Starcrash (1979)

At first I thought this screenplay was written by third graders for a class project, and then on IMDb I saw it is Italian. How could a country that produced Galileo, Michelangelo, and DaVinci turn out this dreck? The only redeeming entity in it for males is Caroline Munro portraying Stella Star. Not that I'm complaining, but in scenes where other characters are fully dressed, she wears some sort of bikini apparently without feeling any embarrassment at all. One is hard pressed to describe the plot, because there really isn't any in the formal sense of the word. As I wrote, it seems to have been concocted by third graders who tried to extrapolate on some scientific principle they saw in a Saturday-morning cartoon. Or maybe, being written in Italian, it was "translated" by someone having only a phrase-book knowledge of the language.

I won't take too much time describing how bad this movie was. I think most people have already done a better job than I could describing the awfulness of this film. Bad dialogue. Check. Bad acting. Check. Bad special effects. Check. Bad rip off of Star Wars. Oh hell yes. The only thing of minor interest in this movie was that a very young David Hasslehoff appeared in it. Also....since Star Wars had Alec Guinness, the producers of this movie had to make due with the poor man's Alec Guinness...Christopher Plummer.I won't call into question the taste of the few who actually liked this disaster. They probably enjoyed Ed Wood movies too. This movie is a prime candidate for Mystery Science Theater 3K

There are some good things about this movie that I like - notably Caroline Munro's outfits and John Barry's music. There are also plenty of bad things about this movie - but I like these too - pointless plot, awful scripting, poor direction, cheap sets, unconvincing special effects and amateurish stop-motion. Together these make for a really entertaining 90 minutes or so. However, the one thing about this movie that I don't like is that they replaced Caroline Munro's English voice with that of an American actress of considerably less acting talent. Negative comments about Miss Munro's acting are entirely due to this poor dubbing. Watch her with the sound off and she comes across entirely differently and we get a hint of what we are missing.

If you want to see how bad this is, spare yourself the whole thing and just watch the opening scene. Watching the horrible actors manage flub the timing of their three-word sentences is a sight to behold.Funny? Absolutely! Watching the bad guy order his troops into combat with the stirring words of "Kill!" while they slide down the bat poles will bring a smile to the face of anyone. And that soundtrack, wow!Forget the nonsensical plot, terrible special effects and poor acting, it's got Christopher Plumber and a bunch of excuses for Stella Star to get attacked by the worst stop-frame animated robots in history. What more could you ask for?