In the 26th century, humanity has left an overpopulated Earth and moved to a new star system, colonizing many planets and moons. The central planets formed the Alliance and won a war against the outer planet Independents—those refusing to join the Alliance. River Tam is among the young people being coercively conditioned by Alliance scientists to be psychic assassins. She is rescued by her brother Simon. Because top government secrets have been inadvertently exposed to River's abilities, an Alliance agent known only as the Operative is tasked with recapturing her.
Planet Spaceball, led by the incompetent President Skroob, has wasted all of its air. Skroob schemes to steal air from the planet Druidia by kidnapping Princess Vespa, the daughter of King Roland on the day of her pre-arranged wedding to the narcoleptic Prince Valium. Skroob sends the villainous Dark Helmet to complete this task with Spaceball One, an impossibly huge ship helmed by Colonel Sandurz. Before they can arrive, Vespa herself abandons her marriage and flees the planet in her personal Mercedes spaceship along with her Droid of Honor, Dot Matrix.
The film opens on Mars, showing the last moments of a Mars rover's mission. As the rover prepares to sample a Martian rock, the rover loses power and becomes inoperable. The scene pans up from the dead rover to show a huge, undiscovered Martian city just beyond the rock the rover was about to sample. A spaceship is seen quickly rocketing from the city and accelerating into space.
In 3028 A.D., humanity has mastered deep space travel and interacted with several alien species. A human invention called "Project Titan" alarms the Drej, a pure energy-based alien species who attack Earth after breaching the Global Defense System. As the Drej start to attack Earth, Professor Sam Tucker, the lead researcher for "Project Titan", sends his son Cale on one of the evacuation ships with his alien friend Tek while Tucker and other members of his team fly the Titan spacecraft into hyperspace. When the Drej mothership destroys the Earth with an energy beam, the surviving humans become nomads, generally ridiculed by other alien species.
Nearing the end of a long mission exploring deep space, the spacecraft USS Palomino is returning to Earth. The crew consists of Captain Dan Holland, First Officer Lieutenant Charlie Pizer, journalist Harry Booth, ESP-sensitive scientist Dr. Kate McCrae, the expedition's civilian leader Dr. Alex Durant and the robot V.I.N.CENT ("Vital Information Necessary CENTralized").
In 2057, the failure of the sun starts a solar winter and threatens Earth. Humanity, in an attempt to reignite it, loads a massive stellar bomb onto a spaceship named Icarus II. The ship is the second and final attempt to save mankind, as the first mission, the Icarus I, was lost seven years previously for reasons unknown.
In 2056 AD, Earth is in ecologic crisis as a consequence of pollution and overpopulation. Automated interplanetary missions have been seeding Mars with atmosphere-producing algae as the first stage of terraforming the planet. When the oxygen quantity produced by the algae is inexplicably reduced, the crew of Mars-1 investigate; a crew consisting of Quinn Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), an agnostic geneticist, Bud Chantillas (Terence Stamp), an aging philosophical scientist and surgeon, systems engineer Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer), commander Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss), pilot Ted Santen (Benjamin Bratt), and terraforming scientist Chip Pettengill (Simon Baker).
The film is the second in the series to parody the original Star Wars trilogy. In the film, Doraemon and friends find themselves in an interstellar war where an army (based on the Galactic Empire) is trying to take over Earth. Of course, our heroes joins another army (based on the Rebel Alliance) to stop the antagonists.
Ten thousand years in the futurethe known universe is ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. The most important substance in the empire is the drug known as melange or "the spice". It has many special properties, such as extending life and expanding consciousness. The most profitable and important of its properties is its ability to assist the Spacing Guild with folding space, which allows safe, instantaneous interstellar travel.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Chris Kelvin is approached by emissaries for DBA, a corporation operating a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, who relay a message sent from his scientist friend Dr. Gibarian. Gibarian requests that Kelvin come to the station to help understand an unusual phenomenon but is unwilling to explain more. DBA is unsure how to proceed, as the mission to study Solaris has been sidetracked and none of the astronauts want to return home. In addition, DBA has lost contact with the security patrol recently dispatched to the station. Kelvin agrees to a solo mission to Solaris as a last attempt to bring the crew home safely.
Alex Rogan is a teenager living in a trailer park with his mother and little brother, Louis. Alex often plays Starfighter, an arcade game in which the player defends "the Frontier" from "Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in a space battle. He becomes the game's highest-scoring player, and is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri, who invites him to take a ride. Alex does so, discovering the car is a spacecraft. Centauri is an alien who takes him to the planet Rylos. An android duplicate named Beta takes Alex's place during his absence.
The Tracy family, led by former astronaut Jeff Tracy, operate International Rescue, a secret organization that aids those in need using the technologically advanced machines called Thunderbirds. The youngest son Alan lives at a boarding school on the mainland dreaming of being a Thunderbird pilot. He and his friend Fermat Hackenbacker, son of the Thunderbirds’ engineer Brains, are picked up by Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her butler Aloysius Parker. Lady Penelope is an International Rescue agent, travelling to Tracy Island in the South Pacific in her limo FAB 1. The Thunderbirds return from an oil rig fire, but Alan and Fermat play around in Thunderbird 1, discovering a strange compound splattered on the side. Unbeknownst to them, the compound is a tracking beacon being used by the Hood, a psychic criminal mastermind who has a vendetta against Jeff for not saving him in a collapsing diamond mine while his brother Kyrano was rescued.
In the near future, the Moon has been colonized and supports a station on its surface. A lunar shuttle known as Mayflower One is being rushed to launch from Houston. The head of the ground crew, The Sarge (Chuck Connors), does not like what is occurring, but he defers to the airline's management.
Emperor Ming the Merciless declares that he will first play with and then destroy the Earth using natural disasters. On Earth, New York Jets football star "Flash" Gordon boards a small plane, where he meets travel journalist Dale Arden. Mid-flight, the cockpit is hit by a meteorite and the pilots are lost. Flash takes control and manages to crash land into a greenhouse owned by Dr. Hans Zarkov. Zarkov, who believes the disasters are being caused because an unknown source is pushing the Moon towards Earth, has secretly constructed a spacecraft which he plans to use to investigate. Zarkov's assistant refuses to go, so he lures Flash and Dale aboard. The rocket launches, taking them to the planet Mongo, where they are captured by Ming's troops.
In 2047, the rescue vessel Lewis and Clark is dispatched to answer a distress signal received from the Event Horizon, a starship that disappeared during its maiden voyage to Proxima Centauri seven years before. Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) and his crew — Lieutenant Starck (Joely Richardson), Pilot Smith (Sean Pertwee), Medical Technician Peters (Kathleen Quinlan), Engineer Ensign Justin (Jack Noseworthy), Rescue Technician Cooper (Richard T. Jones), and Trauma Doctor D.J. (Jason Isaacs) — are joined for the mission by the Event Horizon's designer, Dr. William Weir (Sam Neill). Dr. Weir briefs the crew, telling them that the Event Horizon was built to test an experimental gravity drive. This drive generates an artificial black hole and uses its immense gravitational power to bridge two points in spacetime, greatly reducing travel time over astronomical distances.