Weirdhouse Cinema: Starcrash

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be talking about the nineteen seventy eight space fantasy film Star Crash, directed by Luigi Kotzy, starring Carolyn Monroe, David Hasselhoff, Marjo Gortner, Christopher Plummer, and Joe Spinell. What a cast list really like an all

Yeah, there's some great representation from Italian schlock cinema here as well, and some exploitation cinema. So it really is like a sediment of seventies motion pictures where you can kind of like dig down and find little gritty bits of this and that.

So the reason we're covering Star Crash on Star Wars Week here is that despite the protestations of some of the film's creators. This is widely viewed as one of the Star Wars knockoffs of the late seventies and early eighties. There were many of these. At the very least, this is thought of as an attempt to cash in on the revolutionary box office success of the original Star Wars, which came out one year before this was seventy eight. Star Wars was seventy seven.

Yeah, I think we should be clear here for anyone who's new to weird House cinema when we talk about knockoffs, I don't think we've ever discussed a film for weird House Cinema that was, in some ways a knockoff that also didn't bring its own beauty and its own vision to the screen. So we say it with a lot more love than maybe some critics might say it.

I will make the case that Star Crash is possibly the greatest of the Star Wars knockoffs, and we have sampled a lot of them. We watched Message from Space. You remember that one, the Humanoid. I think that's the one that had Richard Keel in it.

Yeah, we just re ran that one on Monday for newer viewers.

Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars with Zibil Danning and a whole Yeah, that was a whole thing, And they all have their pleasures. I have enjoyed every one of those in its own way. I recall Message from Space in particular being a lot of fun. But I don't think that any other one of these achieves the luscious, insane weirdness of Star Crash. Star Crash, in my opinion, is in a class of its own.

It really is. It's such a it's such a strange film to watch it. It's so bad and yet so irresistible. Like well, basically I was trying to think of a good elevator pitch for it, and the best good come up with is Star Wars on Acid, but in the bad way. Like there's there's something kind of delirious and overwhelming about everything about it, from its from its visuals

This film has one particular dialogue exchange that I think about all the time. It comes into my brain at least once a week. It's the scene where the character Thor is shooting at Marjo Gordoner with his ray gun and they raise or not you know, harming him, and he says, what, no one can survive these deadly rays, and Marjo replies, these deadly rays will be your death. Yeah. And I couldn't write something like that if I.

Tried, absolutely uh, And then the visuals more than than match it.

I was.

I had to look it up in the Psychotronic Film Guide, and in it, Michael Weldon describes the film's effects as quote garishly attractive, especially to young people and people under the influence of controlled substances. And it really does have that vibe. It's just I mean, at times, it's it's very overt like space in this film is like a

What all dressed potato chips are to flavor, this movie is to visual texture. It is a bombardment of color and texture and just all kinds of visual weirdness on the eyes. It is not the most visually artful thing I've ever seen, but it's not gonna leave your eyes hungry. You know, you're not gonna go away being like, I don't know if I saw anything all that interesting. It is a it is an assault on the eyes.

Weldon also pointed out that this is a film where, certainly for the time, they tried every sort of special effect and the results range, I think he said, from from bad to almost good. But there is kind of like it's a charming aspect of it as well. You love, there's something about a film that, yeah, it's it's making a lot of swings and it's also making it's a lot of misses involved here, But there's there. There's some lovingly cheesy effects in this movie.

There are some pretty nasty looking video effects that they use for the hyperspace sequence.

Oh god, that's an assault on the eyes.

Yes exactly. But you know one that I really loved. I don't know, I'm just a sucker for stop motion anyway. But the stop motion robots, the two Golams that look like ducks.

Actually they look like B one Battle droids. I thought it was that there are several ways that this film kind of prophesizes future Star Wars, actual Star Wars installments, and one way is that these two battle droid these two robots look kind of like B one Battle droids from from the the prequel films.

They're not droids robed, they're golams. Golams, that's what they've called. Now. As for the originality debate, I mentioned that some of the film's creators have insisted that this is not a Star Wars ripoff. One example is the director of the film, Luigi Kotsi. He has said this is not a Star Wars clone. The idea and story concept for Starcrash predates the release of Star Wars. I can believe there may be some truth to this, but based on everything I've read,

Yeah, so yeah, most Star Wars stars shy away from that, but this one just straight up as a lightsaber.

So some Star Wars is coming through. The signal is coming through here. Also, I think it would be hard to deny that the project's ability to receive funding and accelerated production timeline was driven by the success of Star Wars. So I can believe that this movie pre dated Star Wars in its inspiration, and in fact, you can see ways that that might even that might even not go to originality, like you can see ways that earlier movies

Yeah, yeah, I think it's undeniable. But at the same time, yeah, the filmmakers here were likely inspired by some of the same things that inspired George Lucas.

Right, but old cereals Yeah, old.

Cereals, old Flash Gordon, old Harry Housen films. But yeah, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, like Star Wars, the original picture is just was too much of a financial hit and too much of a like a cultural phenomenon not to influence everything that came after and make it even a desirable influence. Like how many people had an idea and then they realized, Hey, producers, they know what's up. They have a feeling. This is

Yeah, you know, one big way I would say this movie differs from Star Wars esthetically is it does not have that core feeling of space being lived in that Star Wars does. You know? This movie does not have the grimy old couch cushions on the Millennium falcon. This is much more like the pristine Flash Gordon space environment. Yeah.

Yeah, they're going for something shinier, even when it kind of strains the budget to make it. So, all right, Well, if you were wondering at this point, where can I watch Star Crash? Luckily for you, it is widely available. Roger Corman's New World Pictures picked this film up and distributed it. As I understand it, this was the same year they distributed Cronenberg's The Brewed by the Way. Shout Factory put out a nice blu ray of the film, and I think they may have put it there's I

I've not seen the riff but I do have the two disc DVD edition, so the older version of the disc that's got all the special features.

I think the time that i'd watched this previously, I watched it with my wife. We watched the MST three K version, and I remembered it being a lot of fun. But you know, but I was watching it in a social scenario and it was riff so I really didn't get to focus in on the authentic weirdness of Star Crash. So this time, yeah, I watched it straight up and it's yeah, it's still, this is a film. I love a great riff on a film like this, but this

I think some of the space battle scenes could benefit from some some enlivening by by commentary. Those kind of dragged on for me a bit. But yeah, any scene, any scene with dialogue and costumes, I don't need anything else.

All right, Well, let's talk a little bit about the folks involved here. We already mentioned Luigi Cootzi, the writer and director born nineteen forty seven, Italian director, probably best known for this film, his two Hercules films, one of which we covered on Weird House Cinema recently. That would be Luf Forigno as the Hulk, and also for his work with Dario Argento.

That's interesting. I was going to compare this film's lighting and color palette to Argento.

Well there you go. I mean there's aception. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. It's tough though, I think in large part like this is just not the sort of cinematic world that Argento ever went after. You know, I don't think he ever did anything. He certainly never did a space opera. Missed opportunity there, but hey, maybe there's time.

Well, I just mean the you know, the unrealistic but a stylish use of gel lights and the kind of rooms and walls that glow with an overwhelming color hue.

Yeah. But I think where it becomes harder for me to see that is just because the sorts of things that are being lit here, Like everything is so artificial in this movie, and Argento was always lighting. I mean, I guess Argento use sets, but always lighting something that at least aspired to be a real world environment, you.

Know, lighting an airport that way or something.

Yeah. So, Cosey's first film was a nineteen sixty nine low budget adaptation of Frederick Pohle's novella of a Tunnel under the World. This apparently got Argento's attention, and he subsequently worked subsequently worked on Argento's nineteen seventy one film Four Flies on Gray Velvet, earned a story credit, and he also worked on Argento's nineteen seventy three action comedy The Five Days, and he directed his own Ghallo film

Now remember if I've seen that one Not only did he direct today's epic Star Wars Star Wars cash In, he also helmed the notorious nineteen eighty alien cash In Contamination.

I've seen part of that one and then I started falling asleep, But I do want to pick it up sometimes again.

I've read that it has some really good exploding people in it. And there is one scene from this movie that is sampled in a very a way that I liked a lot in a Blood Incantation album.

Oh yes, yes, oh yes, yes, I think I've heard that, all right, let's see. Other than that, he also worked in various roles on other Argento projects, and was second assistant director on the notorious Klaskinsky Nosferatu sequel Vampire in Venice. Pretty notorious because it was one of these projects where everybody hated making it and nothing came out as it was supposed to.

But laus Kinsky movie that people didn't have fun.

Now, well I don't think anyone ever really had. I don't want to get too much on m Kinski since he's not even in this film, but yeah, it's pretty it's pretty high up there in horror stories about about filming with him. But yeah, he had a hand in that as well. All right, let's get into the cast here, that that wonderful nineteen seventies cast that we alluded to earlier, starting with Marjo Gordoner, who plays Acton. He has our

But very nice. It is funny that this is He's not the main character. He's not, but he gets top billing.

But his name first, yeahs, as we're about to discuss. I think it's just he was. He was a pretty hot commodity at this point. So he was born in nineteen forty four and just as a truly fascinating individual, certainly as far as like pop cultural figures go, because he was born into the world of Pinnecock hostile evangelism and began preaching at the age of four.

Yeah, so a child prodigy, tent revival preacher.

Yeah, which I've never seen anything like this in action and live or on video, so like, I can't even imagine. I feel like if I'm listening to a preacher, I like somebody with a little bit of world, real world experience, you know, it's kind of like a stand up comedian, you know, you want to connect with the with the like, well, what's a four year old going to say that really connects with an adult audience member. But I mean, I guess, I guess they found a way because there are other

He's like, here's how we scam people out of money.

Here's where we get yeah, yeah, real really reveals the inner workings of the operation. Yeah. So after this he springboarded from evangelism and then you know, certainly the theme that came with this documentary, and he gets into music, he gets into acting. He did some TV work starting in seventy three, and appeared in his first theatrical film, Earthquake in seventy four Let's See and then subsequent credits include some starring vehicles and certainly he's the top build

I've been wanting to watch that.

Always up for Bertie Gordon, and his post Star Crash credits include eighty three's Mausoleum, eighty four's Jungle Warriors, eighty five's Hell Hole, and eighty nine's American Ninja. Three.

Does that one have the guy from Empire of the Dark in it?

Yes, it does. It certainly does I was noting that his last two films are also notable in different ways. On one level, ninety five's Wild Bill seems like the classy way to go out because he has a role as a preacher in that in a very stacked cast that includes Jeff Bridges as wild Bill Hiccock. I haven't seen it. Maybe it's not any good, but on paper it sounds really good. And then he's in nineteen ninety

I'm intrigued.

Yeah, it's a film that I had to double check a couple of times to make sure it was real, because I'm like, am I being a Is this a scam? Is this somebody's joke? The student really exists? This sounds like a joke, but no, it is apparently quite real.

It would be funny to make that up. Yeah. Yeah, oh man, I was gonna say, I'm always intrigued by the presence of Udo Kier, which is funny because I shouldn't be intrigued because he would do anything.

Yeah. Yeah, He's definitely one of those actors that isn't It doesn't matter what the quality of the film is. He's he's going to show up and he's gonna be Mimoss.

Yeah, yes, be in your movie. So I thought it was kind of interesting knowing all this stuff about Marjo Gordoner having a I don't know, this incredible history and being this skilled preacher also sort of a con artist manipulator at least in his early years, and then going through this, you know, like exposing at how everything works and all that, because I would have expected his screen presence to be more interesting and commanding and all that, you know what I mean.

Absolutely, Like I feel like I really owe it to him to see another Marjoe film to glimpse this much touted charisma, because he's just stiff as a board in this picture, like just lifeless, Like, where where is this natural charisma I'm supposed to see here?

Well, one way in which I could make the connection to the life story is if you know what I mean here, he often doesn't feel like he's playing a character. He feels more like he is saying his lines in the way an announcer or a master of ceremonies would say. He feels like a presenter type performer rather than a player of a character. Does that make any sense?

Yes, And you know, I think that goes for just about everyone in the picture. Like pretty much every scene in Star Crash, you could interpret it not as drama, not as narrative, but his ritual, some sort of ritual that must be carried out in order to bring about some sort of event in this world or the next.

Right, They're not playing characters, They're reciting a liturgy.

Yeah, that is how it feels.

Yeah. Okay, So even though he gets top billing, the real main character of this movie is obviously still a star played by Caroline Monroe.

That's right. She is the structural protagonist as much as you can say anything has structure in this film.

But yeah.

Born nineteen forty nine, pin up model an actress who stole many of seventy's film nerds. Hearts with the genre appearances and the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me seventy seven, Maniac in nineteen eighty which we'll come back to, Slaughter High in eighty six. She's in Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad seventy three, Captain Cronos Vampire Hunter seventy four, At the Earth's Core seventy six. She also coming back to other films we've discussed in

Yeah, I think so.

Her horror credits also include, in addition to The Slasher Maniac nineteen eighty eights, The Howl of the Devil starring Paul Nashy. So she's just all over the place.

Yeah, we've talked about How of the Devil on the show before, haven't We didn't do an episode on it.

It's come up just in reciting the list of the different Paul nashi Werewolf films.

I think that one's a little sleazier than I would have fun doing on the show, but it is I don't know. If you've got a strong stomach, it's worth a watch, especially because it's one of these movies where you can feel different creative forces coming to a head. They're like clashing. Obviously, the pitch for this movie is it is a sleazy slasher movie. That's the business pitch. But then Paul Nashi is helming it and he's like, well, I want to do a movie where I get to

Yeah, that sounds like classic Nashi there where it's the Spanish horror world is moving on beyond the gothic horror film, but he's forcing its hand. It's like, we can get just a little more monster mash out of all this. Let's see worth noting here that Monroe was married to musician Judd Hamilton at the time, and it is Judd Hamilton that is apparently in the suit playing the law enforcement robot l not his voice, but he is in the suit. We should also mention that this is one

That is bizarre. I came across that same claim, and I was just thinking, doesn't sound like Candy Clark to me, But I don't know. That's what I read.

Yeah, yeah, so yea, that's what folks say. And as much as I understand it, I think it had to do with scheduling more than anything. Like it was a situation where they just couldn't necessarily get everybody to dub their own lines. All right, well, let's talk about Christopher Plumber here. He plays the emperor, but not that emperor. Even this is a rather different emperor. This is not Palpatine.

This is a Star Wars where the empire is good and the rebels are bad.

It is, really it really is. But yes, this is This is Christopher Plumber, who lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty twenty one. Yeah, Oscar Winner reportedly only took this role in order to get a free trip to Rome. I think that's what he said in subsequent interviews.

But he said he said, I would do Porno if I got to go to Rome to do it. Yeah, I just loved Rome.

Yeah, not to be clearly, Also, he also was paid for this picture. It wasn't just the trip to Rome. And also, I'll say over the decades, decades and decades of work, he was very prolific. He did a lot of different sorts of films, good and bad, and I don't think he always got a trip to Rome out of the bad ones. So he might have been having a fair amount of fun with that statement as well.

Oh yeah, wasn't she in the Prophecy?

She was in the Prophecy, she was in Free Jack.

Yeah, I thought about that.

Yeah, she's one of my favorites. Let's see Christopher Plumber's credits include just to name a few, and really there's just they're way too many to even do justice to his full filmography. But he was in sixty five's The Sound of Music, sixty seven is The Night of the Generals, seventy three's The Picks. If I'm saying that correctly, p y X. This is a horror film of a sort that I haven't seen.

I'll see.

Seventy five's The Man Who Would Be King. I believe he plays Kipling in that. That used to be one of my favorites. I haven't seen it in a long time. Seventy nine's Murdered by Decree nineteen eighties, Somewhere in time. Eighty four's Dreamscape.

Oh, I just had to look that one up to make sure that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah. I just recently watched that one within the past year with Dennis Quaid, and it's like, it's a dream Warriors type movie with Dennis Quaid and it's got Christopher Plumber.

And yeah, the bad guy from the Warriors turns into a snake.

Yeah, yeah, nice.

Yeah, So let's see. Oh, he was a Plumber was in eighty eighth Vampire in Venice. He was in ninety one Star Trek the Undiscovered Country, ninety Four's Wolf, ninety five to Twelve Monkeys, Dracula two thousand, two thousand and five, Syriana two thousand and nine, s Up, twenty seventeen's All the Money in the World, in twenty nineteen's Knives Out.

In it's inappropriate. The level of great that he brings this to this performance is inappropriate and thus goes full circle and becomes hilarious. It is.

I mean, it's mesmerizing because you're like, man, what a pro. What a pro? He knew, he knows that he's delivering this monologue as a hologram standing in front of some shoddy wooden stairs that have been painted like they're part of his spaceship, but he's still giving it his absolute all.

It's kind of like if Subway started offering like a caviar sandwich or something just like it doesn't fit, doesn't fit with the rest of the menu, and thus it seems absurd, even though I'm sure you know, caviar probably tastes good, but like people would be like, why is this here, what's the deal? What's going on? Yeah?

Yeah, So we'll have more to say about his performance as we proceed. But let's see. The Emperor has a sign in this film. His name is Prince Simon, and as you would expect, the son of Christopher. Plummer's character is played by David Hasselhoff born nineteen fifty two.

Future star of bay Watch and night Rider. He had done neither one at this point.

Right right, those would those would come later? Yeah, night Rider was eighty two, three eighty six. Bay Watch was eighty nine three, two thousand and three. But also don't don't count out bay Watch nights ninety five through ninety seven.

Oh, I don't know, don't know, bewatching.

Oh that's when his character was like fighting mummies and serial killers and whatnot.

Yeah, are you kidding? No?

No, for real, I mean I don't know how supernatural it got. I think I only ever watched one episode, but it's like basically, yeah, bay Watch at night with like Kolchak the Nightstalker sort of sensibilities some degree. I don't want to oversell it and get people excited about something that's not going to deliver.

You're getting me excited. I got to find out what to deal with this is. But yeah, so at this point I think he had mainly done He had done TV soap operas and stuff, like he'd been on The Young and the Restless.

Yeah, this was only his second film role, following seventy six is Revenge of the Cheerleaders, and it would be his last theatrical picture until eighty eight Strong Times and a movie called Witchberry that came out the same year.

He has voluminous hair, and it is not not really projecting like he's in the scenes that he's in. He always comes off as like the smallest person in them, just in terms not physically, but in terms of presence, like everybody else is kind of taking up more dramatic space than he is. Yeah.

I found him to just feel wooden and afraid, which is not what we come to expect from the Hoff. But again, this is very this is very early days. And again this this picture is nobody's finest outing from an acting standpoint, so I think all can.

Be a forgiven.

I also read that he apparently had food poisoning, and it's one of the reasons that when we first meet him he is wearing an enormous golden mask because he's not physically there on set or something.

Oh, that would make sense, Yeah, the Zarda's mask.

Yeah, all right. We have a character by the name of Chief Thor, and it's going to be a real roller coaster of allegiances with the Chief Thor. But he is played by a character actor by the name of and I hope I'm saying it correctly, Robert to say, or Robert Tessier. I'm not sure which is preferred here,

He naturally has Popeye's face, he does.

Yeah, yeah, rugged, muscular bad dude. I believe he was a vet from the Armed Forces.

Always perpetual squinting, angry appearance.

Yeah, oh man. And then let's talk about our villain. This is Count zarth Arn. Am I am I saying it correctly? That's a mouthful.

Are you mocking the Count Count ar Arn?

What does the stress? Is it zarth Ron or zarth Ron?

You hear it both ways in the movie, Yeah, the different characters. Sometimes the same character says it different ways. Did you like how this guy says his own name a lot? He likes to shout his own name, either in victory or in defiance. He just says Zarthorn.

Yes, there's a great deal of shouting from Count Zarthorn, played by the Great Joe Spinel of nineteen thirty six through nineteen eighty nine. A true legend of seventies cinema, from its glorious heights to its grimy middle depths. Spinell's credits include roles in the first two Godfather films, the first two Rocky films, and in all four of those pictures playing underworld figures.

It's easy to forget that in the first couple of Rocky movies Rocky is a mob enforcer. There's like a loan shark played by Joe Spinell, and Rocky has to go out and threaten people or beat them up to get this guy's money.

Yeah, and Spinell is, you know, great in these sorts of roles. But he didn't just play criminals. He also played cops in law enforcement figures, generally of the more like morally corrupt variety, and so he pops up in films like seventy six is Taxi Driver, nineteen eighties Cruising. He also pops up in such legendary weird fair as nineteen eighties The Ninth Configuration, which has a you know, an extended weird cast, and then also the Forbidden World.

Wonder how often people end up watching Maniac in elementary school gosh, I hope not educational value.

So I have to say, like Spinel obviously a great character actor, certainly when it came to playing textured creeps and heavies, particularly when his native New York was the but really he's completely miscast here as a space tyrant. He just comes off as just completely ridiculous, like a like a vampire penguin the entire film, like a ponche Salvador.

Yeah, the red velvet cape. I mean, bravo to every moment he's in this movie. He's not acting, he's just kind of snarling and yelling. And as we've said, it's not his voice, whoever's or I don't know if it is his voice, but it's certainly not live sound for his scenes. Yeah, and just it's amazing. Every Czar Thorn scene is just delicious.

Yeah, his outfits kind of form fitting in a weird way. And this is another case though, where it's interesting how his character does kind of forecast what we'd eventually get in Star Wars, particularly with Count Dooku. He's based Tyrant with Dracula esque flourishes, but of course Star Wars actually just cast Dracula himself Christopher Lee. It's hard to argue that Spinell is really ideal casting for this sort of character. But again, it's glorious to watch, so we can't really complain.

Yes, many rounds of applause of Joe Spinell.

Here, all right, Getting into some of the supporting cast. Here we have Nadia Cassini playing Queen Karelia. This is the Queen of the Amazons. We go to a few we go on a few different good planets here, you know, we go to an ice planet, we go to an Amazonian planet, we go to a caveman planet. You know,

You're a Lebowski I'm a Labowski.

Let's see the other There's a whole group of Amazonian women, you know, scantily clad and as you would expect from this picture. And the actresses involved here include a number of actresses actresses who feature into various exploitation and erotic Italian films of the era. Just to mention a couple of them in passing, we have Cindy Ledbetter born nineteen fifty five, American models turned actress whose credits include eighty one's Absurd, which we talk about on the show before.

You might remember she George eastman Halloween ripoff. Actually yes, yeah, yeah, very much so. She's the blonde.

I think she's a babysitter and georgie'sman kills her with a pick axe through the top of the head.

Oh okay, wait is okay? I recall her death scene? Taking a really long time? Am I thinking of the right person? Okay?

I included a still in our outlines to remind you.

Oh thank you?

Yes, so yes, she was in that one. She was also in eighty five's The Adventures of Hercules, though I don't clearly remember her from that. She was one of the one of the other ladies in that film, and then she's also in eighty four's Rats Night of Terror.

Ah, I got the blu ray of that. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I'm I'm excited to make it to that one.

I hear great bad things about it. I did find it amusing that her first credited screen role is not an unnamed character. It is Cannibal Girl in Mental Institution from Joe Tomato's Immanuel and the Last Cannibals from nineteen seventy seven. She was active as an actress to around eighty five, and then popped up again in two thousand

Darkness Erotic Knights of the Living Dead.

Yeah, so if your film viewing includes some very questionable choices, then you may have seen her before as well. We mentioned l the Robot, The Wonderful Robot. I can't waste Southern C three po that we have here. Hamilton Camp provides the voice. We've talked about Hamilton Camp before because he came up in our episode on the nineteen eighty

Oh I'll have to check that out. You know. One thing I thought was interesting about the crediting here is that we actually get named like you get a named voice credit and a different named physical credit for the character El the Robot. But there are clearly lots of other characters who are voiced by someone dubbed by someone different than appears on screen, and we don't get that other person credited.

Yeah.

I don't know what makes the difference here. Maybe it's that Hamilton Camp. I don't know. Maybe the plan was to do that from the beginning.

Yeah, I'm also not sure on the full production history here. I guess it's entirely likely that some of these dubs might have happened after it had been picked up for distribution in the US, and someone else may have been brought in this sort of thing. Yeah, I'll mention just in passing that Salvatore Baccaro, who lived nineteen thirty two through nineteen eighty four, pops up as one of our Neanderthal men on the Caveman Planet. He mentioned him in

I didn't listen to any of this in isolation, so I'm gonna have to look this up after we record.

Yeah, it's really good stuff. And I read somewhere I don't know if this is true that there was legitimate concern that if Barry saw footage of the film that he was going to be scoring, he might quit and they might not get the score. Because I think they realized that, hey, we've landed, We've landed a great score for this, no matter how it turns out, we're really, you know, punching above our weight here.

Well, I mean, I think one thing that they must have correctly deduced was how important the music is to the success of a film like this. I'm not going to say that Star Wars is no good without its John Williams score, but I think it would be hard to argue that the John Williams score is not a significant part of the effect and feeling created by the movie, like a big part of what makes it work.

Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I should also mention that we previously discussed John Barry because he did the score for Disney's The Black Hole, which is, of course, in its own way, an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars, to do it the Disney way, And of course, in time Star Wars would become the Disney way because Disney would purchase Star Wars.

There you go.

Everything is the Disney way now if.

You can't beat them by them, Yeah, all right, are you ready to talk about the plot.

Oh yes, let's get into the plot.

Okay. Like so so many other movies of this type, this one opens on a starfield with this empty howling sound. One thing I like about the space imagery in this movie is that it is not just black space with white points of light. It's a very spicy, colorful galaxy with stars and all these different colors like blue, orange, yellow, pink,

I love how colorful space is in Star Crashing again, not the dark void of so many sci fi visions, but more of a psychedelic spell jammer sort of cosmos. You see a similar thing in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. You know, they make a conscious effort to make space exciting and colorful and dynamic and not empty and dark.

And I don't want to suggest that's the right choice for every movie. I mean, like an alien space should be empty and dark.

Yeah, it would be a weird and maybe ineffective alien movie if the cosmos was psychedelic. It needs to be.

Dark, pretty and sparkling. And then after this we are treated to a low budget attempt to copy the iconic opening shot of Star Wars where Princess Leah's Blockade Runner flies overhead and then the Star Destroyer comes overhead close behind.

Yeah, no shame, everybody was doing it so a lot.

We've seen other movies that did the same thing. Here we get a kind of combination. So it is a single ship which appears to be huge like the Star Destroyer and glides over the top of the camera lens like the Star Destroyer, but it is shaped more like the Blockade Runner, and as it goes by we get close ups of its many intricate greebowles and outer textures. I see all kinds of little consumer plastics glued to the outside of this thing and spray painted white. Rob.

I do. I generally do little soldiers and like little people, but occasionally I'll do I have done some star wars, like tanks and vehicles.

Before I bring this up because I wondered what you thought about this. I saw what I thought were a lot of I don't know what you call this, but the plastic stuff around the pieces of a little plastic miniature kit that you build. So if you're building a little airplane kit, you'll get a lot of different pieces held in place by these little plastic bars and you chose yeah, yeah, yeah, So I don't know what you call that, You know, that plastic lattice or square that

Yeah, that would be the spruce and and yeah, I mean that otherwise those things just go in the garbage. Make a spaceship out of it.

Yeah, exactly looks like pipes if you put it on that. Yeah.

Yeah, I have to say the ships. There are a lot of caveats to the statement but the ships look pretty good.

Yeah, medium good, I think, Yeah.

Yeah, considering this is low budget, we've seen worse. We've seen better, but we've seen worse.

There's a name on this ship, which it's It's called the Murray Leinster. That never comes up again.

Yeah. When I saw that, I was like, are we in the credits again? Are they adding inventive? Are they ahead of their time with how they're they're name dropping an executive producer or something?

But are we later going to hear Christopher Plummer saying we have lost contact with the Leinster?

Never comes up?

Never?

Never, that's the name of the Maybe it's the name of the guy who built the ship. I don't know. Good model work, but yeah, I'll say the ships look pretty good. However, I think their exact form is often a bit too convoluted for me to really form an impression. Like I just it's just kind of confusing, and I certainly have a hard time telling one from the other.

Yes. Yeah, as I said earlier, I think the space battles there, there are problems with them, and one of them is a lack of differentiation, a lack of focus. It's just stuff happening. Yeah. So anyway, we cut inside the Murray Leinster now where crew members are waddling around in maroon leather uniforms of these shoulder pads and cod pieces,

Yeah, Yeah, there's the head shape combined with the helmet shape for sure. And you know, I don't know if there's a direct connection here. It would not surprise me if the Futurama folks were Starcrash fans. But I'm also glad that you brought up the cod pieces. This movie really really loves a good cod piece. Pretty Much every costume in the film is some sort of a cod piece on the outside, thong on the outside or chastity belt on the outside of the garment. Yes, it's just everywhere.

I feel bad for everybody on screen because almost all of them have like some kind of rigid thong tight thong over their pants. It's the galay, you know, the denizens of the wedgy galaxy. It looks like not fun, not fully aware anyway. So there there is one practical effect I like in this early scene on the spaceship, which is that instead of getting in and out of elevators like kirkans Bach are always doing, this ship has

It is really impressive visually, but it's it's also kind of a it's kind of like a first date thing in this film, Like, are we going to be treated with this level of class and sophistication in every scene? No, no, not really, but it's pretty cool here.

So anyway, on the bridge, we got a couple of these robot oil suns chatting. One of them says, and nearly all of these line deliveries are pretty weird in one way or another. One of them says, what is it like the planet we're approaching? The other one says, nothing but ice and snow, a barren desert of whiteness. And then another one says, scan it with our computer waves. The enemy's weapons may be hidden beneath its surface. And then now we see outside and the rockade Blunner here

Are you talking about the red monsters? Yeah, because they will keep referring back to this as the red monsters, And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa what redds. Oh, they're talking about the globs. They're talking about the lava lamp globs.

Okay, At some point I was thinking, we're going to see monts. We'll see what they see, We'll see the monster. We never do. It's some kind of psychic attack. All of the helmet dudes, the robot oil sons grab their helmets and they start groaning, while the interior cabins fill up with these red spots of light that zip around in the air. They look like red lens flares.

Yeah, it is highly variable depending on who you are and what your character is, depending on how this will affect you, Like when Carolyn Monroe's character is hit by it later, it's almost like an orgasm. Migraine seems to be the overall effect.

She goes, ah, my head. And so anyway, the soldiers here they collapse, presumably they die, and then we watch the ship's escape pods, which looks slightly like paper airplanes. They fire off one by one. Then the ship explodes, and then we cut to the credits where Marjo gets top billing before Carolyn Monroe. Again, I call foul on that that doesn't make sense to me that we get the title. I like the title styling. It's really good.

I wanted to see more of it, but they just rush it off the screen. They're like, we haven't got time for this. This is star Crash. You read the title on the poster, did.

You notice how after the credits. The credits and music cut off very abruptly. We're getting it's like the music doesn't finish the phrase it's in. It's in the middle of something happening in the song, and then it's just enough of that, you know, trying to watch some triangles zooming around. Yeah, so we fall in with a second spaceship. This one is shaped like a tortilla chip. It's a big flat triangle, and inside at the helm we meet Marjo Gordoner is acton and Carolyn Monroe as still a star.

Oh yeah, the hair game in this film is it is pretty intense. Everybody's hair is a definite choice, whether it's slicked back with grease or poofed out to almost supernatural levels of poofiness.

Yeah. So Marjo is this handsome, kind of sun baked guy in his thirties. He got this big crown of curly blonde hair, and like I said earlier, he has a very stagy, live showbiz delivery style. Again, not really playing a character so much as projecting his lines like a somebody who's giving announcements or owning a stage, maybe like a magician. And Carolyn Monroe is very sparkly hammer glamour. And let's see, I had some notes here about the

Yeah, and again this was common practice. Like we were talking about Hercules and the Haunted World, like they had Christopher Lee of all people in that, and they just use somebody else to dub his voice for the English version. They're like, we already paid for Christopher Lee once. We're not going to pay for ripped twice just so he can use his voice.

Crazy, Yeah, I remember Christopher Lely seemed very underused in that. Yeah. Anyway, so we got Stella and Acton. They're flying through space and they find themselves being pursued by space cops. Acton pulls them up on the view screen and then they see the bald green head of Robert Tessier and this guy says, as Thor, chief of the Imperial Police, I order you to surrender at once. Oh, since he's asking as Thor, I guess we've got to get it. And

Yeah. Like it's almost like they had this robot design and they were gonna use it for a villain and they're like, now, let's just use it for the good guy. It doesn't matter. And yeah, so he looks like you should be more of a force to be reckoned with than he actually is, at least in the black hole. The robot with the Southern voice. I think Slim Dickens did the voice of the Southern robot in that at least he looks like comic relief.

Yeah. L. So this robot comes on the TV and says Stella you cheap smuggler and police robot l you have the right to remain silent some kind of southern sheriff.

I mean, he's great, but so much of his dialogue specifically is like, like, Stella, we have to go over here and push this button now so we can still up the bad guys. Like there's a lot of like almost overt narration about what is going on and why, but it it becomes transcendent and becomes to feel it to feel like like ritual.

Yeah, so you know, we so the cops come on the TV and then Stella says, in a sudden and jarringly rough bit of dubbing, go for hyperspace, So you know, the tortilla chip whips around and then it squirts them out into some kind of grainy crimson video. Realm, this is what happens with hyperspace in the movie. It it suddenly cuts to something happening on video with like huge pixel.

Textah, just hard to watch, legitimately hard to stare at.

Stella says. Then, in a strangely folksy voice, she says, let's hope this Starbuggy stays together. What's our chances? Acton says forty percent total disintegration, thirty percent molecular ignition, twenty percent gamma contamination. Now you mention earlier Rob the idea that even though this was in some sense derived from Star Wars, you could see other ways that it would prophesy future developments in Star Wars. I thought this one was interesting because see three Po talks like this in

That's an interesting observation. So he hadn't he in the original Star Wars. He's less of a doomsayer in Negative Nelly.

Well, he's Negative Nelly, But I don't recall him citing the odds of surviving a dangerous situation like he does repeatedly and Empire strikes back. That's an Empire innovation from at least from what I recall. So you know, it feels like an element stolen from Star Wars. But actually I think it's just coincidence Star Wars started doing something like this years later. Yeah, so they fiddle with some knobs and then they squirt back out of hyperspace. But oh,

Yeah, everything in this film so far has been a spaceship.

Yeah, what do you normally see floating in space? So Stella puts on a space suit that consists of a body shaped dry leaning bag and then a helmet that looks like a transparent plastic toilet, and space walks out to the derelict ship and finds an unconscious guy on board. They bring the survivor back to their ship, where Acton tells Stella he keeps talking about monsters, red monsters, and they're both just standing there beside him. I guess Acton

What is he? Do not know? They never bother to really establish it, but we see a lot of evidence later to support the idea that he's maybe some sort of an energy being. But yeah, you'd think that if that were the case, they would actually tell us what and why, And we never get that. Because you can manipulate light, he eventually turns into light. I don't know what he is.

So Acton tells her that the man wants them to alert someone immediately. He wants them to call the emperor of the first circle of the universe. How many circles are there?

Three? Four?

Oh? Okay, but yeah, how do you alert the emperors? You have like a one eight hundred number you can call?

Yeah, I mean weird that you can go right to the top. It seems like you have. There would be at least a go between for the random space jumpers to connect with instead of just speaking correctly to the emperor.

So before they can figure out what to do, they are hailed once again on the viewscreen by Thor and l. So they've been caught again, and this time they're surrounded. Acton tells Stella, don't worry, we'll get out of this. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy, it is time to meet our villains. So we pan over a giant spaceship that is shaped like a hand with a big boxy palm, four fingers and a thumb, each with pointed triangle claws at the

Yeah, and if this were not too much already, we'll see later that it can form a fist or a rough fist like those fingers mooth. Clearly the dark Lord insisted that this be part of it, right.

It clinches when the ship's about to do something really mean. So inside the ship we get a view of the bridge. Rob how would you describe this bridge?

Well, it literally has a bridge. It has like a catwalk. Catwalk of course, always a great addition to any sort of sci fi action set, especially if you have some dedicated stump men that are willing to take a dive over the edge of set railing.

Yeah, I would call this kind of spike chic. There are just spikes everywhere. Why so many spikes? And people here are absolutely worring Planet of the Vampire's costumes but dopey versions. Yeah. They look like a cross between Planet of the Vampires and people from House Frey.

Yeah, and it is. It is also a film like this is a great way to remind ourselves just how good Planet the Vampires is, at least how great it looks and sounds when you see it done. You know, not at the same level.

So one of these officers on the bridge comes up to the Boss and says, they found one damned survivor. This guy is el Rick. He is a tooth grinding little toady.

Elmric spicy. He's a little spicy.

Yeah, he looks he looks mad all the time. He's like But the Boss is again, just the wonderful, extraordinary villain of this film, Count zarth Arn obviously our Darth Vader. You know, Zarreth Darth. It's not hard to see. But since they decided to use the Darth Vader helmet already on a goofy cop droid from Alabama. They have to we got to do something else for the actual Darth

Yes, yeah, I mean, on one level, it makes sense you've cast Joe Spinel in this role. Why wouldn't you want to look at him? Like he's very captivating face, a very expressive face. As is he the right casting? I would argu know, But if you've cast him, you've already committed to it. Don't put a mask over him. Yeah, let's absolutely see him.

Agree. So Elrick says that the Imperial Navy has located one of the escape pods and that there is a but quote, his brain seems thoroughly damaged, so you know, they think there's little risk of the stolen ship being found. And Zarthorn reacts to this news by walking a few paces over and saying in a growley voice, come to me, golams. Ah, so, golams. That's an interesting mythology edition. Here is this gonna be like the golam of progue? Not at all. These golams

Yeah, and these are absolutely the ones that look a bit like what we would eventually see whether our b One battle droids in the Phantom Menace.

They do look like that. But you know what they also look like is the mad scientist from the Nightmare before Christmas.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

Yeah yeah, little the duck lips and the big head. Yeah. So Zarthorne says, I have a simple task for you. You must not fail me. We're gonna find out later what the task is. So next we cut to a trial. I just wanted to mention this. A Stella Star and Acton are tried for their crimes, which are smuggling. I

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's some things similar to this elsewhere in like comic books and all. But I have a feeling you're dead on here.

Yeah, I mean, the colors are so similar, and the tentacles on the head and all that.

Anyway, it's amazing how weird this character is, to the extent we can call it character. This moment is in the film, but you almost completely forget about it in the wake of everything that's to come and all. Just like again, the absurd dialogue choices.

Goes through the shredder of the mind within minutes after you've seen it. So Acton and Stella get assigned life sentences of you know, they're sentto forced labor on different planets, and it sounds it sounds like he says Stella is going to have to go to Pino colony on Nocturne the second, like Pino noir Gratio.

I think she also misunderstood them because she is not dressed for a penal colony, not at all.

So we cut straight to Stella star already at her prison camp. The vibe at this place, you know, it's your standard dilithium minds of Ruapenthe and the prisoners have to carry big translucent beach balls that the warden identifies as radium up onto a platform and then they dump the balls into a steamy hole. And so Stella has changed into her radioactive prison labor outfit here, which is a black leather bikini with high heeled boots, like thigh

Yeah, but she's dressed up here and it's weird. She will actually find ways to dress down further and wear less clothes later in the film without actually being naked.

Yeah. So the guards call for a brief rest here, Stella starts complaining to her fellow prisoners. She says, I've been at this twelve hours. The radiation will burn my skin off, and it's like, yeah, they know, dude, Like, I think they've been here longer than you have. Why are you complaining at them? But so one of the other guys, he doesn't react like that. He just says, you'd better work if you don't want to taste the

Just takes a beat line for the exit, and it's like, it's every humanoid for themselves here.

Yeah, and then the prison explodes I think something.

Yeah, or the plant. I don't know how. Yeah, the scale of this explosion is uncertain.

That's not the planet yet, because she goes she's out in a wheat field.

That's right, she gets into the wheat field.

So we soon learned that this prison break was absolutely pointless because while Stella is out running around in some fields with tall grass, a ship lands. I think maybe it's her old spaceship. Maybe I'm not.

Possibly again, hard to tell. The spaceship's apart in this film.

It lands, she goes inside. There's a nice looking shot here with some of that jallo lighting where she comes down a long hall holding a holding a rifle with this hot pink background.

Oh are you talking about the rifle ray, the rifle ray.

Yes, yeah, the rifle ray. And she goes into the ship and then meets none other than the two space cops who caught her in the first place. So again you've got Thor, the bald snarling man with the green skin, and l the country fried robot cop. So they revealed that she has been granted a pardon the way Elle says it is quote, your sentence has been canceled. Then Stella says, have you both gone? Mad Elle says, I only have logic and emotion circuits, no room for craziness. Well,

Wow. So everything we've seen from these two thus far is just completely unnecessary.

Yeah, the whole gang's back together now, so and it's the four of them. It is stell Star, Acton L and Thor and they have to go rendezvous with the Imperial flagship to get their orders. The Imperial flagship looks kind of like a giant gold turtle with a lot of spikes on its back. And when they're approaching, El says, Acton, you are ready to You are going to meet some

It must be, And this is going to be the scene where the Emperor's hologram manifests in front of some terrible looking stairs, Like of all the things you could have shot him against or had the hologram up here in front of. Why, there's a lot of stuff that looks better on the sets. The sets of this film are generally pretty interesting. Why these stairs, I don't know.

Why is it a hologram at all? I wonder if it's trying to do the help me Obi wan Kenobi, You're my only hope thing with the hologram there, But I don't know. So this is the Emperor, the good Emperor. He suddenly appears and then el points behind all the crew and he says, he's here. It's his hole, low graphic image.

There he is, and he is dressed and again what just looks like a full body golden chastity belt.

God. Yeah, yeah, words fail me. So I'm just going to read the Emperor's monologue here. This is where he gives them their assignment. Emperor says, I come to you, because because my faithful robot l has told me that you are the only one who could save us. You know, you must be the best pilot in the whole galaxy. And then I was thinking, oh, she's a pilot.

Yes, have we seen anything about it? I mean, they were both tweaking knobs, so I didn't know. I thought they were both the pilot.

It seemed like Acton was flying the ship earlier. I don't know. But he says, you're the best pilot in the galaxy, and you act on the best navigator Stella. Our galaxy is split into two warring factions, our own and the one ruled by the evil Count zarth Arn from the League of the Dark Worlds. Then I thought, which faction was it that sentenced her to the prison planet. I think it was his faction, the good Guys. Yes, yeah, the good Guys. Okay, Then he and then he goes

Star Wars would eventually kind of get back to this idea, wouldn't they in the sequel trilogy.

Yeah, you need it, that's right, You need a whole planet to conceal the weapon. So yeah, So this is the backstory the ship that got attacked in the prologue by the red Lava Lamp, which again that's what everybody keeps calling it the red monsters, but we just see the red lights floating around and people of course clutching

That I was programmed to feel nervous during hyperspace. I don't know. It seems like a program in error to me.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. What's the point of that? He just gets nervous about a lot of things, and then later denies getting nervous about other things. And so they go to the planet Eurefus Stella and L take the shuttle down to the surface while Acton and Thor stay aboard the main ship. While flying down over the ocean to the landing area, L keeps complaining again full of anxieties. He says, don't you think we're flying a little too low? I haven't been programmed to walk on water. Ooh me,

I to have to add real quick here that this is one of the many we were not all just we don't spend all of our time in spaceships, we of course do have these wonderful locations. They make some great use of Italian locations for the film as well, including these beachside cliffs.

Yeah. So the Amazons take Stella and l back to their layer, which just looks the same as all the other spaceship interiors. For some reason, while they're walking to meet the queen, they whip out laser guns. They say, die robot, and they blast l Why did they do that?

They don't like robots, I guess. Okay, Amazonians and robots. It's a very old feud that you can wrap up anytime.

Soon, Taylor's oldest time. So yeah, Stella tries to fight them, but she's surrounded at gunpoint and they overpower her, and then they take her to the Amazon Queen Corelia. When they go to meet the queen, it turns out Queen Karelia uh Oh is loyal to Count Zartharn. That's a mistake, so she accuses Stella of being a spy and then taunts her, saying, even if you're a very talented spy,

Like no, not the mind probe, but.

No minds will be probed. We don't get to find out what that is because before we can get there, l the robot appears again, points a ray gun at the Amazon queen and forces them to hand over Stella. So it turns out he was not dead. He says to Karelia, give me any trouble, and I'm going to clean out your sinus. Is real, good, lady. Strangely evocative threat and not really in keeping with the tone of the rest of the script.

But also the weird threat like no, not my cloud sinuses.

Together, Elle and Stella escape the palace. This requires a very dramatic blasting of a door that won't open, and then they make it back out on the beach where they landed. But now they have to contend with a new threat. Queen Corelia talks to a TV screen and says, Guardian, take my revenge, kill them. The Guardian here is a giant, silver stop motion automaton clearly inspired by the Tallows monster created by Ray Harryhausen for the nineteen sixty three Jason

It does have brass and nipples.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so got lot of different things going on. I'm not sure exactly what the main inspiration is here, but like the forearms in the hands are more just Wizard of Oz tin Man. Anyway, Stella and Elle have to hide from and hold off the giant Guardian until Acton arrives in the ship and blasts it with a laser. That solves a problem.

I have to say this stop motion Guardian so hilarious because it is this effect is barely working. I mean, I love even bad stop motion is great stop motion. I still love it.

But I like the Golams later.

Yeah, yeah, the Gollams look better later. But this thing looks like it's just about to fall over at any moment. It feels so ineffective.

Well, I mean, I think a big problem with this scene is it felt to me like they did not have the space or the ability to record the full range of motions that would be required to stage out the scene. So you just get kind of close ups of a moving hand suggesting that it is swiping at the characters on the ground or something like. You don't see it all interacting.

Yeah, I mean again, it's another case where we can look at it done less effectively and realize just how great Harry Housen was at what he did, not only in bringing this full range of movement to stop motion creatures, but integrating that with human action and making it feel like everything's part of the same world. It's hard to do and so you're not going to see it done that effectively all the time.

So everybody leaves in the ship, and then there is a brief space battle where they have to fight off some of the Amazon space fighters. As I've said earlier, you know, I love Star Crash. But I think the space battles are just not where it's at in this movie. They are consistently the most boring part of the film. A lot of close ups of people saying fire go to max power, and then you have these model spaceships whizzing around randomly and shooting lasers. It's like they're not

And they're also really jarring. So yeah, so it's actually I found it difficult to tune them out, like I'm not invested, and I also cannot think of anything else what that's happening.

Yeah, fair enough, Yeah, all right, so our heroes move on. They win the space battle, of course, you know, they win, and they go onto the cold planet. So they're gonna have to check out the escape pod on a planet covered with ice and snow where the temperature drops were told by thousands of degrees at night. That's that's for real. So once again, Stella and l the Robot have to go check out the crash site while Acton and thor stay aboard the ship. They get to the crash site,

Yeah, and also, I guess the rest of the film is like it doesn't really feel that bad either, Like it doesn't feel that hopeless, Like the film is not really creating that sense of doom and gloom. We're just being told that it is the case.

Yeah. Meanwhile, back on the ship, Acton amuses himself with these little laser lassos in his hands. Know what that was?

No, But again, this is a great example of like, I guess he has power over light or laser energy, or is made out of light or laser energy. I don't know. It's just goofy and weird but kind of cool to watch. I just have no idea what it's supposed to mean.

We're about to reveal a double agent. So while Acton is talking to the ship's computer, I don't think this comes up really after this part of the movie. Again, do they talk to the ship's computer later in the film.

It's no, but it's like a big brain. It's like a big glowing brain. I like, gotcha, yeah, yeah, it almost looks organic.

So he's talking to the ship while this is happening, Thor, the space cop this sneaks up behind Acton and knocks him unconscious, then places a video call to his boss, counts ar Thorn. So Thor tells Arthorn that he has killed the alien pathfinder. And then I was like, oh, Acton's an alien? Or from whose point of view? I guess maybe everybody's an alien.

I feel like they should have established him as an alien pathfinder earlier on. You would have been more interesting from the get go.

Count Zarthorn is very pleased, and so the plan from here is they're gonna lock Stella Star outside and let the cold kill her. But Thor tries to take off and leave without Stella and l and the ship announces a malfunction so it can't leave. And then when Ella not Ella, when Ell and Stella find out what happened that. Elle says thor a trader, I cannot believe it. I cannot trust my own logic circuits anymore. But anyway, Elle has an idea that might save Stella from freezing to death.

I you know, the answer may be out there somewhere. But I kind of wondered if Christopher Plummer did a rewrite of his own lines, because I feel like his little.

Monologues they're not great either.

They're not great, but they feel a little more cohesive and a little less stupid than everything else in the picture.

He doesn't talk about that quality must be best. Yes, uh so anyway, oh El also says in the scene, I like this. He says, now, maybe is a good time to use your ancient system of prayer and hope it works for robots as well. So I don't know whether she prays or not, but she freezes solid and turns into an ice crusted mannequin.

Yeah, real Monroe sickle here.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, Thor is busy getting chewed out from Zarthorn, or chewed out by Zarthorn for having not arrived yet, and Acton wakes up so he was not dead after all. This goes into a fight scene. You know, they tangle and tray blows. At one point, Thor is trying to crush Acton inside this big sculpture that has some sort of retracting drawer. I don't even know what this is. But Acton uses his eye sparkle powers.

Quick thought about deadly rays when we were talking about the prison break sequence earlier, and there's a lot of gun fire, a lot of laser fire in that. I did really like the practical effects of the laser beams hitting people in tremendous sparks flying off of the person. It made the Sometimes in films like this, the ray guns can feel very neutered and fake, but this film at least succeeds in making them feel dangerous.

Other times, though, people get shot with them and they just kind of disappear or something.

Yeah, I guess it depends on your setting, right, are you set to disintegrate or mangle or sparkle?

What are Acton's powers and where do they come from? What is the source of his power? Yeah?

They never tell us, but I assent like, Okay, he's some sort of an alien. He is a pathfinder. He's got to be an energy being. He's some sort of energy being, and they just feel like this is one of the rare things that they're going to show rather than tell everything else, They're happy to keep telling us about it.

So there's this whole sequence where they bring the frozen Stella Star the mannequin back on board and they warm her up. We learn that she may survive if you warn her, warm her slowly, else.

Give her the reverse werewolf warming. Yeah, it's what they do.

Yeah, And then Acton he shoots rainbow beams out of his hands and this warms her up. And then after Stella wakes up, there is what I thought was a really weird development. Acton reveals that the ship doesn't actually have a malfunction at all. The reason Thor couldn't get it to take off is because Acton removed a key component from the engine. Stella deduces from this that Acton knew about Thor's treachery in advance. But then instead of asking, like,

I love it.

I love the last we hear about that.

Yeah, this is this. They've set it up like this is some huge revelation that's going to really play into the rest of the plot, and it doesn't. It's just like, oh, yeah, by the way, he can see the future. He just didn't tell you because it would be wrong for you to act on it. It would be against the law, be illegal, like.

They might send us to a prison planet.

Yeah, suddenly these smugglers are very concerned with breaking the law. I don't know. You don't want the Time cops on your back. It's different when the Time cops come after you.

That's a good point. So but Stella really takes this in stride. She just kind of shakes it off. They go onto the next thing. So they're going to go to the third escape pod planet, this time on a barren waste land called de Mundia. So while approaching d Mundia, everything starts malfunctioning. We see red monsters. Remember again that's the lava lamp and the red lights everywhere. Elle says, my circuits are failing. I'm out of control. I'm out

I would think, so.

Yeah. So they go down to the planet's surface and they find the ship down to the bottom of a big crater. This is where we start seeing somebody in a gold Zardas mask following them, and Stella says she's going to go investigate the crater. L goes instead, and then there is a troglodyte ambush. So yeah, they're attacked by cave men.

Yeah, it's it's really kind of hilarious the visions for these different planets and granted their budget constraints in place. But let's see we have amazonium planet, snow planet, and now caveman planet. Right makes sense?

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So the cavemen have big stone axes other paleolithic tools they smash el to pieces like see three po in the Tuscan Raiders. So these are you know, I think they're Tuscan Raiders or yeah, And they carry Stella back to their cave. I think the planet is they're going to eat her. That this camp suggests cannibalism.

Yeah, they have her hanging from the ceiling in a way that suggests she's meat now.

Yeah, okay, so they're going to eat her later and then they just I guess it's time now, so they're going to come cut her throat and drain her blood. But Stella is rescued at the last second by the stranger in the Zarda's mask. So the mask shoots lasers out of its eyes and drives the trogolodites away. When Stella and the stranger get to safety, the stranger takes off the mask and reveals it's David Hasselhoff. There he is, and when I wanted to note when he takes this

I mean it's a big helmet. I think there's a lot of room in there that allows the hair to be free.

So we learn that this is Simon, the only survivor of the wreck of the Imperial mission ship, the one sent to search for Zarthorne's weapon planet. They share information about what they've been through and then they try to leave the cave, but they get jumped by cavemen. They put up a good fight, but they're outnumbered, and then rescue comes in the form of who is he going to be? Who's going to rescue them? Who keeps rescuing it? But everybody every time it's Acton. But this time he

It is It is an interesting experience having watched so many grimy Italian and Spanish films from this era that you keep expecting things to take grimier turns than they do. But at the end of the day, like, this is a very PG film, This is for the child.

Yeah, this is less nasty than some of the other movies that have this kind of flavor, but take it in a more X rated direction.

Yeah yeah, yeah, so she's not ripped in half, but man does Acton ever rip into some cavemen with this lightsaber like they doesn't get graphic, but man is just he has just slicing bellies left and right here with this thing. Yeah.

So Acton explains that he has reached a conclusion. He says they can stop looking for Zarthorn's weapon planet because it's this one. This is the one. Okay, we're done. He explains why. He says, you know, the Amazon Queen told you in a scene that I wasn't present for that there are two guardians of the weapon Planet. Well, here you've got the red monsters we went through and the Troglodides.

I mean that settles it, really, So that's also the two big guardians of this super space weapon are red blobs and cavemen.

That's right. Yes, So they walk through the cave to a door that leads to the secret weapon. It is that simple. And you know while they're going there, Acton explains it is from this facility that Zarthorn will control the entire universe. So they go into another room with all these little bubble dome stations lining the walls, and Acton says, here's the nerve center of the entire operation. Stella says, this is unbelievable, fantastic pre programmed computers. They could run forever.

That's great, and I mean I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. The worst thing about getting a new computer is having to program it from just starting from ground zero on it. Wish we could get a pre program one for once.

So they learned that this room generates the red monsters, but that the red monsters are not real. They are only mental projections in our brains. So they're going to head for the control panel. This is a scene that really highlights you start noticing all of the characters have these rigid thongs giving them wedgies. Yeah.

Yeah, especially when things get action oriented, You're like, oh wow, that is a lot of thongs.

And then there's an exchange I didn't understand. Acton says destiny must take its course, but then Stella says, no, we can't allow this to happen, and then Simon says we must destroy it. At once, I was like, what are they arguing about? Is Acton saying they should let Zarthorn keep the weapon and not do anything about it?

Nay? I guess he sees something in the future that is impacting his decision making here, but is not bothering to tell us the viewer about what's up.

Anyway, Zarthorn ambushes them. He comes in with a bunch of his henchmen, do dopey looking henchman again, Robot oil Soun's kind of henchman.

But the cape looks amazing, Cape looks.

Great, and his two stop motion robot duckman with the machetes, and Zarthorn tells them that, you know, he keeps trying to kill them, but they survive every trap he lays for them. But now he's got him because in less than an hour quote, all that will be left of this planet will be ashes and cosmic dust forever. Then

Yeah, I mean, obviously we can compare this to you know, Harry Holsan's you know, the scenes with the Skeleton men let's see which one was that from that.

Was Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Yeah, from the Tiger. So we definitely can compare it to that. Not as good as that, but but not bad either. Like this is this in this scene, the stop motion in the live action is pretty well integrated enough that you know it's telling a story. You can get into the action.

Yeah, so you know that. So Simon defeats the other robot. But then Acton is dying. Oh no, and they go talk to him and Acton says, don't worry you and the Prince will live and Stella is like, no, Acton, you can't die, get up, and then he has a great line what I think he wrote this.

I had to note both of these because this is just this is absurd. This is it's so absurd as beautiful. Acton says, I'm no longer useful at this time. What who would say it like that?

Nobody?

But then Stella comes in with I can't leave you. You're the only human like friend I've ever had. I don't understand you never die, you never die. Yeah, but I mean, you're the only human like friend I've ever had.

What But he's so they're saying he's not human. I think they're saying, oh, he's an alien.

Yeah, but she's had never had she has no other friend. I don't know. It just seems very unbelievable.

So acton he fades into a screen from an oscillator, like yeah, and then the Emperor arrives again, wearing this hilarious outfit with the metal of the full body chastity belt as you called it, and they don't leave the room. They're still in the same weapon control room. But the Emperor comes in with all of his troops and now they've got a problem. They're like, oh, father, you're here.

Yeah, this film is big on suddenly revealing just absurd cosmic powers for characters and then but then not doing anything else with those powers, Like everybody's superability is a complete one shot.

Yeah, Oh, you didn't know I had the Green Lantern ring. Yeah, I never mentioned that, So that like a green rays apps the planet. Everything turns green, and then the Emperor explains, quote, for the space of three minutes, every molecule on this planet will be immobilized. But after the third minute, the green ray loses its power, time will flow once more and everything will explode. And Simon says, okay, three minutes is enough. They leave and then everything explodes. So now

Yeah? And then the way that he is going to save billions of lives he quickly reveals is they are going to crash an enormous floating space city a city, yeah, into Zartharn's headquarters or whatever. It seems awfully destructive. I'm assuming they're going to evacuate everyone first from the space city, but they don't really flesh that out.

No, you would hope they evacuate, but they don't talk about that. That's the backup plan. The first thing is, well, first of all, we check in with Count Zartharn who's giving a speech to his troops, and he says, by sunset, I'll be the new emperor and I will be master of the whole universe. Yeah, it's sunset and they're not on a planet, Master of the whole universe. But so this leads into the space battle. So the Emperor is going to attack zarthorne ship before they get to the

Yeah, and then you shoot these torpedoes through which then open up like caskets and the troops climb out, which you know, I don't know, you could certainly, you know, argue about how sensible. This is, but it looks really cool. I like this. I was like I was I. I dug it every time it happened and kept hoping it would happen again, and luckily it kept happening.

But it's so funny. Zarthorn is walking around while his troops are shooting at the Emperor's troops, and Zarthorn just keeps saying kill, kill over there, kill.

I mean, he's really micromanaging here. You know, you don't have to tell us about which enemy troop we need to kill. We need to kill that one and that one. Just trust us to do our killing, sir.

Yeah, kill over there. Yeah. So ultimately the attack fails as Zarthorn retains control of his ship, and Zarthurn says, you know, we got to use the doom Machine. We're going to send it toward the Emperor's capital world and destroy the imperial planet. And then at this point he just shouts his own name. He screams Zarthorn.

I was thinking during all this it would be a pretty great name for a band, Zarthorn and the Doom Machine.

Oh yeah, that would be great. If not Alorg he's taken, we should should we cut this part out, so we reserve that for ourselves.

I mean, if someone were to really do it up, if someone could dress up as Zarthorn and then the band members could be dressed like the the Goons and the and the Gollumns here, that would be pretty cool.

It's a beautiful thing. So it looks like, you know, are the heroes defeated? Stella Star thinks, so, as usual, she counsels despair. She says, there's no way to win. Zarthorne has defeated us. But the Emperor says, no, there is a way. There's one way left if we're forced to use it, we can use star Crash and Simon. Simon realizes what his father is saying. He says, a fourth dimensional attack. So that's what they're gonna do. This

I have to say this movie has less foreshadowing than I think any film I've ever seriously thought about. You know, like, there are all these major twists, and there's nothing to tease them out earlier on, even just a little bit.

So you can guess what happens from here. They're basically they're gonna ram Zarthorn with a floating city, and then Stella and the robot l they jump out a window into space before it hits and they do that and it works.

Different space suit this time. This one's a little bit more traditional. I think I liked the toilet headed one from earlier more I thought that one was weirder looking.

The clear toilet was better, I agree. And then Zarthorn is like, his troops are telling him they're gonna ram us. We have to escape, and he's like, come back, you fools, you cowards. And then the last thing Zarthorne says is zaar Thor.

I was really hoping that he would get a Wrath of Khan moment where he's like, you know, busted up and you know, from the heart of Hell I stab at the but yeah, he didn't get that option.

And then the last thing we get, oh so uh, we get the reunion of Stella and Stella Star and David Hasselhoff. Now they're in love and they stand there like looking at each other. And then the robot is like, oh, oh, I guess he's figuring out what's happening.

And nobody remembers poor Acton completely Dick.

He's nobody cares about him anymore. And then we cut away to the Emperor. The Emperor is gonna play us out here. So the Emperor has the last line of the film. He said, this is this is his monologue. I wrote it down. Well. By the way, he's sitting on a throne that looks like the super U logo like the car company.

Does kind of. I mean, it's it's it's looks really cool, but that's looking superlego super logo.

He says, well, it's done. It's happened. The stars are clear, the planets shine, weave won. Oh some dark force, no doubt, will show its face once more. The wheel will always turn. But for now it's calm, and for a little time at least we can rest.

It's like a lullabus.

Yeah, Star Crash we can rest? Does the tagline of the movie should be now for a little time, we can rest.

Yeah, or they could have gone with it happened. It definitely happened, Star Crash.

It's done. It happened. Well. That that I think is the greatest of the Star Wars knockoff films and a really beautiful experience.

In my opinion, it is a beautiful experience. Yeah, if you were looking for a film with ludicrous dialogue but also some very interesting visuals, like you really you really have to see Star Crash, Star Crashes is absolutely must see. And like I say, if you if you dig watching rift content that m S T three K episode believe that was I think I said earlier Jonah episode very good. Check it out. But also, this is a film that absolutely stands on its own.

Yeah it is.

It is quite an experience, but it also might break something inside of you. Just so be aware, know your own limits, know your own strengths when when it comes to films like this.

Absolutely Okay, I think that does it.

For me, all right, Yeah yeah, and hey, maybe we'll have to come back to contamination in the future. Yeah, all right, so we love to hear from everyone out there. Do you have personal experience with Star Crash? You write in, let us know about it. Where'd you first see it? What do you what do you think about it? I'd love to hear from anyone who saw it, like in the wake of the original Star Wars. You know, what was that like to have this film injected into into

Here's thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 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 iHeartRadio. For more podcasts iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.