Movie Review : Starcrash

, in Films, Science Fiction

Beautiful star-smuggler Stella Star and her goofy-looking star-navigator Akton are caught by the star-police and sentenced to star-prison. However the star-emperor's son is missing in a dangerous area of space controlled by the evil star-count Zarth Arn (who has developed a star-weapon of fantastic power). Stella and Akton are granted star-clemency to begin the star-hunt, accompanied by a police-chef and his sidekick robot.

Eventually, war of some kind ensues.

Starcrash PosterThis is a film that teaches us that, no matter what odds we face, anyone can make a cheap knock-off of Star Wars and muck it up completely. The premise is fun enough, and the film is actually competently made with passable special effects and nice enough sets. However, the script is terrible, with Stella passing from one location to another without furthering the story in any way. Arbitrary things happen for no reason and about half way through the film just gives up any pretense of rationality - "Imperial Battleship, halt the flow of time!" It's a very talky film, with long stretches of terrible exposition delivered by sub-par actors.

Speaking of actors, the Emperor is played by Christopher Plummer who was probably hoping for an Alec Guinness-esque late career boost. He was to be disappointed. His son is played by a young David Hasselhoff, whose next role as side-kick to a talking car was actually a massive step up. Starcrash's main sin is that it's makers saw Star Wars and misunderstood what made it work. Throwing lots of special effects (in reality, "just ok effects") at the screen does not make up for a feeble story.

Not recommended, even as a curiosity.