- Directed by Robert Collector
- Written by George R. R. Martin, Robert Jaffe
- Stars Catherine Mary Stewart, Michael Praed, John Standing, Lisa Blount
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 29 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5k6jfqcXxc
Spoiler free judgment zone
This is a grim science fiction tale with some horror elements. It’s very 80s and very smoky and foggy to give it a futuristic dreamlike effect. The story is kind of interesting but there’s too much telling and not enough showing. It’s adapted from an early story from George R. R. Martin. It’s draggy overall and the entertainment value hasn’t held up.
Synopsis
Avalon Spaceport, 21st Century. D’Brannin, a scientist, has decoded an alien signal from the Valkrens, and he’s assembled a team with questionable credentials. Audrey is a linguist. Keelor is a biologist. Darryl is the documentarian and chef. Lilly is a cryptologist and computer expert. Jon Winderman is a class ten telepath who has an assistant, Eliza. Miranda narrates all this, and she’s going for… reasons. Their ship is called the Nightflyer.
Miranda continues, “Something was odd about this ship, and we all sensed it. D’Brannin had been evasive about the captain.” The telepath and his friend are the last to arrive; the captain welcomes them over the loudspeaker. They all watch the takeoff through their projection ceiling.
Captain Royd Eris appears to the group in holographic form. D’Brannin admits that the ship is so advanced that the captain can stay in his cabin– everything is automated! Miranda and the holo-captain share a look. The telepath, Jon, picks up something strange. Everyone splits up to explore the huge ship.
D’Brannin says that they may be the first humans that Royd has ever taken on board (who else is there?). They all go to bed, but the little red cameras watch Miranda sleep. The next day, Miranda does a workout, and Holo-Royd watches that as well. He actually appears to take in that show rather than just peep by way of the cameras. As they talk, Jon wakes up– there’s something bothering the telepath.
During work, Lilly says she can’t access the computer. Miranda sketches Royd’s face, and she asks him why he stays in his cabin. He explains that his mother built the ship. After thirty years of flying the ship, she got bored. He is her cross-sex clone, bred to be her companion. His mother died before his birth, and the ship’s computer raised him. The gravity on any parts of the ship other than his room is agony for him; he’s used to zero-g, and he has no natural immunity. Direct contact with humans would probably kill him. He wants her to take him off the ship when they return, whether that means his death or not.
Jon is still looking really sick. Whatever it is he’s picking up telepathically is driving him insane. Jon throws a tantrum and tells everyone that the ship is alive and it wants to hurt them. Suddenly, the kitchen explodes, and the ship electrifies Royd, who really is a person on the bridge; the ship doesn’t want him to leave.
Jon is knocked out by the explosion, and Darryl is badly injured; Keelor uses the medical computer to literally put the pieces of his hand back together. D’Brannin says it must’ve been a gas leak. They all want to turn back, but Miranda says the computer won’t let Royd turn around or leave. Audrey and Keeler get a gun from somewhere and go after the computer. Meanwhile, Jon has a drug that will enhance his abilities to get to the bottom of all this. He takes it and sees the soul of the ship, which isn’t pretty.
Jon explains that the computer is actually Royd’s mother, who transferred her consciousness into the machinery. “She’d kill all of us to keep him. She lives in a stone crypt in the bottom of the ship.”
D’Bannin goes looking for Jon but finds Eliza’s corpse instead. Miranda and Jon continue to talk, and it starts to look like he has become Royd’s mother, mentally at least. He injects her with a drug as well.
Keeler laughs that if something was going to go wrong, it would have by now, and Darryl laughs.
MIranda wakes up and fights with possessed-Jon in the medical bay, and there are lasers shooting all over the place. She messes him up pretty badly, and the computer cuts him up in the medical bed.
Darryle, Lilly, and Audrey look for answers on the computer– until the computer opens an airlock and kills Lilly.
Royd finally finds a way out of his chair and comes out of his cabin for real. He goes to see Adara, his mother. He smashes the wiring going into her crypt. The ship shuts down.
Royd says he’s shut down the computer, but the cargo bay doors won’t close. They’ll all die if they can’t close those doors in three hours. Darryl, Keeler, Audrey, D’Bannin, and Miranda go outside to do repair work. Royd comes out in his little mini-ship to help Miranda. Royd says if they can fix the damage, he can get them home manually. Keeler is jealous and paranoid and spies on the two of them talking. He won’t stop whining.
Inside, the computer comes back to life. Keeler rushes inside to kill the computer. The ship won’t let Royd back inside. The ship projects something outside that lures D’Bannin away until his pod explodes. Everyone else heads inside. Mother shoots Audrey, and headless, reanimated Jon stabs Darryl.
Royd and Miranda find a way back inside, and headless Jon attacks Miranda until Royd shoots him repeatedly. Royd and “Mother” shoot lightning from their minds at each other. The gravity comes back on. A pipe organ comes out of nowhere to play ominous music. There are explosions everywhere. It’s all very hectic.
The physical manifestation of Adara appears out of nowhere and attacks Royd until Miranda stabs her in the back. They climb into Royd’s little ship and take off through a hole in the hull, watching the Nightflyer explode in the distance.
They continue on to meet the Valkrens.
Commentary
The movie has a blurry, smoky look, which was a directorial choice to make it all dreamy and futuristic. It’s never been released on DVD or BluRay, but the blurriness is not a result of watching a ripped VHS tape. Really. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature! This would be my primary complaint with the film, and it doesn’t really hold up well.
It’s based on a short story by George R. R. Martin, and it’s been retold and redone a few times since then, but this was the original adaptation. It’s very 80s, from the fashions to the soundtrack. It rips off “Alien” somewhat in a lot of different ways, but it’s different enough to stay interesting.
Happy ending? No, because Royd’s gonna die the first time he encounters someone with the sniffles.