Starflight One

source: Starflight One

This film is so bad it's funny; like "haha" funny. I mean woeful. It's a shame such a good cast was wasted. For everyone involved, it's the absolute bottom of their career.

In the tradition of the big disaster films of the 1970's, STARFLIGHT ONE: THE PLANE THAT COULDN'T LAND boasts an "all-star" cast of 1970's-80's movie and TV luminaries. Hal Linden is the designer of the air / spacecraft, Lee Majors is the pilot, Lauren Hutton plays a passenger. The supersonic mega-jet is on its maiden voyage from Australia to Los Angeles. Shockingly, things go horribly awry, and remarkably soon too, as hurtling space junk threatens to destroy the plane! The real fun begins when the pilot is forced to fly into space, resulting in zero gravity! Yep, it's floating time inside the craft! Meanwhile, the ground crew is unable to help, while cranky, old Ray Milland grumbles and frowns. When a shuttle is dispatched to assist, tragedy strikes, sending an extraneous extra sailing away to his doom. After seeing enough of these sort of films, one can pretty well guess what will happen next. This made-for-TV effort is a by-the-numbers disaster epic that still manages to suffer from long stretches of inexplicable dullness. Don't worry, further catastrophes await. Thankfully, Pilot Lee Majors and passenger Lauren Hutton reconnect emotionally. BEST SCENE: When Hal Linden is sealed in a coffin (!!) and carried through space to the shuttle! Don't miss the boffo finale! It makes up for most of the past hour and 50 minutes...

This movie has a few exciting moments, but for the most part, it's just another Airport redux. For me, it was hard to get past its unfaithfulness to science, to reality, and in the case of the characters, each other. Every time they re-launched the space shuttle to go and rescue the stranded passengers, I just rolled my eyes and how implausible that whole thing was...especially when they launched it the third time, just two hours after the second mission had landed. The happily-ever-after scene at the end is of the pilot joyously embracing his stewardess mistress, while his wife drives away alone. That's supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy?

You will find parts of this movie, little segments of it, embarrassingly funny. When I first saw it in 84, it was engrossing. When watching it back I 2003, I just found it pretty pathetic, and felt a schmuck for watching back in the eighties. But they were very cheesy and dark times. The same goes for those Airport films, me and Dad ribtickling ourselves over them. What we've got here is a fictional, what if scenario, about a hyposonic airplane, a Concorde shuttle that can make the distance from Los Angeles to Sydney in two hours. In no way is a two second exterior shot of Sydney airport, Sydney airport. What cheek. We have a good cast here too, notably Linden and Majors, one of many few films he did. While in the air, a rocket has exploded sending hulks of a metal careering towards the super cool airplane. Forced to rear up, drastically, they caught in orbit, for which there is no way to return. I remember in olden days, this got incredibly tense. And when the plane set down again, a relief came over me, although a score of passengers got lost in one of those shutes that blew up. But you just take Starflight One for what is it, a guilty cheesy, eighties pleasure, for the whole family, with unintentional laughs here and there.

My problem is with the sets. Very little attention to detail except for maybe the cockpit. The headquarters in Palmdale, home of the Space Shuttle and many other famous aircraft looks like a lounge in a Holiday Inn. And the high tech equipment used for operating this supersonic aircraft? A collection of Radio Shack multi-meters in "test" mode. The Nasa control room was equally pathetic. Instead of a big Mission Control "theater" we've all seen in movies and documentaries, they shot those scenes at a simple air traffic control facility with standard radar screens. Come on, didn't Nasa offer any advice? Heck, there's a real Mission Control room right there at JPL in Pasadena. No, it looks like they wasted all their money on big name stars. Many do the best they can with script they were given.

I know, 9 seems very high in light of the fact that this is a low budget catastrophe movie from the 80s, but i had so much fun watching it(multiple times), so it's am earned number. As you know, the movie is about a new commercial plane with a rocket engine as secondary propulsion system. There is an accident with a carrier rocket in Australia, and the plane ends up in orbit around earth, which it isn't build for. Let me just point out the things i like about the movie. Hal Linden as Josh is great. He is a very believable character. Pat Corley, as Joe, the journalists technician is also a good casting member. The rest is meh at best. The point is, that this movies has very good music, a lot of scenes with real suspense and in addition the rescue attempts, while not 100% realistic, are innovative, and fun to watch. Also there are a lot of good jokes in this movie. Josh is great, Joe too, and Joshs wife is also a strong character. The thing that a lot of reviewers seemingly miss, are the messages in this movie. There is greed, witch leads to this catastrophe in the first place, cold number-crunching on one side, and the value of human live on the other. Also the notion never to give up is a big part of this movie. One thing, that can't be overstated is, that these people keep their calms. They don't scream all the time, they don't behave like children, and they don't behave like animals in fear. While this may not be realistic, it is nerve soothing to say the least. Most catastrophe movies are full with it, making them hard to watch, screeching on my nerves like fingernails on a blackboard. This is not the case here. The passengers don't sabotage their own rescue by behaving stupid. At least most of the time. Lets just say the movie never gets boring, and if you can overlook the wooden performances of Lee Majors and Sandra Hutton, than you can expect a fun movie with lots of suspension I urge you to find this movie, and have a great time watching it.

Made-for-TV hokum, in the tradition of the fun Airport films, with an "all-star" cast playing the usual group of strangers with soap opera issues who board a fancy new rocket-powered hypersonic plane on its maiden flight. All hell breaks loose and the plane is knocked into space! NASA comes to the rescue. Really dumb and never as much fun as you would hope. It's actually pretty dull, which is unforgivable given the absurd premise that begs to be mocked. Cast includes Lee Majors, Lauren Hutton, Ray Milland, Hal Linden, Tess Harper, Heather McAdam, Terry Kiser, and Phil from Murphy Brown. Robert Englund has a bit part. John Dykstra's special effects are good, particularly by TV standards. That's about the best thing I can say about this. I wish it was more fun.

Spoilers herein. There was a time when the universal symbol of technology was the locomotive. Then, odd as it may sound today, it was the large steamship. And for a brief period in our history it was the space shuttle. All of these passed from their iconic status after stupendous accidents. I write this shortly after the US president (Bush) tried to weasel out of some political problems by proposing a bold mission to Mars. The American people yawned. This project is dreary in every respect. But it has two interesting elements. The first is that it evokes that brief period when were awed by this machine. It is doubly odd because when brand new it used only thirty year old technology as a matter of mitigating risk. The other thing is the score by Schifin. It is equally dated, a mixture of horns and bongo drums. Ted's Evaluation: 1 of 3 -- You can probably find something better to do with your time.

It took me a few minutes into the movie to realize I had seen it before when I was in high-school. Even though it had Barney Miller and Lauren "whistle while you work because of the gap between your teeth" Hutton in it I watched it again anyway. They sure can get that space shuttle in and out of space quickly, cant' they? They must of had an Indy 500 crew working for them! Plus they can take off from L.A. too! what a deal! Now the ironic and sad part. At one point the crew of the plane asks the Columbia crew to take a peek and see if there was any damage to their aircraft. So the (the Starflight crew) knew they got hit, NASA knew they got hit, so isn't it great to have another set of eyes (the Columbia crew) to actually see the damage everyone assumed was there in the first place? So they can actually try to fix it, or figure out some other option to avoid a disaster. So why in the world didn't NASA have the REAL Columbia go to the International Space Station and have them see if they had a hole in their wing! The whole country saw the foam hit the wing. STUPID!!!