Starquest II (often run on TV as "Galactic Odyssey")is yet another Roger Corman quickie, and regrettably from the producer's very late - and utterly, irredeemably awful - period.
Corman is a legendary producer who has never been all that concerned with quality in his films, but he is famous for giving hundreds of young directors and actors/actresses a fair chance to break into the movie industry by financing their efforts, and so he may be justly credited with the discovery of many great - or at least solid - talents from James Cameron to Helen Hunt. In addition, in the '70s, '80s, and early '90s he also managed to release - among hundreds of other films - quite a few decent B movies across the entire spectrum of escapist entertainment, often with pretty decent sf/x and almost acceptable scripts.
Beginning some time in the mid-'90s, however, Corman started releasing 'montage' movies. These films were literally spliced together from his previous movies, the disjointed sequences glued to each other with a flimsy storyline (usually stuffed with dream sequences and such) and 30-40 minutes of original footage where the action takes place on one or two sets. As an added bonus, these movies feature tons of big-name performers who have no control over what the director does with the footage of their previous appearances. Insidious.
Starquest II is one of the worst examples of this: there is really no story to speak of, nor acting, nor even any consistency. Corman had run out of shame by the time he reached this travesty of celluloid. You will find the by-now-customary starwars-like sequences from his Battle Beyond the Stars (ALL of them...), followed by footage of battles in the Vietnamese jungle that are followed by shots of attack scenes in a North American stone quarry, then sequences from various monster- and cop movies, as well as many other cheapo shots from sci-fi action flicks. Just so you can prepare for the horror: there is, for example, a scene where the aliens talk about how some of their people rebelled against their empire, and the narrator states that these alien rebels behaved not unlike some animal rights activists - and you suddenly find yourself watching scenes from another (circa 1980) movie where HUMANS are releasing animals from their cages!!!
It is not merely a bad movie - IT IS NOT A MOVIE, just a collection of stock footage. It has one redeeming quality, though: there are plenty of - from a North American perspective very explicit - sex scenes, and the starring ladies seem to exhibit less than the usual tonnage of silicon. Strangely enough, in this unnatural beast there are many nice and natural boobies...
