Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Admirable film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Imagine a space battle of ships found in George Lucas' garbage cans, where John-Boy Walton flies a talking ship that looks like part of a male anatomy and Napoleon Solo loves it when a Plan-9 comes together? I must be talking about Starcrash with Marjoe Gortner, right? Nope. But then again, much of the music in this pretty incredible farce found its way into Star Trek II: TWOK. And I mean when I say about some of the spaceships look like they were Filched from the garbage bin outside of ILM, we see half of an Empire Star Destroyer with the "Whale Probe" from Star Trek IV attached to the front end. John-Boy's ship appears to be pretty, eh, "organic". Look for Sam Jaffe, from the day the earth stood still (original one), as a Cyborg. And this is a little seven samurai "Ish". Needless to say, there is all kinds of great stuff in this movie and it's one of James Camerons early works. Despite some of the special effects looking like they were hijacked from a game of video ping-pong, you can see other effects that Cameron used and improved on later in his career. And it is much better than "Starcrash"!

George Lucas commented on dealing with studio heads, and what it was like to deal with someone who is not as smart and imaginative as you are; i.e. a studio head. He made Star Wars, a "spaceship movie", so the studios made a series of spaceships movies, and they were all awful.The concept being that since people liked a movie about spaceships fighting in space, that that's what was going to be made. Battle Beyond the Stars was made in that spirit, and it shows. Boy does it show.Is it tongue-in-cheek? Eh, you could argue it as such, but it's more or less just a low budget attempt to cash in on the scifi spaceship "market trend" in the film industry at the time.Adopting Kurosawa's script for a scifi setting sounds plausible and even exciting, but unless you're willing to put the time, care, money and effort into making the thing you're going to get, well, this.What's even more embarrassing is that I paid money to see this thing at a theatre that doesn't exist anymore. Seeing the poor special effects, a heavy reliance on medium focal length master shots, little in the way of any character development (Richard "John Boy" Thomas is no Toshiro Mifune), and a support cast that comes from TV land B-list, it's a wonder anyone heaps praises on this thing.It was not meant nor shot to be a send up "so bad it's good" cult classic. It was shot on the cheap, pure and simple, hoping that enough acne-pimpled pre-teens would shell out mommy and daddy's dollars to see it. Well, I was told not to, but I went and saw it anyway. and yes, I do regret seeing it. Even again on HBO during a summer late night TV session.There's a real lack of care, lack of inspiration, lack of energy put into this piece. Sybil Danning has been cast with A-material, yet probably did this for the paycheque (that and her Teutonic origins). Robert Vaughn comes from an age with actors did both film and TV, and so likewise did not have an issue with doing this, though probably regretted it afterwards.Everything from what I call the "moose ship" design to the pathetic or hackneyed UFO people, to even miss Danning's character (no matter how alluring she physically could be), just spells "I don't care" all over this production.There are worse movies. Truly there are. This is not the worst film, but it ranks down there with a lot of bottom feeders trying to ride the coat tails of other market trends in the film industry at that time.In simple language; don't watch this film. Spare your mind. It's not even good popcorn entertainment. It's really a cheap Star Wars wannabe, and given Coreman's involvement, I'm not surprised it intentionally turned out the way it did.Avoid, or watch at your own risk. Either way don't say I didn't warn you.

From time to time i really enjoy to watch cheesy and trashy movies especially set in space, i always feel good and happy after watching that kind of movies, but this is even not a funny it is bad very bad, from plot, characters, actors, costumes, space fighters, everything looks terrible. You can compensate with good story and atmosphere but there is nothing there. The most terrible acting comes from main character Shad (Played by Richard Thomas), he is unconvincing, dull, half of the crew looks like they are totally bored, also there is a cowboy yes cowboy he is not funny at all. Only reason why i gave this movie 3 is great soundtrack by James Horner and sex Valkyrie warrior played by Austrian Sybil Danning. My recommendation is not to watch this, better watch Space Raiders which is also produced by Corman this movie use space scenes and music from this film but it is better and has more heart and story. If you want hard to laugh just watch Italian Starcrash or Turkish Star Wars, avoid this.

This is a truly dreadful film, actors ( ha ) leaving massive pauses between dialogue, awful special effects and a risible script. So WHAT that this pile of rubbish had a limited budget....That's no excuse for ridiculous performances, totally unbelievable characterisations and dialogue. For all that, it will probably attain cult status for BEING so bad. John Boy's spacecraft is shaped like a 3D womb, very bizarre I must say !The plot involves trouble in the form of John Saxon ( he of Enter the Dragon alongside Bruce Lee ) a bully boy, planet stealer/destroyer throwing his weight around. Unless the planet surrenders to him within one week, he will return to set it on fire......making you wonder what's the point. John Boy, a human amongst androids, picks himself to save the planet by recruiting anyone who can fight, seeing as he doesn't like to. Escaping from the under threat planet, he meets up with enough to recreate The Magnificent Seven ( including a bored looking and space weary Robert Vaughan who WAS in that film too )....The pacing of BBtS is all over the place but mainly painfully S-L-O-W......I recommend avoiding this altogether unless you want to spend 104 minutes with your jaw on your chest from shock at how this ever got to be made or from yawning your way through it......There is a third way of watching this but it entails you WANTING it to be as bad as possible....in which case, you will NOT be disappointed.