Earth Star Voyager

The Mickey Mouse Club meets Star Trek.
"What is this?? The Good Ship Kindergarten??"
—Captain Jacob Dryden Brown upon meeting the crew of the Earth Star Voyager

Earth Star Voyager was a Pilot Movie that originally aired as a 2-part miniseries on ABC's The Disney Sunday Movie in January 1988. It focuses on a group of over-achieving young people from a late 21st century Crapsack Earth as they trek through the stars to find a new home for the human race. Along the way, the crew has to deal with the usual dangers of TV space travel, along with the drama and awkwardness typical of being a teenager or a young adult on television.

Soft on the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, as considerable Artistic License is taken with the science, no doubt to keep the show accessible to its younger viewers.

The miniseries was actually nominated for two primetime Emmys for sound editing and sound mixing.

Even though the series was never picked up, the miniseries has developed a small but vocal fanbase. Disney almost refuses to admit that this miniseries ever existed, so don't look for an official DVD release (or any kind of release, for that matter). If you look hard enough on the Internet, though, you should be able to find a copy.

Not to be confused with that certain other TV series named Voyager.

The cast included:

  • Brian McNamara as Jonathan Hays, Command Specialist: Age 21.
  • Jason Michas as Jessie "Beanie" Bienstock, Computer Sciences: Age 14.
  • Julia Montgomery as Dr. Sally Arthur, M.D., Space Medicine: Age 24.
  • Tom Bresnahan as Huxley Welles, Navigation: Age 18.
  • Dinah Gaston as Lani Miyori, Communication: Age 16.
  • Margaret Langrick as Luz Sansone, Communication: Age 15.
  • Bruce Harwood as Dr. Leland Eugene, M.D., Psychiatrist: Age 22.
  • Duncan Regehr as Jacob Brown, Former Commander, Vanguard Explorer: Age 36.
Tropes used in Earth Star Voyager include:
  • A Father to His Men - Captain Jacob Brown and Captain Forbes.
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil - Vance, who was First Officer under Jacob Brown on the Vanguard Explorer before leading a successful mutiny against Brown in the opening scene. This is assuming he wasn't already evil, in which case he would be a Deceptive Disciple. The miniseries simply doesn't give us enough background on the reason for the mutiny to settle this.
  • Absent Aliens - Although "Beanie" is well-known for his interest in extraterrestrials, there is no evidence in the mini-series that humans have yet encountered sentient alien life.
  • Aliens Steal Cable - At one point, Voyager catches up with some old radio waves.
  • Amusement Park of Doom - The Outlaw Technology Zone has turned Expo Tomorrow (the 2020 World's Fair) into one of these, with elements of Circus of Fear thrown in for variety.
  • Applied Phlebotinum - The "Bauman Drive" that propels the Earth Star Voyager. Presumably allows Faster-Than-Light Travel
  • Badass Beard - Captain Brown starts off clean shaven, and then is marooned alone on a space station for 6 years. When he is found by the Earth Star Voyager, he sports Wild Hair and a Beard of Barbarism. After he cleans up nicely, he decides to keep a neatly trimmed Badass Beard.
    • Since Brown is at least 10 years older than everyone else on the ship, the beard helps to reinforce that he is A Father to His Men.
  • Beard of Barbarism - Captain Brown has one of these after being marooned alone on Blue Star Gamma for 6 years.
  • BFG - The Rail Gun and the Solar Laser.
  • Big Eater - Bienie
  • Big Red Button - On the Handy Remote Control for the homemade railgun.
  • Bodyguard Betrayal - Kinda should have seen it coming that among a group of geek types, the traitor would be the gym coach, Brody.
  • The Captain - Both Jonathan and Brown qualify.
  • Cavalry Betrayal - Admiral Beasley shows up and turns out to be the mastermind behind the whole thing, planning to start the human race over on the newly discovered planet with the young, brainy crew.
  • The Charmer - Huxley
  • Cliff Hanger - The first part ends with one of these, while Jacob Brown and Vance fight to the death
  • Command Roster
    • The Captain Captain Forbes, then Jonathan Hayes
    • Number Two- Originally Jonathan, then Jacob Brown
    • The Medic - Sally Arthur
    • The Ace Pilot - Huxley Welles
    • The Navigator - Luz Sansone
    • The Computer - Priscilla
    • The Smart Guy - Jesse "Bienie" Bienstock
    • The Shrink - Leland Eugene (Blame his parents)
  • Cool Big Brother - Jonathan to Bienie, and Jacob to Jonathan. Subverted when Sally learns that her brother Vance mutinied and destroyed the Vanguard Explorer.
  • Cool Ship - The titular vessel and the Assembly
  • Crapsack World - Earth is sinking into this, and Expo Tomorrow is Thunderdome In Space!!!!!
  • Cyborg - For some reason called "Shells" in the world of Earth Star Voyager. One of them is hiding on the wreck of the Vanguard Explorer. Even Admiral Beasley seems to be one at the end.
  • Dark and Troubled Past - Jacob Brown is very tight-lipped about what happened on board the Vanguard Explorer, until Vance turns up as a Big Bad out for revenge against Brown.
  • Date My Avatar: The film plays this trope straight, but in reverse chronological order from usual. Priscilla is the ship's computer, a large box of plastics and metals. Thus, Huxley is simply annoyed when she falls in love with him. However, when she shows him the picture of the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter that her personality was based on (possibly recorded from), he's amazed that a woman who looks like that would go for him. (Which doesn't change the fact that this Priscilla is, and always has been, plastics and metal.)
  • Diabolical Mastermind - Admiral Beasley is revealed to be one of these.
  • Earth That Used to Be Better - The Earth of 2088 is a world of acid rain and only partially breathable air. Jonathan and Beanie give an old woman a strange look after she says how she'll be "as right as rain" as soon as she catches her breath.
  • Edited for Syndication - From a four-hour miniseries to a two-hour movie.
  • Eighties Hair
  • Evil Overlord - Vance Arthur sets himself up as "Top Dog" of Expo Tomorrow.
  • Exty Years From Now - The main action of the film is set in 2088, exactly 100 years from the year the movie aired.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death - For a Disney movie, it features a surprisingly high body count and violence.
  • Future Food Is Artificial - Earth food of the future includes "Veggie Bioburgers" with optional "Amino Sauce", "Thermachips", and "Nutrishakes" with or without "Biocyclene". The characters are eating what looks like a seaweed patty with rice cakes for buns.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar - Just have a look at the workout scenes, and the more blatant sexual tension in several scenes between Sally and Jacob.
  • Generation Ship - The Voyager is designed to act as one of these for its 26-year mission.
  • Handy Remote Control - Jacob Brown builds one for his railgun, complete with a Big Red Button. Too bad it doesn't work!
  • Heroic Rematch - Jacob Brown vs. Vance Arthur. Brown loses his ship when Vance leads the successful mutiny, but then defeats Vance in hand-to-hand combat on Expo Tomorrow.
  • Hey, It's That Guy! -
  • Hey, It's That Voice! - Jesse Bienstock is Zak from Dragon Tales and Slugloafe the School Bully on Sabrina the Animated Series
  • Human Popsicle - the crew has "cryo-sleep chambers" to slow the aging process during the voyage. They don't look particularly chilly, though.
  • I Know Mortal Kombat - Jonathan has the skills necessary to manually pilot the ship through the Junk Belt because of a game called "Dodge 'em", which he played when he was 7 years old.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes - The show's impossible to legally acquire.
  • The Lancer - Jacob Brown
  • Love Triangle - One develops among Jonathan, Sally and Jacob.
  • Lucky Charms Title - Earth☆Star Voyager
  • May–December Romance - An implied one developing between Sally and Jacob in Part 2. She's 24. He's 36. Chekhov's Gun applies here, too, when Sally mentions to Jonathan in Part 1 how she had a crush on her math teacher during her first year at the academy.
  • My Sensors Indicate You Want to Tap That - Completely turned on its ear, as here the ship's computer Priscilla has a blatant crush on Huxley. Huxley is not amused, but the rest of the Command Roster thinks it's hilarious.
    • Given that Priscilla is the personality of a woman in her late 30's, and Huxley is either 18 or 19, does that make the computer a cougar?
  • Pilot Movie - given away by the opening Title Sequence that gives you the name, position, and age of each member of the Command Roster.
  • Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale - Hoo, boy. Where to begin? The big question is how much time actually elapses between the ship's launch and Assembly, given that the latter takes place in another star system and the crew does not age visibly.
    • Case in point: Their final destination is about 20 light years away, and the trip is expected to take about 13 years. Suppose the events of the movie take place over a 2 month period. After 2 months, they've reached a binary star system, which can be no closer than 4 light years if "Twin Suns" is indeed Alpha Centauri. So...they went 20% of the way in 2 months, but they need more than 12 years to go the final 80%?
    • Also, space station Blue Star Gamma, Expo Tomorrow, and the wreck of the Vanguard Explorer must all be relatively near to each other.
  • Serial Numbers Filed Off - Disney does Star Trek as filtered through EPCOT Center's Future World.
  • Spaceship Girl - Priscilla, in the "brain wedge" sense.
  • Stargate City - Was shot entirely on location in Vancouver, with a fair number of the actors being Canadian. Some parts were filmed in the Soviet Pavilion built for Expo '86.
  • Stock Footage - Almost every pass of the ship is recycled over and over and over. Doesn't help that almost every shot is reused for the credits.
  • Teen Genius - Over half of the crew, it would seem.
  • We Are Everywhere - The Outlaw Technology Zone, which at one point controlled nearly half the Earth, but was ultimately defeated and kicked off the planet. The OTZ seems to have operatives all over the place.
  • Wild Hair - Captain Brown has this after being marooned alone on Blue Star Gamma for 6 years.
  • Artistic License Military - Even though they ostensibly have the rank of Captain, Jacob Brown and Captain Forbes are each wearing the silver leaf insignia of a present-day Lieutenant Colonel. To be fair, this could simply be Artistic License given we are, in fact, talking about a fictional space agency.
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