To begin with, ignore the fact that this movie has been released under two different titles. Most cinephiles know that that point alone usually means the movie is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Whether if you know this film as Star Quest or Terminal Voyage means very little. Neither one really sums up the real feel of the movie.
While not a super low-cost release (it was nominated for a Saturn Award in 1994), you can tell that the budget was somewhat limited. The main ship, along with the two single-pilot fighters used during one of the VR sequences, were spacecraft from the 1980 cult-classic Battle Beyond the Stars (A space version of Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai (1954)).
After you get past that hurdle, the rest of the film holds up effect-wise until the ending scene, which was just graphically horrible. While trying to not give too much away, the simple way of looking at this movie is as it being a retelling of Alien (1979) without having a creature running amok throughout the ship. The cast is solid one, albeit they are only High-B grade quality, There are some unfortunate 90s stereotypes (the Asian Woman is a drug fiend, the Black Commander is mentally weak and unfit for command, the Frenchman is focused on food, the Russian is only thinks with a military mentality etc.) but the introduction of Virtual Reality as a form of entertainment is a bit forward-thinking for the time.
All in all, it isn't that Star Quest / Terminal Voyage does anything terrible wrong. Simply put, it just doesn't do anything novel or fresh. Even the plot twist at the end has been done many times before. It's a nice 80 minute distraction and nothing more.
Review by Ragnar DanneskjöldBlockedParent2021-01-18T12:59:48Z
To begin with, ignore the fact that this movie has been released under two different titles. Most cinephiles know that that point alone usually means the movie is scraping the bottom of the barrel. Whether if you know this film as Star Quest or Terminal Voyage means very little. Neither one really sums up the real feel of the movie.
While not a super low-cost release (it was nominated for a Saturn Award in 1994), you can tell that the budget was somewhat limited. The main ship, along with the two single-pilot fighters used during one of the VR sequences, were spacecraft from the 1980 cult-classic Battle Beyond the Stars (A space version of Akira Kurosawa's classic Seven Samurai (1954)).
After you get past that hurdle, the rest of the film holds up effect-wise until the ending scene, which was just graphically horrible. While trying to not give too much away, the simple way of looking at this movie is as it being a retelling of Alien (1979) without having a creature running amok throughout the ship. The cast is solid one, albeit they are only High-B grade quality, There are some unfortunate 90s stereotypes (the Asian Woman is a drug fiend, the Black Commander is mentally weak and unfit for command, the Frenchman is focused on food, the Russian is only thinks with a military mentality etc.) but the introduction of Virtual Reality as a form of entertainment is a bit forward-thinking for the time.
All in all, it isn't that Star Quest / Terminal Voyage does anything terrible wrong. Simply put, it just doesn't do anything novel or fresh. Even the plot twist at the end has been done many times before. It's a nice 80 minute distraction and nothing more.