Starcrash - Review of 1978 Cult Movie

Star Wars¹ was such a huge hit that you would have expected every Hollywood studio to rush out their own versions into production. While in the following years there were big budget special effects extravaganzas released like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Superman (1978), The Black Hole (1979), Alien (1979) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) were already in pre-production prior to Star Wars' release, although Star Wars' success may have convinced each studio to beef up the special effects budget for each movie. England's EON Productions stopped pre-production on For Your Eyes Only and rushed into production Moonraker (1979) as the 11th James Bond movie and giving it's American distributor United Artist their own Star Wars knock off. The only Hollywood producer to put into production a Star Wars knock off during the 70's was Glen A Larson. His two television series Battlestar Galactica ( 1978 ) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979) were produced by Universal Studios who released the pilot episode for each as feature films in order to recoup some of the production costs. The first theatrical movie to be put in production by a major Hollywood studio in reaction to Star Wars was its sequel The Empire Strikes Back² (1980) followed by the first planned Hollywood co-produced knockoff was Flash Gordon (1980).

¹ The film's actual title was Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, but between it's release in 1977 up to the release of the prequel Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 20th Century Fox insisted on simply calling the first movie Star Wars for all their theatrical, television, and home video releases.
² In fact Battlestar Galactica's release resulted in a lawsuit from George Lucas on copyright infringement of his Star Wars concept which may have made other studios reluctant to release their own Star Wars knock-off's. Larson specifically chose Buck Rogers as the subject for his second Star Wars inspired television series because Buck Rogers had predated Star Wars by five decades and therefore was immune to a Lucas lawsuit.

So with the big Hollywood studios not rushing out their own versions of Star Wars this left the door open for foreign studios to make their own knockoffs, such as Japan's Message from Space ( 1978 ), and small independent studios such as Roger Corman Battle Beyond the Stars ( 1980 ). Italy's Star Wars rip-off was the movie Star Wars Beyond the Third Dimension ( 1979 ) which turned out to be an impressive production with an all star cast that used Hollywood actors and a music score from John Barry. The North American release rights were purchased by Roger Corman and it was retitled Starcrash.

Starcrash opens aboard the Murray Leinster, a starship with a crew of untalented actors. While searching for some sort of weapon they wander into an energy field surrounding a planet which scrambles their brains and blows up their ship. Cue the opening titles where we find out that there is a war going on in the galaxy between the good guy emperor who rules half the galaxy and Count Zarth Arn who rules the dark side of the galaxy. This leads to the obvious question, if Zarth Arn is the supreme ruler of a bunch of planets then why is he only a count? Zarth has created some sort of devastating weapon that the good guys were trying to find when their ship was destroyed.

Enter the movie's antiheroes, smuggler Stella Star and her companion Akton. They are both being chased by the chief of the Imperial Police named Thor and his partner Police Robot L and escape through hyperspace. They emerge on the edge of the dark side of the galaxy where they find an escape pod from the Murray Leinster with it's occupant passed out inside. They return him to their ship and realize that he is suffering from brain damage. Meanwhile the police have caught up with Stella and Akton and have quietly surrounded their ship. Finding themselves trapped they surrender. They are both taken to an octopus headed judge who sentences them both to life on two separate prisons. At her prison Stella is only there a few hours before she talks the other reluctant prisoners into rioting and attempting a prison break. In the mayhem a reactor gets hit by a laser and the entire prison is destroyed killing everyone except Stella who had slipped out of the prison during the riot. Immediately after the prison is destroyed Thor and Robot L show up in their spaceship to tell Stella that she had just been pardoned by the Emperor and did not need to escape from the prison.

Stella is played by 70's sex symbol and cult actress Caroline Monro, better known for her roles in Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and as the dead wife of Dr. Phibes in both movies. Although Stella is the lead character in this movie star billing goes to another cult actor Marjoe Gortner who plays Akton. Marjoe is best remembered for the B movie Food of the Gods as well as playing psychopaths in the movies Earthquake and When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?. Complementing the pair is the addition of David Hasslehoff in his first major movie role as the lost prince. The Prince is lost because he was one of the crew on the ill fated Murray Leinster. Both Stella and Akton have been pardoned by the Emperor ( played by Christopher Plummer in a role he probably would like everyone to forget he did ) who then asks them both to go on a mission with Thor and Robot L to find his son, and perhaps locate Zarth Arn's weapon and destroy it.

Searching for the other escape pods Stella and Robot L investigate one that landed on a planet ruled by Amazon women. It turns out the Amazon Queen is in league with Count Zarth Arn and sends an incredibly bad stop motion animated giant robot to kill Stella. She escapes and what follows is a very poorly choreographed rip off of the scene from Star Wars where the Millenium Falcon fights of TIE fighters while escaping from the Death Star. Next they track down the wreckage of the Murray Leinster on a snow covered planet where the temperature drops thousands of degrees when the sun goes down. While Stella and Robot L are outside investigating the wreckage, inside their ship Thor clubs Akton over the head. Surprise, he is also in league with Count Zarth Arn and intends to leave Stella and Robot L outside to freeze. But in the scene to follow we find out that A] Akton can raise himself from the dead B] Akton can shoot energy from his eyes C] Akton is invulnerable to laser beams D] Akton can use his hands to bounce laser beams back at Thor E] Akton can heal people, or at least thaw out frozen women, and F] Akton can see the future, but never told anyone because they would have asked him to change the future, which is a violation of the law.

Finding the planet where the final escape pod landed the ship is attacked by the same energy field that destroyed the Murray Leinster. Somehow Stella and Akton are able to withstand the energy field and land on the planet. Once again Stella and Robot L are sent out to investigate while Akton stays behind on the ship. They are attacked by cavemen who club Robot L so hard that he breaks into pieces. Stella is dragged off to a cave but before the cavemen have their way with her she is rescued by the lost prince. The Cavemen regroup and attack again but are fought off by Akton who shows up with a lightsaber. The three then find a hidden chamber beneath the planet that houses Zarth Arn's weapon, which turns out to be the energy field. They are then confronted by the Count who tells them that he has set the planet for self destruct, and has alerted the Emperor that his son is there. The Emperor should arrive just as the planet explodes killing everyone but Zarth who will be long gone. And to make sure that no one leaves to warn the Emperor Zarth leaves behind the Golans, two stop motion animated robots. Once Zarth has left Akton pulls out his lightsaber and fights the Golans, defeating them but getting wounded in the process. Despite having the power to heal himself Akton rambles on about how it is his destiny not to leave the planet and disintegrates. Once again another bad job at riping off a scene from Star Wars, this time Obe-Wan Kenobi's death.

The Emperor arrives and tells everyone his ship has the power to stop the flow of time for three minutes, long enough for everyone to escape before the planet explodes. Since Count Zarth Arn believes all the good guys are dead the Emperor decides that it is a perfect time for a surprise attack on his base, which turns out to be a giant mechanical fist that opens and closes periodically. The good guys launch their attack which involves shooting torpedoes into Zarth's base which contain soldiers who burst out and begin shooting. But even with the element of surprise and several torpedo soldiers who breach the defenses of the base the good guys ultimately lose the battle. The Emperor decides the only way to defeat the Count is to resort to the strategy of Starcrash. This involves taking a floating space city and having it crash into Zarth's base causing both to explode. Stella volunteers to pilot the city, and as a surprise is joined by Robot L who the good guys have somehow restored despite being smashed to bits by cavemen and those bits being left behind on a planet that has blown up. Stella and Robot L successfully wreck both the space city and Zarth's base, jumping out just before the Starcrash happens. The Prince once again rescues Stella giving her that long overdue final kiss. This leaves the Emperor alone on his throne to break the third wall and deliver a corny soliloquy to the audience stating that while someday evil forces will return, for now the universe is at peace.

Starcrash is bad. With a combination of scenes stolen from Star Wars, Barbarella and Jason and the Argonauts this movie barely has any plot of its own. The special effects are bargain basement. Stop motion animated robots awkwardly lurch back and fourth without any of the finesse of a Willis O'Brian or Ray Harryhausen. Space ships only travel in straight lines, one behind the other and often in groups of three. Laser beams travel at odd angles. And for some reason space is filled with multicolored stars. It is not just the visual effects that are bad but the acting as well. Caroline Monro over delivers her lines while Christopher Plummer milks his lines as if they were written by Shakespeare. It wasn't. The dialog in this movie ranges from corny to embarrassingly awkward. The writer ( and movie's director ) Luigi Cozzi is also known for the Italian rip-off Jaws movie Devil Fish which had an equally bad script. Marjoe Gortner gives his usual maniac monotone delivery while Joe Spinell as the Count Zarth Arn is one of the most unconvincing villains in movie history. When the best performance in a movie comes from David Hasslehoff then you know the film is in trouble. Even the fight choreography is terrible. The only thing that does work in this film is John Barry's superb musical score. Barry is better known for composing the score for most of the James Bond movies including Moonraker which would be released a year later, and the same year another Star Wars knock off The Black Hole. While a celebrated film composer who was responsible for such memorable soundtracks as Born Free, Midnight Cowboy, Out of Africa and Chaplin, John Berry has also scored most of the all time film turkeys including the 1976 version of King Kong, Game of Death, The Cotton Club and Howard the Duck. Starcrash has been released in the United States under various titles including The Adventures of Stella Star and Female Space Invaders. It is such a misfire that it is worth watching for those who seek out movies that are so bad that they are good.