XweAponX Imagine a space battle of ships found in George Lucas' garbage cans, where John-Boy Walton flies a talking ship that looks like part of a male anatomy and Napoleon Solo loves it when a Plan-9 comes together? I must be talking about Starcrash with Marjoe Gortner, right? Nope. But then again, much of the music in this pretty incredible farce found its way into Star Trek II: TWOK. And I mean when I say about some of the spaceships look like they were Filched from the garbage bin outside of ILM, we see half of an Empire Star Destroyer with the "Whale Probe" from Star Trek IV attached to the front end. John-Boy's ship appears to be pretty, eh, "organic". Look for Sam Jaffe, from the day the earth stood still (original one), as a Cyborg. And this is a little seven samurai "Ish". Needless to say, there is all kinds of great stuff in this movie and it's one of James Camerons early works. Despite some of the special effects looking like they were hijacked from a game of video ping-pong, you can see other effects that Cameron used and improved on later in his career. And it is much better than "Starcrash"!

bheadher Back in the early 80's, no one really treated scifi as a money maker vehicle, so naturally we ended up with a slew of tiny budget, low quality flicks...the thinking tended to be, throw a bunch of well known stars at the audience and they will love it...of course it didn't work out that way, but at least BBTS made an attempt at being interesting, heh heh...The movie is played out as almost literally a video game, complete with the visuals and sound effects. You can't get away from the feel of an Atari coming to life, and it actually turns out to be a fun two hours...Don't expect a block buster, or an epic motion picture, because it definitely isn't that...but grab some poppy corn and sit back, to immerse yourself in a mix of different themes all jumbled together, heh heh...

Blueghost George Lucas commented on dealing with studio heads, and what it was like to deal with someone who is not as smart and imaginative as you are; i.e. a studio head. He made Star Wars, a "spaceship movie", so the studios made a series of spaceships movies, and they were all awful.The concept being that since people liked a movie about spaceships fighting in space, that that's what was going to be made. Battle Beyond the Stars was made in that spirit, and it shows. Boy does it show.Is it tongue-in-cheek? Eh, you could argue it as such, but it's more or less just a low budget attempt to cash in on the scifi spaceship "market trend" in the film industry at the time.Adopting Kurosawa's script for a scifi setting sounds plausible and even exciting, but unless you're willing to put the time, care, money and effort into making the thing you're going to get, well, this.What's even more embarrassing is that I paid money to see this thing at a theatre that doesn't exist anymore. Seeing the poor special effects, a heavy reliance on medium focal length master shots, little in the way of any character development (Richard "John Boy" Thomas is no Toshiro Mifune), and a support cast that comes from TV land B-list, it's a wonder anyone heaps praises on this thing.It was not meant nor shot to be a send up "so bad it's good" cult classic. It was shot on the cheap, pure and simple, hoping that enough acne-pimpled pre-teens would shell out mommy and daddy's dollars to see it. Well, I was told not to, but I went and saw it anyway. and yes, I do regret seeing it. Even again on HBO during a summer late night TV session.There's a real lack of care, lack of inspiration, lack of energy put into this piece. Sybil Danning has been cast with A-material, yet probably did this for the paycheque (that and her Teutonic origins). Robert Vaughn comes from an age with actors did both film and TV, and so likewise did not have an issue with doing this, though probably regretted it afterwards.Everything from what I call the "moose ship" design to the pathetic or hackneyed UFO people, to even miss Danning's character (no matter how alluring she physically could be), just spells "I don't care" all over this production.There are worse movies. Truly there are. This is not the worst film, but it ranks down there with a lot of bottom feeders trying to ride the coat tails of other market trends in the film industry at that time.In simple language; don't watch this film. Spare your mind. It's not even good popcorn entertainment. It's really a cheap Star Wars wannabe, and given Coreman's involvement, I'm not surprised it intentionally turned out the way it did.Avoid, or watch at your own risk. Either way don't say I didn't warn you.

jasongoodacre This film is pure entertainment, from its memorable characters and fun storytelling to its Star-Wars-esque (by a young James Cameron) special effects. How it only made $10 million bucks is beyond me when you consider Star Trek released the year earlier made over $100 million and was in my opinion the most boring sci-fi movie ever conceived. This is certainly a hidden gem and the marketing men behind this should have been fired for not turning it a hit.At the centre of the film is a morality tale - A band of space adventures turned mercenaries join together to defeat a space tyrant who threatens to destroy a planet. Richard Thomas (from The Waltons) is given the task as recruiter and hires among others George Peppard (from The A-Team) and Robert Vaughan (Man from Uncle) as a Magnificent Seven space battle ensues.Some of our heroes sadly die and you actually care about them which is a credit to the writers. Also I love some of the dialogue such as the exchange between our villain and Nestor 2 (1 of a set of clones) who gets captured. Sador: Are you capable of speech? Nestor 2: Yes, quite capable.Sador: And do you have a high tolerance for pain?Nestor 2: Almost none at all, I'm afraid.Sador: How unfortunate for you. So... How many ships do the Akira have, and what are their capabilities?Nestor 2: If I told you that, it would give you an unfair advantage.Sador: This is Frojo, my Third Officer. Frojo is expert at inflicting pain... while keeping the victim alive.Nestor 2: ...It's good to have skills." Better than the Black Hole and funnier than Flash Gordon (the leads back chatting ships computer Nell is a hoot), this film has the heart of Star Wars. A great popcorn movie to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon.