So the film takes place 30 years after a war on earth between the Union and the Consortium, whoever the hell they are. The war wipes out 10% of the earth's population. We're told this at the start of the film by a female voice over that sounds like Captain Janeway if she'd smoked 60 cigarettes a day for the last 40 years.
Then we jump to this base on Jupiter's moon Io and this alien ship comes to attack it. The base commander reminds me of The Old Man from Battlestar Galactica. In fact a lot of this film reminds me of BSG, but BSG if it had been done incredibly badly. I do feel awful having to compare this dross to the excellent BSG, but seriously, if you watch this it's the first thing that springs to mind. Anyway, the base is being blown to shit by the alien ship. Another ship appears in orbit and it turns out to be a professor guy that the base commander knows. The professor says that the commander must evacuate the base immediately and the commander agrees. So everyone on the base is evacuated to the professor's ship. And just in the nick of time, as shortly after the whole moon is destroyed.
At this point the commander and the professor get into an argument. The commander says they must return to earth, but the professor says he must carry on with his top secret mission. The professor says that the commander must trust him and gives him a set of co-ordinates. After some more bad acting the commander eventually agrees, so they travel to the co-ordinates the professor has given.After some naff special effects that are supposed to represent being pulled through a rift in spacetime or some sort of shit like that, they end up being pulled towards an unknown planet. So they end up landing on the planet against their will. The crew has a meeting to discuss what they have been able to ascertain about the planet. It's got an atmosphere and gravity very similar to earth, but the temperature is a chilly minus 10. They don't specify whether it's degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius though. I would've thought that was an important distinction to make. Nope, they just say it's minus 10. There's also some sort of magnetic field which stops the ship from taking off again. Also they appear to be so far outside known space that they can't even calculate where they are.
The professor then explains what he knows. He starts by saying that a few years ago a meteor landed in Sumatra, and that this meteor was older than anything encountered before in the galaxy. The meteor contained a crystal, and they discovered that this crystal contained an encryption embedded in the structure. (You following so far? I started to drift off a bit here). Sadly they couldn't crack the encryption. So they contacted the professor and some months later he managed to crack the code. The message contained instructions for building a space ship, the professor's ship that they're all on now. There was also a set of co-ordinates which were the ones they just passed through. The professor goes on to admit that there was also a reference to a potential attack, so he knew in advance about the aliens blowing Io to shit. He then has a private meeting with the commander. The professor says that the threat in the message was ill defined and that they did not want to induce panic.
So they have no idea where they are and they can't take off because of the magnetic field. However their small fighters can still fly, so their hotshot pilot guy goes out to take a look. In orbit around the planet he sees a ship that looks the same as the one that blew Io to shit. The alien ship sends out some fighters and the hotshot pilot guy has to eject in his escape pod and land back on the planet somewhere. Fortunately they discover that the planet's energy field repels the alien ships and they can't get through. They locate the signal of the escape pod and send a couple of people out to fetch hotshot guy.
Meanwhile hotshot guy is walking through the snow and encounters an alien that managed to hitch a ride on his escape pod. But then two other people appear, knock the alien out and then take hotshot guy to safety. The two people sent to look for hotshot guy come across a cave and they discover the professor inside who had gone out with his own party to explore the planet. They encounter a race of people in the cave who turn out to be human, but they speak a completely unknown language. So it turns out that they've been looking after hotshot guy and they were the ones that dealt with the alien.
The commander then visits the cave to look at what the professor has found at the centre of it. In the centre is a tree-like structure made of crystal. The same crystal that was found in the meteor that landed on earth. The professor says that he analysed a microscopic sample and found it contained more information on the human race than all of the earth's computers combined. He says that he found traces of many other civilisations too. The professor speculates it may contain the knowledge of an entire galaxy, or even a universe.
Meanwhile back on the ship the alien has managed to find its way aboard and starts killing off the crew. But then the alien takes some of the crew alive and takes off with them on board one of the ship's shuttle craft, taking them back to the alien ship in orbit. Then some shit happens that I'm still not exactly sure about. But I think that basically another alien life form that lives on the planet inhabits the body of a girl on the bridge of the ship and starts speaking through her. The alien says that the planet was a peaceful haven, but then the other aliens arrived. The crystal in the meteor that landed on earth was a distress call. The alien says our friends here are the first ones that have answered. Something like that anyway. My brain was turning to mush by this point. The commander says they must return to earth and asks the alien how. The alien says they cannot go back and shows them an image of a molten, burning earth. The professor asks if the image is what is happening now or what will happen in the future, but the alien doesn't answer.
Hotshot guy asks if the alien will help them rescue the crew on the alien ship. The alien says that hotshot guy can go and a crystal door thingy appears. He walks through the crystal door and disappears, reappearing on the alien ship. Our friends on the planet then discover that power levels for the weapons on the alien ship have suddenly dropped massively. We then see that hotshot guy has turned into this ridiculous looking blue dude with long white hair, shooting energy bolts from his hands. He then holds his arms aloft and says "It is time!" in a stupid echoey voice.
Our friends on the planet below then launch all of their fighters and proceed to the alien ship in orbit. There's the usual sort of fighter-on-fighter space battle that we're used to seeing. Meanwhile a shuttle craft with the commander and a bunch of armed crew lands inside the alien ship. As they exit the shuttle craft they are surrounded by aliens. But thankfully hotshot blue dude is there to shoot energy bolts from his hands and kill them all. After that he returns to being normal hotshot guy and they all bog off back to the planet, complete with the missing crew.
Then as if that wasn't enough, the planet disappears and reappears in a completely different area of space and it's now orbited by four moons. The commander says "We're somewhere else". Bravo for that astute observation. Another crew member says "I wonder where". The dialogue in this film is amazing. Then we hear Captain Janeway's voice again. She talks about them beginning a new life. Their journey has only just begin. Blah blah, etc. etc. The end.
My brain hurts. This must be one of the most badly written sci-fi films of modern times. No wonder it never got made into a tv series. It's so disjointed and confusing. Unlike the characters in BSG, the ones in this are all rather bland and nondescript. And they're badly acted characters at that. Visually it's not great either. The outfits look like something from 1960's sci-fi, not 2003. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, this film was released on DVD in 2003. It also suffers from early 2000's cgi, which probably looked amazing at the time, but it hasn't aged well.
I didn't feel any connection to the bland characters. The story was overly complex. And the guy turning into blue ice dude is just laughable. It's a shame really, because I feel that if the story were better and not so confusing it might've been at least half decent. But whoever had the job of trying to get backing for a series never really stood a chance.
Suffice to say this isn't worth watching. IMDb currently give it a 3.9 out of 10. Yes, it really is that bad. And according to Wikipedia there was a fan site for it, but it no longer exists. Search the interwebs and you'll find people who rave about this film. Those people are wrong. I'm glad this never got made into a tv series. This film was made in Canada. Yes, Canada has given us Celine Dion, Justin Bieber and now this. Canada has a lot to answer for.
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