BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)
Tagline: The ultimate space war - survival or extinction…
(Sci-Fi, Action, Spaceship With Breasts) [PG]
You see, there is only one Nestor, one consciousness. As you might imagine, this has proven very lonely, very dull. We must avoid becoming... we believe you have a phrase for it... becoming "bored to death."
In this one, a space farmer named Shad goes out on a mission to gather mercenaries to fight an evil villain named Sador who has been subjugating planets at will. When Shad ends up with is a reluctant Space Cowboy, a wealthy assassin whose life is in ruins, a group of dudes with a sort of hive-mind singular conscience named Nestor, Cayman a crazy alien who sells organic beings including people, for meat, and Saint-Exim a Valkyrie who just wants a glorious battle and even more glorious death. Can this unlikely group defend Shad’s planet from annihilation?
Oh man, where to start with this damn thing? Okay – admittedly a young James Cameron actually does a great job with the “spaceship” effects in this one. The only ship design I pretty much hated was Shad’s because he’s the hero and his ship has breasts. Yes, you read that right. His ship has a female A.I. voiced by Lynn Carlin (best known for the TV show “Trapper John M.D.”) who reads the script a lot like she’s “Dot Matrix” from SPACEBALLS. James thought because the ship had a female A.I. that it should have famine qualities which of course included boobs (at least in his head). For me, this is not only weird, but it’s also wildly distracting.
I was contemplating while watching this, “why wasn’t it the hit that STAR WARS was?” There were several movies that came out after STAR WARS trying to capitalize on the phenomenon and some were better than others. This one is considered one of the better “rip-offs”, but it’s just got tons of issues. To start aside from the breast ship, it does have too many overtly sexual moments. The script revolves a lot around re-population once Shad (played by Richard Thomas best known for the TV show “The Waltons”), runs into Nanelia (played by Darlanne Fluegel best known for LOCKUP). Even the Valkyrie (played by Sybil Danning probably best known for THE HOWLING II) who is normally all about war, is just all over Shad. This alone wouldn’t be a huge deal, but when you add in the fact that Space Cowboy (played by George Peppard best known for “The A-Team”) pictures of naked women hanging from the back wall of his “space truck”. It’s like the character was supposed to be a bit of a “Han Solo” but ended up being almost his crazy alcoholic stepfather instead. For me, it’s just all a bit tacky if you want to reach a wide audience and become the next giant “space saga”.
Script wise this movie is actually okay for the most part, but I was bothered by the fact that Shad’s ships A.I. was so snotty and unprofessional. I would have loved all that if this was meant to be a comedy. However, because of that and a few other weird moments, I found myself wondering if this whole movie was meant to be a parody of space movies. The villain, ”Sador” is played by John Saxon who is typically amazing in these types of roles, but was given some crazy lines in this one. Saxon actually took the role specifically because he thought it would be funny and amusing. He wasn’t wrong and that I think was actually a problem for this movie. It’s was just a ton of effort to have a script that felt so disjointed.
Production-wise I felt there were a lot of great things about this movie given its minimal budget, but the villains overall looked goofy until the final battle scene where we get introduced to some actual “troops” which looked more awesome. The score is good, but nowhere near iconic and the acting itself is decent. I really didn’t have any complaints in that department.
I know BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS is a bit of a classic in director Roger Corman fan circles. I consider myself a fan of his as well to a large extent, but I can’t give this thing any better than a 3 out of 7. Some old-school budget sci-fi fans might love this thing, but I would actually rather watch SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE again.
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