STARCRASHED AND BURNT

Been listening to the Police’s Synchronicity and then just started thinking about the actual concept – which in my experience means all sorts of weird things are about to happen.

Found out a friend of mine is having a bad time, not her personally but her family is having all sorts of problems – just when I’m doing okay. Take if for what it’s worth but this isn’t the first time things have gone like that.

Watched most of Star Crash last night – taking notes until I found myself writing “no must stop now – we must get away” in a hand writing that I did not recognize – now I’m not saying that the film was bad enough to spit my consciousness into separate distinct personalities but it came close.

It’s hard to write about this film because like most of the true giants of a genre (in this case The Theater of the Incoherent) it is beyond words. This film refuses to make any damn sense on so many levels that sentences that have a logical structure and manage to convey information are simply inadequate to do the job of conveying the experience of watching this film.

That said – it starts with Star wars opening rip off shot of a Space Ship passing overhead. The only thing this really does is remind you of just how good Star Wars was – (side note –I will always remember the first time I saw Star Wars, as it opened there was a shot of this little ship flying by – not bad but nothing I hadn’t seen before but then the Imperial Cruiser passed over head and kept going and there was a low rumble from the speakers and everybody in the theater went ‘oooooooooooooooooooo’. This of course was back when Lucas wasn’t convinced he was a genius and was just making a movie – end side note).

So here the ship – which doesn’t seem to have a real shape – or function, all the parts of the model look stuck on for no real reason. And the space it’s flying in looks like it was filmed by taking a black cloth and sticking Christmas lights on it – Red green blue the whole deal. It’s amazingly fake looking.

At this time someone on the bridge jabbers something about finding the lost planet or something like that, and then they come upon a planet – which is pretty good since they were looking for it.

“Scan it with computer waves” one guy says.

Now here’s one of the problems with the film – it doesn’t know when to shut up. Like ever. Star Trek (the original) knew enough to just say scan it and have done it with – don’t let the audience start wondering just what the hell you were scanning the planet with – saves wear and tear on the audience.

Soon after red things attack the ship and it is destroyed.

We jump to credits and then we meet Akton or something like that played by Marjo Gordner and Stella Star played (but not voiced by) Caroline Munro (she’s dubbed for some reason – Marjoe isn’t but Caroline is (it’s her body in the bikini however which is something). They are galactic smugglers or what have on the run from the cops – they are caught after they discover a survivor from the first ship – then sent to prison - Stella was apparently sentenced to wear a bikini as well as to prison time. Then – they are, along with their two captors – the police chief Thor and Robot L who speaks normally at first and then gets a Texas accent are on a mission to find the same planet the other ship tired to find – and the emperor (Christopher Plummer who must have owed somebody a ton of money to do this shit) notes his son was the commander of the ship.

It seems the mystery planet is a weapon al la the death star. But you are not sure.

There is a quick cut to the evil count who you know is evil because he yells a lot, dresses his minions in black suits (with helmets that about a size too small making them look foolish – now that’s evil) and wears a red cape. The cape kept bothering me – normally you see a cape on a bad guy it’s red inside black outside – it’s these little details that make this such an odd film.

The first planet they land on is the planet of Amazon women who wear little more than Caroline was and the Amazon queen who keeps yelling she wants revenge. But as far as we can tell she’s never met these people - so revenge? Is that really the right word?

Stella and the Texas Robot escape the Amazon and but are attacked by a huge female robot which animated al la Ray Harryhusen via stop motion. When you see this sequence you realize what a great animator Ray was – because this sucks.

Also to whoever put the nipples on the giant female robot’s breasts – thank you. You have no idea how much damage that caused. Really. None. You took something precious from me and I’ll never get it back. Thank a heap.

They escape and then after much toing and frowing Stella ends up in a cave fighting cave men with a man wearing a golden mask that shoots beams of light at the cave men. When Stella gets a chance she asks “who are you” and in the manner of this film the guy says “this is an energy mask” A little while latter I think while Stella is asking if he knows a way out the man gives his name. It’s David Hasslehoff playing the emperor’s son (come on you know it has to be that right?) Even at this early age Hoff show all the charisma that would make him a star provided he had a talking car or was surrounded by hot babes who ran in slow motion. Jesus Gortner (who can’t act) out acts him.

The count then arrives and they know this is the bad guys planet – now earlier it was supposed to be a huge weapon al la the death star but now bad count is going to blow it up along with Mr. Plummer who is on his way to rescue his son (David Hassleoff – yeah I know).

There is a fight with stop motion robots (who explode when you knock them over) the Marjo Gortner character dies to swelling music (the music is annoying as well as everything lese) the emperor enters by deus ex script writer – and then when it looks like they will get blown up – says “stop time” pretty much what this film did.

There is a battle that makes no sense with human beings in torpedoes that crash throw the windows of the bad guys ship and well do nothing – the humans jump out and fight one of the most confusing space battles ever – you don’t know what’s going on and by the looks of it neither did the director.

Then when his troops beaten – Christopher Plummer orders the desperate tactic of the star crash – which involves crash a badly built city model into the badly built model of the bad guys ship (which looks like a hand – no reason just does)

Stella and the robot do this – leaping out of the crashing city through and open window – as in no glass – into space just before the city crashes into the bad guy’s ship.

At this point Chris mutters something – and I take to hitting my head with a bourbon bottle not drinking it, just banging my head with the damn thing to get the images out of my brain. Nipples on a robot noooooooooooo!!!!!

As a last point there is no crash of anything into a star or a star crashing into anything else. Like the rest of the film the title makes no sense.

In one bit of weird news – A. Scalia the troglodyte chief justice ended up jabbering a defense of torture by citing Jack Bauer in 24. “He saved LA would you bring him to trial”.

Tony – for what may be about the 55th time 24 is fiction - there is no Jack Bauer and torture doesn’t work – it’ll make people confess to flying on broomsticks but it won’t give you good intelligence.

While the whole ticking bomb idea has a lot of holes – one is this – if the man being given the water boarding knows that if he can keep his mouth shut for X amount of time his side wins a great victory wouldn’t he? Why assume he is less dedicated to his cause then you are?

There are other holes in it but that’s a big one.

Peace Love, Bikinis in Space!