You can probably be forgiven if the name of this movie – shown primarily in museums and other educational venues – doesn’t ring a bell. Animated in Taiwan to accompany an all-star voice cast that included the likes of William Shatner, Chris Pine, Mark Hamill, Samuel L. Jackson, Brent Spiner Robert Picardo, Hayden Christensen, Jason Alexander, James Earl Jones, future Star Trek: Discovery star Doug Jones, and rookie first-time actor Neil Armstrong, Quantum Quest incorporated real-time data from a number of NASA missions that were then ongoing: Cassini, the sun-watching SOHO, Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER, Mars Odyssey, and ESA’s Venus Express and Mars Express orbiters. I’m kind of sorry I missed this one, because the real-time, interactive nature of it precludes any kind of home video release (or at best would result in a home video release robbed of its most compelling features).
But there’s the soundtrack. Shawn K. Clement (composer on several early episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer) pulls out all the stops, with the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra delivering a score worthy of a sci-fi epic (complete with theremin performed by Clement himself). With a barrage of percussion and occasional ethnic flourishes, Quantum Quest‘s score shows a bit of Battlestar Galactica influence (but then, so does a lot of other post-2005 sci-fi scoring). But it’s a very different animal, leaning more heavily on traditional 19th century orchestral influences and using the other elements as flavoring rather than foregrounding them.
Given the subject matter and the talent involved, it’s a bummer to have missed Quantum Quest while it was still a current concern. (Even the spacecraft upon whose data the movie relied are not all there now: Cassini, Venus Express and MESSENGER have all ended their missions by crashing into their respective planets.) The soundtrack makes quite a souvenir of both the movie and that very busy era of interplanetary exploration.
- Cassini (0:47)
- Anti-Matter (1:34)
- Sun City The Game (3:11)
- Opportunity To Serve (0:45)
- Departure Station (1:45)
- The Core (1:11)
- The Battle (1:14)
- Ignorant Moronic Fools (1:05)
- The Void (1:39)
- Ghost Fight (0:44)
- Incoming (0:55)
- Fate Of Trillions (2:06)
- Dave In Space (1:05)
- Fear / The War Machine (3:25)
- Ring City (0:35)
- Are You Milton? (1:18)
- Destroy The Dave, Destroy The Light (1:54)
- Cassini Commander (0:44)
- Flipping Switches (1:25)
- Destroy Me (1:02)
- Operation Photon Extermination (3:17)
- The Message / Dave Delivers (4:18)
- Universe Of Possibilities (2:18)
- The Quest (remix) (5:23)
- The Message / Dave Delivers (demo) (4:11)
- The Message (remix) (6:32)
Released by: BSX Records
Release date: September 1, 2011
Total running time: 54:23
