Star Pilot (1977)

People are voting emotionally.

Awesome Movie

Admirable film.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

By the way, Gordon Mitchell is in this for about a minute, tops.This one kind of starts off like They Came From Beyond Space, what with a group of scientists investigating an area in Sardinia where nothing grows due to radiation or something. Along for the ride are the elderly professor, his daughter the broad, and some other guys. The Chinese are in on things too as the bad guys, so everyone is surprised when the patch of lands houses a UFO, everyone is captured and forced to work for the aliens. Wait, the leader is 'a woman?'.So you've got a serious prof and his acolytes, his ditzy daughter with her nice arse and bad acting, and everyone ends up heading out into space and you'll be glad of that because most of what happens beforehand is really boring. This film is saved by the cast heading out into space, because that's when the rules get thrown out of the window.Not only is our broad 'forced' to wear the female leader's costumes, but vice versa happens as our aliens learn 'love' while exploring the cosmos while our enemy, the two Chinese guys, are attacked by a bunch of monkeys on some bizarre planet and never mentioned again.There's other revelations, and a pretty abrupt ending, and so much crap randomness that I can't help but like this film more than I should. I thought I would hate it but things pick up about halfway through.

While one of the most generically titled movies I've seen, STAR PILOT is also one of the most delightfully stupid. The plot is nonsensical, the effects are wonderfully low budget, and most of the characters are indistinguishable from each other. I was excited to revisit the world of '60s era Italian space adventure, and it was an added bonus when the opening credits listed Gordon Mitchell (the hilariously over-theatrical star of THE GIANT OF METROPOLIS) as a cast member. Unfortunately, Mitchell's role in the film turned out to be nothing more than a short cameo but at least the space adventure was a wicked fun time. It starts with an alien spacecraft landing in Sardinia (an island in the Mediterranean off the eastern coast of Italy) and the world immediately forgetting about it. Three months later, Professor Solmi (Roland Lesaffre) is informed of a plot of land in Sardinia that shows signs of radioactivity and he, along with his daughter Luisa (Leontine May) and associate Paolo (Mario Novelli), fly out to investigate. Upon arrival, they're plagued with strange occurrences, including an earthquake that opens a cavern into the ground. The group descend into the cavern and discover the alien spacecraft but, before they can report their findings, they're attacked by a trio of Asian men who insist the professor show them the underground rocket, believing it to be a secretly developed weapon. Violence erupts and soon they're all taken captive by the aliens within the vessel who demand the humans repair their engines and assist in piloting the craft into space. Under the command of Kaena (Leonora Ruffo), the aliens promise to leave the humans on Earth once the craft is functional…but can they be trusted?I could spend an hour chatting someone's ear off about everything I found hilarious about this movie. I did my best to give a succinct understanding of the basic premise but I know I haven't done it justice. The plot is both way more and way less complicated than that. It wants to come across as epic in scope with an environmental message behind it; the aliens explain at one point that the whole reason they were on Earth in the first place was to observe and determine whether all the nuclear experimentation our race was performing would have any dangerous effects on the rest of the galaxy. That's right, an advanced race of space-faring aliens are concerned that the nuclear effects on a single small world will put the entire rest of the galaxy at risk. Science! These advanced aliens are also in such a bind that they need the relatively primitive humans to repair their engines for them. And fly the ship. All without any sort of preexisting knowledge and instruction. And they do it! The humans are so much smarter than the aliens that they master use of the alien spacecraft and stage a mutiny to gain control of the craft. So the aliens from the constellation Hydra aren't all they're cracked up to be; how do the humans fare?Worse. Aside from the professor and maybe Paolo, the human characters are either faceless (the Asian men as well as two of the professor's own crew) or annoying and unnecessary (Luisa). Let's start with the Asian men who are, to be honest, completely pointless to the plot. They're some sort of agents for yet another vague operation and, whatever you do, don't mistake them for Chinese agents."Make no mistake. We are Oriental, not Chinese. We do not represent the People's Republic."One of them throws out that little disclaimer first and foremost when confronting the professor and his people. It felt more like a message from the filmmakers than the characters, wanting to ensure they didn't upset an entire viewing demographic. Regardless, they have no use here. I guess they add a slight element of intrigue, with the whole (laughable) spy operation element in the beginning of the film. Once we're with the aliens, the Asian men serve no purpose other than to provide a little tension before unceremoniously hauled off and presumably eaten by killer space gorillas. I'm so happy to say that's not an exaggeration. Killer. Space. Gorillas.But hold on, let's shift over to Luisa. Why is Luisa here? She's a young woman who still acts like a teenager and tags along with her father on his work outing to Sardinia. She's disruptive, ignorant, and I'm pretty sure at one point she was tripping on acid (during the initial cavern investigation). She has no sense of self-preservation and seems to have no concerns when taken as a hostage by aliens. In fact, her first response to captivity is to lust over one of the alien men. From the perspective of the filmmakers, I'm assuming Luisa's role in the movie was to move through a progressively skimpier wardrobe. But the funniest part of Luisa's character is how the men treat her. I know that sounds horrible, but let me explain. Every man in this movie is incredibly dismissive of Luisa, but not for the reasons I've already mentioned. They don't tease her because she's an idiot. They tease her because she's a woman. Come on, guys. If you want to hate on Luisa, don't do it because she's a woman. Do it because she thought it'd be fun to wrestle the helicopter pilot on the flight to the worksite, nearly killing you all.STAR PILOT is a must for fans of crazy old school space adventures. Zero-G is simulated with trampolines. No one uses space helmets (not even the humans). The alien's robots look like giant yellow Oompa Loompas in ribbed condom jumpsuits. That Shyamalan-ian twist ending. And did I mention the killer space gorillas?

Doesn't anyone remember that the beginning of this movie had the hero scientist being chased around a crater where the space ship crashed on Earth by crazy Chinese (or evidently some other Oriental) spies? And the girl spends the whole second half of the film floating around the space ship in her underwear - a lovely touch. You can't rate this kind of masterpiece on the same scale as other movies. It has all the wacky appeal of a painting of Elvis on black velvet or a recording of William Shatner "singing." I saw this movie fifteen years ago and just had a dream about it last night (which is what made me look it up here) and that's extra disturbing. What do you think that's about? Sorry - ten line minimum.

When you are a science-savvy person, watching science fiction films is often a painful experience: whether it is completely unrealistic (but in a way dramatically understandable) gaffes like loud roaring sound effects in the vacuum of outer space, or the unbelievable idiocy of people who think "backup engines" are there to make a rocket go, well, back up ... one just never knows what offenses filmmakers will slap up on screen.Unfortunately, there is little one can do to prepare for something like _Star Pilot_, or however one wants to reference this particular Italian "science fiction" mess. The creators of this thing not only did not have a scientifically literate person on set, they all seem to have skipped every science class that was offered in their school careers! Other reviewers have pointed out the film's startling revelation that -- contrary to what science tells us -- it is actually quite comfortable beyond the confines of any planetary atmosphere whatever, and you can just twirl around between spaceships without the benefit of a helmet or any other bulky garb. Truly amazing. I was also amazed to note that when "Bellsy" was out in the balmy vacuum repairing the ship's antenna, gravity just seemed to switch on and off without warning - since the damaged antenna he removed visibly fell down and out of sight, no matter how much bouncing around (on a trampoline, apparently) Bellsy did himself! I could go on forever. I could cite the space chart / screen two characters stared at that appeared to have standard N-E-W-S compass directions on it. Future generations of Cub Scouts will no doubt be relieved to know that there is a North in outer space, and that their compasses will work.And yet ... this film is so stupid on so many levels (despite pretensions to ... uh, something at the end) that it manages to be quite entertaining at times. It's THAT kind of bad. It would have made a good MST3K target. It's garish, incomprehensible, nonsensical, giddy, idiotic. Furthermore, some of the actors make okay eye candy, if you are into that kind of thing. "Leontine" alone is worth the price of admission, as she is some kind of cross between Angelina Jolie, Barbarella-era Jane Fonda, and something I can't quite name. Her costumes made me believe that Western culture does indeed have a basement, a hard rock floor beyond which nothing can possibly go. And yet ... no matter how often I wanted to turn away, I just ... could not.