After the runaway success of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) put space opera on top of the box office, other filmmakers attempted to cash in on the sci-fi trend.
And while I was familiar with poor Star Wars imitations like Starcrash (1978), I had never heard of legendary “king of cult” filmmaker Roger Corman’s attempt, Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), until now.
A sci-fi film treading in the wake of George Lucas’s creativity, Battle Beyond the Stars rips off the Deathstar with its Stellar Converter. This laser beam can destroy a planet. It also features the story of a farm boy jetting off to space and his newfound destiny.
And why borrow from one filmmaking master when you can grab from two.
Battle Beyond the Stars has the same premise as the legendary Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, just moved to space.
And I know what you’re thinking here: Yes, Zack Snyder and Netflix’s much-maligned Rebel Moon pulls that exact combination.
But Roger Corman and his team, the exploitation masters, had already done that Kurosawa and space mashup decades ago. Suckers.
Now, getting back to this film, despite its low budget of $2 million, Battle Beyond the Stars features special effects by none other than a young James Cameron (Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and a score from future Academy Award winner James Horner (Titanic).
So with a fun premise and two famous Jameses in the production, could the film overcome its budget limitations? Let’s find out.
Is Battle Beyond the Stars a good movie?
The Plot of Battle Beyond the Stars:
When the planet Akir is attacked by the evil Malmori, led by Sador (John Saxon), he orders them to submit to him in seven risings of their red giant sun or be destroyed.
Being a peaceful, farming people, the Akir send young Shad (Richard Thomas) to find mercenaries willing to defend them in exchange for food and shelter.
Shad’s quest for help leads him to a space station crewed by androids. In his travels, he encounters mercenaries motivated to join the fight against Sador.
When the seven risings are over, the Malmori return. With the help of the brave fighters, Shad and Akira face off against Sador in a fight for their lives.
Will they defeat Sador or die trying?
The Rest of the Main Cast Includes:
- Robert Vaughn as Gelt
- George Peppard as Space Cowboy
- Darlanne Fluegel as Nanelia
- Sybil Danning as Saint-Exmin
- Sam Jaffe as Dr. Hephaestus
- Jeff Corey as Zed The Corsair
- Morgan Woodward as Cayman of The Lambda Zone
- Marta Kristen as Lux
- Earl Boen as Nestor 1
- John Gowens as Nestor 2
- Lynn Carlin as The Voice of Nell
- Lawrence Steven Meyers as Thunin / Kelvin 1
- Lara Cody as Urim / Kelvin 2
- Steve Davis as Quepeg
- Julia Duffy as Mol
Fun Fact: Yes, the Akira people are named after Seven Samurai’s director, the legendary Akira Kurosawa.
The Good Things:
Creative Character Design, +3 Points
When a film features a small team of do-gooders taking on a flurry of bad guys, its writers often come up with outsized and diverse personalities among the crew to make it fun. This goes back to shows like The A-Team and all the way up to the new Marvel film Thunderbolts.
Here, that quirky band of heroes 101 formula works well and is the most enjoyable part of the picture, so long as you can sidestep a few flawed creative choices.
Don’t let the film’s B-movie status fool you. Rather than going derivative or just having some guy with blasters, some person with laser swords, etc. for variety, there’s some real imagination into these characters’ diverse backgrounds.
First up, Shad pilots Nell, an organic talking android ship.
Like Siri with an attitude problem, Nell encourages and helps Shad level up from farmboy to Akir Corsair. What a title; right?
Pressing Shad into battle, she is the perfect character foil for his reserved tendencies.
But while Nell’s personality is a plus, her design is dodgy.
She looks like the USS Enterprise meets hammerhead shark. But in order to impress Roger Corman, James Cameron himself said in an interview he gave the so-called organic ship breasts.
It’s more than a bit confusing how a ship with nipples made it into the movie like that, but there it is.
Gelt has a sleek fighter you’d expect of a man wanted throughout the galaxy. He says little, but you can tell he’s weary of his dark past and ready to defeat Sador so he can relax on Akir.
The all-white Nestor is one being separated into five bodies, psychologically linked and complete with third eyes.
In one of my favorite scenes, Nestor attempts a clever assassination plot against Sador, using the character’s psychic abilities well. And Nestor balances the group with their thoughtful approach to problems.
St. Exmin the Valkyrie must be the homage to Toshiro Mifune’s iconic Seven Samurai character Kikuchiyo, the jester who really isn’t a samurai but attached himself to the group through dedication to the cause.
She pilots a nimble dart resembling an arrow. She lives for combat and preaches about the joy of accepting death and living fast.
Alas, the playful St. Exmin’s credibility is undermined by tasteless costume design that sets women in sci-fi back. Yoish.
Cowboy, an Earthling, is the cheesiest of them all.
With his whisky dispenser on his belt and harmonica to play, his Joe America caricature fits the lighthearted tone of the story.
Unfortunately he has a small Confederate flag on his ship that would not fly today. So you’ll have to overlook this gaffe.
Cayman of the Lambda Zone is arguably the most interesting. He’s a lizard man with a vendetta against Sador.
He travels around like a galactic whaler, destroying strange, gooey, shimmery life forms called zymes that float through free space digesting people, ships and all.
It’s altogether an eclectic and colorful bunch of space mercenaries.
Cameron and Crew’s Overachieving Special Effects, +3 Points
According to Wikipedia, when the art director for the film was fired, James Cameron was put in charge of special effects.
Cameron apparently worked so hard that he spent many weeks sleepless to finish the job.
And it wasn’t a wasted effort. Cameron and the crew’s work here is spectacular for a stretched budget.
While they don’t reach the heights of Star Wars, the models stand up well to other effects created in the 1980s, having enough character and believability to transport the audience to a fictional battlefield.
The interiors of the ships are pretty close to Star Wars – at least in spirit. They have corridors with rich lighting and are littered with familiar control panels and flashing lights.
But the standout environment for me was the space station of Dr. Hephaestus, where replacement android parts litter the room as Nanelia, who joins the crew and becomes Shad’s love interest, repairs a broken unit.
These effects solidify the world-building and bring the audience into the movie.
Horner’s Score, +2 Points
James Horner’s central theme has a triumphant, heroic sound that pumps the audience up for the movie with bravado.
The rest of the score keeps the drama and excitement moving with the interplay between horns and strings in rising and falling crescendos – whatever that sentence I’m really reaching with there means.
The composition is said to have shades of his later work, especially Krull and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
And having all of those on my playlist, yeah, it fits right in, in a good way.
The Not-as-Good-Things:
If We Could Fine-Tune the Story Just a Bit? -2 Points
Battle Beyond the Stars moves along at a crisp pace, with little downtime or waste. Its runtime is one hour and 45 minutes. As an action movie and not a drama, it’s about what you’d expect.
And, hey, for a low-budget film, cracking over 90 minutes is a feat.
But with seven side characters to develop, a main character, and a love interest, some elements would have benefitted from a little more time to fill out.
And who are the Akira, really?
Sador attacks planet Akir to open the film. Then most of the movie is out in space. As a result, we only learn about the Akira through exposition.
Just a few more minutes of screen time on Akir before Sador’s attack could have helped the audience gain more rooting interest in the Akira and help us see Shad’s bond with his people.
Done quickly, it wouldn’t hurt the pacing.
And what’s Sador’s deal?
He’s got a name that sounds evil, almost like Satan or sadist. So ya know he’s the big bad.
Sador conquers, and he wants Akir to be his next colony. I’m fine with that simplistic motivation because we see villains like that in our own world.
But some more time getting to know Sador and his forces would help the payoff in defeating them. There aren’t any scenes or little exposition moments filling out where Sador and Co come from, how they rose to power, what tactics they use, etc.
Combat is Lacking, -2 Points
The ship-to-ship combat in Battle Beyond the Stars is a letdown. It lacks the excitement of a real dogfight.
When two ships square off, the film cuts back and forth between shots of its pilots looking stern in the cockpit and then to a laser blast that’s someone’s undoing.
You don’t see two ships engaged in maneuvers against each other while flying through space at high speeds. Instead, they seem to fly straight at each other in a direct line, like a game of laser chicken.
And the characters are nearly silent.
In ship combat scenes in other movies, the characters help the audience understand the action with step-by-step battle narration and reactions to what’s happening, such as in this clip from Top Gun. For sure this movie has a sliver of the budget of a film like that, but you get the idea.
And then there’s the ground fighting.
Cowboy leads the Akira against Sador’s forces, but no tactics seem to be at play. Meanwhile, lasers fly everywhere, yet somehow miss their targets just ten feet away.
The budget has to come into play here, but some creative workarounds could have been done.
Should I Watch Battle Beyond the Stars?
Total Score: 4 Points
Battle Beyond the Stars is silly fun that comes across as self-aware.
If you’re a fan of ’80s sci-fi and/or campy feel-good adventures, you’ll enjoy this film’s character designs and go-for-it tone. Corny as the movie is, it’s got heart and some fun bits.
Fans of James Cameron will enjoy seeing a movie that significantly pushed his career forward, and you can listen to the legendary James Horner’s music.
But it’s a film where a ship has boobs on it, and another character’s breasts are threatening to wardrobe malfunction at any moment. The combat isn’t so hot, and some of the world-building is mailed in.
So if you’re a retro sci-fi fan who wants to pop a bucket of popcorn and sip a cold drink while you relax, give it a chance, and you may find some joy here.
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Disclaimer:
This review’s factual information was gathered through online sources, like Wikipedia, IMDB, or interviews. Misrepresentations and errors are possible but unintentional.
Making art is hard. This is a fan’s blog. Any criticisms are meant to be constructive.
