Galaxie der Zeitlosen

My friend Kevin was the stunt coordinator for the film, so I lucked into being invited into town for the Kennedy Center premier of this film. I had read a copy of the shooting script (back when the title was still PENTAN) and had visited the sets on an "open house" night for some of the sets. I was wholeheartedly intrigued with what I was hoping would be a great low-budget SciFi film. What I saw on the silver screen was what could have been a great pitch film for a bigger budget release, but with much of the miniature effects very poorly done, the film was doomed. With the advent of digital filming and home-grown CGI, I'd love to see this film remade. The story had great potential, but alas not the budget to grow beyond a low-grade B-movie. With a little polishing on the script, it would have made a great multi-part episode for a show like the Outer Limits or some other SciFi anthology...even a 4-hr miniseries.

At first glance one might think this is going to be just a cheap SF B-movie, but if one considers how it was made (practically "in the backyard"), it is simply fantastic.

A lot of care went into the production, even with the very limited constraints these independent filmmakers were working in, and one can notice this.

One thing: this is not a movie of the "Spielberg-Lucas-etc.-Roller-Coaster-Ride-with Special-Effects"-kind, so if you expect something of that sort, you will be disappointed. Though it comes with an action-style plot, this is almost a quiet movie - which is one of its charms, if one can appreciate that.

The story, about an female android seeking freedom and teaming up with a space pilot to find a lost alien spaceship, battling an evil corporation on the way, is no big deal, but quite nicely done, human and believable in its context - more than can be said about some multi-million-dollar-productions. The acting sometimes is a bit on the heavy side, but strangely this somehow adds to the atmosphere this film manages to produce (rare in a SF-Film nowadays), and even helps in creating a sense of wonder, which you wouldn't expect in a movie on that budget ... The special effects are done with miniatures and they are in in their way almost stylish, so that you know you're looking at models but you don't care; one can admire what has been done here with a extremely tiny budget and how the filmmakers even managed to achieve a certain visual consistency in their film.

I bought this video by chance, not expecting much, and now find that I've seen it several times already and will continue to see it again from time to time, because in its own unpretentious, not-quite-professional way it manages to take me into another world of infinite possibilities, and what more could one ask from an SF-movie?

Originally released in 1987 as "Star Quest: Beyond The Rising Moon", this movie is a minor indie triumph with ambitious and charming old school, "Space:1999"-style model work and effects supporting stiff performances, pedestrian direction, and a derivative, predictable screenplay. That version is currently available on Youtube.

The "Outerworld" version now on Netflix and other sources is an appalling attempt to update and revise the film a la George Lucas's tweaks to the original STAR WARS trilogy and is about a thousand times less successful (and Lucas attempts were abject failures). No attempt has been made to mesh the original effects with the tacky and immediately-dated 2005 CGI and the film source appears to come from a very dated, late 1980s master. At the very least, a new film scan should have been struck and the original, unadulterated version made available to exist along side this "special edition" abortion but that is not the case. Ugh.

Pentan (Tracy Davis) is a genetically-modified, lab-grown assassin working for one of the mega-corporations that rule the known galaxy a hundred years from now. When an alien artifact is discovered on a distant world, she goes rogue to try and secure it for her own and try to win her freedom. Also featuring a bunch of people you've never heard of.

This film was made on a shoestring independently by people who seem to have really cared about it. Visually it lifts a lot of its style from Blade Runner and Dune, while the script borrows heavily from the works of William Gibson and Frederik Pohl. The extensive miniature work is both laudable and laughable, and it has a certain charm. It's a shame that the pacing and the performances couldn't have been better, though. Apparently this was re-released in the mid-00's under the title Outerworld with extensive editing and effects work being replaced with CGI, to the film's detriment. That's only what I've read though, as I haven't seen that newer version, nor am I inclined to.

I saw this on TV as Outerworld. The special effects seem dated, but were actually decent for a 1987 low-budget movie. The story involves an "artificial human" engineered for "corporate warfare" including stealing, killing and seducing. However, Pentan (Tracy Davis) decides she is tired of killing for the corporation's profit, and wants to be free. She obtains information very important to her employer, but doesn't turn it over. The rest would be spoilers.

This was apparently Ms. Davis' first big role, and she was apparently out of the business eight years later. She is well-suited for this character, and has a striking appearance, in a good way. Later roles were as "sales clerk" and "store manager" which is too bad; I would have enjoyed seeing her in something substantial.