Star Quest: The Odyssey  (2009)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2014
SYNOPSIS: You may have heard of Star Trek: The New Voyages -- it's a web series where they've re-created all the sets and costumes from the original Star Trek and make new 60-minute episodes with new actors playing the familiar characters. These people wanted to do that, too. Unfortunately, they didn't have the money to re-create the Star Trek sets; they couldn't decide whether they wanted to do Original Series or Next Generation; they wanted to be able to release their film commercially; they could only afford six actors; and their captain doesn't look much like Kirk, but is a dead ringer for Mal from Firefly. In the last days of the war between the NotFederation and the CyberKlingons, Captain Mal is engaged in a hand-to-hand duel to the death with a CyberKlingon captain. Well, to be technical about it, the war's already ended, but who wants to quibble about little things like that? Dr. NotCrusher (younger than the original), that's who! Not wanting Captain Mal to ruin his career by committing a war crime, she stuns them both before he can kill the CyberKlingon. This really annoys him and, when he comes to, he breaks up with her. Flash forward several months. An obnoxious NotStarFleet admiral assigns Captain Mal's ship, the Odyssey, to transport a CyberKlingon negotiating party to Earth to finalize the treaty. The party, of course, is headed by the CyberKlingon captain who Captain Mal didn't quite kill -- who Obnoxious Admiral assigns as the Odyssey's executive officer and who we will henceforth refer to as Sporf (he's warlike, honorable, AND logical!) -- and his traitorous assistant Dertax, who we will henceforth refer to as Detox. To twist the knife, Obnoxious Admiral reassigns Dr. NotCrusher to the Odyssey, as she's the only doctor in NotStarFleet with the requisite understanding of CyberKlingon physiology. The remainder of the crew consists of NotUhura (lighter skinned than the original, but at least she gets an Afro, unlike certain other reimagined Uhuras I could mention), NotSulu (Asian, but not Japanese), and the English chief engineer who we will henceforth refer to as Engy. While the Odessy appears to be a large ship, this is the only crew we ever see; the filmmakers couldn't afford extras. They also clearly wanted to make a bunch of episodes, but cheaped out and decided to do an 80-minute movie instead. Unfortunately, instead of coming up with an 80-minute movie script, they just condensed their episodes to a series of 10-minute vignettes, tied together by the fact that they all involved fighting things that only appeared as voice-overs. There's the episode where Detox sabotages the ship while a CyberKlingon raider who's still fighting the war attacks the Odessy. There's the episode where NotUhura and Sporf beam down to an alien planet and get mindcontrolled by an insane alien computer, so that NotUhura has to wear an animal-skin dress and Sporf has to fight Captain Mal again, while Detox escapes from his cell and knocks out Engy and tries to take over the ship. There's the episode where the Odyssey gets caught in a supernova shockwave and the crew struggles to repair the damage and recapture Detox, who got out when the power to his cell door failed and Sgt. Schultz was looking the other way, while Dr. NotCrusher frantically tries to save Sporf's life. There's the episode where the NotWarp Drive malfunctions and strands the Odyssey in the NotDelta Quadrant with a bunch of hostile aliens. And, of course, there are the endless soft-focus, silent, oddly-lit flashbacks to Captain Mal and Dr. NotCrusher's romance. And let's not forget (Like the movie, this review has no ending, it just stops in what otherwise appears to be the middle.)
Greg Pearson
Smithee Award Nominations
Crummiest Ending
Yes. Yes, It Did.
"It just got worse."
Directors
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