Moontrap

Moontrap is a 1989 Science fiction film from Magic Films. Written by Tex Ragsdale and directed by Robert Dyke, it was released on April 28 at WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. A comic book adaptation, featuring the movie's production notes, was released on the same year by Caliber Comics. The cast features Walter Koenig, Bruce Campbell and Leigh Lombardi as a group of astronauts (Lombardi playing one from the distant past) who face an alien invasion by a race of scavengers. It was Dyke's directorial debut and to date, Koenig's only starring role and Ragsdale's only produced screenplay.

More than twenty years later, Robert Dyke and Tex Ragsdale launched a fundraising campaign for a Moontrap 2 graphic novel that would be adapted into a movie. According to them the purpose of the project was "to act as a presentation device to show potential backers of the hoped-for film what it's going to be about. More effective than a script alone in that it not only tells the story but shows what the film will look like." However due to lack of contributions the project was cancelled.

Plot
On July 20, 1969, during the last phase of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, a robotic eye emerges from the lunar soil and takes notice of the Apollo Lunar Module as it takes off. The eye buries itself again. Decades later, the Space Shuttle Camelot encounters a derelict spaceship in orbit around Earth. Mission commander Colonel Jason Grant (Walter Koenig) leaves the shuttle to investigate. He discovers a reddish-brown pod and a mummified human corpse. Both things are brought back to Earth, where it is found that they originated on the Moon some fourteen thousand years ago. Shortly thereafter, while being unattended, the pod comes to life. It builds itself into a cyborg with parts from the lab and pieces of the ancient corpse. The cyborg kills a lab technician and exchanges fire with security guards before Grant destroys it with a shotgun blast to the head.

Using the last completed Apollo rocket, Grant and fellow astronaut Ray Tanner (Bruce Campbell) go to the Moon on a search and destroy mission. They discover the ruins of an ancient human civilization. Inside, they found a woman in suspended animation who identifies herself in a rudimentary fashion as Mera (Leigh Lombardi). Mera later reveals the name of the killer cyborgs the Kaalium. They survive the attack of a spider Kaalium and return to the landing module with Mera wearing her own spacesuit, but it turns out that the Kaalium have stolen the module. The Kaalium also shot down the command module, leaving the astronauts stranded on the Moon. Tanner is killed, Grant and Mera are taken prisoners, and the Kaalium head to Earth.

Grant frees himself and rescues Mera from certain death at the hands of a cyborg. In the meantime, the Space Shuttle Intrepid is launched to intercept the approaching alien ship. Grant and Mera look for the control room and find the landing module, which has been adapted into the alien machinery. Grant supposes the module was the last piece of equipment that the Kaalium needed to complete their ship. He starts the module's self-destruct sequence and uses his gun as a rocket to escape with Mera through a breach in the hull and towards the Intrepid. The ship explodes after they have reached safe distance. Some time later, Grant and Mera are shown as a couple. She now speaks English and explains that she was put in stasis to warn others about the Kaalium. Grant tells her that she does not have to worry anymore, that it is over, and hugs her. Little they know that one of the pods survived the explosion and is now on a junkyard, building itself a body.