Starcrash (1979)

The Worst Film Ever

best movie i've ever seen.

Admirable film.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

An outlaw smuggler and her alien companion are recruited by the Emperor of the Galaxy to rescue his son and destroy a secret weapon by the evil Count Zarth Arn.This is one of those films you watch and wonder how it ever got made. Some decent casting, including Christopher Plummer, makes you expect something a little bit better than you get. In fact, this is a lesser film than similar themes that AIP was doing at the same time.Although it is interesting, and sort of enjoyable in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way, it never really rises above a strange curiosity. The appeal is quite limited, maybe something that fans of Italian B-movies would eat up. I don't know. The movie is as mysterious as the lead character's wardrobe choices.

I'm a connoisseur of bad movies, and there aren't many as entertainingly bad as this gem. The bad acting, nonsensical plot, cheap effects, and continuity problems make it worth watching several times.The two main characters are Han Solo - I mean Akton - and Stella Star (really?). Akton is a lovable rogue played by Marjoe Gortner, whose permed head is recognizable from a string of bit parts in the 70s. At some point, it comes out he has magic powers. That would be a spoiler, except that it's never explained and really has nothing to do with the plot. It's just that the writers were too lazy to think of other ways to get out of a couple corners they'd painted him into. Stella is primarily eye candy. Even with everything going on, she finds time to change costumes frequently - sometimes in the middle of scenes. Watch for the part where she goes into hyperspace wearing a skimpy costume and comes out of hyperspace wearing an even skimpier costume.The other two major characters are the good Emperor, played by Christopher Plummer, and the evil Count Zarth Arn, played Joe Spinell, who bracket a spectrum of bad acting styles. Spinell really hams it up, laughing and strutting like William Shatner on a cocaine binge. Plummer goes for serene, confident leadership, but comes across more like someone who's heavily medicated.There's also a robot Elle, who was put in for comic relief, but the less said about that, the better.David Hasseloff appears as the Emporer's son. That would also be a spoiler, except that it's obvious to everyone except Akton and Stella.The script, such as it is, appears to have been written as they went, and the plot drunkenly stumbles from scene to scene. There are some cave men, some karate-chopping Amazons, some evil robots. What do they have to do with anything? Seriously, it's not worth worrying about. Even the characters sometimes appear confused about where they are and what they're doing. The evil Count's evil plan changes a couple of times. He starts out with a super weapon that's definitely not a Death Star. It surrounds ships with lava lamp blobs that are sometimes fatal and sometimes merely annoying. As super weapons go, it's pretty lame. Later he just switches to explosives, which is probably a good move.When they felt the movie was long enough, they slapped a rather stupid ending on it, had Plummer make a rambling, anesthetized speech, and headed to the wrap party.Oh yeah, there's also a light saber, but only one, because I guess two is the threshold for copyright infringement.

Often times when there is a successful film in the United States it is copied in other countries. When Dawn of the Dead was released it spawned many copycats in Europe, mainly in Italy. These films ranged from cheesy fun to horrible endeavors that were still somewhat fun to watch. Alien spawned its fair share of copycats as well and so did Conan the Barbarian. With all you had some films that was pretty good copycats along with the bad. Unfortunately, Star Wars also spawned a lot of copycats and its copycat films were usually just dreadful and more often blatant rip-offs. The other films seemed to add their own flair to the film they were mimicking, while for reasons unknown the Star Wars rip-offs would use a lot of the same plot devices and sometimes they would even use actual footage from Star Wars! The most one of the Dawn of the Dead copycats did was the same music. This one does have a bit of its own things in it, but for the most part it is like watching a Star Wars made for someone with attention deficit disorder.The story starts out with two smugglers being pursued by some sort of space police. They evade them and find a mysterious ship that has been seemingly abandoned in the ghost ship graveyard. The female member of the crew goes out and takes aboard a man who is crazed and spouting about red monsters. The two members of the crew then get captured by the space police and are put on trial. The female has to make a jail break and gets captured again by a robot and alien space police, only they are planning on taking her to the emperor of the galaxy who wants the two smugglers to find out where another guy's planet is and his son. This all takes place in the first fifteen minutes of the film! I mean there is enough plot going on to cover over half the film! We have Amazon warriors, ice planets and a navigator who can repel lasers and seems more powerful than anyone always staying aboard the ship while the female member of the crew and the robot go explore and usually get captured and get messed up all while searching for the villain's main lair and the red monsters that are disappointing beyond belief! So, no, this one is bad. The only things it has going for it is that the acting is not atrocious and the female is really nice to look at especially when she is wearing a few nice and revealing costumes. Strangely, while this is a rip off of the first Star Wars, I cannot help but think George Lucas saw this film and used a few ideas put forth in it, into Empire and Jedi. The team goes to a frozen planet like Hoth in Empire, the girl is taken captive by savages like the Ewoks (though not as cute) and is about to be eaten by them, the floating city made me immediately think of Cloud City and one of the nice outfits looks a lot like the one Leia wore in Jedi. So who knows, as bad as this one was, maybe it gave Lucas a few good ideas? In the end though, this film was just a very fast paced film that seemingly was put together by a kid with attention deficit disorder and comes complete with a light saber and a mysterious navigator that kicked butt and made light shows come out of his hand.

If you want to see how bad this is, spare yourself the whole thing and just watch the opening scene. Watching the horrible actors manage flub the timing of their three-word sentences is a sight to behold.Funny? Absolutely! Watching the bad guy order his troops into combat with the stirring words of "Kill!" while they slide down the bat poles will bring a smile to the face of anyone. And that soundtrack, wow!Forget the nonsensical plot, terrible special effects and poor acting, it's got Christopher Plumber and a bunch of excuses for Stella Star to get attacked by the worst stop-frame animated robots in history. What more could you ask for?