Originally posted April 22 2014
There's no doubt that there's a wealth of great movies out there, from the forties right up to today –- classics, cult classics, blockbusters, sequels, prequels and other things ending in “quel”, everything from westerns to sci-fi and war movies to comedies --- but there are an equal amount of terrible movies, movies that should never have been made, movies that are so bad they're good and movies that are so bad they're bad. Movies that make you cringe, squirm and occasionally think about demanding your money back. These are the movies I will be presenting in this new section.
Now, before any knickers are twisted, let me remind you all as ever that this is my own opinion and my view. You may love a film I feature here and want to take me to task for slagging it off. If so, I have three words for you: get over it. I'm just poking fun and am not really debating the merits or failings of these movies. Well, I am, but all in jest. I realise every movie can't be a runaway success and that sometimes budget constraints will lead to the film being, shall we say, less realistic than it could have been? But of course some bad movies are worse than other bad movies, and some have the saving grace of having maybe a good plot or a star, while nothing else about the movie is worth considering. Some, of course, don't even have that. Some have a good idea that suffers from poor writing, poor acting, low-budget effects or poor production or direction. And some don't. In the world of crappy movies, some are naturally crappier than others.
Back when I were a lad (yes this again!) we had no movie channels, no downloadable content, no Netflix or Amazon and no Sky Movies much less video on demand. For a long time we didn't even have video recorders, and the only time you could hope to see a film outside of the cinema was at the weekend on TV, and it would likely be an old one. Occasionally one of the channels might run a series of movies based around a theme, such as sci-fi or horror, and then you'd get a few decent ones, along with some real turkeys. But when videos became a reality and video rental shops began to spring up, we all rushed to them and rented the movies we had either never seen, or hadn't seen for years. This of course led to some truly turdurific choices, many of which have been blotted from my poor young mind so that I don't even remember them. But I do know that more often than not, without the likes of the internet to guide us in our choices, it was a random effort that often failed to pay off.
The movies I'll be looking at here, old and new, will all be ones that have either impressed me with their blatant crappiness, made me laugh at how bad they are (but I still watched them), or ones I think could perhaps have been good if it wasn't for certain drawbacks. Such as editing, production, acting, plot, budget, music and so on.
I won't be running total full reviews of them like the movies I usually feature, but will be focussing more on the way they try perhaps and fail to be good movies. Or don't try at all. Sometimes a movie is both at its crappiest and its best when it realises it is a turd and doesn't try to be anything else. Like they say, we're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. Some of us, though, are looking down at the human crap floating down towards the drain.
Title: Battle beyond the stars
Year: 1980
Writer: Anne Dyer
Producer: Ed Carlin/ Roger Corman
Genre: Science-fiction
Stars: Richard Thomas as Shad
Robert Vaughn as Gelt
George Peppard as Space Cowboy (um...)
John Saxon as Sador
Darlanne Fluegel as Nanelia
(And a lot of other people who surely now regret it...)
This movie, in case you haven't seen it, is basically a pastiche of two very popular (and far superior) movies: “The Magnificent Seven”, a famous western based on Japanese director Akiro Kurosawa's “Seven Samurai” and the blockbuster “Star Wars”. Although Lucas's space opera had set the world alight and rekindled a new interest in science-fiction movies, this was a double-edged sword, as everyone and his mother thought they could write and produce a sci-fi film. This led to a glut of truly terrible rip-offs such as “Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone”, “Warlords of Atlantis”, “Starcrash”, “Brother from another planet” and “Prisoners of the lost universe”. Even Disney tried to get in on the act, and foisted the godawful “The Black Hole” upon us. Yeah, everyone was at it. But some were better than others and even all of Disney's financial clout and all the resources of its mega-empire couldn't stop that movie from being a turkey. By contrast, that same year would see the result of a movie which would go on to become both a sci-fi and horror classic, and introduce us to a new breed of heroine in Ridley Scott's “Alien”, although in fairness it would also see the underwhelming start of the Star Trek movie franchise with the boring, dull-as-dishwater-and-bearing-little-resemblance-to-the-series “Star Trek: the Motion Picture.”
But once “Star Wars” had opened the floodgates and shown movie studios and execs that sci-fi was not just for kids, that it could play in major cinemas and, more importantly, smash box-office records, there was no stopping them. Which is the only real reason I can see for this movie ever having been released. To call it derivative is being extremely kind. It has a plot ripped right out of “Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven”, down to the casting of one of the actors from that movie --- in virtually the same role --- and the role of another being played by a different actor.
Unkindly, but appropriately and accurately referred to by me and my friends as “John Boy in space”, the movie does indeed star Richard Thomas, better known as squeaky-clean eldest lad John Boy Walton in squeaky-clean American family drama “The Waltons” --- he's never ever going to shake that connection, even if he does a hardcore adult drama (urgh! The image! The
image! Get it out of my
head!) --- he'll always be John Boy. The wafer-thin plot concerns the efforts of farmer Shad (John Boy I mean Thomas) to recruit a “magnificent seven” sorry “group of fighters who number seven and may or may not be magnificent” to help defend his planet which has come under attack by vicious Mexican bandits, sorry space pirates. The leader of the pirates, a man called Sador (could that name be any darker if they had called him Pure Evil?)
possesses a weapon called the Stellar Converter whcih turns planets into stars. No, I don't mean it's a weaponised Simon Cowell! Not those type of stars! Real stars, like, you know, the sun. One can only assume this is not good news for anyone inhabiting the planet, and generally speaking a thing to be avoided at all costs.
Sador wants the planet for its resources and issues his ultimatum: submit to him and his army of space mutants (I'm serious!) or he will return in seven days. Yes, seven days. Exactly. Just enough time for the poor oppressed space farmers to run off and enlist some mercenary cowboys, I mean space heroes, to help them defeat the dread warlord. And of course there will be a rich reward for the saviours of the ... huh? Food you say. Food and shelter. Um. That's it? Who wouldn't jump at the chance?
I love the way the farmers, whose home planet is Akir and so they are all --- Akirans! --- are so meek and submissive that when the few crewing the only battered little weather satellite they have orbiting their planet encounter the space fleet they politely ask if the invaders wouldn't mind identifying themselves. Please? If it's not too much trouble? Annoyed by such unnecessary politeness, and probably (and probably correctly) assuming the crew are gay, Sador destroys their little weather station without a second thought and then goes to quite literally overshadow the lives of the Akirans as his huge ship moves in over the planet. As this happens, someone quite unnecessarily asks “What is it?” What the
fuck do you think it is, idiot? It's a big-ass mother
fucker of a starship, and you had better just start sucking Sador's co --- Hold on a moment. How did The Batlord get in here and start writing my copy?
He's right though: who could see such a sight and ask that question? It's pretty damn obvious what it is, and if it isn't then the smell coming from all those other farmers standing around beside you and gawping up at the sky like a hick on his first visit to a big city should alert you. There'll be no shortage of fertiliser for the crops this season! Assuming there still
is a season.
Sador delivers his ultimatum. He pulls no punches, and speaks as if to children. And slow-witted children at that. “I have come with my forces to conquer you” he tells them. Well firstly there wouldn't be much point in his coming
without his forces to conquer them, would there? Damn! I
knew I forgot something! And if he had come with his forces, he's hardly likely to be delivering a consignment of toys to the Akiran orphanage, now is he? But just in case the hayseeds haven't got the message he spares a few of them the tedium of remaning in this movie any longer than they need to be and blows them away with lasers. Lucky them: there's another hour and a half of this drivel to go!
Note: we now learn that, despite or even because of his tough-guy image, Sador is actually gay, as he orders “Full thrust to Umateal!” His underlings go scurrying off to wake up Umateal and tell him he's wanted in Sador's bedchamber. Meanwhile, John Boy makes his entrance --- no, that was not a clever and well-thought-out sexual segue! --- and is immediately told in contempt “You are a boy”. He must be getting tired of these references by now. For some reason he is the “only one who can fly Zed's ship”. Or maybe he's the only one who's not too embarrassed to. Look at it! It's a flying pair of breasts! With some sort of penile extensions! The Batlord must love it!
Just a note on the budget here. They may have been able to afford James Horner for the soundtrack (probably told him it was the next Star Wars movie, or else took him into the future and showed him that he would be forced to write the score for “Titanic”, then lied they could save him from this fate if he wrote for them) but they had to steal effects and sounds from other films and series. As the lights come on in Nell, the boobship, the sound is that of the USS Enterprise firing photon torpedoes!
Nerd alert! Nerd alert!
Now, a few observations before we get on with this thrilling plot. Firstly, Sador is a flithy stinking smegging stinking flithy liar. The “stellar convertor” cannot possibly work. I know this is a sci-fi movie but look at the first part of that abbreviated genre title. In general, science has to be observed in sf movies, and you cannot turn a planet into a star by any means at all, certainly not by hitting it with a massive laser beam. You can of course turn it into a cinder, which is what will happen to Akir if the dastardly tyrant has his way, but not a star. Not that I think the ex-inhabitants will be bringing this up as a point of order! Still, if you're going to be a megalomaniac, at least be an honest megalomaniac.
Secondly, John Boy's character just appears out of nowhere, and conveniently is the only one who can pilot the tittyship --- which has, of course, a female AI --- other than old Zed, its owner who is of course now too old to pilot --- probably have a double coronary if he even saw it now, in his condition and at his age! I suppose he's been womping swamp rats in his old T-15 back on Tattooine as well, has he? Talk about clumsy plot devices with absolutely no buildup. Actually, let's not. Let's get back to this riveting film. As in, whoever wrote it deserves to be riveted to a crossbeam and left there as a warning to other aspiring directors and screenwriters that you can't just rip off a classic movie --- two classic movies --- actually, almost three --- and call the script your own. Yes, I know they
meant to rewrite "The Magnificent Seven", but they didn't do it very well, did they?
So where were we? Oh yeah. John Boy --- sorry Shad (You know what? Let's just call him John Boy, it's easier. And more fun) is on the way off his home planet for the first time ever he says. Eager to welcome him to outer space, the guys Sador left behind attack him but he gets away. When the leader wants to go after him his subordinate reminds him that they were told to watch the planet, and their master does not take kindly to his orders being disobeyed. “Remember Lobo?” he prompts. “He disobeyed orders, now Sador is wearing his left foot!” Quite right too: anyone who can write a song called “Me and you and a dog named Boo” has no right to both feet. Mind you, the B-side was terrific. Anyway, back to the firefight. Note that the ship, Nell, does everything for John Boy but push the fire button, yet he's not even prepared to do that. She locks on target, zooms in, frames the ship nicely and gives him a HUD (Head-Up Display, you dirty beggar!) but he can't push one simple button. “We'll tip our hand!” he complains. What? You mean they'll realise you're armed? “Can we outrun them?” he asks, revealing that, whatever Richard Thomas may say, you can't take the Walton out of him. Still a bloody peacenik. This is going to be some battle. Beyond, you know, the stars.
And there's another thing: the title is complete rubbish. How can you go beyond the stars? The stars are everywhere. The bloody universe is made up of them. There is no beyond the stars. Give me strength! How much longer? Crap! We're only fifteen minutes in! Better haul space-ass then or we'll be here all night. Anyway, preferring to keep both his feet the alien mutant in charge agrees that they head home and allow John Boy to continue on his way. Nell complains that she has been forced to “show my backside to those aliens!” Why is she bitching? She's showing everyone her tits! But I digress. So they arrive eventually at Heph – Hefas --- Huffast --- ah screw it! Vulcan station and announce “This is an emissary from the planet Akir.” No answer. No reason why they should answer. Akir is in the arsehole of nowhere; why would they care if an “emissary” (read, cocky kid who thinks he's Luke Skywalker and so isn't) from there has arrived? John Boy calls the professor's name. Again, nothing. Receiving no answer he does what any experienced pilot does, and waits for permisson to ... oh no, wait, he doesn't. He just goes in anyway.
Things get much sexier as he boards the station. He meets Nanelia, (seriously? Are you kidding me? Leia??) who is unsuccessfully trying to create a robot boyfriend for herself, but drops everything (not literally: this is a family movie) when she sees the striking young man stride confidently towards her. Well, after all, she works here with one old man and a bunch of androids. Beggars can't be choosers and any port in a storm, you know. Clearly fighting back the urge to ask “Aren't you himself from the Waltons?” she loses no time interrogating him, thinking he is an android. Well, she can't be blamed really can she? A robot would act better. When she realises he's human he asks her if she has never seen “an organic form” before, which has to go down as one of the worst chatup lines in a sci-fi movie ever.
Some obvious Star Wars comparisons: young buck who has never been offplanet before is sent to do battle with an evil empire. Well, sort of. On the way he meets a beautiful woman, but she does not turn out to be his sister. Boo. Nor a princess. Double boo. The not-princess tells John Boy Skywalker that her father is not as he was when Zed knew him, which kind of feeds into the whole Obi-Wan Kenobi thing. Oh, and of course the stellar convertor is just the weapon off the Death Star, which even now Darth Vader is looking for. After all, what good is a massive battlestation if it hasn't got its main weapon? What use are any of us without our main weapon? Batlord! I told you to get out of here! Okay, back we go.
John Boy meets the not-princess's father, the one he was sent to find, Professor Hephalump, or whatever, but when Nanelia said he wasn't the man he used to be she wasn't just whistling Dixie! In fact, he's gone right off the deep end (possibly due to having to be a member of the cast of this movie!) and far from helping poor old Shad, tries to matchmake him with his daughter, hoping the two will create a superrace of ... well, I'm not quite sure, but it may have to do with androids. Or maybe Mexicans. Or Mexican androids. Anyway, whatever the case ol' John Boy is not digging the scene, even if Nanelia is hotter than the surface of the sun. He's got a planet to save!
One of the many funny asides comes when the cracked professor tells his robot butler, Saunders, “Prepare the conjugal suite”. The robot goes to do so, but the prof calls him back to say that his daughter will convince the young man to stay. The robot smiles and moves off but Prof Loon calls him back again, to advise him that the defence of Akir is hopeless. About as hopeless as getting away to prepare the
fucking conjugal suite like you asked me to, surely thinks Saunders, and makes another valiant attempt to get away, but the prof again calls him back, telling him there will be children here again soon! Great, thinks Saunders: then they can keep you busy while I get on with the tasks I was bloody manufactured to carry out!
John Boy vainly tries to convince Nanelia to let him go, but the not-princess is more interested the more he talks. She says she has never heard of wind, and surely he experiences a desire to let one rip, but thinks better of it. He does however convince her to help him escape, though rather unkindly calls her “Dummy” when she refuses to come with him, preferring to stay with her insane father. Or is he talking to the robot? Hard to say really. After he's gone Nanelia decides maybe that rather than stay on this station surrounded by emotionless androids, she'd rather go after one emotionless android sorry human sorry Akiran, and anyway she'd like to find out what this thing she's heard about is, called sex. But that ship has literally sailed by the time she makes up her mind so she has to take her own little craft.
“No weapons at all?” sneers John Boy condescendingly. Or maybe he's referring to the fact that she rather selfishly abandoned her bipolar father without carrying an armful of laser disruptors, or phaser rifles or whatever. Never mind that she has left her life behind and taken her first step into the big outside world stroke galaxy: why didn't she tool up first? Bloody women! She does mollify him though by saying “I've brought an analyser”, so he at least knows he'll be on for some kinky sex later!