Battle Beyond the Stars

USA 1980
produced by
Ed Carlin, Roger Corman (executive) for New World
directed by Jimmy T. Murakami
starring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, John Saxon, George Peppard, Darlanne Fluegel, Sybil Danning, Sam Jaffe, Jeff Corey, Morgan Woodward, Marta Kristen, Earl Boen, John D.Gowans, Steve Davis, Lawrence Steven Meyers, Lara Cody, Lynn Carlin, Julia Duffy, Eric Morris, Doug Carleson, Ron Ross, Terrence E.McNally, Galen Thompson, Whitney Rydbeck, Tom Henschel, Richard Davalos, Nate Esformes, Lanny Broyles, Rob Reece
story by John Sayles, Anne Dyer, screenplay by John Sayles, music by James Horner

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)   CLICK HERE to buy from Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!

Outer space, sometime in the far far future: The evil Sador (John Saxon) wants to conquer the world Akira, which is inhabited by a peaqce-loving tribe that doesn't even have any means of defense. And thus, a young Akiran, Shad (Richard Thomas) is sent to outer space in the Akirans' only spaceship to collect mercenaries from all over the galaxy. Eventually, he returns with a small collection of men and women who are willing to help, the ruthless Gelt (Robert Vaughn), the weapons expert Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel), the female warrior Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning), the self-explanatory cowboy (George Peppard), the clone-collective Nestor and the alien Cayman (Morgan Woodward). Of course, this small gang of mercenaries is hopelessly outnumbered by Sador's army, but they figure they got one chance: To seperate Sador's mothership from his fighter jets, then wait for him to lower his shields to use his ultimate weapon, the Stellar Converter, and then put the converter and hopefully the ship with it out of commission.

After an extended battle, the converter is destroyed even, but all but Shad and Nanelia have been killed in fight, and even without the converter, Sador poses a threat to Akira - thus Shad lets Sador captor his ship in Sador's tractor beam and pull it back to the mothership, then puts the ship on self destruct and leaves by escape pod ... and boom!, Sador is history.

One of the many films produced in the wake of George Lucas' original Star Wars series, Battle Beyond the Stars is actually one of those movies that comes off as more original and more entertaining than Lucas' films. Deliberately quoting The Seven Samurai and its remake The Magnificent Seven while not taking itself too seriously, this is a very likeable space opera full of cheap but effective special effects, colourful (if caricature-like) characters and an onslaught of action. Only Richard Thomas from The Waltons in the lead seems a bit out of place in this film, but I guess they just needed someone who could portray an as wet-behind-the-ears character as Mark Hamill did in the Star Wars movies - unfortunately. Still, the film is good, harmless fun.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Battle Beyond the Stars at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Battle Beyond the Stars here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai

Thanks for watching !!!