Supernova (2000)

[Drunk Monk]

aka Stupidnova. 

This has been in my queue for 20 years. Okay, that's not entirely true. It probably wasn't available yet then, but it came available soon and has been sitting in my queue since then. In fact, somehow it was in my Amazprime queue twice. Must be two different distributors. 

There's another film called Supernova coming out this year, so I finally got around to this one. 

It's got great sets. Srsly, the sets are super awesome and immersive. 

The story wasn't as bad as I was led to believe. It would've made a good Star Trek episode if it was half as long. The effects aren't that bad either for the time. And it's got an okay cast - notably Robin Tunney from The Mentalist who gets topless a lot and Wilson Cruz from ST: Disco. I've never really cared for Spader or Bassett so they were negligible. It does get lost in itself storywise. It's not as offensively horrible as that McKlusky flick, but that was a really low bar. Maybe I've braced myself for 20 years and now finally seeing this, it's not so bad. 

I remember Greg showing off that hunk of plastic boastfully that he had sitting in a corner at Castle Montecito. It was a critical prop - the 9th dimension case. It retrospect, that was impressive and now I wonder if it migrated to the Lair. I hope so. It would sit nicely in the corner of Greg's bigger-than-my-bungalow shop, or perhaps as a odd bit of garden statuary on the path to the serenity space. 

I was disappointed that I missed a Greg credit. Maybe he changed his name to Lee Thomas or something.

Re-reading Greg's propmaker memoir made this more enjoyable. Perhaps that's a sell point for the memoir - BTS tales that make bad movies better. 

If I bother to see the new Supernova (which comes out this weekend with Tucci and Firth), I'm gonna post it here. 

No sword fights. This should be a right of passage for DOOMers - required viewing.

Maybe we need a special subforum for Greg films.

[Greg]

This film was stupid mainly on how it was made. I vaguely remember the story and it was pretty silly.

I do still have the plastic doohickey. It is here somewhere.

I don't know if I got a credit on that show. They usually only make it down to foreman and I was only a Gangboss on the show.

[Drunk Monk]

The plastic doohickey was basically the Genesis device from Wrath of Khan, only it was more destructive because it'll eventually take out the everything because it fell into a red giant causing...well, a supernova. 

Be careful with that.

[cranefly]

I was digging around the web for evidence that Supernova might be attaining cult status, because I've also heard it's not as bad as its reputation suggests.  But nope, no evidence of cult status.  But I did stumble upon a write-up of the fiascos on set (of course, I'd already read Greg's firsthand take).  Not that I read much of it:
http://www.thepinksmoke.com/frustratingsupernova4.htm
I pretty much stopped reading when the author (John Cribbs) started listing the low points of Coppola's career, of which his involvement in this work was one, but then included the killing of Vic Morrow.

WTF?   Talk about getting the wrong guy.  Cribbs' credibility went straight down the tubes.

[Drunk Monk]

This should be a right of passage for DOOMers - required viewing.

Maybe we need a special subforum for Greg films.

Beyond Amaprime, I think this is on Hoopla too...or maybe it's Kanopy. I'm pretty sure I have it queued up on multiple platforms, which I will now remove from my lists.

[cranefly]

Beyond Amaprime, I think this is on Hoopla too...or maybe it's Kanopy. I'm pretty sure I have it queued up on multiple platforms, which I will now remove from my lists.

Not on Kanopy, but found it on Hoopla.  Checked it out.  Might watch tonight.

[Greg]

Oh you deluded fools!

[Drunk Monk]

Were you a fan of The Mentalist? 

[Greg]

Not so much.

[cranefly]

Finished it.
I didn't watch it like most viewers, instead approaching it as a science documentary, an opportunity to expand my knowledge of cosmology.

What I learned: that a supernova is a big blurry ball of impending, just waiting to be triggered by a desperate enough director.  Or by a crew with sufficient lack of chemistry.  And that mysterious alien artifacts will distort your countenance if you stand too near.  And you will stand too near, because the director tells you to.  And you'll be inspired to bare your flesh for no discernable reason but without ever achieving nudity.

Anyway, it's one of those jigsaw movies where none of the pieces fit, but which remains vaguely watchable because it's a "spaceship in space" tale, and not many SF movies venture there.