Starcrash

Starcrash (1978)

Now this is the good stuff. I love these kind of post Star Wars space operas where you can clearly see the influence (aka the entire 3rd act) but they also try a few interesting things themselves.

Starcrash has everything I enjoy from this period of Sci-fi… Miniatures, models, rear projection, stop motion golems, amateur stunt-work, awful dialogue, scantly-clad sci-fi babes, Hoff with a lightsaber, and so much more.

The story is the kind of set-up you expect from the sub-genre with an evil empire trying to take over the universe, and it doesn’t try to be too clever with it. Instead, the film just wants to be fun. It’s colourful through-out, has Amazons on horsebacks, a redneck robot, giant samurai ninja golem thingys, and every line of dialogue is so exposition heavy or wooden it makes me smile.

My favourite scene had to be the dogfight in space half-way through the movie where every line of dialogue didn’t match what was going on in the fight. The maths was all over the place. They’d say there’s only one left and then show three. They’d say there was six and only five left after killing four. It was amazing. And it kept going. The math did not math.

The film was largely its own movie for the first half of the flick but then did dive head first into becoming Starwarsploitation. From the moment the ‘savage’ Ewoks tied Stella Star––what a name––upside down to the pole there was Star Wars everywhere. If I ever write that post Star Wars film book I want to write Starcrash will defintely be one of the featured movies.

But as I mentioned, Starcrash also had plenty of its own ideas. The chase at the beginning and the hundred stars thing was cool, I liked the make-up of the crew which I think clearly inspired my beloved Space Raiders. Firing armed soldiers into the enemies ship via torpedo was definitely inventive even if the science might be a little janky. And the finale itself with the space city was incredible even if we basically just saw a bunch of yogurt pots getting blown up by fireworks––God I miss those sort of effects.

The movie was ambitious, while also being a cash-in. It constantly tried to punch above its weight and the effects probably looked pretty bad even at the time, but it gave it a shot. Everyone seemed game (with the exception of Christopher Plummer) and knew what kind of movie they were in. I can’t help but like these sort of things. It fits right in with New World Pictures, and that’s my jam.

There are much better sci-fi and space operas than Starcrash, but in my opinion, it definitely has its place.