Supernova

When a film gets held up for release and the directors refuse to take credit for the final product, in fact if there's more than one director that can be taken as a sign that the product is a Thanksgiving delight. When you've got all those these happening as they are in Supernova, you know Thanksgiving is coming early.

The film is a lot like a Doctor Who episode and I kept hoping Tom Baker and a companion would drop in with the TARDIS and straighten everything out. The film did need it.

A medical rescue vessel, a futuristic space ambulance if you will gets a distress call from a mining planet lots of light years away from Earth. Off into hyper drive they go and when there they meet a rather strange young man played by Peter Facinelli who's got a strange kind of element he's found and wanting to take it back to Earth.

He's determined to get it there and when James Spader the captain says no, Facinelli starts killing everyone around him. That element is making him both younger and stronger so those that remain have a fight on their hands.

I happen to meet cast member Wilson Cruz at a conference about seven years ago and he said while he was not exactly thrilled with the final product in Supernova, he said the film was memorable to him because he became the first Latino in space. And the first openly gay man at the same time. He does have the best dialog in the film with a supercomputer along the lines of 2001, A Space Odyssey's HAL. Wilson's computer is called SWEETIE and she has a sultry feminine voice built in.

Supernova will not make anyone's list of the greatest science fiction films ever done. Or even the 10 best in the new 21st century.