STARFLIGHT ONE

US, 1983, 105 minutes, Colour.
Lee Majors, Hal Linden, Lauren Hutton, Ray Milland, Gail Strickland, George de Cenzo.
Directed by Jerry Jameson.

Starflight One is a routine telemovie-type adventure combining disaster in a plane with adventures in space. While the idea is novel, the treatment is as expected. However, there seems to be a great calm among the passengers floating in space waiting to be rescued - a great deal of action adventure decorum.

1. The popularity of disaster films? Space exploration? Interest in disaster, human reactions, technical rescue? Heroics?

2. The telemovie style: the set-up of the plane's flight, crises, human greed, passengers and personal conflicts.

3. The advances in technology? Air travel, speed? Space? Computers? Visual links? Television coverage? The atmosphere of technical advance? The musical score and its style?

4. The plausibility of the plot: the Star Flight, Los Angeles to Sydney, orbits? The rescue bids? The range of people - ordinary and extraordinary?

5. The sequences setting up the situation: the introduction to the people, way of life, expectations, anxieties, marital situations, industrial espionage? Sufficient interest to hold viewers?

6. The plane and its style? Joshua and his ability, anxieties? NASA and the supervision? Computers and their control and information? The media? Luxury? Big business and lack of scruple?

7. The rocket, the debris and the putting of the plane into orbit? The hole? Coping? Pete and his heroics and death? Joshua transferred by the coffin? The tunnel? The airbus? Columbia? Monitors, computers? Media coverage? Human ingenuity, the use of machines and high technology?

8. Tension and the rescues and atmosphere?

9. Lee Majors' solid (stolid) style as Cody? Janet? Family relationships? His affair with the hostess? Her family relationships, son? Coping? Decisions? Bill. ingenuity? Janet and her waiting?

10. The hostess and her daughter, Felix and friendship, smooth-talking, coping, advice, the final rescue?

11. Joshua and his ideas, his being brought to earth, the anxiety of his wife?

12. Ray Milland as the big business tycoon? Ruthless? Money? His son and decisions? Business and industrial espionage? The ordinary passengers? Going through the tunnel? Felix and the television coverage? Heroism?

14. The ground crew, suspense, contacts. ideas, Columbia?

15. The popular American blend of adventure, hopes, human coping, the human spirit?