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Star Pilot

Star Pilot (1977)

October. 01,1977
|
4.3
|
PG
| Science Fiction

Aliens from the constellation Hydra crash-land on the island of Sardinia. A prominent scientist, his daughter, several young technicians, and a pair of Oriental spies are taken hostage by the beings so they can use them to repair their spaceship's broken engine. With that done, they take off towards their home planet, taking the earthlings with them. However, the humans attempt to mutiny against their captors, inadvertently sending their tiny spaceship hurtling into the infinite beyond...

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Reviews

Hellen
1977/10/01

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Solemplex
1977/10/02

To me, this movie is perfection.

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HeadlinesExotic
1977/10/03

Boring

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Jenni Devyn
1977/10/04

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

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bensonmum2
1977/10/05

I haven't done this in a while, but for Star Pilot, I'm going to use the plot summary from IMDb: "Aliens from the constellation Hydra crash-land on the island of Sardinia. A prominent scientist, his daughter, several young technicians, and a pair of Oriental spies are taken hostage by the beings so they can use them to repair their spaceship's broken engine. With that done, they take off towards their home planet, taking the earthlings with them. However, the humans attempt to mutiny against their captors, inadvertently sending their tiny spaceship hurtling into the infinite beyond." I used the IMDb plot summary because, even after watching Star Pilot, I'm not entirely sure what it was all about. The movie made very little sense to me. But even though I may have been confused during most of the movie, parts of it were still a lot of fun in a campy / cheesy sort of way. Instead of the usual write-up I do, here are a few random thoughts I have regarding Star Pilot:1. While the cast wasn't much to write home about, it's always cool seeing Kirk Morris and Gordon Mitchell outside a Sword and Sandal film. I just wish Mitchell had been in the film for more than 20 seconds. Other than getting his name in the credits, I'm not really sure why the filmmakers even bothered.2. There's a decent size chunk of the film "borrowed" from Doomsday Machine. The differences in film quality, acting, and everything else is a little jarring. It's shocking just how good the stuff from Doomsday Machine looks in comparison. The clips include a scene with Casey Kasem – minus Kasem's very recognizable voice.3. Why bother with the Chinese secret agents? It adds absolutely nothing to the plot. It seems like such an unnecessary plot detail that amounts to nothing in the end.4. I suppose that if I had to pick a highlight, it would be actress Leontine May's ever-shrinking wardrobe. She begins the film fairly modestly dressed, but by the end, she's wearing a full body fishnet with a few strategically placed feathers. In some ways, the 5/10 I've given Star Pilot may not be fair. The copy I watched seemed to be horribly cut-up. IMDb lists a runtime of 89 minutes. The version I watched was only 81 minutes. I'm not sure how much difference the extra 8 minutes would make, but I'd certainly be up for giving it another go with a complete copy.

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Rainey Dawn
1977/10/06

I don't know what bothered me worse: the men walking around stiff as if they were afraid to move OR the dark haired girl that severely over acted and was trying to either do a dance move or model pose every time she stopped walking. Almost all of the men and the one woman irritated me severely - so much so I ended up fast-forwarding though the film.Not one of them that played a human in the film could act. And I love some really bad B films with awful acting but I could not get past the actors in this film. The actors that played the aliens are fine, not actors playing humans to me - just something about the group I hated.The story? I couldn't tell ya if I liked it or not because I just couldn't get past the some of the actors in this one. Being honest.1/10

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brando647
1977/10/07

While one of the most generically titled movies I've seen, STAR PILOT is also one of the most delightfully stupid. The plot is nonsensical, the effects are wonderfully low budget, and most of the characters are indistinguishable from each other. I was excited to revisit the world of '60s era Italian space adventure, and it was an added bonus when the opening credits listed Gordon Mitchell (the hilariously over-theatrical star of THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS) as a cast member. Unfortunately, Mitchell's role in the film turned out to be nothing more than a short cameo but at least the space adventure was a wicked fun time. It starts with an alien spacecraft landing in Sardinia (an island in the Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Italy) and the world immediately forgetting about it. Three months later, Professor Solmi (Roland Lesaffre) is informed of a plot of land in Sardinia that shows signs of radioactivity and he, along with his daughter Luisa (Leontine May) and associate Paolo (Mario Novelli), fly out to investigate. Upon arrival, they're plagued with strange occurrences, including an earthquake that opens a cavern into the ground. The group descend into the cavern and discover the alien spacecraft but, before they can report their findings, they're attacked by a trio of Asian men who insist the professor show them the underground rocket, believing it to be a secretly developed weapon. Violence erupts and soon they're all taken captive by the aliens within the vessel who demand the humans repair their engines and assist in piloting the craft into space. Under the command of Kaena (Leonora Ruffo), the aliens promise to leave the humans on Earth once the craft is functional…but can they be trusted?I could spend an hour chatting someone's ear off about everything I found hilarious about this movie. I did my best to give a succinct understanding of the basic premise but I know I haven't done it justice. The plot is both way more and way less complicated than that. It wants to come across as epic in scope with an environmental message behind it; the aliens explain at one point that the whole reason they were on Earth in the first place was to observe and determine whether all the nuclear experimentation our race was performing would have any dangerous effects on the rest of the galaxy. That's right, an advanced race of space-faring aliens are concerned that the nuclear effects on a single small world will put the entire rest of the galaxy at risk. Science! These advanced aliens are also in such a bind that they need the relatively primitive humans to repair their engines for them. And fly the ship. All without any sort of preexisting knowledge and instruction. And they do it! The humans are so much smarter than the aliens that they master use of the alien spacecraft and stage a mutiny to gain control of the craft. So the aliens from the constellation Hydra aren't all they're cracked up to be; how do the humans fare?Worse. Aside from the professor and maybe Paolo, the human characters are either faceless (the Asian men as well as two of the professor's own crew) or annoying and unnecessary (Luisa). Let's start with the Asian men who are, to be honest, completely pointless to the plot. They're some sort of agents for yet another vague operation and, whatever you do, don't mistake them for Chinese agents."Make no mistake. We are Oriental, not Chinese. We do not represent the People's Republic."One of them throws out that little disclaimer first and foremost when confronting the professor and his people. It felt more like a message from the filmmakers than the characters, wanting to ensure they didn't upset an entire viewing demographic. Regardless, they have no use here. I guess they add a slight element of intrigue, with the whole (laughable) spy operation element in the beginning of the film. Once we're with the aliens, the Asian men serve no purpose other than to provide a little tension before unceremoniously hauled off and presumably eaten by killer space gorillas. I'm so happy to say that's not an exaggeration. Killer. Space. Gorillas.But hold on, let's shift over to Luisa. Why is Luisa here? She's a young woman who still acts like a teenager and tags along with her father on his work outing to Sardinia. She's disruptive, ignorant, and I'm pretty sure at one point she was tripping on acid (during the initial cavern investigation). She has no sense of self-preservation and seems to have no concerns when taken as a hostage by aliens. In fact, her first response to captivity is to lust over one of the alien men. From the perspective of the filmmakers, I'm assuming Luisa's role in the movie was to move through a progressively skimpier wardrobe. But the funniest part of Luisa's character is how the men treat her. I know that sounds horrible, but let me explain. Every man in this movie is incredibly dismissive of Luisa, but not for the reasons I've already mentioned. They don't tease her because she's an idiot. They tease her because she's a woman. Come on, guys. If you want to hate on Luisa, don't do it because she's a woman. Do it because she thought it'd be fun to wrestle the helicopter pilot on the flight to the worksite, nearly killing you all.STAR PILOT is a must for fans of crazy old school space adventures. Zero-G is simulated with trampolines. No one uses space helmets (not even the humans). The alien's robots look like giant yellow Oompa Loompas in ribbed condom jumpsuits. That Shyamalan-ian twist ending. And did I mention the killer space gorillas?

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Gorm
1977/10/08

This movie was re-released to cash in on the original Star Wars mania. Filmed on a budget of maybe, 15,000 Lira, it is a tour-de-force of nearly every 50's SF cliche' from the greying Scientist father to his luscious, oh-so innocent raven haired daughter in her fishnet bodysuit (with strategically placed bits of fluff) being menaced by Ape creatures to Bruno the Martian "floating" across an expanse of space with the aid of a trampoline (no, I'm not kidding). SEE the mysterious ancient city model filmed resting on a chair! See the twinkling stars! (and try not to notice the wires, swaying in an apparent breeze from an off camera fan). If you love bad films, by all means check it out-it's a scream. I saw this as the bottom half of a double bill with "Spawn of the Slithis" and couldn't stop laughing....

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