There are numerous references to Herman Melville's epic 19th century novel, Moby Dick: the obsessive and vengeful pursuit of an enormous creature, many nautical themes, harpooners, reference to "ambergris" (the sought after substance in sperm whales), a character named Ahab (Ron Yuan), a silver sculpture of a whale (although it appears to be a blue whale rather than a sperm whale), a character named Stubniski (Dave Sheridan) known as "Stubs" (paralleling the character Stubbs in Moby Dick), pirates called "Boomers" (there is a character named Captain Boomer in Moby Dick), the main ship's name is the Essex (the same name as the historical ship upon which the Pequod from Moby Dick is based), Hawthorne's (Mike Genovese) last line ("With my last breath") parallels Captain Ahab's last line ("I spit my last breath at thee"), etc.

Barbara Devoti, the mother of James Devoti ("Owen Bentley"), is credited as a co-producer of this film.

After the prologue scene, the main film opens with the famous Star Trek tag-line (spoken here by the billboard announcer), "Space, the final frontier..."

Among the nautical memorabilia on the captains cabin is a plaque on the wall with what appears to be Moby Dick on it.