Quest of the Delta Knights

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Quest of the Delta Knights
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Dodson
Written by	Redge Mahaffey
Starring	David Warner Corbin Allred David Kriegel Olivia Hussey
Cinematography	James Dodson
Editing by	Karen Lee Smith
Release date(s)	1993
Running time	97 minutes
Country	USA
IMDb profile

Quest of the Delta Knights is a 1993 fantasy/adventure (sword and sorcery) film that was infamously featured in a September 1998 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is one of only of a few movies shown on MST3K that was made in the 1990s.

[edit] Plot

The plot revolves around a young boy named Travis (nicknamed "Tee"), who learns from his master that he is the key to saving the world from an evil plot. Tee joins the secret organization of the Delta Knights and embarks on a quest to attempt to recover the lost treasures inside the fabled Lost Storehouse of Archimedes.

The cinematic accomplishments of the movie are decidedly meager, such as the completely unexplained casting of David Warner as both the hero's mentor and the chief villain, in addition to providing the narration. The dialogue is decidedly campy (at one point Lord Vultare threatens Baydool with "I grow weary of your antics, beggar-man!", which is made all the more amusing by the fact that David Warner is in fact talking to himself in the scene) and the movie has a definite low-budget atmosphere.

Also noteworthy is the extreme confusion the film displays with regard to setting, both in terms of time period and location. The story would seem to take place in medieval England; however, a number of plot elements contradict this. Vultare's henchmen wear headgear strongly resembling (stereotypical) Viking helmets. Leonardo da Vinci, a figure from Renaissance Italy, appears as a major character in the plot. Finally, Leonardo and Tee are searching for the lost storehouse of Archimedes, a figure from ancient Syracuse, Sicily whose storehouse one might reasonably think unlikely to be found in England. A document held by Archimedes seen in a flashback is also clearly held together by staples.

The movie's beginning shares a strong resemblance to the beginning of the novel Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein, including the beggar placing an extremely small bid upon the slave boy, as well as the beggar being one who engages in cloak-and-dagger techniques.

A large portion of this movie was filmed at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Black Point, Novato, California.

Despite the film's abundant anachronisms, its depiction of the death of Archimedes is reasonably true to the account given by Plutarch in his Parallel Lives, except that here Archimedes' last words are "Just a moment, I'm almost finished!" instead of "Do not disturb my circles."