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Supernova (2000)

Starring James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, and Lou Diamond Phillips.  Cinematography by Lloyd Ahern II.  Edited by Melissa Kent and Michael Schweitzer.  Produced by Daniel Chuba, Jamie Dixon, and Ash R. Shah. Written by William Malone, Daniel Chuba, and David C. Wilson.  Directed by Thomas Lee.

Early in the twenty second century, the emergency rescue space vessel Nightingale 229 runs its patrol. Twelve days into their mission they received a distress call from a comet mining colony three thousand four hundred and thirty two light years away. The Nightingale has the capacity to literally jump dimensions, so such a distance is irrelevant. They reach the comet and find only one survivor; a mysterious young man (played by Peter Facinelli) who brings an alien artifact aboard.

It seems that the artifact is of the ninth dimension, and is basically pure evil, which would explain why the six crew members (played by Robert Forster, James Spader, Angela Bassett, Lou Diamond Phillips, Robin Tunney, and Wilson Cruz) aboard the Nightingale start dying.

We hear you. You’re looking at the credits above and you can’t find any mention of Francis Ford Coppola anywhere.  You’re saying, “What the hell?  Why is this listed under Coppola’s filmography?” Well let me explain… The Supernova screenplay finds its way to MGM and they green light it.

They start to hire a crew for it and pick up director Geoffrey Wright to lead.  Well, after a short while, Wright drops out due to "creative differences" and a month later Walter Hill is brought on board. Hill does the principle photography and after it was all edited together more disagreements break Hill from the project (side note:  this ended up being the first film to carry a “Directed by Thomas Lee” credit, the substitute for Alan Smithee).

So MGM has what they see as an unreleasable film on their hands with no where to go with it. Francis Ford Coppola, one of the MGM board members and ever the optimist, sees the footage and believes that with a little work in the editing room he could have this project suitable for a theatrical release. So there you have it; one uncredited editing job for Coppola. This is a similar situation to what happened with The Fantasticks in that same year.

After seeing the Supernova, it’s difficult to imagine how much it sucked before Coppola got his hands on it because it still sucks.  Apparently the studio didn’t hold much esteem for their film either as it was casually dumped into a mid-January release date (the Elephant Graveyard for films). As for the story, well, you’ve caught a better version of it if you’ve seen Alien, which, oddly enough, was produced by none other than Walter Hill.

Deep in space, mysterious force of evil on board the small ship, only a select few survive, blah, blah, blah.  It is a film filled with recycled ideas, thin plot lines, and uninteresting characters.  But don’t just take my word for it.  Go and see how unnecessarily complicated and ridiculously complicated it is for yourself.

Budget: $60,000,000

Total US Gross: $14,218,868

Genre: Science Fiction

Runtime: 91 Minutes

US Release Date: 1/14/00

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Awards: none

Tagline: All Hell Is About To Break Loose.

Quote: “I’ve discovered the greatest treasure in human history.”

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