First up: This is a lame pilot movie. Let's get that out of the way. Apart from the scene where they crash in the snow/ice, and the short skirts on the women, there is nothing any good here. But it reminded me of other crappy pilot movies - like, say, "Legends of the Rangers" or that Galactica one that was set during the first Cylon war - that actually had pretty deep and dense story ideas underneath them. In other words, I feel like someone put a lot of thought into the universe that this story was set in, which might have been an interesting playground, but then they utterly fumbled the ball with this dopey TV movie.

Though I would have like to seen more of Chad and Morgan, and though the acting wasn't exactly Academy Award (it was a bit kitchy), this was a fun story with an interesting plot, watchable special effects, and a storyline that I always like (junior officer takes command and saves the day). Seeing the hero win by cleverness and bravery instead of a plot trick makes it worth watching. The bad guys were suitably evil to deserve their fate. There was probably an even better movie in here somewhere, but what we got was a lot of fun. I'd compare it to Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch or On Basilisk Station by David Weber (though those are probably a cut above this movie in story). Seafort in Midshipman's Hope is a bit more doom ridden though, and that gets kind of old. The hero here is gets to actually enjoy the experience, finding his forte at last instead of washing out of the academy.

As someone else pointed out, this was a television pilot that, fortunately for all humanity, never made it any farther. Everything about this movie was terrible. The acting was horrendous, although that might have been attributed to the even worse plot that lacked any shred of believability. They seemed more interested in finding ways to show off the 90210 wannabes in sexy yet totally unpractical uniforms than actually working on getting a story line together. As for the main issue of defeating the evil doers, I've seen more coherent battles between He-Man and Skeletor. Stay away from this one. There's a reason why even syndication wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

I worked on this project and watched it over the course of more than a year, roughly from the end of principal photography until the final sound mix. It started out being pretty good, but over time was reconcepted into what we started referring to as "Babes in Space" or "Melrose Space." Even my dad, who watched it for the sole purpose of seeing my credit at the end, said that it "really isn't a very good movie." Thanks, dad.