Slipstream reunited Kurtz with his Star Wars lead Mark Hamill, who features alongside Bill Paxton, Bob Peck and Kitty Aldridge, with cameo appearances from Robbie Coltrane, Ben Kingsley and F. Murray Abraham.

A voiceover sets the scene: the time is after the Harmonic Convergence, when drastic climate change has swept away civilization as we know it.

A vast wind current, the Slipstream, encircles the globe, and a few scattered settlements of survivors attempt to keep human life going.

The plane lands, and its occupants, bounty hunters Will Tasker and Belitski, chase the man and shoot him with a grappling hook.

Immediately after his fall, the fugitive quotes from the aviator and poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr.: "I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, put out my hand and touched the Face of God."

It is then revealed that Tasker and Belitski are part of the remnants of a law enforcement agency, trying to keep the peace in a post-apocalyptic society.

Avatar, in his dying words, curses Byron as being part of the out-of-control technological advancements that led to the apocalyptic Convergence.

Byron also excitedly tells Owens that he has slept with someone for the first time, and that he dreamed of a land at the end of the Slipstream, inhabited by other androids.

The original script for Slipstream was written by Charles Edward Pogue shortly after the success of Mad Max and was heavily inspired by that film's stylistic and thematic approaches.

[4] Structurally, the film was inspired by Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain with the original premise involving a 14 year old boy traversing the wasteland with a runaway android.

[4] Slipstream marked Kurtz' first production in four years after his investments in The Dark Crystal and Return to Oz under-performed and forced him to declare bankruptcy in 1985.

Slipstream began ten weeks of principal photography in March 1988, at Pinewood Studios as well as locations in Yorkshire and Turkey.