Starhunter RexuX: The Complete Series - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Starhunter ReduX: The Complete Series



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
The late 1990s and the early 2000s had a myriad of Canadian based sci-fi shows that showed across the SyFy channel (Sci-fi back then) and a couple of other stations. Shows like like Andromeda, Mutant-X, Starhunter, Stargate basically were a dime a dozen. I grew up watching just about every one of them during college and high school days, and I have very fond memories of getting home from late afternoon classes during my college era days and popping on Andromeda, Farscape (although that was Aussie, not Canadian) and Mutant-X to unwind from the day. Starhunter was one, but it was that weird low low low budget show that I wasn’t really into a the time, though I remember watching a handful of episodes when my normal shows weren’t on. Fast forward to around 2010 I picked up the DVDs of the 2 seasons and actually started digging the weird blend of Lexx, Andromeda and Firefly in a low budget veneer. The acting was never great. The CGI was pretty bad, but it was fun schlock entertainment.

I have no idea HOW I missed it, but when I saw the press release for Starhunter ReduX with a production date of 2017 I figured “huh, they made a sequel or spinoff?” and immediately requested it. Turns out I missed some serious sci-fi nerd rumblings on the internet as it turns out that the original show runners went back to the series, put a new 4K master struck from the 16mm source material, completely redid all the CGI ala Star Trek: The Original Series, actually recut the entire series from scratch, reshot new scenes, redid the entire score from scratch with the help of the original scoring director, added new sounds and redid the soundtrack….basically redoing the show from the ground up so that it fit the original narrative better, and blends the awkward season 1 and season 2 together a bit more (especially in the final episode or so of Season 2 where they tie in the reason Michael Pare was gone).

According to interviews and online message boards where the actual creators weighed in, they were secretly contacted by a major streaming company around 2014 asking if they would consider picking up the series again and doing a 3rd season to finish out the story that they started (season 2 ended in a wicked cliffhanger). They thought it over and realized that it would be really hard to do as most of the actors had moved on, and the fan desire wasn’t there to restart the whole thing from scratch, but they had always been VERY unhappy with the massive amount of studio interference with the casting and scripting. So they were able to get funding to re-edit the show and addd new scenes and completely redo the series to ALMOST get what they were originally going for back in 1999-2003 when the show was shot. The end result was a complete re-do of the series to point of where it’s the same show, but at the same time it’s not the same show we saw back in 2000-2004 (when the show was released). All 44 episodes are there, but it’s completely reshot and re-edited in some places to tied both seasons together (season one was the start, but season two was really a restart of the series as the studio investors forced them to drop Michael Pare as the lead, so they recast his son Travis and had him as the main star with only Tanya Allen reprising her role as Percy, and renaming it Starhunter 2300).

End result, it’s an interesting project. As a huge fan of original works and keeping theatrical releases PURE, I do wish we could have gotten the origianl series as was shown on TV too, but the ReduX version of the show does tie the two seasons together better, and the new audio mix is fuller and richer (although the redoing of some audio special effects are hit ore miss. Sometimes it’s great, other times explosions or gunshots don’t have sound, kind of like they were missed in the editing department) So it’s a bit of a hit or miss. I really do love that they brought back Tanya Allen and Michael Pare to shoot some new scenes and really flesh out WHERE Dante was during the second season, giving us a hint at where the future of the show was going to with the idea of the Aliens who seeded our world 3 million years ago. I would have to give them an A+ for effort as you can just literally see the amount of passion and love than went into this ReduX variant of the 2 seasons, especially since it was a low low budget Canadian sci-fi show that was almost non existent in the ratings in a time when Canadian sci-fi shows were literally flooding the market.

The series itself revolves around one Dante Montana (Michael Pare) and his crew aboard the Tulip as he searches for his son across the known worlds in 2285. He’s a bounty hunter ala Malcolm Reynolds doing odd jobs to jump from one world to the next in order to find his son Travis. He and his crew get pulled into a galactic war for superiority when scientists learn about hidden and dormant genes within the human body known as “Divinity Clusters” that were seeded onto our world 3 million years ago by a dying alien race. Their intent was to give humanity the tools needed to become highly evolved when they gained enough evolution on their own merits, hoping to be reborn into the world when we finally discover hyperspace (which the world hadn’t really when the show starts).

Season 1 ends with Dante finding his son, only for them to have use the divinity clusters within themselves to jump into hyperspace with the Tulip. 15 years late the ship drops out of hyperspace with only Dante’s niece Percy (Tanya Allen) on board. Because of Dante’s hyperspace jump he has blurred the lines between time and space, having reset the timeline and allowing young Travis to grow up “normally” (recast to Clive Robertson). Teaming up together, Percy and Travis use the tulip to once again complete bounty hunter missions and in the process reverse the tables a bit. Find out what happened to Dante and stop their version of the “federation” from completing the Destiny Cluster experiments and taking over hyperspace in what would be a catastrophic collision.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

As mentioned in the main portion of the review, there was a TON of changes to the original mastre for the show. The series was original shot using 16mm film (which is a very gritty source), framed in 4x3, and the CGI was finsihed on tape. Well, they went back to the original 16mm elements, reframed it for 16x9 like they originally wanted, and redid over 4,000 CGI shots to get it looking better. The end result is actually quite solid, with some give and take. The series will never look glossy and shiny due to the 16mm source (VERY gritty), but the series is miles (and I mean miles) better than the DVDs. There’s some smearing, green and purple artifacting in low light scenarios, and general grim look of the show, but it’s fairly well detailed and close ups can be quite revealing. Simply put, it’s an old low budget show that got a 4K remaster. It will never be something super amazing, but they did a good job getting it to look this good.








Audio:

Much like the video, the audio is pretty much redone from scratch. Original composer Donald Quan went back and re-did the ENTIRE scoring for the show, including effects etc, to make it a completely modern design. And like the video, there’s some pros and some cons. The pros are that it’s a richer and fuller sounding mix, and the drop in scenes where they did reshoots and ADR are mostly seamless as a result. However, there is some funkiness with the new audio effects in terms of consistency. According to the interviews I read, the people who did the restoration and reshoots etc were given around $45,000 per episode to redo them, and as such they pretty much got 70% of what they wanted done instead of 100%. some of that includes gun shots that weren’t timed properly, or an explosion that was missing the audio on screen. Not major stuff mind you, but simple background effects. All in all, it does sound quite good with a good amount of bass added in as well. It’s not perfect, but still a labor of love.








Extras:

• Behind-The-Scenes Featurette
• Effects: Before And After
• Starhunter At FanExpo
• Green Screen Follies
• The Rudolpho Monologues
• Recording The Theme
• Composer Donald Quan ... Live!
• Promos

Final Score: ​

The show is utterly pulpy schlock, but it IS fun. I’m not sure which version I prefer, but there are a lot of loose ends and threads that were unfortunately ignored in the broadcast versions so I actually kind of lean towards liking this reduX variant. I DO understand that some fans were definitely unhappy that this is the only version to get a new remaster and polish, as I’m a purist at heart and am one of the people STILL frustrated that we haven’t gotten high def versions of Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy and have to live with the Special Editions. That being said, it sounds like a massive undertaking and is a fun little gift to the fans who were left hanging back in 2004. the new remaster gives us 1.78:1 framing instead of the cropped 4x3 that the studios insisted the showrunners use back then, new audio, new scoring, and a little bit of a face lift to an aging show. Shout Did a great job spreading the 44 episodes out over 10 discs and gave it plenty of breathing room. This show WILL be for a niche audience I fully admit, but it’s still a great addition if you haven’t seen the show ReduX streaming on Prime.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tanya Allen, Stephen Marcus, Michael Pare, Murray Melvin, Claudette Roche, Clive Robertson, Dawn Stern
Creator: Daniel D'Or, G. Phillip Jackson (Season 2)
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Shout Factory
Rated: NR
Runtime: 1920 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 23rd, 2022

Recommendation: Fun Watch

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