Time Runner is a 1993 Canadian science fiction action film directed by Michael Mazo, starring Mark Hamill, Rae Dawn Chong and Brion James.
Hamill plays a 21st century soldier who is unwittingly teleported to 1992, and teams up with a scientist (Chong) to prevent an alien race from gaining an advantage in its future war against mankind.
Flash forward to the future and it is revealed that the aliens gain the advantage and attack a secret base in Capitol Hill, where the humans try to launch a nuclear strike while making their last stand.
It was pitched to producers Lloyd Simandl and John Curtis of North American Releasing and sister company Excalibur Pictures by special effects artist Greg Derochie, who had worked on their previous project, Xtro II.
As was common at the time, financing relied on pre-sales, with the U.K., Japan and South Korea territories bringing in a combined advance of CAD$500,000 during the event, which the filmmakers deemed encouraging at that stage.
[3] The Vancouver metropolitan area (where North American Pictures was based) provided urban settings, with Senator Neila's political rally filmed at the Plaza of Nations on September 24.
[4] A sixty person high school marching band was shuttled on short notice from the neighboring U.S. state of Washington for the occasion,[5] and local residents were invited to show up on location to make up the crowd.
Pointing to several inconsistencies within the film, he wrote that it was "more of an endurance test than a cinematic experience", as well as "a stupid, pitiful embarrassment" which "even the most undiscriminating science-fiction fans (the movie's target audience) will hate".
[8] Marc Horton of the Edmonton Journal found that "Mark Hamill tarnishes whatever is left of his reputation with this clumsy, thoughtless, made-in-Canada sci-fi flick."