I know would not respond to a "kidnapped at the last second before earth was destroyed" situation by doing it as much as they did. From an entertainment standpoint, this made the movie watchable; from a plot standpoint, it was ludicrous.Fourth, the plot. Were the humans kidnapped because earth was destroyed, or because it was going to be destroyed? Were they breeding to be "harvested," or breeding to save the human race? Nothing was remotely clear; worse, nothing was remotely consistent. THe story changed as the movie went on.Eh. There's better porn on the internet. Watch Mystery Science Theater instead.

Back in 1976, Roger Corman gave two of his trailer editors a few bucks and a chance to make a film. Joe Dante and Allan Arkush turned out "Hollywood Boulevard" by utilizing reels of scenes cribbed from other Corman films. Because the two directors were talented (as their later films would confirm), they managed to create a crazed, outrageous little parody of low-budget movie-making. Roger tried it again with "Galactic Odyssey" (a/k/a "Starquest II", not that it matters, as there is no relationship to "Starquest"). Alas, writer-director Fred Gallo shows no sign of talent in either trade here. The resulting splice job is cheap, incomprehensible, and should be an embarrassment to all who participated. Sets are strictly high school drama club. Acting is stilted. And the Swiss-cheese plot seems to be designed solely to use as much footage from other films and stock agencies(there's that mushroom cloud again)as possible while incorporating a handful of soft core sex scenes and a few gore effects.Even bad film buffs should ignore this one. Even for free.

Lame movie with no redeeming features apart from the scantily clad ladies. Gruesomely bad. I know lots of wannabees want to be in movies, whatever the cost, whatever the story and whatever whatever. Just don't be in things like this. Do something else.