Weirdhouse Cinema: Battle Beyond the Stars

this will be our third blatant Star Wars roboff movie. Yeah. Yeah, last year we watched n The Humanoid and you also brought up that, Yeah, that Message from Space was also technically in this, uh this Wheelhouse as well. I would say that I'm going to rank today's film second among our Star Wars knockoffs. I think Message from Space is probably my favorite. I'd go with Battle Beyond the Starrs and then The Humanoid, though I enjoyed all three. Yeah, yeah,

I don't know. I might have to give Battle Beyond the Stars uh the top honors of these three. But uh, but but but all three, all three of them, I would say, had things going for them that, like I say, stand apart from the whole Star Wars craze. So it's not it's not like they were just entirely you know,

Star Wars ripoffs. Uh, they were creative folks involved. But certainly when you start looking at like the funding and the production, like these things came to these these films came to the surface because somebody was chasing that Star

Wars money. Oh and in this case, you don't even have to wonder because this movie was produced by Roger Corman, And you can watch interviews with the people who worked on the special effects and and other behind the scenes jobs on this movie who said, yeah, Corman went to us and said, I want to make a Star Wars movie. So yeah. But one other big difference I would say is that while the Humanoids certainly had definitely had its, Vader knockoff definitely had its. You know, we have Darth

Vader at home moment um, this film does not. And I think that alone makes it feel a little more authentic. But but we'll get into all that. That's actually a major distinction of this as a Star Wars among Star Wars knockoffs. And yeah, we we We'll have to get into more detail on that later. But the movie today

is Battle Beyond the Stars. And uh, you know, we had a listener right in and said, hey, you guys should tell us where to get the movie early in the episode in case we want to watch it before you get into all the details. So I don't know, I guess we can try that. So, hey, we watched this movie on an excellent Shout Factory Blu ray that came out. Um, this is one that comes in a

limited edition steel book for you know, some reason. We rented it from Video Drume here in Atlanta for protection protection. He has to protect it from the elements or from bandits and um space faring warlords. But anyway, beautiful picture quality, some fun extras. You can all so rent or by this movie from most of your digital sources. Yes, and Battle Beyond the Stars is a good one to watch in high definition, even if not every frame of the

movie is necessarily worth it. The movie as a whole is because it's really a mixed bag on art design, on art design, costumes and sets. Uh, some stuff in this movie is kind of phoned in, kind of Z grade cheese. I would single out maybe some of the spaceship interiors but not others. And so forth. And then on the other hand, there are some sets and costumes and things that are I popping lee weird or just

absolutely gorgeous. It varies wildly from scene to scene. Yeah, and I think that has I've seen people comment on the film where they're like, yeah, each ship has it. It feels like it's truly from another planet, from another culture entirely. But yes, sometimes it feels like maybe the people who designed the ship interiors were also from other planets, from different effects studios and other planets. Yeah. Now we

mentioned the Star Wars connected. I also should point out that I think there are some of those ship interiores that also draw some inspiration from Alien as well. Um, you know, certainly not from this film doesn't have much to do with Aliens from a plotting or character point of view, but as a as a as far as some like lived in space environments go, and maybe one of the planetary surfaces that we see it made me

think of Alien. And it's kind of noteworthy, right, because this film involves the talents of a particular Alien fan and future Alien franchise director James Cameron. Yes, and I think you can really see the James Cameron influence in things like, uh, the beautiful set of the planet where Shad finds Robert Vaughan. Will get into the plot details

about that later. Um, but also the design of the main character's ship, Nell, which looks very weird on the outside and very alien esque on the inside, despite the fact to that this is a back talking, two D grandma kind of ship. Yeah, we have a character in this film called Cowboy. He is, yes, his space Cowboy. He's the only character from Earth and as goofy as his characters, and we'll get into him. The interior of

his spaceship I thought felt very alien esque. It it felt lived in in a way that reminded me of of then Nostromo. Yeah, it's got crushed beer cans and magazine cutouts pinned on the walls and stuff like that, and it's dirty. Now I have to share just a little bit from Michael Weldon's ride up on this film from the book The Psychotronic Encyclopedia Film. I just found

this amusing. Uh So, if you've listened to Weird Oubt Cineman, you know I love well then I'm always interested in his take on movies, exploring and finding new movies through his writings. But I think I'm gonna have to agree to disagree with him on this one, because in his review of Battle Beyond the Stars, he writes, some of the gags were cut out and the editing could have been better, but it's a lot more memorable and more fun than the Empire strikes Back, And I don't know

about that. The funny thing is at least in the reviews in this book. Uh, and in the follow up book. It's not like he says anything bad about Star Wars or Empire or or even um Return of the Jedi ultimately, but he, uh, yeah, he's just like, well, Batt'll Beyond the Stars it's just more fun. So I guess fair enough, I can't tell you what to have fun with, but yeah, I don't think I would agree there. I'm sorry, but Batt'll Beyond the Stars is great fun. It is. It is,

absolutely So let's get into the elevator pitch here. Uh, it's The Seven Samurai as a space opera, which is a pretty smart move. It's a great structure to thrust under a different setting or genre. The locals are facing a bandit threat, so what do they do? They hire up some lawyers to defend them. Yes, And I just want to note an interesting double input of Kurasawa on

this movie. So Battle Beyond the Stars was clearly and if you listen to the interviews with the filmmakers from Corman's perspective, it was explicitly supposed to be a combination of two influences, the Magnificent Seven from nineteen sixty and Star Wars. Both of these movies could be considered Western adaptations of different movies by a Kirakura Sawa. So the connection with The Magnificent Seven is overt. It's just a remake of Seven Samurai with cowboy gun slingers instead of

mercenary swordsman. And I haven't seen Magnificent Seven and probably ten years or so that I recall it being pretty fun. Of course, it's hard to compete with the source material, right, this is a case of a an okay remake of an original masterpiece. It's certainly a famous film, but I've actually never seen the Magnificent Seven. I've seen the Seven Samurai, but not Magnificent Seven. Great cast though, oh yeah, including

Robert Vaughan who's in this movie. So he was in Battle Beyond the Stars and the movie that it's based on. Um so yeah, so that's that's a that's a two step there, Seven Samurai adapted into a Western as Magnificent seven and then adapted into a space opera by Battle Beyond the Stars. Now, the other half of this, of course, is Star Wars, and Star Wars itself has elements that are loosely based on a nineteen fifty eight Corsolwa film called The Hidden Fortress. Rob Have you seen this one?

I never have, but I've I've I've often been tempted to just to check it out because of this connection. I think it's fantastic. It's about two peasants and a princess and a general played by Toshiro Mufune who are trying to survive in the middle of a war between two provinces. And if you watch Star Wars and Hidden

Fortress together, a lot of similarities really pop out. And the most obvious, I think are the parallels between the two peasants in The Hidden Fortress, who are sort of traditional rustic clowns, like the the gaggle that runs along with Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, you know, uh, the their their rustic comedic relief, and uh, that's in the Hidden Fortress, and then you've got the droids are two D two and C three p O in Star Wars.

They're a very similar duo. In both movies, the action begins with the sort of lowly bumbling down on their luck characters who are mostly there for comic relief, trying to escape the crossfire of two armies, and then they become wrapped up in a in a lofty plot involving an older general trying to save a princess. In both cases interesting. So I thought it was notable that Battle Beyond the Stars is not just a Star Wars rip off. It is a mash up of two popular Western movies

that are both downstream from Kurosawa. So exactly how does the mashup come together? Well, I would phrase it like this. I would say the plot broadly is Magnificent seven slash seven Samurai, and the details and the texture are from Star Wars. That sounds fair. So I think you could in a way look at this movie as like the original Magnificent Seven, which was seven Samurai but as a Western, and Battle beyond the Stars is seven Samurai but as

a Star Wars knockoff. Now there's another thing I'm always on the lookout for when I watch Star Wars knockoffs. I think we may have talked about this in our episode on on the Humanoid Um, but I'm always curious which elements from Star Wars get lifted and which do not, right, because you know, you're not just making an exact copy of the movie. You pick some things about it to

copy and you leave you leave out others. And for some reason, it's interesting to me, like, what are the features that people find salient or worth copying about Star Wars? And also what what line designates going too far? Like it seems it seems as if most filmmakers would agree that you cannot have a lightsaber in your film if you're not a Star Wars property. There are some glaring exceptions.

Star Crash does. Yeah, and when you when you break that that rule, when you cross that line, I think everybody kind of um, you know, has to sort of look away. There's a there's a deep shame falls upon everyone viewing and participating in the film. Totally agree. Um. So a couple of things along these lines. I wanted to mention right at the top, but maybe we can mention some more um uh details that were copied or not as we go along. But first thing I wanted

to draw attention to is Darth Vader design. I believe one of the most universal features to be carried over into a Star Wars copycat is the Darth Vader design. Almost all of these movies have a menacing space lord villain who wears a shiny black suit with some kind of robotic entanglements and a Samurai inspired helmet, and this movie is an exception. It clearly has a Darth Vader inspired character whose name even rhymes with Vader, but this character does not wear a Darth Vader type suit. And

I think there's a reason for this. Throb. We can get to it when we talk about the actor, but I wonder if you'll agree with me about the reasoning. Alright. Second thing that is very often copied from a Star Wars movie and is clearly and is present in this one a planet killer weapon. This movie does not have a death star, but it does have a space ship that can shoot a beam that can destroy an entire planet. All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to the trailer.

Ruthless Invaders were a defenseless planet. Battle Beyond the Stars, a bone youth escapes on a last ditch mission that begins at the edge of the universe. The story of a boy who finds more than he expected and all he can handle. Does your species have kissing? Oh? Yes, we have that. Try one. That's a hot dog. It comes to Earth. Do you like it? There's no dog in this soybean meal, nyasin dextros and sodium nitrate flavoring.

That's what we call meat back home. Battle Beyond the Stars, All right, sounds like a lot of fun, right sure, All right? Let's let's talk about the people who brought this together. First of all, the director Jimmy T. Murakami, who lived three American Irish animator of Japanese Americ and heritage. He was also a director Ones Heavy Metal, helming the soft Landing sequence alongside John Bruno, and this segment was based on a comic pinned by Dan O'Bannon of Alien fame,

and was adapted for the film by Dan O'Bannon. Murrakami's other directorial credits include um uncredited directorial work on nineteen eighties Humanoids from the Deep, another Corman production, and various animated credits, including directing the Twittsie pop how Many Licks short commercial from nineteen sixty nine. Is this the one with the owl? Yeah, this is the one of the owl our our producer Seth will also he probably already knows this, but uh. Murrakami also produced six episodes of

the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Uh. He also directed When the Wind Blows from six about an elderly British couple who survived a nuclear war. And and he was the co founder of Mora Commie Wolf Productions later known as just fred Wolf Films. Who did that original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle show? Well, Folk, Seth just filled

us in with all kinds of animation connections. I don't think he was recording what he said so unfortunately, but suffice to say, apparently fred Wolf is important in a whole seventies animation scene. Now, Joe, you you dived into the making of stuff on this one a little more than I did. I noticed that on Internet movie database Roger Corman is listed as not only a producer but an uncredited He has an uncredited director's credit. I am to believe he would he would at least show up

and fire people and so forth. I think that's a common uh dynamic with Corman, that he is he directing this movie, not really but sort of. I think this wouldn't even be the first Corman produced movie that was like this. Oh. I think it was the case with um, what was it the Brain Eaters that was sort of half directed by Corman or at least produced by Corman without a credit. Uh so, So yeah, I think that kind of thing happened a lot. There are a lot

of great stories about Corman. So I watched part of a making of documentary that comes on the Blu ray if if you pick this, pick up the new Blu ray of this one, which mostly featured interviews with the visual effects crew, and so they had a lot of great stories about about working with James Cameron and what that was like on set. But one of the things that stuck out to me was well, first of all, a lot of talk about Corman ended up having to do with the budget, of course, like how can we

get costs down? Because they pitched this as you know, this was going to be like the biggest budget Corman movie of all time. It was gonna be a lot Corman's finally making a movie with like a mainstream level budget. But I think in actual fact that the budget just kept shrinking during production until this really was kind of done on a shoestring compared to how it looks in

the end. But one of the stories, for example, is that I think major parts of this were shot on a studio that Corman had purchased that was formerly a lumber yard, And they said that Corman didn't change the signs on the on the studio lot, it's still said lumberyard because he reasoned that the sets were less likely to get burglarized if it was labeled the lumber yard

instead of a movie studio. And then they ended up hiring people for the production because carpenters would show up looking to buy lumber, not realizing it wasn't a lumber yard anymore, and they'd be like, Hey, you want to work on a movie. Oh that's good. Yeah, all right, Well let's get into the writing credits on this. So, uh there is, uh, there's a writer by the name of Ann Dyer who has a story credit, one of only two writing credits alongside nine up from the Depths.

That's a Charles B. Griffith Jaws knockoff starring Sam Bottoms and also one of our Lee Ermi's first screen roles. It's supposedly about a giant sturgeon looking fish attacking what's supposed to be Hawaii, but it is a Roger Corman production filmed in the Philippines. How have I never seen this one? I thought I'd seen every Jaws knockoff one. Cannot I don't think there's enough time in the life in a single lifetime to do that, not yet, not

until science catches up with us. Um. But the main screen writing credit on this one is is pretty noteworthy because it is John Sailis Um born nineteen fifty. Uh. This was only the fourth screen credit for Sailists, who would go on to be an award winning screenwriter and director, noted for such films as nineteen six is Lone Star, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, is Passion Fish,

which which also earned him in a nomination. UH. Eight Men Out four Is The Brother from Another Planet, ninety seven Men with Guns and eighty seven's May Twin, which I remember watching in film class. That's a solid and serious film about union f It's in nineteen twenties West Virginia starring Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, and David Strathan. Oh that's interesting because I know Chris Cooper was also in The Lone Star, which I haven't seen but I

was looking at. Yeah. Yeah, um yeah, that's that's a good one. Very serious. Uh. These are, you know, serious and prestigious films. But before he did any of that, he also wrote the screenplays for Piranha, directed by Joe Dante. Uh, nineteen eighties Alligator that that starred Robert Forrester and Ones, The Howling, which was also directed by Joe Dante. So he definitely has horror roots. Uh. He also wrote the screenplay for nineteen eight six is the Clan of the

Cave Bear. And he directed not one, not two, but three Bruce Springsteen videos Born in the USA, I'm on Fire and Glory Days. Wow. I don't think I knew there were music videos for any of those three songs. Yeah. Well, in some form or another, he directed at least something like a music video for for them. Huh. I gotta look that up. I haven't seen Alligator in many years, but if I'm remembering the right movie, I think that's the one where they cast Richard Lynch in the in

the quint role. Oh I don't remember. Um, I think I saw Alligator when I was a kid. I think this is a sewer Gator movie. Wait, maybe thinking of Alligator to the mutation. Yeah, but yes, yes, yes, it is a sewer Gator movie. All right, let's get into the cast on on this one, and we're gonna We're gonna take the cast in the order that they're build, which is I think I think is quite telling because the top two names also apparently absorbed a great deal

of the budget for the movie. Oh really, this next guy did? I feel like he kind of phoned it in if you took all that much money. Well, it's George Bopard, who plays our space cowboy, the only character from Earth who goes by the name Cowboy. He is called Cowboy, and he is a cowboy. Or actually I think he sort of larks as a cowboy, because he talks about how he spends all of his time watching old Western movies, and so I think he may maybe he is actually just a space trucker who puts on

the persona of a cowboy. He's a space trucker. Who's gone insane in deep space all by himself, with only West TV Westerns to keep him company, and has thus taken on this this insane persona. He basically dresses like a late seventies Texan trucker and he just drinks and smokes constantly and frankly does little else in the film.

Yeah now. Georgia ba bard Here was born in n died in probably best remembered for playing the struggling writer Paul var Jack in the one film Breakfast at Tiffany's and also for playing Hannibal on TVs the A Team. They made a movie out of it, uh remake, but I don't recall who is in the Hannibal role. Oh now I'm reminded. It's It's it's Nisan's, it's Liam's and Islam Okay, oh this guy is the I love it when a plan comes together guy. Yes, so yeah, he's our he's our space cowboy and he has he has

top billings. So um the uh he's kind of it's it's kind of one of the many Han Solo esque characters in this without being quite as cool as Han Solo, not even close. This movie has several Han solos. This guy is. I think they think that he works as Han Solo because he's a scoundrel. But just scoundrel nous does does not a Han Solo make you gotta have

that charm as well? Well, we have another shot at pulling off that charm because the next actor of note here, who also I think was was paid pretty heavily compared to the rest of the cast, is Robert Vaughan playing Guilt. Um. Everyone I think has seen Robert Vaughan in something, Oh yeah,

he n sixteen and um. In this he plays an emotionless assassin with a thousand enemies, um, which is essentially this is basically the same role he played in The Magnificent Seven, right, yes, and so he's in the Magnificent seven, is one of the mercenaries. And I would say that he even kind of dresses in this movie like his character in Magnificent Seven. Yeah, yeah, he's He's a fun character in this film, unlike Cowboy, who's just kind of a one note gag that hangs out a little bit

too long. Guilt feels so you know, authentic. I buy into the idea that here's this guy that has that is totally emotionalless, but also he has this loneliness to him, like he's all he's done, has earned himself riches and h enemies, and now he has like maybe one shot at doing something good with his life. I can buy into all this. I will say, Von actually makes a couple of interesting acting choices, if you can believe me saying that about this movie. Uh maybe maybe we'll get

to those during the plot section. But yeah, he he's doing something with it. So, like I say, if you've watched films or TV, you've seen Robert Vaughan in something. He's probably most notable for his roles in nineteen sixties The Magnificent Seven, of course, nineteen Bullet starring Steve McQueen, who was also in The Magnificent Seven, UM seventy four

is the Towering Inferno in three Superman three. So he always had a great screen presence, you know, he was he was a you know, a bit smooth, a bit menacing, and this I think allowed him to play a wide variety of villains and authority figures. So, for instance, you'll find him as the voice of the Proteus four in nineteen seventy seven's Demon Seed. But You'll also find him in the nineteen seventy Chuck Heston Julius Caesar film. You'll also see him pop up in things like Joe Diamato's

Zombie five or Um or the movie Pootie Tang. On TV. He's done everything from Coronation Street to The A Team. He played a vampire in Jim war Narski's nine nine film Transylvania Twist, And of course he's also America's favorite lawyer. Oh man, this is what I've been waiting to get to, So if you're not familiar. Later in his career, Robert Vaughn the actor had an extensive run as a quote

spokesman in personal injury lawyer commercials. I think with the implicit intention of tricking people into thinking that this classy yet tough looking attack dog was one of the lawyers who worked at the firm being advertised. I remember years ago we had some kind of but something on our fridge. It was either a magnet or a cutout of a magazine ad or something, but it was for a local law firm and it had a picture of this guy of Robert Vaughan and then down at the bottom and

fine printed said Robert Vaughan spokesman. And you know, I think in this picture he was jacket off, wearing suspenders and to tie so real ready to tussle. Look, I think they're going for a feeling of that. This guy makes claim suggesters just with their pants like they are terrified of him. Uh. And if you look it up on YouTube, you can find tons of Robert Vaughan lawyer commercials millions of dollars. That's knowledge, that's experience, that success.

You've got one opportunity for justice. Why except less put the law firm with they proven track record to work

for you. And I would say, I want, I want to pose it that Robert Vaughan's success as a spokesman in lawyer commercials is almost perfectly aligned with the quality that got him cast at least two times as a mercenary who is hired to defend a bunch of farmers from an evil bandit king in in the Western End in the Space Opera, because he just seems like like the tough, cutthroat s ob that in an alternate timeline might be working for the bandit king or for the

insurance company. But you just happened to have been lucky enough to get him on your side, and now he fights for you. Yeah. I even memory serves they used to show one of these in in the Atlanta area, some firm or another, and maybe they still do. I don't know. It's it's possible that that he's I mean, just because he's dead doesn't mean he can't be the spokesman for a law firm, right, right, Sure, I mean

I'm assuming. I'm assuming Robert Vaughan had all these interesting characteristics that I didn't even know about until I started reading up on him for this episode. Like at some point he was interested in politics. Uh. And I imagine probably the same quality that makes him appealing as a lawyer commercial spokesman probably would have made him a successful political candidate. Uh. He I found even an old episode of firing Line where he's like arguing with Willie William F. Buckley,

he's arguing against the Vietnam War. Um. So he's a strange and complex figure. Yeah, and I mean I mentioned Coronation Street earlier, that, of course, is a long running British TV series. It's interesting to see that he's a guy that I guess we're predominantly in the United States. But then you'll see him pop up in not just European or British films, but like British TV series for

periods of time, So he certainly worked a lot. Another thing I want to point out about his lawyer spokesman persona. So I said the image, I remember he's wearing suspenders, and I think I'm right about that. But if you look up these commercials today, in almost all of them, he's wearing a vest. And I think his character wears a vest in The Magnificent Seven, just like Han Solo wears a vest. So I don't know. There's something going

on here. There's a through line from Han Solo to this guy who's going to fight for you and against the against the greedy insurance companies. All right, well, let's get to our our actual central character. Here are our Luke Skywalker, if you will. It's a character named Shad, and Shad is played by Richard Thomas. One yep, this is this is John Boy from The Waltins. This is the grown up Bill Denbro from the TV adaptation of it. This is good casting because young Richard Thomas does kind

of have that that naive, likable farm boy charm. Like like Mark Hamill. Yeah, there's there's also in general, there's often a sweaty intensity to Richard Thomas that I tend to like in a performance. Um, and you see it in this film too. He's good at that. That's sort of being you can see the gears moving in a performance, and I feel like, and even in this film, a film that does not demand any kind of, uh, you know, an earnest performance from its various players, I felt it

felt like Richard Thomas was able to bring it. Now more I guess a lot of viewers out there might know him better from some recent television series is that he was a series that he was a part of. He was was on Ozark, he was on The Americans and uh the anthology round up for Amas is actually kind of fun for me because he was in a Tales from the Crypt episode. A pretty good one is I recall titled Mute Witness to Murder, in which he

plays a demented psychologist with slick back hair. Yeah there's, yeah, he was. He was a fun villain in that, like, if memory serves, he's killing somebody in uh, in his own apartment and somebody across the street in another apartment building, rear windows, the whole situation. But then she shows so shocked by the murder that she goes mute. And then she winds up in an asylum situation. Who is her doctor,

but it's the murderer. It's uh, it's it's Richard Thomas, and so anyway, typical tales from the cryptan Anigan's in Sue. But he was also in an episode of the nineties Outer Limits uh titled The New Breed. This was about mutation inducing nanobots and it had some some pretty nasty horror elements in it, And in that Richard Thomas plays

a mad scientist. Wow against type agains. I kind of like that move though, of taking somebody who seems very a good hearted and innocent in casting them as a villain. Like I think Ron Howard should have played villains more when he was, you know, in his forties fifties. Yeah, yeah, alright, Speaking of villains, though, our our main villain in this is um is this sad or say door? Yeah, sate

or say door? What does that rhyme? With its like Vader, but but with with with the with something sadistic added to it, A sadistic Vader is a sad or what if Darth Vader was sadistic or if Vader was with Sader, I don't know. But anyway, played by John Saxon, the great John Saxon, who lived nineteen thirty six. So bust out your John Saxon punch card, because we've got more

Saxon action for you in this film. Um, I'll refer you back to our episode on Cannibal Apocalypse from more of a breakdown on Saxon himself and his work, but sufficed to say he plays an evil warlord and master of mutants in this film. And oh, he's got some wonderful lines lines that I had I had heard in a mix before actually off the album Saifu by wax Factor. But like there's one he's saying, I possess a stellar converter, the most powerful weapon in the universe. And then another

great line is Daco is expert at inflicting pain. Now, what do you make of John Saxon's accent in this movie? He's not speaking with his natural voice, but he's also not really affecting the accent of like any other region or country I would It's not a British accent, but it's like he adopts a formal accent, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's it's like it's like a formal American villain. I guess I don't know.

The other thing, Saxon clearly was not able to convince them to give him a shirtless scene in this movie. I don't think he had one. No, No, he didn't, which which is is kind of a rarity for for for the Saxon films. EVE been watching anyway, Um, and it is interesting that, yeah, he doesn't have a Darth Vader helmet, and he also he has a little bit of makeup on his face, like some sort of a

scar effect. This hasn't been added over one of his eyes, but he's not nearly as made up as his legion of mutant underlings, who all have very pronounced disfigurements and like a cleft in their face. Yeah. So I was wondering, why does this movie not do the thing that every other Star Wars knockoff does and have a Darth Vader suit.

And if I I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would guess it's because they had John Saxon in this role and they wanted to show his face on screen, or because Saxon wanted to show his face on screen. You just you don't hide your Saxon under a helmet. That's ludicrous. Yeah. But plus, you know, thinking back to Cannibal Apocalypse, there are some details about that movie where Saxon did put his foot down about certain things that you know, he didn't want to do.

He didn't think we're the right choice for him. So I don't know, I don't know the story, but I can imagine a scenario in which Saxon's like, I just I don't want to wear that much makeup or I don't want to wear that helmet. Can you do something else that works? And uh, and maybe they found that middle ground. And ultimately, yeah, if you're paying for John Saxon, put him on the screen. I know how Corman budgets work. You wouldn't put you wouldn't have John Saxon in a

role where you gotta have helmet on him. You you just gets you know, some p a to do that, and then maybe you'd cast a voice actor. All right, Well, more more on Saxon's performance here in a bit, but moving on to other characters, we have Darlene Flugel playing Nenelia. This is the central love interest for shad uh Flugel Live nineteen fifty three through seventeen, and she was in some major films of the nineteen eighties, including To Live and Die in l a Once and Put a Time

in America Running Scared. Later in her career, she also appeared in pet Cemetery to Scanner Cop and dark Man three. Wow we got a scanner cop in here. Yeah. Her first film was I Is of Laura Mars, which I've been tempted to check out. I have not seen it, but it has a number of wonderful connections in it, and John Carpenter has a screenplay credit on it. Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, Okay, move over because the next character is what is the Saint St x Men?

St x Men? Played by Sybil Danning? Wow? Wow Wow yeah this bo This of course is the Austrian born b movie queen uh Civil Danning, who we previously talked about. In Hercules, she played Audrianna and that and boy this this is just an absolutely ridiculous performance and costume and character. This is one of the most ludicrous roles I have ever seen in any movie is it's just completely outrageous. Saturn Award winning, by the way, a Saturn Award winning performance.

I didn't even know where to begin talking about this character. Yeah, because even for a civil Danning role, this character is a lot. And she you know, I'll credit disiplit to disipl Danting for committing to the character because they managed to squeeze her into some of the silliest costumes in the whole film. Um. And then she's so her character is to back up a little bit, her her character is basically an amorous space Amazonian warrior valkyrie uh type character.

You know, like all those tropes just mashed together. Um. She's often dressed in this kind of space valkyrie costume that looks like it's made out of dried silly string. Yeah, it's kind of a like it's a skeletal bone corset with like with like grimlin ear head headwear. Um, it

is so weird. Yeah, it's it's it's completely ridiculous. And then she's a she's a hotshot space pilot and so you have you have all these scenes where she's piloting the cockpit, but they have her in this pit environment that makes it look like she's getting a dental exam, like shooting there from this really unflattering angle, in an unflattering angle for just any member of the human species.

So it's up the nose angle. Yeah, so this like this does not I can't I can't imagine how anyone thought this was a great shot and and needed to be used in the film. But here she is, and when she's not piloting that spaceship, she's coming onto Shad in some of the cringe eest moments in the entire film. Oh yeah, nothing like a like a double entendres sex joke that's based on machinery metaphor that goes on for

like seventy seconds. It's it's unbearable. Yeah, alright. The next human of note in this is a Sam Joffey playing Dr he Festus. Um. Wow, I mean we're going from weirdest to almost on par weirdness. Yeah. Yeah, This one I think is a close second to st x men Um in terms of just ludicrous green presence. I don't even know how much we want to get into this, but basically, he's an android scientist who has done some

silly things to his own body. And oh, it's just it's just so I didn't I want, I don't want to say it's embarrassing, but it's just so silly. It's just it's just laughing dizzy. Well, I want to be clear. You said he's an android scientist, so he makes androids, but he is originally human has become essentially when we

meet him. Uh, he is a head, a human head on top of a cabinet full of synthetic organs, right, and it the cabinet opens in a way that feels kind of dirty, like he's a flasher and a trench coat. And but but I want to stress to the cabinet is really well designed as well. So it's one of these moments where on one level, yes, this looks really good, this is a great shot, and this is a great prop you created for for Sam Jaffee here, but on

the other hand, just looks completely ridiculous. He and he's he's just giving this kind of like smiling, super happy grandma grandpa performance as well. Uh, It's it's a weird one to process. Yeah, but I would say, exactly like Sybil Danning, I give Sam Jaffee credit here for committing Both of these people were given absolutely unbelievably weird stuff

to do, and they just go all in. Yeah. Uh. Sam Jaffee lived through four actor of stage and screen, best known for The Asphalt Jungle, The Day the Earth Stood Still, bed knobs and broomsticks and Ben her I want to highlight what you just said, which is that this is an actor born in eight a product of the nineteenth century, who, in this Star Wars ripoff, plays ahead on a cabinet full of Organs who wants to imprison a young Luke Skywalker clone in order to produce

grandchildren for him. Yes, all right, um, the next of actor of note this This is a more of a small role, but it's worth noting because so you have these nests, uh Nest Tour. It's kind of like it sounds like it should be a brand of like cheap coffee that you encounter in a hotel, but no, these are like four pale white aliens that all like think and speak and taste in unison and so yeah, so it's four different actors, you know, dalled up the same way.

One of them is played by Earl Bowen, who was more than and uh it's probably best known to everyone out there as uh Silberman Dr Silberman in the Terminator films. He's the crooked psychiatrist who keeps Sarah Connor in in in the Institution. Yeah. He was also in the Man with Two Brains and he's done a lot of voice work. He also appears in the Dead Right episode of Tales from the Crypt, which started Demmy Moore and Jeffrey Tamber. I wonder if this is where he met James Cameron

and how he ended up in the Terminator movies. Yeah, yeah, it seems I would bet that is the case because so speaking of the of the James Cameron uh acting ensemble, Bill Paxton allegedly did carpentry work on this film. Okay, so I guess you know. He's like, hey, you you you're in. How about you all right? Put down that put down that hammer. You're going to be in in a film of mine? Can you grow a mohawk? He did have a mohawk and Terminator right, Oh yeah he did? Yeah,

but didn't he wasn't. There also a story about how Harrison Ford was was originally working as a carpenter on set for Star Wars before he was cast, And I'm wrong about that. Oh, seth just set us straight. I think he was in American Graffiti with Lucas before Star Wars, which but but being a carpenter had something to do I think with getting him in there. All right. Another credit of note here, Kathy Griffin plays an uncredited alien extra in this. So yeah, this is the first screen

appearance of actor and comedian Kathy Griffin. Blink and you miss it, and you'll miss it unless you're you're actively looking for it. But yes, she is in there. Born nineteen sixty. Uh, she's an uncredited alien. Did not catch her? Yeah, she's she's part of She's on Shad's home planet. So she's relatively early in the film and I don't think you see her in the background anymore after that. Okay, so she's walking around, she's hanging out with the guys

who look like they're in Leonard skinnerd Yeah. Yeah, okay. Oh, now it's time to talk about the music on this one, because the score for this film is by James Horner. Oh wow, okay, I believe this would be yet another James Cameron connection, right, yeah, yeah, James Horner lived. This was one of the first scores that he composed. He

would go on to score a number. I mean so so many classic scores films such as James Cameron's Aliens, Uh, Star Trek to The Wrath of con Willow, Field of Dreams, Apollo thirteen, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, and Avatar, and Uh. When I think of Horner, I have to say, I often think of, you know that that great tension building bit from the Alien score. I think of various blockbusters

like some of the ones I mentioned. But you know, I have to say, Uh, the score that he did for the six adaptation of the Name of the Rose, I think it's really quite excellent. It's a superb mix of chorl electronic and orchestral themes. Uh that that kind of come together in a perfect way for a film like this that is supposed to be about, you know, monastery on sort of the edge of of the world now and one. This is kind of interesting as well.

Horner's last film score was a remake of The Magnificent Seven. How about that? Yeah? I never saw that. Yeah. Oh. And prior to Battably on the Stars, he also worked on the scores for Humanoids from the Deep and Up from the Depths, the Killer Sturgeon movie in the Philippines referenced earlier, And finally, like we been pointing out, yes, James Cameron has art, direction and visual effects credits on this film. Um, you know, obviously he would go on

to be quite a big deal. But Cameron's big directorial writing break wouldn't come until the following year after this film, with Piranha to the Spawning and that was followed by The Terminator, and of course at that point you're just

off to the races. But at this point he had done a short film titled Xeno Genesis and seventy eight he'd been a production designer on Galaxy of Terror, which he also did second unit director duties on, and the following year in eighty one would see him serve in a capacity for special visual effects and uh and and matt artwork on John Carpenter's Escape from New York. Well. Yeah, so there are a lot of stories in the making of documentary about James Cameron's work behind the scenes on

this movie. Uh. He like, there are a lot of just little details about him wanting to really ambitious things that some of which did end up in the movie ended up looking amazing. But I think we're sort of pressing up against the budget constraints that this movie was

operating on. Uh. And so, like some of the other production designers and visual effects people who worked on the movie said, you know, we'd be working on this and then somebody would come to us and say, hey, you know, Jim is uh he's got this idea and it's going to cost a lot more than we expected, So can you do what you're doing now much cheaper? And so forth.

But there was also a story one person on there told about an argument that James Cameron got into with the director I think it was the director of photography on Battill Beyond the Stars, who was a unfortunately I forget his name at the moment, but he was a French guy, and they were arguing about the science of twinkling stars because the DP was saying, Okay, from the spaceship's cockpit, we should have the stars twinkling, and uh. Cameron was like, no, because stars only twinkle because of

the atmosphere of a planet, and that is true. Like the reason the star twinkles is has to do with how the the light from a point like source is affected by you know, drafts and the gases of the atmosphere. Before it reaches your eyes, it takes a kind of wiggly zigzag pattern and that causes the twinkling. And according to this interview, this ended with the the DP getting up in Cameron's face and pulling his beard and sing like, ms, your Cameron, you are a brat. So James Cameron easy

to work with right from the get gap basically. But but he was right, he was right about the story. Each one is a setting sun. All right, well, let's get into the Let's get properly into the plot of this film and flesh out some of these just weird choices and weird moments that the make up the runtime. Okay, well, this is one of those where we're not going to do every scene in the movie, but I want to

focus on some some highlights and some themes. But we will start with the beginning, because in a Star Wars knockoff movie, what's your opening going to be? You know exactly what it's gonna be. In fact, I think almost all of these begin with a shot of a star field and then what's it going to be? What's it gonna be? Spaceship Spaceship Pans comes over the top of

the camera um. And in this case, the first spaceship we see, I would say, is shaped pretty much like the Blockade Runner we see at the beginning of Star Wars. You know, it's the horizontal cylinder at the bow and then an array of parallel rocket engines in the stern right off the bat though this ship looks really good,

I have to say, yeah, yeah, I agree. Uh And and here though, the the interesting thing is that the allegiance of this ship is flipped because in Star Wars that ship is the ship with this shape is Princess Leah's corvette. It's being chased by the Imperial Star Destroyer, and in this movie there's no chase going on. The ship just is the star Destroyer, and it's also sort

of the death Star. It is the flagship of the wicked and treacherous Melmoory, who have arrived in your star system to do evil essentially space warlords, an army of of what failed mutants kind of like messed up clones or something, and they are led by John Saxon, right, And so they approach the approach a planet, and we hear technicians on this evil capital ship discussing what they see on the viewscreen. They say, this is a Kere, a planet of stone with a single green spot, life

forms compatible with ours, oxygen forms with radial symmetry. I think they's a radial symmetry. They have a solar technology, no known defense capacity. And then I think somebody, John Saxon, I think, says interesting, let's check that. And so oh no, first thing, the star Destroyer just rolls up on this kind of twittering weather satellite. It is crewed by a couple of extremely polite boys from a Kre and they're staring down this doom ship and the minor cords are

swelling and they're like, hello there, welcome to our atmosphere. Uh, this is the planet of here. Could you identify yourself please? And then the ship just of vaporizing. But I like how the sort of sweet Midwestern corn nous of the guys from a ker in this satellite is immediately contrasted by weird imagery when we see what the planet surface

looks like. So we only get these brief glimpses, but what we see is like that the the infrastructure of the civilization on this planet surface seems to be built out of flesh trees that are also giant screaming skulls. So it's like the Ewok Village, but imagine the forest instead of wood is warped flesh and the bones of whatever species. Pac Man is. It's it's it's really quite cool looking. It reminds me a little bit of Salvador Dali.

It reminds me a bit of Fantastic Planet. Uh. Overall, it has a wonderful, like weird seventies sci fi vibe to it. Yeah, and I already mentioned this, but a lot of the locals have a distinct classic rock vibe. That the dunes look like the Alman Brothers. This is a film, you know, you look back at Star Wars.

Star Wars is a product of the nineteen seventies, and yeah, if you look hard enough you can you can see the seventies in it, but but not nearly as strongly as the seventies often bleeds through into a picture like this. And yeah, the seventies is is strongly manifested even though this is the really eighties, of course, but you know, we're still still very much a product of the late

nineteen seventies. The decade is strongly present in this film. Oh, it was the seventies until night four that is canon anyway. So the evil capital ship it slides over the city, blots out the sun and they are treated to a message. You see John Saxon's face projected in the sky and he says, I am say door of the Melmory. I've come here with my forces to conquer you. If you resist, I will crush you. I possess a stellar converter, the most powerful weapon in the universe. In the universe, how

do you know that anyway? You cannot resist me. I want your planet to be my colony. Your harvest comes in seven risings of your red Giant. I will return. Then you will accept me as your master. If you do not submit, your planet and all life on it will be burned to ash. And I think this kind of opening would probably work better if you were to see the least bit of the flavor of everyday life before the evil space lord shows up. Like it seems kind of clumsy plotting to me because here we get

absolutely nothing. We we meet the good guys at the exact moment that they're being threatened with death by the big bad Yeah. The other an asting thing is that you're watching this film you would think, okay, and then they surrender, right, I mean that they have no defense capabilities. The overlord just showed up full force in their orbit. He has orbital superiority over the planet. Like that's it, the game's over. There's there's what are you? What are

you gonna even try to do? Yeah? And then like just to be mean, he starts like blasting them with lasers. Also that are that are manned by what he calls snipers. Who are these the zombies that work for him? I guess they're they're mutants. Yeah, They're a little vague on it, but I kind of got the the sense that they had their failed mutants. But they're also kind of clones. I don't know if they're supposed to be clones of John Saxon's character or not. There is that similarity between

like the red scar on the face um overall. Yeah, I would say that that that Saydor's character is is weird and keeps you questioning what exactly his whole deal is, which which I kind of liked. I kind of like that. Yeah, Yeah, I was kind of wondering if all of the mutants on the ship are like clones of himself. That he created so he could harvest their organs, because we see about him later that he's constantly getting parts of his body replaced. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's a very strong,

uh strong theory. Yeah, and it ultimately doesn't care where he gets those parts. He's like, that's a nice arm you got there. Uh, doctor, strap it on? Right. Uh So, down on a kre we're we're about to actually hear the locals talk to each other. Oh and just I wanted to flag one thing quickly. I suspect that this planet is called a ker and the people on it are called a Kira because he is an adaptation of

seven Samurai via Magnificent Seven. Anyway, so we we hear the Akira discussing their situation, and the very first thing we get is this whiny sounding guy making a passionate case that they should not defend themselves in any way. He says, so we live by the Varda. The Varda is not to fight, and this is the first reference in the movie to the Varda, which will be brought up many, many more times. I think it's supposed to be the stand in for the force, but I don't

know if it quite works. It works differently than the Force. So the Varda seems to be some kind of formalized creed like it. You can quote the Varda. It is a set of Dogma's rules and proverbs, and our young hero frequently does quote from the Varda as if it were like a book that is supposed to guide your life, whereas the Force is not like that, Like you can't quote the Force. I would say the Force is more

like the Tao or like the Holy Ghost. It is a substance into being a type of divine power or will permeating all things. Yeah, Varda, I guess they're they're kind of alluding to Veda here, so yeah, yeah, So I'm not sure if this incongruity between the Force and the Varda is like a deliberately a deliberate choice to do something different, or if I don't know, but I don't know if it was a deliberate choice, I guess that's kind of interesting, But I'm not sure exactly what

that cashes out to. But in any rate, a strong theological slash legal argument for simply surrendering to the Maltmori Empire. Right. He says the Varda is not to fight, and he says the Akira haven't fought for centuries, and then immediately we hear somebody off screen bellowing, I have fought, and this bearded guy wanders and this is z the Corsair, an old man who is nearly blind who used to fly a spaceship and has experience with war, and he

cantankerously explains that the way to defeat violence is with violence. Uh, He's like, I fought once it worked, Let's do that. Yes, he says that in order to fight creatures of violence, you must use creatures of violence, and everybody's just kind of like okay. So it's immediately decided that they need to hire mercenaries. And here's our seven samurai recruitment situation, and so somebody's got to go recruit them, but who

can do it well. Immediately a young character played by Richard Thomas volunteers, and emotional music plays as if we know something about this character, but we don't, because this is the first time he's talked. And I think this is a good place to point out it probably hasn't been clear in our explanation so far, but to point out how fast everything is happening in this sequence. Like, you do not really have time for any of these developments to cause emotions or or mean anything. It's just

I'm sad or I will kill you. We cannot fight, We must hire mercenaries who can do it this guy and you know, of course, I enjoyed this movie very much despite all this, But I think it's also a good opportunity to point out things that make good storytelling really work, like one thing Star Wars actually does quite well. By contrast, before Luke Skywalker is called to adventure, you get to see like the dreariness and the boredom of his life on the farm, and you see him staring

at the sun's he's yearning for more. He's feeling that ineffable, almost irrational angst of frustrated youth, which makes it emotional and meaningful when his life is actually upended and he he he has to go out and answer the please of the princess and and you know, respond to the death of his guardians. Here, I think the first time the young hero speaks is when he's volunteering to go on a mission, So you don't really get any of

that in this movie. The call to adventure is answered immediately which is kind of an interesting sharp contrast to Message from Space, in which the call to adventure seemed to take most of the film to roll out and then was molled over and finally accepted with like in the last ten minutes of the film. Yeah, it's sending out those magic nuts that fly over the galaxy. Yeah.

But when Richard Thomas volunteers, the whiney guy from the beginning, he says, you you're a boy, and he says, and Richard Thomas says, but the Varda teaches us that each form has its function. So I guess the point is, even when you're a boy, you can still go on an adventure. Uh. And so it basically has to be Shad who does this. That's the character's name because he's the only one who can fly Zed's ship Nell. Now Nell will be I would say, one of the other

main characters of the movie. Nel is a talking spaceship that I would say looks like a cross between a flayed horse and a bosomI hammerhead shark. Yeah. Yeah, it's um it's it's an impressive ship design reminds me of of a particular World War two like super glider that the Germans used. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't know if there was a model kit of that at the time, but I wonder if that was potential possibly adapted into this model for this spaceship. But uh, yeah,

the ship has character. Um it's uh, it's pretty cool looking. I like the coloration of it. It has this kind of a what is like a deep, rusty kind of brown slash crimson e color. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's right, and it clearly has It has biomechanical design, like it doesn't look like sharp angles and metal like a lot of the other spaceships. To this looks like a like a naked body with a hammer head shark head. Yeah.

Oh but then also you so you say the ship has character, and it has character quite literally because it's not just design. It talks, and it's not just saying like, you know, engage thrusters. It has a twod it's like a rooting twoton back talking robot Grandma. Yeah, it's a little bit sassy, and it encourages young Shad to kill This is a strange theme that's repeated throughout the movie.

But uh, you know, Shad, like he first leaves the planet on his mission, which is first he's going to get weapons from a guy named Dr. He faced Us and he has attacked by some guards left behind. There's a big space battle. He's trying to escape and he refuses to shoot back at the guards, and Nell is urging him. She's like, do it, shoot them, And later Nell will blast spaceships without Chad's consent. But then after that, Shad gets a real like taste for war and starts

to love blasting that. That's kind of strange, yeah, especially since again the Varda is not to violence, and yet here they are violencing all over the place. All right, So I'm not gonna do super detail on this, but the sequence with Dr Have faced Us is so weird.

So Chad goes to a space station seems to be populated entirely by androids, but then he meets one human Nenelia, the daughter of Dr. He faced Us, and she's like a brilliant scientist who repairs androids and she can do all the technical wizardry, but she's also very naive about the world because she has never left this space station. And uh so they they meet, and then he has taken to Dr Who faced Us himself, who was supposed to supply them with with arms to defend their planet.

But oops, Dr faced Us is no longer a human body. He's now just ahead on this cabinet full of organs uh. And his plan is like, well, I'm not interested in defending your planet. Instead, Chad, I'm going to imprison you on this space station and make you father children with Nnelia. Uh. Shad is reasonably creeped out by this, but then together he and Nenelia Uh, they decide to flee the station.

So they break out together, and in this scene they seem to bond by sharing scientific and anthropological facts about other planets in the galaxy. They like bond over learning. I have to say, this whole sequence to reminded me a lot of Logan's Run. It had a real Logan's Run kind of feel to it. Yeah. But now, of course this is sort of our first recruit. Nonelia is now on board for the cause of protecting a cure, and they're gonna split up and both go try to

recruit mercenaries, right right. So, on the quest to recruit mercenaries, he has so far recruited uh. This this one woman who has no combat experience that we know of, but she has like, uh, that's true, but she has like scientific technical she can like do stuff with androids, though I don't recall if she ever does anymore in the movie, but they're prepared just in case that comes up. Yeah, of course they are going to fall in love because of course, um and in the sequence there are also

there are several really funny moments. One of them that made me laugh out loud was the scenes of them riding around on these carts in the space station, because like, the cart will seat too. It's like Chad and Nenelia sitting next to each other on a love seat on a cart, and the carts are extremely slow and they're

almost as wide as the hallway they're in. Now, I think a lot of the fun in seven Samurai type movies is the rounding up of the gang, right, you know, you gotta pick all the mercenarias who are going to come back and help protect the village. So I guess we should talk a bit about each of the recruits. Now we've already mentioned Cowboy played by George Poppard. How exactly is he recruited? Well, Shad like runs up on his spaceship as he's being attacked by pirates, and the

question is should Chad intervene and blast the pirates. He again says the var to prohibits taking life, and then Nell says ah, but the Varda says we can take life to save life, and then he hesitates, but Nell blasts on his behalf. So they blow up the pirates and and it turns out they've saved this guy named Cowboy. Uh So, as we said earlier, this is a space trucker who loves watching old Western movies. Uh he has much experience fighting. And then Shad asks him, hey, well

then will you fight for us? Well, Cowboy says there's a problem with that. He says, you're fighting sad Or, and sad Or never loses and never quit, so fighting on your side, that's that's a losing game. I'm not going to do it. But then suddenly Nell shares a video feed of a totally different planet somewhere else where. I guess they have of refused Saydor's uh ultimatum, and

then Saydor just blows up the planet. He vaporizes it with his stellar converter, and as luck would have it, that planet that just got blowed up, that was where Cowboys buyer was stationed, so he's he can't take his his cargo anymore. And what he was transporting just happens to be blasters, so Shadows like, yes, we need those, take them to my planet, and so Cowboy agrees. So he wasn't interested in doing good until it messed up with his arms deal. So he's like, no, it's personal.

Can't stand now. It's he's taken it too personal. Um and Cowboy. There's so much weirdness about Cowboy. One thing that I was like, what, I guess it? I don't know, So he there's one part where I think he has a Confederate flag on the side of his spaceship. There is definitely a Confederate flag blaster to the side of his spaceship. I'm not sure what the significance of that, thousands of years into the future is supposed to be,

but weird choice to say the least. Uh. Cowboys belt buckle, though in a more charming touch, includes a Scotch and soda dispenser. So he literally like puts a glass under his belt buckle and you hear like a water sound, and it's like whiskey or soda coming out of it, And I think he can also plink down cubes of ice from his put buckle. Yeah he can do. Yeah, the ice, the soda, and the whiskey all three come out of the belt buckle on And so I guess

we're to leave. We're led to believe this is just a fancy bit of technology that allows him to drink constantly. But I also wonder what if what if Cowboys no longer human? And uh and this is him just simply recycling the ice cubes, soda and uh and and whiskey that he actually can't can't really process. It just comes back out again into the cup. Oh, he's like a fountain, you know, it goes down and then it like shoots back out. Yeah no, no, but then no, he's just

supposed to be on Earth. Dude on Earth dude who drinks and smokes and again little else. Uh. Thinking back on it, it's hard for me to remember what he truly contributed to the film, except for the occasional bursts of comic relief and hooking everyone up with blasters. Well, in the final battle, he shows the he he plans the ground defense, so he helps them like defend the trenches they dig on the planet's surface. So there's like spaceship battles and battles on the ground with Sador's troops

and he he helps them defend on the ground. Oh and then there's one part where Shad is talking to cowboy and cowboys smoking a cigarette and Chad says, is that real smoke you're putting in your lungs? And cowboys like yep, and it's not good for you. And then Chad says, I don't think you should do it. A little anti smoking message. Okay, next recruit, how about how about a lizard guy? Do we want to Uh? This is Cayman of the Lambda Zone h as as well

as a few other allies portrayed by Morgan Woodward. So uh, this is a fighter recruited by Ninelia. This again, this recruitment happens sort of by accidents. So Nnelia is captured by this boss like lizard man named Caman, who seems to be planning to sell her like as as as meat to an alien butcher shop. I think, um, but then she's like, you're heartless, just like say door And then this was a laugh out loud moment, immediate music sting.

He goes say do or say do or of the Melmori and when he finds out there fighting Sador, his tune changes immediately and he's like, I will fight with you because I hate Sedor. Now. Fun fact about Morgan Woodward though I didn't include him in the original line

up here, but he through he was on Dallas. But the most notable thing is he's the man with no eyes from nineteen sixty seven's Cool Hand Luke That the the guard with the silver shades that you know for most of the film you you can't see his eyes because of those, and he's kind of this uh you know this, this this very threatening presence in the film, uh that it's rather iconic. You see this reference to later on in the Cohen Brothers, Oh Brother where art

thou it has a similar character whose eyes you never see. Yeah, but yes in this lozardman um but the lizard Man also comes with buddies. He has He has a blonde muscle man who like a lot of times his butts hanging out. He's wearing like like sort of chaps and leather suspenders, and he has a face tattoo. And then there are two creatures with giant bald heads wearing silver suits. They have no ears, and they speak by emitting heat rays that burn people. Yes, those are his public relations

guys exactly. Um okay, So next next recruit the Nestor's Nestor one through Nestar five. I think this is Earl Bowen and others. Uh. This is once again just like the last one. It's a recruitment via capture. So Shad is captured in space by a gang of five psychic clones who are dressed in white robes and look like a cross between the Brain guy and old Man Gary old Man Dracula with the uh so Shad. When they

capture him, they bring him onto their ship. Chad points a blaster at them, but then they psychically force him to point it at himself, and he's like, my mistake. And then they say, oh, it's okay. We know you're not of a violent form. We've scanned everything you're doing. We scan everything, we scan all uh, and we've been brain scanning you from the astral plane and know all about your quest for mercenaries and well we want to

join uh. And of course Shadows so like, well, we don't have any money, we can't pay you and they say, no need, We're self sufficient. We are nest store. So they explained that they are a group of clones of a species that are all that all have one unitary shared consciousness. But there's a problem with having a unitary shared consciousness, which is that life can become very dull. And it turns out they have to seek adventure in order to avoid being literally bored to death. We also

find out that they have no tolerance for pain. Like basically you said the word pain, they've already had too much. And you know what, I thought this was Actually so this movie is fun, not much about it as thought provoking, but weirdly half of these characters kind of were. Okay, So the idea of uh, sort of individual drones of a species that have a constant, a synchronous shared consciousness

throughout the galaxy. They cannot become bored. They have to be constantly stimulated, and they cannot bear pain, I guess because that would like share both of those states with all of them throughout the galaxy. So they have to be constantly like stimulated with interesting stuff and and never in pain. And I was like, wow, that's okay. You

can like write a really interesting story about that. I felt like they were the most interesting characters that we encounter in the film, and they get two things that are great. They get I think one of the best comedic scenes in the film when they try to eat a hot dog. I mean, well, they don't just try, they succeed and they have feedback on hot dogs. And then they also have a really fun and I thought creative assassination attempt on say door tell the hot dog

scenes story cowboys eating a hot dog. Cowboys eating a hot dog and um, I can't remember if he offers the hot dog or they're like, what's that? Can we try that? And then you write hot dog gets handed off to the next doors and we get a fun, just visual gag where one of them is of course holding up the hot dog and taking a bite out of it, but all four of the heads are chewing and experiencing the hot dog. They then give a readout on all the ingredients and if I remember correctly, none

of the ingredients are met right. No, it's all just like soy proteins and then names of chemicals, and then cowboys like on Earth, that's what we all meat. So I enjoyed that. I thought like, okay that I think this scene landed like it was supposed to. Um. But yeah, then they also have this this wonderful kind of complicated and and uh surprising assassination attempt on sad Or where one of them is captured. They allow one of them, their their clones, to be captured by sad Or. What

sad Or are going to do? Well, he's of course going to torture said clone. Uh. This is where we get that line about about the his his doctor is expert at inflicting pain and uh, and so they torture him to death rather quickly. But then sate Or is like, that's a pretty good arm. Let's go ahead and put that on my body. They do. His doctor does that, and he's like trying it out. You know, it's like it's got good reached, good muscle. He's only got these

it's got a weird number of fingers. Will have to fix that later. But you know they're not, they too concerned. But then what did the Nestor start doing. They start controlling the arm and trying to like like cut state wars throat with his own hand. Uh, it's narrowly able to stop them and cut the arm. Off with a crystal chainsaw. It was a great sequence. I loved it. Yeah, really good. Okay, I gotta mention a couple more recruitments before we wrap up. So one is guilt Robert Vaughan.

We're back to Robert Vaughan, and I gotta say the planet where they pick up gelt looks awesome. Mountain spires made out of rocks that look kind of like veins, dark skies and lightning. This is like lv f s from Alien. It's beautiful. It's uh. I feel like I I detect some Cameron influence here, though I guess I

can't be sure. Um, But to describe the set up to the scene, we're being set up as if the next stop for Shad is going to contain the most icely Cantina scene because he's headed to a wretched hive of scum and villany full of the best mercenaries in the galaxy. So you think that's what you're getting, you know, bar full of criminals and he's gonna have to you know, recruit one of them. But in a twist, when he

gets there, there's nobody there. It's like this abandoned underground bunker that looks like it used to be kind of a pleasure palace. Yeah, that's right, and there's there's no one else here we encountered guilt, and guilt is just he's the only living human, only living being left. He's there with all his treasures, all his ill gotten gains. But he's like, clearly he has nothing to do. He's just he's he's like a prisoner in his own golden

cell here. Right. He explains in a twist that all the planets the galaxy bound together and created a defense alliance, which they used to wipe out all of the mercenaries and criminals on this planet, and only guilt is left. He says, there's nothing left but me in the lower forms, and then he says there's a bounty on his head on every planet in the galaxy. So he's he's in

this Catch twenty two. He has wealth and he has like he's he's got all this treasure for himself, but nowhere he can spend it, and no where he can go, oh know where he can rest. Yeah, and there's this wonderful shot. There's a lot of screen shots of this on the internet, but he's seated at this throne and yeah, you see all of his treasure chest around him, and it's gloriously lit. He's got this kind of stylish outfit on.

He's got his laser blaster out um. And oh and the throne that he's seated upon, it has these two cherubs built into it and they're holding a crown and it's as if they are they are holding the crown over his head or lowering it onto his head. It's just this wonderful shot. It's great. And so of course he ends up getting recruited because mainly because on a keer he can rest. It's a place where there's not a bounty on his head, so he can go there. Uh So, so that's what he does. But I wanted

to say about Robert Vaughan's performance in this movie. It's actually kind of interesting the way he plays the character and what he does with his body. For example, uh, Guilt never moves his head, really, he only moves his eyes. There are scenes of him talking and scenes of him like in battle, piloting his spaceship, and he almost never moves his head at all, is completely still. He just you see his eyes going back and forth, and that

creates a kind of reptilian quality that really works. Yeah, even though he is he's not the reptile man. Yeah, the Mercenary gang here. But but yeah, that's that's a good point about the particulars of his performance when one wonders, was that a like a choice that he made or did he have just did you have Frankenstein neck during Yeah, and just you know, ended up using it? Uh at any rate? Uh? Yeah, I really, I really like his performance. And I have to say I was not expecting to

like his performance. I was expecting it to be a lot more phoned in than this, but it was. It was fun. Okay, one last Mercenary It is st x Men played by Sybil Danning. So we meet her because she starts she basically she's harassing chads ship in space. She's like zipping around taunting him, shooting blanks at him, and he hit her because she's moving too fast. Uh. And then she finally explains, like, it has been great fun jousting with you. I want to join your mission.

I'm part of a warrior culture. We must fight. And shadd is just infinitely annoyed with her at times. Yeah, she's just constantly coming on to him and he's he's basically like, this is inappropriate. You should not be doing this. I am not interested. I already have a space girlfriend and I find you incredibly irritating. But she's just like, but I want to fight. And of course the rest

of the structure is somewhat predictable. You know, the mercenaries gathered together, they gathered for battle against Sedor, and they all contribute in various ways to the effort. But all of the I think, do all of the mercenaries get slain in battle except maybe Cowboy? Does Cowboys survive? I thought he bought it too. But this is kind of this is the model, right, Like they all have to to pare it, well, not all of the most of them. But eventually the young heroes Chat and Anilia they have

to save the day. They're flying around and nail the spaceship and they got to save the day in the end, and it's kind of like, you know, you get something kind of similar to the trench run scene in Star Wars. The Stellar Converter is U is destroyed. The ship is destroyed. Uh yeah, we we don't have to endure some sort of a lightsaber knockoff battle, which was nice. Yeah, does anybody fight hand to hand with sad Or. I don't

recall that. I don't think it happens now. He's just like a straight I guess he's more in the mold of Peter Cushing in that regard. Yeah, they just blow up the ship and he's there. Yeah, it's more and more like them. Off. Well, there's a ton more that happens in the movie that we we did not have time to get into. But Rob, I have greatly enjoyed talking about Battle Beyond the Stars with you. Yeah, this is this is a fun one. Uh, just just a

fun flick. I again, I don't know if it's more fun than than Empire Strikes Back, but but fair enough, it's a really fun film. And I can i if someone likes this more than Empire than more power to them. Uh. We we we need films in our lives there that are dis enjoyable, better, more fun, more fun than Seven Samurai. Yeah, yeah, I would say that, I would say that, of course I would. I think since seven Samurai better film, Battle Beyond the Stars more fun for me, and certainly yeah,

lower investment. It's not as long and it's not as serious. Okay, I've I've reached the point in my life we have to realize, am I gonna watch Seven Samurai again? Probably? Not? Am I gonna watch Battle Beyond the Stars again? Yeah, it's probably gonna happen. Sorry, I don't know. If you make time for seven Samurai. It's a very rewarding experience. It's a it's a great film. I mean, I love

the karat Karrosawa. I I can envision myself going through a Curasawa phase where I like suddenly have to get back into all these films. But uh, yeah, there's some great stuff. Throwing a blood? Who throwing a blood is good? All right, Well we're gonna go ahead and close it out here, but as always, right into us, let us know what you think about Battle Beyond the Stars various other Star Wars knockoffs as well. We would love to

hear from everyone out there. In the meantime, we'll remind you that, yes, Weird How Cinema publishes every Friday and the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed were primarily a science podcast, but on Friday's we put most of that aside and we just talk about a weird film. I blog about these episodes at Samuta music dot com. Uh you can go there for a blog post about this movie. I also did a blog post about that name of the Rose score from from Horner. Check that

out if you would like. Also, we have a letterboxed to count I think that's that's pretty much our only active social media account these days, where once a week I go in there and add the film that we've covered to Weird House Cinema or the film we're about to cover onto our list there. So if you want just an easy one, you know, glimpse look at what we've covered in our evering, that's a good place to go. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.