The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 12 - Battle Beyond the Stars

Watching this film had a lot of positive effects on me. While watching it I managed to get my laundry ready to go to the cleaners, swept and sponge mopped the entrance foyer of my apartment along with the kitchen and bathroom and tied up some cardboard for recycling. That along with the usual cleaning the bathroom and putting away the dishes I had left to dry the night before.

As you may gather it really wasn’t very gripping.

This 1980 Roger Corman homage or rip off (it’s hard to tell which) of Star Wars and The Seven Samurai (with a dash of the American Magnificent Seven tossed in) is just for the most part really really boring. It becomes a weight that sits on your head. Yes all the elements of a campy goofy hoot/homage are there. It’s just they don’t gel much.

And then there is the writing.

John Sayles (yes that one, the Oscar winner and all that) wrote the screen play – and really since you had the basic story already in front of you would it have killed you to maybe pay attention to the damn details? The film opens with John Saxon as the evil guy who shows up at the peaceful planet Akir (named after Akira Kurosawa who did Seven Samurai) and announces that in seven turns of their red giant he will return and demand their surrender.

Why does he do this – in Seven Samurai the Bandits don’t attack the village first thing because the crops aren’t ripe yet – there is nothing to loot just yet. Here HE’s already at the planet. There is no earthly reason why he doesn’t simply demand their surrender then and there. None, Nada, Zippo. Only because the film needs him to go away – he goes away. It’s maddening to watch really. Honestly ½ hour of thought would have come up with oh 15 reasons why he would leave and then return. And why even do that? Some other plot device could account for the time needed for the plucky young Luke Skywalker clone to gather the mercenaries necessary to fight off John Saxon (who, mad props to him for not over acting even with the purple patch on his face.)

Any Luke – sorry John Space boy (the parts played by Richard Thomas so I’m going to call him John Boy) goes off to find his mercs inside a talking kind of Jewish mother ship Nell – the bicker a bit. Nell was owned by a blind warrior who has settled on Akir Zed and doesn’t think much of John Boy. Well I don’t either.

On his travels he runs into George Peppard playing the rent as a cigarette smoking, scotch swilling cowboy hat wearing space cowboy form earth who just happens to have a ship full of hand weapon. At the point I’m not sure why they need them as the ship Mr. Saxon is commanding has a death star like planet smasher but it’s just another example of how lazy the writing on this. Really the thinking has to have been “hell it’s just a space opera who gives a shit?”

Well I do for one.

Anyway going along they others are picked up – five Nestor who represent parts of a hive mind – there is one good scene where they all chew on a hot dog that only one is eating – a lizard man who I’ve seen before in other movies either before or since (Roger Corman believed in never tossing a thing away) who has something against John Saxon; a Valkyrie played by the impressively endowed Sybill Danning, and Robert Vaughn playing actually as he did in the Magnificent Seven a killer for hire whose soul has been ground to dust by his life of violence. Actually Robert does a nice little turn here as this guy –who he has played a lot. And you feel something when he bites the bullet (what? is that a surprise?)

And off they go –they prepare Akir for a ground attack – and wait. Have a few reveal the inside of the characters bits and lay the ground work for the battle ahead.

And then the last 40 minutes are a lot of special effects model work star wars style but it just doesn’t work. In the commentary track Roger Corman slangs the special effects crew (“as with all special effects teams they over sold their ability to do the job”) in part of the commentary track but I’d say maybe if you and John Sayles had spend some damn time working with the special effects guys in oh storyboarding the sequences maybe the space battle would have worked better. Seriously you’re in charge yes? Really in any production as effects laden as this one the most important work is what is done before you expose a single foot of film. I suspect that corman’s only real involvement with the film was to write the checks (he keeps talking about how expensive this film was compared to the others he did – it’s still massively cheap).

But there really is a lack of planning and thinking going on here – let me put it this way Harry Harryhusen working on tiny tiny budgets was in the 1950’s able to make a more convincing battle sequence. Why because he worked the damn thing before he exposed a frame.

Well anyway after the space battle there is a land battle that makes no sense and then we go back in the end John Space boy and the female lead beat John Saxon and his ship – the rest are all dead – and well since the damn screen play doesn’t care much about them – we don’t either.

The film did give James Cameron his first work in special effects and there are moments that work which infuriates you because it could have been a much better film if it have just given a damn or two about anything.

Enjoy with fat free Cheddar and salt free crackers.