Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Imagine a space battle of ships found in George Lucas' garbage cans, where John-Boy Walton flies a talking ship that looks like part of a male anatomy and Napoleon Solo loves it when a Plan-9 comes together? I must be talking about Starcrash with Marjoe Gortner, right? Nope. But then again, much of the music in this pretty incredible farce found its way into Star Trek II: TWOK. And I mean when I say about some of the spaceships look like they were Filched from the garbage bin outside of ILM, we see half of an Empire Star Destroyer with the "Whale Probe" from Star Trek IV attached to the front end. John-Boy's ship appears to be pretty, eh, "organic". Look for Sam Jaffe, from the day the earth stood still (original one), as a Cyborg. And this is a little seven samurai "Ish". Needless to say, there is all kinds of great stuff in this movie and it's one of James Camerons early works. Despite some of the special effects looking like they were hijacked from a game of video ping-pong, you can see other effects that Cameron used and improved on later in his career. And it is much better than "Starcrash"!

There is no way I can be objective about this movie. It is everything that movies should be in one film. It's a revision of The Magnificent Seven, which in itself is just a cover version of The Seven Samurai. It has John Saxon as a face painted baddy whose body is falling apart. George Peppard plays a drunk Han Solo. And Sybil Danning plays a valkyrie in form-fitting body armor. In short, it is everything that an eight-year-old boy wants to see at the drive-in. Sador (Saxon) and his mutant army are attacking the peaceful planet of Akir, a place that only has one warrior left - Zed (Jeff Corey, True Grit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), a blind warrior who can't fight any longer. Unless Akir surrenders in one week, Sador will use his Stellar Converter to turn the planet into a star, killing everyone.Zed has an idea - hire mercenaries, men and women who live to fight. He's too old to use his old ship, Nell, but he sends Shad. And oh yeah - they have no money. All they can offer is food and shelter.Shad goes to the Hephaestus space station for weapons, but only finds Doctor Hephaestus (Sam Jaffe, The Dunwich Horror) and his daughter Nanelia. The doctor has gone insane and lives on life support. His dream is for Shad and his daughter to populate his space station, but they escape in separate ships.Shad meets Space Cowboy (Peppard), whose late shipment of guns comes too late, as Sador destroys his client's planet. He agrees to take the weapons to Akir and teach the people how to fight.There's also Nestor, five clones who share a group mind. Actually, their whole race shares one mind, which makes life pretty boring. Therefore, they have volunteered to explore the galaxy and send back experiences to their homeworld. And then there's Gelt (Robert Vaughn, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), an assassin so wealthy and well-known that he can't live a normal life any longer. He agrees to join up if he can live peacefully among the Akir people. The most meta thing ever is that Vaughn is basically playing the same exact role as he did when he was Lee in The Magnificent Seven. Finally, Saint Exmin (Sybil Danning, Howling 2, Malibu Express) demands to join the group for the glory of battle. Trivia: Danning would also appear in another remake of The Magnificent Seven, 1983's The Seven Magnificent Gladiators.Nanelia is captured by a reptilian named Cayman (Morgan Woodward, Cool Hand Luke), who she recruits when she explains that they are battling Sador, the man who destroyed his home planet.The seven return to Akir, where the natives treat them with distrust. Then, Sador attacks but his ground invasion is repelled and Gelt takes out plenty of his ships before being mortally wounded.Sador sends all of his troops to destroy Akir, but the seven repel him at the cost of their lives. Only Shad and Nanelia survive, but he promises her that they will never be forgotten.Battle Beyond the Stars was the most expensive film Roger Corman ever produced. The script by John Sayles is excellent, packed with pathos and inside jokes. And James Cameron created many of the effects in the film (he met producing partner and wife for a time Gale Anne Herd while working on the movie), effects that would be recycled in a number of future Corman productions.Unlike Star Wars, there were no toys or sequels to follow. Only a Viewmaster set.There was also a 2010 four issue comic book series from Bluewater Graphics that showed how Zed had fought Sador before, along with an appearance by Cayman.This is a big space opera that moves really quickly. It's packed with crazy characters, awesome looking ships and huge battles. I was so upset at the ending when I was a kid that my mother had to rewrite it for me and I drew it based on our conversation. I couldn't understand that Space Cowboy could make a brave sacrifice. He has to have survived!

While the budget of this Roger Corman production is greater than his usual, it it still far less than a big-time sci-fi production of the era. For example, if you watch any of the three original "Star Wars" films, they are light years ahead of "Battle Beyond the Stars" when it comes to special effects. Clearly, it cannot keep up with these top-notch movies. But, if you accept that its effects are a bit cheesy and this doesn't bother you, the film is surprisingly enjoyable.Richard Thomas stars as an alien living on a very peaceful planet. They are so peaceful when an intergalactic baddie threatens to destroy them, his people don't have the first idea about how to fight back and protect themselves. So, he goes on a mission to hire fighters who will protect them....and he comes up with a rag-tag group of heroes. Can these assorted heroes somehow fight back against this baddie and ignore, at least temporarily, Sybil Danning and her ever-present and very noticeable cleavage?!The film offers quite a few B-list actors--a surprising number. In fact, apparently that is where they spent most of the money for the film hiring the likes of George Peppard, Robert Vaughn and the like. Overall, this is probably a film more for kids and die-hard sci-fi fans but it's reasonably entertaining and offers a few interesting characters.

I can't claim there are spoilers in my review because after 10 seconds of watching this film, you know you're in for a rough and spoiled ride. Are all the reviewers here on crack?? Better than Star Wars?? This makes "Plan 9 From Outer Space" look professional - it's bad acting, make-up, sets, dialog.... Space Marines (a truly terrible film) is so much better. John Boy Walton, who still acts like that's where he is, a huge Valkyrie warrioress who is there for titillation (and not acting), extras from Strange Encounters all add to make a sad melange of awfulness. Who made the models - a blind man from Blake 7 who was rejected because he had no concept of reality? Words fail me. Get a life people - I mean a real one