The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 11 - Star Odyssey

In honor of the release of the 3-D version of the Star Wars Episode One The Phantom Menace (which is about as silly an idea as I can think of folks didn’t like that film in 2-d does George Lucas really think that folks are going to go Oh Jar Jar Binks in 3-D! Now it makes sense! I love this film. Seriously what next Gone with the Wind in 3d?)

Anyway as I was saying as this is happening I’d thought I take a little side bar through some well Star Wars themed films. Of which one of the lamest is 1979’s Star Odyssey.

One of the things that the Italian film industry did well (I don’t know if it still does) is if someone had a successful film they could grind out about 32 knockoff versions of it within a month or so – granted a lot cheaper looking than the original – but their motto must have been strike while the iron is hot.

This 1979 film was the last of 4 star wars knockoffs done by the same director Alfonso Brescia under the name Al Bradley, which I’m so sure fooled a lot of people.

The story is fairly simple – an alien who looks like he was pressed into a waffle iron buys the earth at a auction, then when he arrives on earth, brushes aside the earth’s defenses and begins gathering slaves.

With the earth defense forces helpless against the alien – and his gold suited androids all with blonde prince valiant haircuts – make contact with “The Professor” who is the greatest scientific mind in the world but won’t be anybody but his own man who says he’ll do things his way and then assembles the team to discover the secret of the alien’s power and perhaps a way to defeat them.

Pretty bland stuff – but as always the devil is in the details and the details are horrible.

It’s hard to describe just how disjointed and hard to follow this film is – the version I have of it has the running order mixed up so that you see the auction about 30 minutes into the film then the first half of a scene from earlier in the film. Not that it would have been that much better but at least you’d have had some idea of what was going on.

Add to the disjointed and well jarring shifts (did they even try to imagine what it would look like to someone watching the bloody thing? I can’t imagine they did) are the cheap looking sets – the silly looking costumes and the bargain basement special effects – now I like bargain basement special effects as well as the next b-movie geek but really simple competence here is in question.

Most of the story involves getting the team together – there is the stiff member of the earth defense force, the gambler who can hypnotize folks and read cards with his mind(a lot of folks in this film can do vaguely Jedi like mind things– it’s a cheap effect some lights, music, have the actor make a face and ta-da! Mind power) a boxer/acrobat who will simply not stop leaping about everywhere – a man and woman con man who also happen to be great chemists and the two comic relief robots (one male one female – the female one has eyelashes) who when we first meet them want to commit suicide which by the end of the film you’re willing to give them a hand with that.

Will these unlikely warriors band together and discover the alien secret and save the earth using that and the professor (who dresses - like well he looks like Ming the Merciless’s bald gay uncle) the professor’s mysterious mind powers? Will any of them survive the final space battle and will the gambler re-ignite he romance with the Professor’s niece?

Well of course they do – not enough of them die at the end for my taste.

The film also features what may be the lamest light saber variant – EVER.

While Star Crash was a lot of goofy fun this was a painful long tedious slog through cheap sets, special effects and the kind of comic relief that makes you want to hurt yourself.

Enjoy with garlic knots.