SUPERNOVA

SUPERNOVA. Thomas Lee, dir. David Campbell Wilson, script. William Malone and Daniel Chuba, story (with Chuba one of three credited producers). USA and (according to IMDb) Switzerland: Screenland Pictures/Hammerhead (prod.) / MGM (dist., copyright holder), 1999 (copyright), 2000 (release, according to IMDb). 90 min.; 91 min. for the "Never-Before-Seen R-Rated Version" on VHS tape from MGM Home Entertainment. James Spader, Angela Bassett, stars.

"Recombinant cinema," recycling the "Ten Little Indians" motifs from ALIEN et al., a kind of "Genesis Machine" of destruction/creation from STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (continued in STAR TREK III), and the mutated superman. Relevant here for a robot that is dressed, as a kind of gag, like a World War I airman and vaguely resembling Woody Allen playing a robot in SLEEPER; the "Flyboy" robot which can be, and at key points in the plot is, operated as a waldo device. Also relevant for "Sweetie," the female-gendered computer who runs the ship: Sweetie achieves some free will, desire, and the ability to love. Note male-gendered robot, moving around silently, and female-gendered, talking AI computer running the ship; they are useful for machine/gender issues. Note also heavy-industrial mise en scène, in the cyberpunk tradition but totally in space. Cf. ALIEN (film), ALIENS (film); contrast, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (film), STAR TREK series, GALAXY QUEST (q.v.). Interviews and stills in Cinefantastique 31.10 (Feb. 2000); [32]-47 (contrast on-board mise en scène in GALAXY QUEST, photo on p. 9 of the Feb. 2000 issue of Cinefantastique).