Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It kind of pains me to give this movie such a low rating. You might be thinking 'but wait, that's not exactly too low, is it, like it's not a "Bad" rating, right?' I was quite hopeful for Battle Beyond the Stars, however, from some of the scuttlebutt that I'd heard over the years, its cult status and how Roger Corman wanted to make a Magnificent Seven in space (or Seven Samurai if you want to be more cineastey about it) and, naturally, following on the coattails of Star Wars (and Alien to a smaller extent, which itself was made thanks to Star Wars), with a cast that included John Saxon and George Pappard, and art direction by none other than James Cameron(!) Oh boy I was hoping for some world class awesome cheese (maybe a so-bad-it's-spectacular) experience. And at the end I discovered it's ultimately... OK. That's it.Actually, that's not all true - Cameron's art direction, whether that was work on the ships (which do look like they had some money for them, albeit one of the ships looks like a cross between the one dude's head from the Cantina in Star Wars, you know the one, and with a pair of boobs on the bottom as so many have noted), or on the sets (which are standard but eye-catching), is wonderful, and I did really enjoy just the look of the film as far as it being "retro" in 2016. It's impossible to see this being made today with this technology, since everything still had to be built from the ships to the sets to the costumes (that woman's awesome silver crown-headpiece-whatever) and the explosions and planets and so on, but the charm comes from seeing everything moving at the same speed and tech as a Star Wars did in 77 but with slightly less budget. And James Horner delivers a pretty good score - not great, but pretty good. And Peppard as the 'Cowboy' is my favorite part of the film, with his scotch belt (yes, a belt that makes scotch, eat your heart out Ron Burgundy), and his demeanor of kind of seeming to be half drunk most of the time, if not fully blitzed. He's having the time of his life and it shows.But the rest of the movie is just dull, at least for me. It does have some oddly not even subtextual but textual sexual stuff to it, lots of talk about impregnation (though we never see it as this is PG so, hey, not in front of the kids unless it's a spaceship or some massive cleavage at one point), and with certain talk in scenes and how Richard Thomas looks and talks at Darlane Fluegel's Nanelia, and that is kind of campy and interesting and fun. The rest of the time we're seeing a cast, including also, sadly, John Saxon, performing a lot of dialog (by John Sayles of all the friggin people! that is leaden and serious and, except maybe for Cowboy, not much fun. It's largely perfunctory, plot-driven, and when it tries too hard for comedy like the voice of the ship our hero pilots (Lynn Carlin as Nell sounding like an old Jewish mother), it's ridiculous but not in a clever way.Who knows, maybe I needed a much different environment to see it, like with a full theater crowd at the Alamo Drafthouse and with some good booze and good cheer (I watched it with friends but that didn't change much of the mood of 'Ok but so what?') It's also hard to not notice in nearly every moment that it's taking wholesale from Magnificent Seven (or maybe by 3rd degree Seven Samurai), and yet by it being in space and with so many strange yet cold creatures, like those fully white guys with the eyes on their foreheads, it mostly lacks the personality and warmth of those previous genre films. In other words, it's cheese but it's almost like cheese that's been left out too long and has lost its punch; the same year Flash Gordon also came out which is a much better example, to me, of how to do this sort of campy-crappy space epic adventure serial stuff. While it has the look initially (and at times with the characters and fx) of something extraordinary, it's really far from it.

From time to time i really enjoy to watch cheesy and trashy movies especially set in space, i always feel good and happy after watching that kind of movies, but this is even not a funny it is bad very bad, from plot, characters, actors, costumes, space fighters, everything looks terrible. You can compensate with good story and atmosphere but there is nothing there. The most terrible acting comes from main character Shad (Played by Richard Thomas), he is unconvincing, dull, half of the crew looks like they are totally bored, also there is a cowboy yes cowboy he is not funny at all. Only reason why i gave this movie 3 is great soundtrack by James Horner and sex Valkyrie warrior played by Austrian Sybil Danning. My recommendation is not to watch this, better watch Space Raiders which is also produced by Corman this movie use space scenes and music from this film but it is better and has more heart and story. If you want hard to laugh just watch Italian Starcrash or Turkish Star Wars, avoid this.

The story concerns a young farmer, Shad (Richard Thomas), from the peaceful planet Akir (named for Akira Kurosawa), that is under threat from the warlord Sador (John Saxon), of the Malmori. Being a peace- loving people they have no way to defend themselves, so Shad takes an old spacecraft and goes looking for some mercenaries to help defend his planet. These include, Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel); Space Cowboy (George Peppard); Nestor (Five Alien clones, who share a group consciousness); Gelt (Robert Vaughn); Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning); Cayman (Morgan Woodward) and The Kelvin (Larry Meyers & Lara Cody).When Sador returns he is met by Shad, leading seven ships in a bid to safe his planet from destruction.The film is a remake of The Magnificent Seven (1960), which was a remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai (1954), so there is no time wasted on in-depth character development or storytelling, as the story should be familiar. Everything we need to know about each character we learn in our first meeting with them. Space Cowboy is a space trucker, from Earth, looking for adventure. Saint-Exmin is from a female warrior race, who has a very fast ship, and wishes to have a glorious death. Gelt is the best assassin in the galaxy, but is alone and paranoid, only joining Shad for the reward of a safe and peaceful place to live.The effects aren't the best, but are by no means poor. This could be down to a number of reasons;While Star Wars (1977) had an estimated budget of $11 million, Battle Beyond the Stars had an estimated budget of just $2 million.The man who was in charge of the miniature design and construction, special photographic effects and was also the additional director of photography was none other than James Cameron. (It was while working on Battle Beyond the Stars that James Cameron met Gale Ann Hurd, the films assistant production manager, who he would team up with to make his 1984 classic, The Terminator.)Battle Beyond the Stars was filmed in just five weeks.The score was composed by James Horner and is very upbeat and full of brass instruments, fanfare and goes very well with the pace of the film. James Horner also scored the soundtracks to Star Trek II (1982) and Star Trek III (1984), the latter of which has pieces of score that sound as if they were simply 'lifted' from the Battle Beyond the Stars score.Each of the characters appears to have been given the same amount of screen time, which works in the movie's favour. John Saxon plays Sador with a particular ruthlessness, while George Peppard is almost playful as the Space Truckin' Cowboy. Meanwhile, Robert Vaughn's, Gelt, is so closely based on the character of Lee, from The Magnificent Seven (1960), that some of Gelt's dialogue is almost identical, to that of Lee's.

When the evil tyrant Sador arrives at the planet Akir he announces that that if the people don't surrender when he returns in seven days he will use his 'stellar converter' to destroy the planet. Being a peaceful populace they have no chance of defeating him but one elderly man, Zed; who was their last warrior, says he has a fighting ship; he is too old to use it himself but another man, named Shad, offers to leave Akir in the ship and go and recruit mercenaries to fight the battle for them. He then sets about securing the services of a varied group that includes a wealthy assassin; the Nestor, a group of five clones that share a consciousness; a voluptuous Valkyrie warrior; Cowboy, a space-trucker from Earth; Nanelia, the daughter of an old friend of Zed. By the time they return to Akir they have seven ships ready to fight Sador; they are severely outgunned and many of them won't make it but they will fight him anyway!This film's low budget shows; the special effects look distinctly ropey when compared to big budget films of the time; for the most part they aren't terrible though and it is interesting to know that James Cameron; master of mega-budget special effects learnt his craft on a film like this. The story is solid enough; which one would expect given that is basically the plot of 'Magnificent Seven'... which itself is based on 'The Seven Samurai'. When the action starts it pretty good and there are plenty of comic moments that should raise a smile. The cast to a decent enough with Richard 'John-boy Walton' Thomas playing protagonist Shad and John Saxon hamming it up as the evil Sador, also present are two better known actors; Robert Vaughn and George Peppard... it isn't their best work by a long way but they do add to the proceedings. This is hardly a must see film but if you like moderately camp low budget sci-fi it is worth watching on television.