In the Fold (1996 TV Movie) User Reviews

Perky cadets in short skirts? What's not to like?

[kmccabe- · 6/10 · 20 February 2001]

Most of the reviews are pretty negative, but I have to admit that I rather enjoyed this piece of hokum. Someone compared the film to the Hornblower stories and I have to agree, but I'll go one step further and suggest that the Hornblower influence comes via David Feintuch's Nicholas Seafort books, the first of which, Midshipman's Hope, must have appeared a year or so before this film.

The parallels are almost too striking. Junior Officers on first cruise in space, Senior officers killed in sneak attack, one hero becomes captain, sense of honour forces him to execute traitor, overcomes incredible odds, defeats enemy, etc, etc, etc. Leaving aside the hokey teen telemovie elements, this film contains a lot of the classic story elements that you often find the best space operas but rarely find in effects-driven, high-concept, Trek inspired Sci-fi films we are forced to contend with.

Go on, give it chance -- A guilty pleasure.

Live action comic book

[TVholic · 5/10 · 13 June 1999]

This was intended as a pilot for a series. Thankfully, it was never picked up. One expects better from executive producer and writer Melinda Snodgrass, who wrote several episodes for Star Trek - The Next Generation. There's not a single original idea here. Worse yet, none of the ideas copied were good to begin with.

The single worst shortcoming of Star Command is its cookie cutter cast of characters. Each of them has a single distinguishing characteristic and nothing else. The Admiral's son who can't live up to the family reputation but ends up saving the day. The tough girl from the slums of LA. The rich-boy slacker. The traitorous coward. The smart Japanese female engineer. And a female African-American pilot to round out the ethnic mix who has no backstory whatsoever. Essentially, the Power Rangers without their giant robot. To add "star power," Chad Everett and Morgan Fairchild appear as "old hands" in the corps.

If the heroes are from a familiar mold, the villains are plucked straight from a World War II movie. In contrast with the United Colors of Benetton kids, they're unabashedly older, Aryan types who would look completely natural saluting Hitler, which I suppose is the point since the writer beats us over the head with the parallels to old Germany, what with the blatant bigotry and the "we need elbow room" justification. Their commander even has an indistinct accent vaguely reminiscent of German. Their uniforms seem derived from the SS. Just when you think it can't get more black and white, the space cadets from the other side sit next to the good kids. Black uniforms and white uniforms.

The other aspects of the production are not much better. The music is completely forgettable. Costume design is only average for a TV sci-fi movie. And the effects and production design are the usual fare for 1996, less impressive than "Space: Above and Beyond." The virtual reality is another of the most pathetic and unimaginative parts of the movie. They would add glitches in the picture every few seconds, as if we would otherwise forget that it's not part of the "real world." And somehow, I can't imagine slacker guy watching these dull, slow-moving costume pieces straight out of a romance novel. He'd want to just cut to the chase and rip the clothes off the gorgeous woman in the VR. Those VR sequences are a woman's fantasy, not a man's.

It all goes on far too long. This could have been done in an hour. Still, despite all its flaws, it was somewhat watchable. Every once in awhile, we do seem to need some simplistic escapism. But we just can't shake the feeling that this would have been right at home in the pages of a comic book.

Quite good

[mjarvis0 · 6/10 · 9 November 2005]

I have to disagree with negatives comments about this movie. I have watched it and to be sure it does not compare to the likes of Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 etc. However it was a plausible story and the effects while not top notch were adequate. It portrayed the darker side of human nature when one of the cadets shirked from his duties, faced a court martial and then took his own life.

The ladies uniforms were easy on the eye for us men folk however all that was exposed was thighs. It is not as though you lived in fear that one of their boobs was about to fall out. I did not know that this film represented a pilot episode and I think that it would have been hard to make a series out of the film because the story was pretty much closed and I myself was not left feeling that I wanted more. However to reiterate,it was a decent movie and one that I would have no trouble watching again should I come across in the TV listings.

What I think

[AlisaD · 5 August 1999]

When i first heard about this movie, I thought it was going to be another total Star Trek knockoff, but when I finally sat down and watched it, I was totally wrong. Now I may be the only person on the planet who liked it, but I have to say the best parts of this movie were Chad Everett and Jennifer Bransford. Chad's been a favorite actor of mine since I could walk, and Jennifer's portrayal of Ali had all the attitude I only wish I had(I'm really REALLY shy in real life).

All in all I loved this movie, and I think UPN should re-air it soon so I can tape it :)

Could have been worse

[KeyOrion · 5/10 · 2 October 2005]

I'm not sure what they were going for when they created this movie, but i'll attempt to fathom it out for some. In the far future we find that a group of students are about to graduate a space academy. But if anyone has closely looked at the uniforms being shown during the first ten minutes, the students are in fact two different groups. Much like the military cadre was breaking down between two distinct ideologies before the outbreak of the civil war in the United States. As the story progresses we learn that there is the possibility of a civil war between two groups of humanity. One bent on exploration and peaceful mindset...and the other group which is bent on expansion by any means necessary.

I also believe this was a failed pilot which never really took off. The show really did surround the youthful ensemble put together. I really didn't believe the character story arcs were ever that strong to begin with, and by the end was more of a coming of age film for the actors themselves and NOT the characters.

And my worst comment will have to be for the space footage, with some of the worst spaceships and video toaster graphics I have ever seen to date. Well, besides the dragons from the Dungeons and Dragons, probably the worst flying tin cans I had a hard time believing could even fly in space.

what a piece of crap

[Torski · 2/10 · 20 May 1999]

I worked on this project and watched it over the course of more than a year, roughly from the end of principal photography until the final sound mix. It started out being pretty good, but over time was reconcepted into what we started referring to as "Babes in Space" or "Melrose Space." Even my dad, who watched it for the sole purpose of seeing my credit at the end, said that it "really isn't a very good movie." Thanks, dad.

Oh so bad

[thekaj · 1/10 · 27 July 2001]

As someone else pointed out, this was a television pilot that, fortunately for all humanity, never made it any farther. Everything about this movie was terrible. The acting was horrendous, although that might have been attributed to the even worse plot that lacked any shred of believability. They seemed more interested in finding ways to show off the 90210 wannabes in sexy yet totally unpractical uniforms than actually working on getting a story line together. As for the main issue of defeating the evil doers, I've seen more coherent battles between He-Man and Skeletor. Stay away from this one. There's a reason why even syndication wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Not Award winning, but fun and worth watching

[carbon_dragon · 7/10 · 19 November 2008]

Though I would have like to seen more of Chad and Morgan, and though the acting wasn't exactly Academy Award (it was a bit kitchy), this was a fun story with an interesting plot, watchable special effects, and a storyline that I always like (junior officer takes command and saves the day).

Seeing the hero win by cleverness and bravery instead of a plot trick makes it worth watching. The bad guys were suitably evil to deserve their fate. There was probably an even better movie in here somewhere, but what we got was a lot of fun.

I'd compare it to Midshipman's Hope by David Feintuch or On Basilisk Station by David Weber (though those are probably a cut above this movie in story). Seafort in Midshipman's Hope is a bit more doom ridden though, and that gets kind of old. The hero here is gets to actually enjoy the experience, finding his forte at last instead of washing out of the academy.

More cheese than a cheese shop!

[Melvyn-5 · 3/10 · 8 July 2000]

What do you get if you take every space sci-fi cliche in the book, a limp story, mix with some pretty faces and Dynasty cast-off costumes? You get something pretty close to this - a truly awful movie that you just have to watch out of complete and utter disbelief. Which is a pity, as with a bit more thought and a lot less gloss this could have been very good. I have seen some cheesy movies in the past, but this was irridemable. Even MST3K would be embarrased to use this!

Superficial in a way that implies depth

[randy-77849 · 3/10 · 5 December 2016]

First up: This is a lame pilot movie. Let's get that out of the way. Apart from the scene where they crash in the snow/ice, and the short skirts on the women, there is nothing any good here. But it reminded me of other crappy pilot movies - like, say, "Legends of the Rangers" or that Galactica one that was set during the first Cylon war - that actually had pretty deep and dense story ideas underneath them.

In other words, I feel like someone put a lot of thought into the universe that this story was set in, which might have been an interesting playground, but then they utterly fumbled the ball with this dopey TV movie.

Not as bad as all that

[KarlMaldensNose · 24 January 2001]

I suspect that "Star Command"gained it's genesis from "Starship Troopers", the success of which probably prompted it's inception. However it is a very different type of sci-fi film to "Troopers", which I saw as a good old fashioned shoot 'em up war movie. And a good one at that.

Rather, "Star Command" reminded me very much of the recent and excellent British "Hornblower" TV series, where the protagonist/s use initiative and daring to outwit the enemy rather than guts and straight out firepower.

I'd not class this as even a very good movie, the acting, by a very pretty cast, is only just adequate, the characterisation stereotypical and some of the lines embarrassingly bad.

However the story itself is interest holding and the special effects/sets quite good. Not a deep film by any means but not excreable either.

2½ *'s out of 4

An Interesting Contradiction

[mark_townsend · 14 March 2002]

This Made-For-Tv film is a mish-mash of pulpy cliches, solid military sci-fi and 90210-esque Beautiful American Teens.

I think it would be too easy and grossly unfair to write this film off as 'Bad' which, in fairness, it does approach... But it has that certain something. A lot of the story is pure fluff, feel-good TV with formulaic text, but the actors and actresses who are playing the roles manage to bring a degree of feeling to the proceedings that you don't expect. If you look beyond the shake-and-bake storyline, the tennis-skirted female officers and the slightly poor effects you find a selection of highly emotional scenes that convey their meaning without needing extra... Padding.

My personal favourite is the conclusion of the court-martial hearing. As those five marbles roll out onto the table... The sheer power of that scene still moves me. Of course, that might just be me.

Of the actors, Jay Underwood, Ivan Sergei and Chad Everett provide enjoyable and believeable performances. I don't believe it's fair to judge the actors based on this particular outing. A lot of their talent may have been submerged under the poor writing, but there are times when quality shines through.

This TV-Movie is mostly a cheap, feel-good, sci-fi romp only worth watching if you're feeling low and want pure sacharine. Beautiful Heroines, Square-jawed Heroes, predictable action and a happy ending with all the horrible baddies meeting their maker. But it's also worth watching this if you're willing to look for the hardcore Military Sci-Fi centre. It is there and it's worth watching if you can find it.

But don't take my word for it...

Crap? No way!

[gunstar_verteron · 22 April 2001]

Listen, I love sci-fi, especially cheesy, not-very-well-done sci-fi, so this movie was great. Good story, good animation, and(yes, I'll say it) good characters. Some of them even had a believable past, a rarity in any movie today. Besides, Jay Underwood hasn't had anything going for him since the Not Quite Human series. Now those were bad, but they portrayed a fresh idea, and even though Star Command is five years old, I still refer to it as a fresh idea. And Jay Underwood's still out of work. Maybe he should have gone to the casting call for Crossworlds instead of Star Command, but there you have it.