In the course of searching for prospective article-fodder, I will occasionally come across films which, while they couldn’t sustain a full-fledged review (20,000 + words), nevertheless contain certain scenes or elements positively begging to be ridiculed. One such film is Project Shadowchaser 3000.

Apart from the generous portions of Bad Science and internal continuity errors (which I’m going to refer to collectively as "flubs"), the film has very little to distinguish itself. Its yet another direct-to-video Sci-Fi hack fest, filled with cookie cutter characterisations, a by-the-numbers script, and some production values even the makers of Dr. Caligari can look down upon with contempt. While I’d longed to give this one a good thrashing, it was hard to justify it as a stand-out selection, given the "deep end of the bell curve" philosophy of our dear site. Why pick this, as opposed to, say, Dead Space, Dark Side of the Moon, or Galaxy of Terror ?

In the end, I decided to write a smaller scaled piece, focusing almost exclusively on the flubs, the film’s only truly remarkable quality. So, with brevity in mind, let’s begin.

Less than a minute in, and they’re already on the board. The rumble of the space ship as it passes by is cinematic shorthand for Real Big. Its also a tip that the screenwriter wasn’t aware that sound waves need an atmosphere to propagate (hence "in space, no one can hear you scream"). Either that, or he thought it was the only way to convince us that the cheesy model we were being presented with was actually a gigantic ship.

What can’t be explained, though, is the constant burn of the ship’s engines. With no resistance from an atmosphere or gravity, keeping combustion-based thrusters turned on would effectively put the ship in a state of constant acceleration. And then there’s the question of fuel availability when we learn how long the ship as been out there.

Ever seen the inside of a power plant or factory, with their raised metal catwalks, and large open spaces? Then you’ve seen the inside of this spaceship. Ever seen the inside of a submarine or (more appropriately) a space shuttle, with their tight quarters and narrow walkways? Then you’ve seen what results from a clear understanding of the need to maximise space usage in an air tight vehicle. Of course, this doesn’t take into account how bloody cheap it is to film inside a factory, now does it my Brothers?

As the woman begins sobbing and resigning herself to her fate, Shotgun Guy works the pump again, scant seconds after we clearly heard him do so before. Ken has pointed this type of flub in one or two of his reviews as well, but PS3k makes it something of a habit, as we shall see.

For those not familiar with the workings of firearms, imagine this : I have a bow pointed at you, with an arrow knocked and the string pulled back. I’m trying to get you to take back the nasty thing you said about Charlotte Rampling a few seconds ago, and to show you how serious I am ... I ease the string forward, drop the arrow at my feet, and pull another one from my quiver.

Exact same principal as in this film. In both cases, the weapon is ready to fire as-is, but for dramatic reasons the wielder ‘loads’ it again, expelling a perfectly good (and unused) round of ammunition. Additionally, depending on the design, many firearms would require an extra step or two to do this even if you decided you wanted to for some reason.

Back at our little stand off, some energy bolts shoot into the group from something off screen, killing all four of them. The implication is, of course, that she was not "it", and that "it" is still lurking somewhere between the exposed pipes and ladders of this ... uh ... space ship.

Jump now to 25 years later, and an exterior shot of the Comsat5, a manned communications satellite (?) orbiting Mars (??), tasked with relaying communications from "Earth to the Outer Colonies". Inside shots of the Comsat5 bridge and rec room introduce us to the standard motley crew we’ve grown to expect from these films. After a few brief scenes designed to give us names for the characters (as if we care) and give us an idea of who will and who will not be left standing at the end of the pic, we go to another exterior shot of Mars as the Russian hulk from 25 years ago looms into view from the bottom of the screen.

All we hear over the speakers are a few generic warning alarms, yet the rec room gang remark out loud to each other about how "its gonna hit us". The bridge crew never announced the details of the alarm.

In the opening establishing scenes, a bridge crewman was shown with his head buried in an access panel, still trying to find the source of the power problem which had eluded him for the past few hours. Continuity? Pfeh!

I guess this must be due to some corollary of the monster movie rule which states that any given plan to destroy a monster may only be tried once, even if it only failed due to a fluke which could not possibly happen again.

This is the additive inverse error to the "smoke from a space ship’s engines floating up" flubs found in old sci-fi films.

Okay, not only is this an incorrect depiction of the effects of decompression, they can’t get it wrong in the same way twice - see #32 below. Also, to give you some perspective - elapsed time so far : 24 minutes. That’s an average of almost 1 flub per minute.

As the remaining crew regroup and asses the situation, the wheelchair bound character (creatively named ‘Wheels’) on the bridge announces that path of the hulk they’re now pinned to will take them into the atmosphere of Mars. He goes on to note that Comsat5 wasn’t designed for this, and that the combined forces of atmosphere and Mars’ gravity will tear the comsat apart. Of course, he doesn’t say it quite so lucidly, and there’s quite a bit of TechnoBabble bandied about, but the point itself is valid enough, so no foul there.

To save them, the still-burning engines on the hulk (you remember them, right?) must be shut off within x number of minutes. Luckily <cough>, the comsat’s computer detected a breach in the hull of the hulk which just so happens to be in front of the docking collar on the comsat, so they can use that to enter the hulk and save the day.

I’m tempted to throw a penalty flag here and add another number to the list, but it wouldn’t be fair to call them on Plot Conveniences like this.

So the crew break up into two teams : one will head to the engine room, whilst the second makes its way to the bridge to retrieve the Make Engines Stop Now codes (or some such thing) from the hulk’s main computer. Wheels supervises all this from the comsat’s bridge. Eventually the second team enters the bridge of the hulk to find the entire room covered in frost (for reasons never explained) and a single figure seated in a chair facing away from them.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then PS3k is sincerely flattering the hell out of The Thing here.

Specifically, the body turns out to be Shotgun Guy from the opening segment. He was clearly shown to have been blowed up Real Good in the opening segment, yet now he’s sitting in a chair frosted over like a 25 year old TV dinner. Naturally, he also turns out to be the father of one of the female crewman on Comsat5, who, as luck would have it, just also happens to be part of the team sent to the bridge. Even though its been 25 years (and she is at most in her early thirties) and dear old Da is covered in frost, Rea recognises him as her father instantly.

With odds this long, I think she might want to try her hand at Lotto.

Inertia be damned. I suppose to make up for that flub, the cessation of forward movement is accompanied by a 45 degree rise in pitch (the nose of the hulk points up). Oh, well that clears it up, doesn’t it?

So the crew now beat a hasty retreat back to Comsat5. The captain (who was part of the bridge-locating team) hears a noise in the distance and wanders off to investigate by himself. The shots of the captain poking around, pistol in hand and asking aloud "who’s there?" are inter-cut with POV shots of the mysterious "it" from the beginning. These POV shots give us our first clue (other than the plot synopsis on the back of the tape box) that the "it" is actually a deadly Kill-O-Bot of some kind, as the fish-eye lens and red filter views have flashing lines of "computer stuff" superimposed over them (adding The Terminator to the list of films PS3k has stolen from).

Ever notice how super advanced killing machines, whether biological or mechanical, always have really crappy vision and hearing (Predator, et al)? Ever notice how this never seems to handicap their killing abilities? And why do hot dogs come in a package of ten, when buns come in a package of eight? Are they spares, in case we drop one on the wa-

... uh, wait a sec ..

</Andy Rooney>

Okay, that’s better.

For the benefit (again) of those who aren’t familiar with firearms : when semi-automatic pistols like the captain’s are fired, the slide on the gun is thrown back by the recoil of the round going off, and a spring then pushes the slide forward again, which is what puts the next round in the chamber, reading the pistol to be fired again (hence "semi-automatic"). This continues until the last round has been fired, at which point the slide locks back, a clear indicator that the pistol is out of ammunition. Pulling the trigger doesn’t even result in a clicking sound, as the moving parts of the pistol have essentially been locked in place until its re-loaded.

When the captain is attacked, he gets off a few shots before the slide locks back, and then we quite clearly see the slide lock back, yet three more gunshots can be heard on the soundtrack (despite the absence of corresponding pyrotechnics). This kind of flub, like the ‘cycling the action’ flub, is quite elementary to anyone who’s spent more than a few minutes with a firearm, and is hard not to notice even when you’re not actively looking.

The Kill-O-Bot ends up dragging the captain to his death, as witnessed by another of the crew (named Dee). Kill-O-Bot fires a few shots off at her, but Dee manages to escape. Back on Comsat5, the character referred to as the Professor is back filling the Comsat5 crew on some of the history of the hulk they’re impaled upon.

And here I need to observe a moment of mournful silence, as the Professor is played by Aubrey "Mr. Deltoid" Morris. Alex said it best : "This is the real weepy and like, tragic part of the story beginning, oh my Brothers and only friends.".

To provide the story with some conflict, the Professor tells us that the hulk was rumoured to have found some mysterious Valuable Ore on a distant planet which could serve as a revolutionary new source of energy. This causes Renko (the obnoxious one) to start slavering over the possibility of becoming rich, whilst the ‘moral’ members of the crew criticise his mercenary leanings.

If I hadn’t been burned previously by The Beast (qv), I’d be taunting Renko about the certainty of his death right about now.

To add some more conflict, the crew’s argument is broken up by some rumblings and other bad sounding noises. Wheels taps a few keys on his handy dandy wheelchair mounted computer, and announces that the internal explosions have damaged the hulk’s nuclear reactors to the point where they’re going to blow up Real Good at some point soon. <coughcoughAlienscough>.

As this is a movie, the reactors on board the hulk carry enough radioactive material to form a critical mass and produce a nuclear explosion (Wheels estimates a yield of about 40 megatons) as a result of being damaged during the Make Engines Stop Now process. Since there is a chance that they’re fusion reactors, I have to allow that fusion power (when we figure it out) might require that much material to work (for some reason), and forgo adding another number to the list.

The set up of the film is finally explained to us when Rea (the Russian woman) watches the video logs taken from the hulk (stored conveniently on a single 3.5" diskette), translating for another crewman, named Kody, who is watching with her. Seems that while extracting the Valuable Ore the Professor told us about earlier, one of the prototype sentry androids on the hulk became infected with a virus (not a computer virus, mind you, a biological one), which "drove it insane", causing it to kill the hulk’s crew rather than protect them.

Meanwhile, the Professor, Renko, and Renko’s stooge Snake (played by Christopher Atkins) have made their way into the hulk to get their hands on some of the Valuable Ore. The Kill-O-Bot attacks, killing the Professor and chasing after Renko and Snake.

Rea’s waffle-soled work boots lightly tip-toeing over the concrete (no kidding) floor of the spaceship make a loud ringing sound like Shirley Temple running up a cast iron staircase in her tap shoes to say something cute to Scatman Corouthers. As she clanks her way delicately across the deck, she backs into ... the Professor (dum dum dummmm).

Since she doesn’t know that the real Professor has been killed, Rea doesn’t realise that she’s now escorting a Transmogrifying Amorphous Kill-O-Bot (TAKOB, for short) back to the comsat. After a while, she begins to notice that the Professor is acting rather strangely (I mean, even for Mr. Deltoid), but doesn’t become too terribly alarmed until they happen across the dead body of the real Professor. As the TAKOB begins to change back into its normal form, Kody arrives and he and Rea manage to escape back to the comsat, where Dee seals the door to the hulk by breaking a large red button (um, okay).

The POV of the TAKOB makes it seem as if its right on Kody and Rea’s heels, yet in two brief reverse angle shots we can see that the narrow corridor behind them is clear for at least 25 feet

I picture a moment where someone tried desperately to explain the meaning of inertia to the screenwriter, who was sitting in a corner with his fingers in his ears singing Mary Had A Little Lamb as loud as he could.

Renko holds up his pulse rifle, or whatever, with one hand and we hear the sound of a pump action shotgun being worked, even though Renko doesn’t move any slides or levers on his gun - he just points it and it makes a <ca-CHUNK> sound.

A tense <cough> stand off ensues, with Renko chewing heavily on the scenery, threatening everyone on the comsat in an attempt to keep his treasured Valuable Ore. Since no one has made any mention of taking it away from him, we’re not quite sure why he feels the need to do this, other than Ken’s mantra of "Its In The Script".

Okay, this one is multifaceted. First, we were told earlier that the collision with the hulk had drained the batteries of the escape pods (mind you - drained, not destroyed), which is clearly stupid in of itself. But secondly, it was also established at that point that there was no way to re-charge them (remember the whole power outage thing?). Now the issue with the pods isn’t their uselessness, but rather the pressure of getting them recharged in time.

Kody’s gun makes that same <ca-CHUNK> noise, even though we heard him cycle it when he drew on Renko during their previous confrontation. Renko offers to help everyone deal with the current crisis, and since Kody is trying to set a new record for stupidity, he welcomes Renko to the team, even allowing Renko to keep his weapon.

The first order of business is to locate Dee, who was last seen sealing that doorway the TAKOB apparently had little difficulty in bypassing. Now that Wheels is alone on Comsat5’s bridge, his dog goes missing, which naturally means Wheels is about to die.

An added bonus to this : as the air lock decompresses, the "about to pop" effect is realized by having off-camera air hoses blow on Wheel’s cheeks. This cheesy effect might be passable for simulating high g-forces, but is exactly the opposite of what the FX crew should have use to show immanent popification.

The weapon which was blowing things up Real Good all over the room causes little more than a small, neat little wound in Lennox’s chest. The rest of the crew pulls Lennox to safety, and Dee blows off another few rounds for good measure, setting off large explosions on mundane things like the floor (reinforcing #33 above).

Even if Wheels isn’t being killed at the exact same time as the current confrontation, there is no way the TAKOB could have made it from the airlock down here in time to wait (in Dee-form) for the rest of the crew.

Hey, that one’s new. Basically, what happens is that the film doesn’t stick to any rules about the way its weapons work. In #36, a few characters are shown sometimes working the shotgun-style pump on their gun with each shot, but other times they get two, three, or even more rounds off without ever touching the pump. Just like the explosive decompression issue, if the film would simply make up its mind how things work, we’d all be better off.

The TAKOB walks up behind a barrel of Random Volatile Stuff sitting on the floor between it and Kody. Kody shoots at it, and the resulting explosion knocks the TAKOB across the room, yet Kody simply turns his face to the side to shield his hairdo from the blast.

This distracts TAKOB enough to allow Kody to make a dash for the magic Make Things All Better lever (which looks surprisingly like a large circuit breaker, BTW). The crew begin to succumb to the lack of oxygen on the comsat, which was a result of the TAKOB-induced power drain (oh, just go with it), but Kody flips the aforementioned lever just in time, and all are saved.

Vaguely similar to (read: blatantly copying from) the scene in Predator, the TAKOB for some reason not established can’t see Kody, and lingers a few feet away from him, searching for his elusive prey.

If we want to be really anal about things, I might have to let the film slide on #s 39 and 41. There’s always the slight chance that Renko and Snake have been walking around with weapons which weren’t ready to be fired, especially on the heels of the gun battle a few moments ago (?). But Rea is wielding a semi-automatic pistol, just like the captain’s in #23, so no dice there.

Anyway, after each of them does their little <ca-CHUNK> to let the other two know they’re serious, they spend some time arguing over their course of action. Renko eventually persuades the group to head back to the bridge and attend to his wounds.

This occurs roughly thirty seconds after that same weapon had been cycled by Renko in #39 above.

Having gotten the drop on the other two, Rea opens the door and lets Kody in. Kody tells them that he thinks the TAKOB couldn’t see him previously as there were "emergency strobes" [lights] going off, which must have blinded it. All they need to do is set off the rest of the "emergency strobes" on Comsat5 to buy them the time they need to let the escape pods charge.

What follows next I think is possibly a result of some poor editing. In the middle of talking about the "emergency strobes", Kody beings pointing wildly at the doors to the bridge, saying how they won’t keep out the TAKOB. Then Snake knocks over a table and growls menacingly "All I know ... you overload a circuit and IT BLOWS!". Then the discussion returns immediately the "emergency strobes". All of this happens as randomly and without set up as it sounds.

The way the scene progresses, he drew the feather across the back of her neck in slow, languid strokes, sending ripples of Carnuba wax as a final sealant, which helps keep "Exact change is appreciated," she bubbled vacantly, why I think the editor did a sloppy job.

So Renko offers to hang back and work the "emergency strobes", and the remaining three head out the door to ... do something. What, you might ask? Well, I’ve just watched this scene four times in a row, and they clearly do not say what they are intending to do when they walk out the door.

<sigh>

Eventually we learn that they are trying to rig some sort of trap for the TAKOB. They grab large coils of thick wire from the ground (not a supply cabinet or storage room - just lying on the ground somewhere) and head off to a spot in the hulk to set their trap. Later on when they spring the trap, we will learn that it involves high levels of electricity, but the screenwriter quite completely failed to clue the audience in. Either that, or the editor excised the important bits of dialogue which established this (see above).

Unexplained under either scenario is why they are rigging a trap, when supposedly the "emergency strobes" were going to be used to keep TAKOB distracted while the escape pods charge.

The first is fairly self-explanatory : the cigar gets longer, then shorter, then longer again, etc. Not only do we have the same type problem with the bottle (empty then full), but in one wide shot the contents of the bottle suddenly turn completely clear, in stark contrast with the thick molasses-coloured liquid shown previously.

Ed Wood would be proud.

Being Manly Men, the two guys toss their firearms to the side and proceed to beat up on each other good and proper. And yes, the past few minutes have been as suggestive of Commando and Aliens as you might be thinking right now.

During the fight something Bad happens on the Russian hulk, which results in some falling debris trapping Kody and Rea. Renko pulls out his pistol again and prepares to kill Kody. While it doesn’t count as a flub, the film does get an extra special Penalty Flag here, as Renko offers to spare Kody in exchange for Rea’s ... um ... friendship. Okay, ‘coerced-sex-as-a-plot-point’ is offensive as it is (see also Jason’s diatribe against ‘rape-as-a-plot-point’ in his Bad Girls review). Its compounded here when we consider that there has been absolutely nothing mentioned of Renko’s apparent fondness for Rea previously. No unwelcome leers, no lewd remarks, no nothing. The first we learn of this hankerin’ is when Renko names his price for not shooting Kody.

I think it was Pliny the Elder who said it best : "Bite me.". There’s also a rude double entendre I could make by borrowing a line from The Terminator, but I’ll leave that as an option for you, oh my Brothers.

As in #36 above, Kody gets off two shots from a weapon without working its action (he only has the one hand), despite the fact that he previously had to work the action with each shot on this very same weapon.

Rea frees Kody and they hop in the escape pod, preparing to eject. Since the screenwriter had seen Alien before, he couldn’t resist throwing in a bit where the TAKOB comes back and grabs on to the back of the pod. Rea fires up the pod’s engines, simultaneously killing the TAKOB (for about the fourth time in the past ten minutes), and propelling the pod a safe distance from the Russian hulk, which now explodes (via some truly amateurish superimposition effects).

And you thought Space Mutiny was the only film cheap enough to use the inside of a factory for a space ship set!