Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. It's time once
Speaker 1: more to venture into the realm of Star Wars knockoffs,
Speaker 1: films that, regardless of their creative integrity, were clearly getting funded, made,
Speaker 1: and or released in an attempt to cash in on
Speaker 1: the juggernaut that was nineventy seven Star Wars. I think
Speaker 1: this will be our third blatant Star Wars roboff movie. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: last year we watched n The Humanoid and you also
Speaker 1: brought up that, Yeah, that Message from Space was also
Speaker 1: technically in this, uh this Wheelhouse as well. I would
Speaker 1: say that I'm going to rank today's film second among
Speaker 1: our Star Wars knockoffs. I think Message from Space is
Speaker 1: probably my favorite. I'd go with Battle Beyond the Starrs
Speaker 1: and then The Humanoid, though I enjoyed all three. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I might have to give Battle Beyond
Speaker 1: the Stars uh the top honors of these three. But uh,
Speaker 1: but but but all three, all three of them, I
Speaker 1: would say, had things going for them that, like I say,
Speaker 1: stand apart from the whole Star Wars craze. So it's
Speaker 1: not it's not like they were just entirely you know,
Speaker 1: Star Wars ripoffs. Uh, they were creative folks involved. But
Speaker 1: certainly when you start looking at like the funding and
Speaker 1: the production, like these things came to these these films
Speaker 1: came to the surface because somebody was chasing that Star
Speaker 1: Wars money. Oh and in this case, you don't even
Speaker 1: have to wonder because this movie was produced by Roger Corman,
Speaker 1: And you can watch interviews with the people who worked
Speaker 1: on the special effects and and other behind the scenes
Speaker 1: jobs on this movie who said, yeah, Corman went to
Speaker 1: us and said, I want to make a Star Wars movie.
Speaker 1: So yeah. But one other big difference I would say
Speaker 1: is that while the Humanoids certainly had definitely had its,
Speaker 1: Vader knockoff definitely had its. You know, we have Darth
Speaker 1: Vader at home moment um, this film does not. And
Speaker 1: I think that alone makes it feel a little more authentic.
Speaker 1: But but we'll get into all that. That's actually a
Speaker 1: major distinction of this as a Star Wars among Star
Speaker 1: Wars knockoffs. And yeah, we we We'll have to get
Speaker 1: into more detail on that later. But the movie today
Speaker 1: is Battle Beyond the Stars. And uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: had a listener right in and said, hey, you guys
Speaker 1: should tell us where to get the movie early in
Speaker 1: the episode in case we want to watch it before
Speaker 1: you get into all the details. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess we can try that. So, hey, we watched
Speaker 1: this movie on an excellent Shout Factory Blu ray that
Speaker 1: came out. Um, this is one that comes in a
Speaker 1: limited edition steel book for you know, some reason. We
Speaker 1: rented it from Video Drume here in Atlanta for protection protection.
Speaker 1: He has to protect it from the elements or from
Speaker 1: bandits and um space faring warlords. But anyway, beautiful picture quality,
Speaker 1: some fun extras. You can all so rent or by
Speaker 1: this movie from most of your digital sources. Yes, and
Speaker 1: Battle Beyond the Stars is a good one to watch
Speaker 1: in high definition, even if not every frame of the
Speaker 1: movie is necessarily worth it. The movie as a whole
Speaker 1: is because it's really a mixed bag on art design,
Speaker 1: on art design, costumes and sets. Uh, some stuff in
Speaker 1: this movie is kind of phoned in, kind of Z
Speaker 1: grade cheese. I would single out maybe some of the
Speaker 1: spaceship interiors but not others. And so forth. And then
Speaker 1: on the other hand, there are some sets and costumes
Speaker 1: and things that are I popping lee weird or just
Speaker 1: absolutely gorgeous. It varies wildly from scene to scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that has I've seen people comment on
Speaker 1: the film where they're like, yeah, each ship has it.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's truly from another planet, from another
Speaker 1: culture entirely. But yes, sometimes it feels like maybe the
Speaker 1: people who designed the ship interiors were also from other planets,
Speaker 1: from different effects studios and other planets. Yeah. Now we
Speaker 1: mentioned the Star Wars connected. I also should point out
Speaker 1: that I think there are some of those ship interiores
Speaker 1: that also draw some inspiration from Alien as well. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly not from this film doesn't have much
Speaker 1: to do with Aliens from a plotting or character point
Speaker 1: of view, but as a as a as far as
Speaker 1: some like lived in space environments go, and maybe one
Speaker 1: of the planetary surfaces that we see it made me
Speaker 1: think of Alien. And it's kind of noteworthy, right, because
Speaker 1: this film involves the talents of a particular Alien fan
Speaker 1: and future Alien franchise director James Cameron. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: think you can really see the James Cameron influence in
Speaker 1: things like, uh, the beautiful set of the planet where
Speaker 1: Shad finds Robert Vaughan. Will get into the plot details
Speaker 1: about that later. Um, but also the design of the
Speaker 1: main character's ship, Nell, which looks very weird on the
Speaker 1: outside and very alien esque on the inside, despite the
Speaker 1: fact to that this is a back talking, two D
Speaker 1: grandma kind of ship. Yeah, we have a character in
Speaker 1: this film called Cowboy. He is, yes, his space Cowboy.
Speaker 1: He's the only character from Earth and as goofy as
Speaker 1: his characters, and we'll get into him. The interior of
Speaker 1: his spaceship I thought felt very alien esque. It it
Speaker 1: felt lived in in a way that reminded me of
Speaker 1: of then Nostromo. Yeah, it's got crushed beer cans and
Speaker 1: magazine cutouts pinned on the walls and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and it's dirty. Now I have to share just a
Speaker 1: little bit from Michael Weldon's ride up on this film
Speaker 1: from the book The Psychotronic Encyclopedia Film. I just found
Speaker 1: this amusing. Uh So, if you've listened to Weird Oubt Cineman,
Speaker 1: you know I love well then I'm always interested in
Speaker 1: his take on movies, exploring and finding new movies through
Speaker 1: his writings. But I think I'm gonna have to agree
Speaker 1: to disagree with him on this one, because in his
Speaker 1: review of Battle Beyond the Stars, he writes, some of
Speaker 1: the gags were cut out and the editing could have
Speaker 1: been better, but it's a lot more memorable and more
Speaker 1: fun than the Empire strikes Back, And I don't know
Speaker 1: about that. The funny thing is at least in the
Speaker 1: reviews in this book. Uh, and in the follow up book.
Speaker 1: It's not like he says anything bad about Star Wars
Speaker 1: or Empire or or even um Return of the Jedi ultimately,
Speaker 1: but he, uh, yeah, he's just like, well, Batt'll Beyond
Speaker 1: the Stars it's just more fun. So I guess fair enough,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to have fun with, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would agree there. I'm sorry, but
Speaker 1: Batt'll Beyond the Stars is great fun. It is. It is,
Speaker 1: absolutely So let's get into the elevator pitch here. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's The Seven Samurai as a space opera, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty smart move. It's a great structure to thrust
Speaker 1: under a different setting or genre. The locals are facing
Speaker 1: a bandit threat, so what do they do? They hire
Speaker 1: up some lawyers to defend them. Yes, And I just
Speaker 1: want to note an interesting double input of Kurasawa on
Speaker 1: this movie. So Battle Beyond the Stars was clearly and
Speaker 1: if you listen to the interviews with the filmmakers from
Speaker 1: Corman's perspective, it was explicitly supposed to be a combination
Speaker 1: of two influences, the Magnificent Seven from nineteen sixty and
Speaker 1: Star Wars. Both of these movies could be considered Western
Speaker 1: adaptations of different movies by a Kirakura Sawa. So the
Speaker 1: connection with The Magnificent Seven is overt. It's just a
Speaker 1: remake of Seven Samurai with cowboy gun slingers instead of
Speaker 1: mercenary swordsman. And I haven't seen Magnificent Seven and probably
Speaker 1: ten years or so that I recall it being pretty fun.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's hard to compete with the source material, right,
Speaker 1: this is a case of a an okay remake of
Speaker 1: an original masterpiece. It's certainly a famous film, but I've
Speaker 1: actually never seen the Magnificent Seven. I've seen the Seven Samurai,
Speaker 1: but not Magnificent Seven. Great cast though, oh yeah, including
Speaker 1: Robert Vaughan who's in this movie. So he was in
Speaker 1: Battle Beyond the Stars and the movie that it's based on.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, so that's that's a that's a two
Speaker 1: step there, Seven Samurai adapted into a Western as Magnificent
Speaker 1: seven and then adapted into a space opera by Battle
Speaker 1: Beyond the Stars. Now, the other half of this, of course,
Speaker 1: is Star Wars, and Star Wars itself has elements that
Speaker 1: are loosely based on a nineteen fifty eight Corsolwa film
Speaker 1: called The Hidden Fortress. Rob Have you seen this one?
Speaker 1: I never have, but I've I've I've often been tempted
Speaker 1: to just to check it out because of this connection.
Speaker 1: I think it's fantastic. It's about two peasants and a
Speaker 1: princess and a general played by Toshiro Mufune who are
Speaker 1: trying to survive in the middle of a war between
Speaker 1: two provinces. And if you watch Star Wars and Hidden
Speaker 1: Fortress together, a lot of similarities really pop out. And
Speaker 1: the most obvious, I think are the parallels between the
Speaker 1: two peasants in The Hidden Fortress, who are sort of
Speaker 1: traditional rustic clowns, like the the gaggle that runs along
Speaker 1: with Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, you know, uh, the
Speaker 1: their their rustic comedic relief, and uh, that's in the
Speaker 1: Hidden Fortress, and then you've got the droids are two
Speaker 1: D two and C three p O in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: They're a very similar duo. In both movies, the action
Speaker 1: begins with the sort of lowly bumbling down on their
Speaker 1: luck characters who are mostly there for comic relief, trying
Speaker 1: to escape the crossfire of two armies, and then they
Speaker 1: become wrapped up in a in a lofty plot involving
Speaker 1: an older general trying to save a princess. In both
Speaker 1: cases interesting. So I thought it was notable that Battle
Speaker 1: Beyond the Stars is not just a Star Wars rip off.
Speaker 1: It is a mash up of two popular Western movies
Speaker 1: that are both downstream from Kurosawa. So exactly how does
Speaker 1: the mashup come together? Well, I would phrase it like this.
Speaker 1: I would say the plot broadly is Magnificent seven slash
Speaker 1: seven Samurai, and the details and the texture are from
Speaker 1: Star Wars. That sounds fair. So I think you could
Speaker 1: in a way look at this movie as like the
Speaker 1: original Magnificent Seven, which was seven Samurai but as a Western,
Speaker 1: and Battle beyond the Stars is seven Samurai but as
Speaker 1: a Star Wars knockoff. Now there's another thing I'm always
Speaker 1: on the lookout for when I watch Star Wars knockoffs.
Speaker 1: I think we may have talked about this in our
Speaker 1: episode on on the Humanoid Um, but I'm always curious
Speaker 1: which elements from Star Wars get lifted and which do not, right,
Speaker 1: because you know, you're not just making an exact copy
Speaker 1: of the movie. You pick some things about it to
Speaker 1: copy and you leave you leave out others. And for
Speaker 1: some reason, it's interesting to me, like, what are the
Speaker 1: features that people find salient or worth copying about Star Wars?
Speaker 1: And also what what line designates going too far? Like
Speaker 1: it seems it seems as if most filmmakers would agree
Speaker 1: that you cannot have a lightsaber in your film if
Speaker 1: you're not a Star Wars property. There are some glaring exceptions.
Speaker 1: Star Crash does. Yeah, and when you when you break
Speaker 1: that that rule, when you cross that line, I think
Speaker 1: everybody kind of um, you know, has to sort of
Speaker 1: look away. There's a there's a deep shame falls upon
Speaker 1: everyone viewing and participating in the film. Totally agree. Um.
Speaker 1: So a couple of things along these lines. I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention right at the top, but maybe we can
Speaker 1: mention some more um uh details that were copied or
Speaker 1: not as we go along. But first thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to draw attention to is Darth Vader design. I believe
Speaker 1: one of the most universal features to be carried over
Speaker 1: into a Star Wars copycat is the Darth Vader design.
Speaker 1: Almost all of these movies have a menacing space lord
Speaker 1: villain who wears a shiny black suit with some kind
Speaker 1: of robotic entanglements and a Samurai inspired helmet, and this
Speaker 1: movie is an exception. It clearly has a Darth Vader
Speaker 1: inspired character whose name even rhymes with Vader, but this
Speaker 1: character does not wear a Darth Vader type suit. And
Speaker 1: I think there's a reason for this. Throb. We can
Speaker 1: get to it when we talk about the actor, but
Speaker 1: I wonder if you'll agree with me about the reasoning. Alright.
Speaker 1: Second thing that is very often copied from a Star
Speaker 1: Wars movie and is clearly and is present in this
Speaker 1: one a planet killer weapon. This movie does not have
Speaker 1: a death star, but it does have a space ship
Speaker 1: that can shoot a beam that can destroy an entire planet.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to the trailer.
Speaker 1: Ruthless Invaders were a defenseless planet. Battle Beyond the Stars,
Speaker 1: a bone youth escapes on a last ditch mission that
Speaker 1: begins at the edge of the universe. The story of
Speaker 1: a boy who finds more than he expected and all
Speaker 1: he can handle. Does your species have kissing? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: we have that. Try one. That's a hot dog. It
Speaker 1: comes to Earth. Do you like it? There's no dog
Speaker 1: in this soybean meal, nyasin dextros and sodium nitrate flavoring.
Speaker 1: That's what we call meat back home. Battle Beyond the Stars,
Speaker 1: All right, sounds like a lot of fun, right sure,
Speaker 1: All right? Let's let's talk about the people who brought
Speaker 1: this together. First of all, the director Jimmy T. Murakami,
Speaker 1: who lived three American Irish animator of Japanese Americ and heritage.
Speaker 1: He was also a director Ones Heavy Metal, helming the
Speaker 1: soft Landing sequence alongside John Bruno, and this segment was
Speaker 1: based on a comic pinned by Dan O'Bannon of Alien fame,
Speaker 1: and was adapted for the film by Dan O'Bannon. Murrakami's
Speaker 1: other directorial credits include um uncredited directorial work on nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties Humanoids from the Deep, another Corman production, and various
Speaker 1: animated credits, including directing the Twittsie pop how Many Licks
Speaker 1: short commercial from nineteen sixty nine. Is this the one
Speaker 1: with the owl? Yeah, this is the one of the
Speaker 1: owl our our producer Seth will also he probably already
Speaker 1: knows this, but uh. Murrakami also produced six episodes of
Speaker 1: the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Uh. He also
Speaker 1: directed When the Wind Blows from six about an elderly
Speaker 1: British couple who survived a nuclear war. And and he
Speaker 1: was the co founder of Mora Commie Wolf Productions later
Speaker 1: known as just fred Wolf Films. Who did that original
Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle show? Well, Folk, Seth just filled
Speaker 1: us in with all kinds of animation connections. I don't
Speaker 1: think he was recording what he said so unfortunately, but
Speaker 1: suffice to say, apparently fred Wolf is important in a
Speaker 1: whole seventies animation scene. Now, Joe, you you dived into
Speaker 1: the making of stuff on this one a little more
Speaker 1: than I did. I noticed that on Internet movie database
Speaker 1: Roger Corman is listed as not only a producer but
Speaker 1: an uncredited He has an uncredited director's credit. I am
Speaker 1: to believe he would he would at least show up
Speaker 1: and fire people and so forth. I think that's a
Speaker 1: common uh dynamic with Corman, that he is he directing
Speaker 1: this movie, not really but sort of. I think this
Speaker 1: wouldn't even be the first Corman produced movie that was
Speaker 1: like this. Oh. I think it was the case with um,
Speaker 1: what was it the Brain Eaters that was sort of
Speaker 1: half directed by Corman or at least produced by Corman
Speaker 1: without a credit. Uh so, So yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: kind of thing happened a lot. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of great stories about Corman. So I watched part of
Speaker 1: a making of documentary that comes on the Blu ray
Speaker 1: if if you pick this, pick up the new Blu
Speaker 1: ray of this one, which mostly featured interviews with the
Speaker 1: visual effects crew, and so they had a lot of
Speaker 1: great stories about about working with James Cameron and what
Speaker 1: that was like on set. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that stuck out to me was well, first of all,
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about Corman ended up having to
Speaker 1: do with the budget, of course, like how can we
Speaker 1: get costs down? Because they pitched this as you know,
Speaker 1: this was going to be like the biggest budget Corman
Speaker 1: movie of all time. It was gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: Corman's finally making a movie with like a mainstream level budget.
Speaker 1: But I think in actual fact that the budget just
Speaker 1: kept shrinking during production until this really was kind of
Speaker 1: done on a shoestring compared to how it looks in
Speaker 1: the end. But one of the stories, for example, is
Speaker 1: that I think major parts of this were shot on
Speaker 1: a studio that Corman had purchased that was formerly a
Speaker 1: lumber yard, And they said that Corman didn't change the
Speaker 1: signs on the on the studio lot, it's still said
Speaker 1: lumberyard because he reasoned that the sets were less likely
Speaker 1: to get burglarized if it was labeled the lumber yard
Speaker 1: instead of a movie studio. And then they ended up
Speaker 1: hiring people for the production because carpenters would show up
Speaker 1: looking to buy lumber, not realizing it wasn't a lumber
Speaker 1: yard anymore, and they'd be like, Hey, you want to
Speaker 1: work on a movie. Oh that's good. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: Well let's get into the writing credits on this. So,
Speaker 1: uh there is, uh, there's a writer by the name
Speaker 1: of Ann Dyer who has a story credit, one of
Speaker 1: only two writing credits alongside nine up from the Depths.
Speaker 1: That's a Charles B. Griffith Jaws knockoff starring Sam Bottoms
Speaker 1: and also one of our Lee Ermi's first screen roles.
Speaker 1: It's supposedly about a giant sturgeon looking fish attacking what's
Speaker 1: supposed to be Hawaii, but it is a Roger Corman
Speaker 1: production filmed in the Philippines. How have I never seen
Speaker 1: this one? I thought I'd seen every Jaws knockoff one.
Speaker 1: Cannot I don't think there's enough time in the life
Speaker 1: in a single lifetime to do that, not yet, not
Speaker 1: until science catches up with us. Um. But the main
Speaker 1: screen writing credit on this one is is pretty noteworthy
Speaker 1: because it is John Sailis Um born nineteen fifty. Uh.
Speaker 1: This was only the fourth screen credit for Sailists, who
Speaker 1: would go on to be an award winning screenwriter and director,
Speaker 1: noted for such films as nineteen six is Lone Star,
Speaker 1: which earned him an Academy Award nomination, is Passion Fish,
Speaker 1: which which also earned him in a nomination. UH. Eight
Speaker 1: Men Out four Is The Brother from Another Planet, ninety
Speaker 1: seven Men with Guns and eighty seven's May Twin, which
Speaker 1: I remember watching in film class. That's a solid and
Speaker 1: serious film about union f It's in nineteen twenties West
Speaker 1: Virginia starring Chris Cooper, James Earl Jones, and David Strathan.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting because I know Chris Cooper was also
Speaker 1: in The Lone Star, which I haven't seen but I
Speaker 1: was looking at. Yeah. Yeah, um yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: good one. Very serious. Uh. These are, you know, serious
Speaker 1: and prestigious films. But before he did any of that,
Speaker 1: he also wrote the screenplays for Piranha, directed by Joe Dante. Uh,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Alligator that that starred Robert Forrester and Ones,
Speaker 1: The Howling, which was also directed by Joe Dante. So
Speaker 1: he definitely has horror roots. Uh. He also wrote the
Speaker 1: screenplay for nineteen eight six is the Clan of the
Speaker 1: Cave Bear. And he directed not one, not two, but
Speaker 1: three Bruce Springsteen videos Born in the USA, I'm on
Speaker 1: Fire and Glory Days. Wow. I don't think I knew
Speaker 1: there were music videos for any of those three songs. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: in some form or another, he directed at least something
Speaker 1: like a music video for for them. Huh. I gotta
Speaker 1: look that up. I haven't seen Alligator in many years,
Speaker 1: but if I'm remembering the right movie, I think that's
Speaker 1: the one where they cast Richard Lynch in the in
Speaker 1: the quint role. Oh I don't remember. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I saw Alligator when I was a kid. I think
Speaker 1: this is a sewer Gator movie. Wait, maybe thinking of
Speaker 1: Alligator to the mutation. Yeah, but yes, yes, yes, it
Speaker 1: is a sewer Gator movie. All right, let's get into
Speaker 1: the cast on on this one, and we're gonna We're
Speaker 1: gonna take the cast in the order that they're build,
Speaker 1: which is I think I think is quite telling because
Speaker 1: the top two names also apparently absorbed a great deal
Speaker 1: of the budget for the movie. Oh really, this next
Speaker 1: guy did? I feel like he kind of phoned it
Speaker 1: in if you took all that much money. Well, it's
Speaker 1: George Bopard, who plays our space cowboy, the only character
Speaker 1: from Earth who goes by the name Cowboy. He is
Speaker 1: called Cowboy, and he is a cowboy. Or actually I
Speaker 1: think he sort of larks as a cowboy, because he
Speaker 1: talks about how he spends all of his time watching
Speaker 1: old Western movies, and so I think he may maybe
Speaker 1: he is actually just a space trucker who puts on
Speaker 1: the persona of a cowboy. He's a space trucker. Who's
Speaker 1: gone insane in deep space all by himself, with only
Speaker 1: West TV Westerns to keep him company, and has thus
Speaker 1: taken on this this insane persona. He basically dresses like
Speaker 1: a late seventies Texan trucker and he just drinks and
Speaker 1: smokes constantly and frankly does little else in the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah now. Georgia ba bard Here was born in n
Speaker 1: died in probably best remembered for playing the struggling writer
Speaker 1: Paul var Jack in the one film Breakfast at Tiffany's
Speaker 1: and also for playing Hannibal on TVs the A Team.
Speaker 1: They made a movie out of it, uh remake, but
Speaker 1: I don't recall who is in the Hannibal role. Oh
Speaker 1: now I'm reminded. It's It's it's Nisan's, it's Liam's and
Speaker 1: Islam Okay, oh this guy is the I love it
Speaker 1: when a plan comes together guy. Yes, so yeah, he's
Speaker 1: our he's our space cowboy and he has he has
Speaker 1: top billings. So um the uh he's kind of it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of one of the many Han Solo esque
Speaker 1: characters in this without being quite as cool as Han Solo,
Speaker 1: not even close. This movie has several Han solos. This
Speaker 1: guy is. I think they think that he works as
Speaker 1: Han Solo because he's a scoundrel. But just scoundrel nous
Speaker 1: does does not a Han Solo make you gotta have
Speaker 1: that charm as well? Well, we have another shot at
Speaker 1: pulling off that charm because the next actor of note here,
Speaker 1: who also I think was was paid pretty heavily compared
Speaker 1: to the rest of the cast, is Robert Vaughan playing Guilt. Um.
Speaker 1: Everyone I think has seen Robert Vaughan in something, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he n sixteen and um. In this he plays an
Speaker 1: emotionless assassin with a thousand enemies, um, which is essentially
Speaker 1: this is basically the same role he played in The
Speaker 1: Magnificent Seven, right, yes, and so he's in the Magnificent seven,
Speaker 1: is one of the mercenaries. And I would say that
Speaker 1: he even kind of dresses in this movie like his
Speaker 1: character in Magnificent Seven. Yeah, yeah, he's He's a fun
Speaker 1: character in this film, unlike Cowboy, who's just kind of
Speaker 1: a one note gag that hangs out a little bit
Speaker 1: too long. Guilt feels so you know, authentic. I buy
Speaker 1: into the idea that here's this guy that has that
Speaker 1: is totally emotionalless, but also he has this loneliness to him,
Speaker 1: like he's all he's done, has earned himself riches and
Speaker 1: h enemies, and now he has like maybe one shot
Speaker 1: at doing something good with his life. I can buy
Speaker 1: into all this. I will say, Von actually makes a
Speaker 1: couple of interesting acting choices, if you can believe me
Speaker 1: saying that about this movie. Uh maybe maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: to those during the plot section. But yeah, he he's
Speaker 1: doing something with it. So, like I say, if you've
Speaker 1: watched films or TV, you've seen Robert Vaughan in something.
Speaker 1: He's probably most notable for his roles in nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: The Magnificent Seven, of course, nineteen Bullet starring Steve McQueen,
Speaker 1: who was also in The Magnificent Seven, UM seventy four
Speaker 1: is the Towering Inferno in three Superman three. So he
Speaker 1: always had a great screen presence, you know, he was
Speaker 1: he was a you know, a bit smooth, a bit menacing,
Speaker 1: and this I think allowed him to play a wide
Speaker 1: variety of villains and authority figures. So, for instance, you'll
Speaker 1: find him as the voice of the Proteus four in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven's Demon Seed. But You'll also find him
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy Chuck Heston Julius Caesar film. You'll
Speaker 1: also see him pop up in things like Joe Diamato's
Speaker 1: Zombie five or Um or the movie Pootie Tang. On TV.
Speaker 1: He's done everything from Coronation Street to The A Team.
Speaker 1: He played a vampire in Jim war Narski's nine nine
Speaker 1: film Transylvania Twist, And of course he's also America's favorite lawyer.
Speaker 1: Oh man, this is what I've been waiting to get to,
Speaker 1: So if you're not familiar. Later in his career, Robert
Speaker 1: Vaughn the actor had an extensive run as a quote
Speaker 1: spokesman in personal injury lawyer commercials. I think with the
Speaker 1: implicit intention of tricking people into thinking that this classy
Speaker 1: yet tough looking attack dog was one of the lawyers
Speaker 1: who worked at the firm being advertised. I remember years
Speaker 1: ago we had some kind of but something on our fridge.
Speaker 1: It was either a magnet or a cutout of a
Speaker 1: magazine ad or something, but it was for a local
Speaker 1: law firm and it had a picture of this guy
Speaker 1: of Robert Vaughan and then down at the bottom and
Speaker 1: fine printed said Robert Vaughan spokesman. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think in this picture he was jacket off, wearing suspenders
Speaker 1: and to tie so real ready to tussle. Look, I
Speaker 1: think they're going for a feeling of that. This guy
Speaker 1: makes claim suggesters just with their pants like they are
Speaker 1: terrified of him. Uh. And if you look it up
Speaker 1: on YouTube, you can find tons of Robert Vaughan lawyer
Speaker 1: commercials millions of dollars. That's knowledge, that's experience, that success.
Speaker 1: You've got one opportunity for justice. Why except less put
Speaker 1: the law firm with they proven track record to work
Speaker 1: for you. And I would say, I want, I want
Speaker 1: to pose it that Robert Vaughan's success as a spokesman
Speaker 1: in lawyer commercials is almost perfectly aligned with the quality
Speaker 1: that got him cast at least two times as a
Speaker 1: mercenary who is hired to defend a bunch of farmers
Speaker 1: from an evil bandit king in in the Western End
Speaker 1: in the Space Opera, because he just seems like like
Speaker 1: the tough, cutthroat s ob that in an alternate timeline
Speaker 1: might be working for the bandit king or for the
Speaker 1: insurance company. But you just happened to have been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to get him on your side, and now he
Speaker 1: fights for you. Yeah. I even memory serves they used
Speaker 1: to show one of these in in the Atlanta area,
Speaker 1: some firm or another, and maybe they still do. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's possible that that he's I mean,
Speaker 1: just because he's dead doesn't mean he can't be the
Speaker 1: spokesman for a law firm, right, right, Sure, I mean
Speaker 1: I'm assuming. I'm assuming Robert Vaughan had all these interesting
Speaker 1: characteristics that I didn't even know about until I started
Speaker 1: reading up on him for this episode. Like at some
Speaker 1: point he was interested in politics. Uh. And I imagine
Speaker 1: probably the same quality that makes him appealing as a
Speaker 1: lawyer commercial spokesman probably would have made him a successful
Speaker 1: political candidate. Uh. He I found even an old episode
Speaker 1: of firing Line where he's like arguing with Willie William F. Buckley,
Speaker 1: he's arguing against the Vietnam War. Um. So he's a
Speaker 1: strange and complex figure. Yeah, and I mean I mentioned
Speaker 1: Coronation Street earlier, that, of course, is a long running
Speaker 1: British TV series. It's interesting to see that he's a
Speaker 1: guy that I guess we're predominantly in the United States.
Speaker 1: But then you'll see him pop up in not just
Speaker 1: European or British films, but like British TV series for
Speaker 1: periods of time, So he certainly worked a lot. Another
Speaker 1: thing I want to point out about his lawyer spokesman persona.
Speaker 1: So I said the image, I remember he's wearing suspenders,
Speaker 1: and I think I'm right about that. But if you
Speaker 1: look up these commercials today, in almost all of them,
Speaker 1: he's wearing a vest. And I think his character wears
Speaker 1: a vest in The Magnificent Seven, just like Han Solo
Speaker 1: wears a vest. So I don't know. There's something going
Speaker 1: on here. There's a through line from Han Solo to
Speaker 1: this guy who's going to fight for you and against
Speaker 1: the against the greedy insurance companies. All right, well, let's
Speaker 1: get to our our actual central character. Here are our
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker, if you will. It's a character named Shad,
Speaker 1: and Shad is played by Richard Thomas. One yep, this
Speaker 1: is this is John Boy from The Waltins. This is
Speaker 1: the grown up Bill Denbro from the TV adaptation of it.
Speaker 1: This is good casting because young Richard Thomas does kind
Speaker 1: of have that that naive, likable farm boy charm. Like
Speaker 1: like Mark Hamill. Yeah, there's there's also in general, there's
Speaker 1: often a sweaty intensity to Richard Thomas that I tend
Speaker 1: to like in a performance. Um, and you see it
Speaker 1: in this film too. He's good at that. That's sort
Speaker 1: of being you can see the gears moving in a performance,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, and even in this film, a
Speaker 1: film that does not demand any kind of, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: an earnest performance from its various players, I felt it
Speaker 1: felt like Richard Thomas was able to bring it. Now
Speaker 1: more I guess a lot of viewers out there might
Speaker 1: know him better from some recent television series is that
Speaker 1: he was a series that he was a part of.
Speaker 1: He was was on Ozark, he was on The Americans
Speaker 1: and uh the anthology round up for Amas is actually
Speaker 1: kind of fun for me because he was in a
Speaker 1: Tales from the Crypt episode. A pretty good one is
Speaker 1: I recall titled Mute Witness to Murder, in which he
Speaker 1: plays a demented psychologist with slick back hair. Yeah there's, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He was a fun villain in that, like,
Speaker 1: if memory serves, he's killing somebody in uh, in his
Speaker 1: own apartment and somebody across the street in another apartment building,
Speaker 1: rear windows, the whole situation. But then she shows so
Speaker 1: shocked by the murder that she goes mute. And then
Speaker 1: she winds up in an asylum situation. Who is her doctor,
Speaker 1: but it's the murderer. It's uh, it's it's Richard Thomas,
Speaker 1: and so anyway, typical tales from the cryptan Anigan's in Sue.
Speaker 1: But he was also in an episode of the nineties
Speaker 1: Outer Limits uh titled The New Breed. This was about
Speaker 1: mutation inducing nanobots and it had some some pretty nasty
Speaker 1: horror elements in it, And in that Richard Thomas plays
Speaker 1: a mad scientist. Wow against type agains. I kind of
Speaker 1: like that move though, of taking somebody who seems very
Speaker 1: a good hearted and innocent in casting them as a villain.
Speaker 1: Like I think Ron Howard should have played villains more
Speaker 1: when he was, you know, in his forties fifties. Yeah, yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: Speaking of villains, though, our our main villain in this
Speaker 1: is um is this sad or say door? Yeah, sate
Speaker 1: or say door? What does that rhyme? With its like Vader,
Speaker 1: but but with with with the with something sadistic added
Speaker 1: to it, A sadistic Vader is a sad or what
Speaker 1: if Darth Vader was sadistic or if Vader was with Sader,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But anyway, played by John Saxon, the
Speaker 1: great John Saxon, who lived nineteen thirty six. So bust
Speaker 1: out your John Saxon punch card, because we've got more
Speaker 1: Saxon action for you in this film. Um, I'll refer
Speaker 1: you back to our episode on Cannibal Apocalypse from more
Speaker 1: of a breakdown on Saxon himself and his work, but
Speaker 1: sufficed to say he plays an evil warlord and master
Speaker 1: of mutants in this film. And oh, he's got some
Speaker 1: wonderful lines lines that I had I had heard in
Speaker 1: a mix before actually off the album Saifu by wax Factor.
Speaker 1: But like there's one he's saying, I possess a stellar converter,
Speaker 1: the most powerful weapon in the universe. And then another
Speaker 1: great line is Daco is expert at inflicting pain. Now,
Speaker 1: what do you make of John Saxon's accent in this movie?
Speaker 1: He's not speaking with his natural voice, but he's also
Speaker 1: not really affecting the accent of like any other region
Speaker 1: or country I would It's not a British accent, but
Speaker 1: it's like he adopts a formal accent, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's it's like it's
Speaker 1: like a formal American villain. I guess I don't know.
Speaker 1: The other thing, Saxon clearly was not able to convince
Speaker 1: them to give him a shirtless scene in this movie.
Speaker 1: I don't think he had one. No, No, he didn't,
Speaker 1: which which is is kind of a rarity for for
Speaker 1: for the Saxon films. EVE been watching anyway, Um, and
Speaker 1: it is interesting that, yeah, he doesn't have a Darth
Speaker 1: Vader helmet, and he also he has a little bit
Speaker 1: of makeup on his face, like some sort of a
Speaker 1: scar effect. This hasn't been added over one of his eyes,
Speaker 1: but he's not nearly as made up as his legion
Speaker 1: of mutant underlings, who all have very pronounced disfigurements and
Speaker 1: like a cleft in their face. Yeah. So I was wondering,
Speaker 1: why does this movie not do the thing that every
Speaker 1: other Star Wars knockoff does and have a Darth Vader suit.
Speaker 1: And if I I don't know, but if I had
Speaker 1: to guess, I would guess it's because they had John
Speaker 1: Saxon in this role and they wanted to show his
Speaker 1: face on screen, or because Saxon wanted to show his
Speaker 1: face on screen. You just you don't hide your Saxon
Speaker 1: under a helmet. That's ludicrous. Yeah. But plus, you know,
Speaker 1: thinking back to Cannibal Apocalypse, there are some details about
Speaker 1: that movie where Saxon did put his foot down about
Speaker 1: certain things that you know, he didn't want to do.
Speaker 1: He didn't think we're the right choice for him. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know the story, but I
Speaker 1: can imagine a scenario in which Saxon's like, I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to wear that much makeup or I
Speaker 1: don't want to wear that helmet. Can you do something
Speaker 1: else that works? And uh, and maybe they found that
Speaker 1: middle ground. And ultimately, yeah, if you're paying for John Saxon,
Speaker 1: put him on the screen. I know how Corman budgets work.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't put you wouldn't have John Saxon in a
Speaker 1: role where you gotta have helmet on him. You you
Speaker 1: just gets you know, some p a to do that,
Speaker 1: and then maybe you'd cast a voice actor. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: more more on Saxon's performance here in a bit, but
Speaker 1: moving on to other characters, we have Darlene Flugel playing Nenelia.
Speaker 1: This is the central love interest for shad uh Flugel
Speaker 1: Live nineteen fifty three through seventeen, and she was in
Speaker 1: some major films of the nineteen eighties, including To Live
Speaker 1: and Die in l a Once and Put a Time
Speaker 1: in America Running Scared. Later in her career, she also
Speaker 1: appeared in pet Cemetery to Scanner Cop and dark Man three.
Speaker 1: Wow we got a scanner cop in here. Yeah. Her
Speaker 1: first film was I Is of Laura Mars, which I've
Speaker 1: been tempted to check out. I have not seen it,
Speaker 1: but it has a number of wonderful connections in it,
Speaker 1: and John Carpenter has a screenplay credit on it. Oh
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, Okay, move over because the
Speaker 1: next character is what is the Saint St x Men?
Speaker 1: St x Men? Played by Sybil Danning? Wow? Wow Wow
Speaker 1: yeah this bo This of course is the Austrian born
Speaker 1: b movie queen uh Civil Danning, who we previously talked about.
Speaker 1: In Hercules, she played Audrianna and that and boy this
Speaker 1: this is just an absolutely ridiculous performance and costume and character.
Speaker 1: This is one of the most ludicrous roles I have
Speaker 1: ever seen in any movie is it's just completely outrageous.
Speaker 1: Saturn Award winning, by the way, a Saturn Award winning performance.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know where to begin talking about this character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because even for a civil Danning role, this character is
Speaker 1: a lot. And she you know, I'll credit disiplit to
Speaker 1: disipl Danting for committing to the character because they managed
Speaker 1: to squeeze her into some of the silliest costumes in
Speaker 1: the whole film. Um. And then she's so her character
Speaker 1: is to back up a little bit, her her character
Speaker 1: is basically an amorous space Amazonian warrior valkyrie uh type character.
Speaker 1: You know, like all those tropes just mashed together. Um.
Speaker 1: She's often dressed in this kind of space valkyrie costume
Speaker 1: that looks like it's made out of dried silly string. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a like it's a skeletal bone corset
Speaker 1: with like with like grimlin ear head headwear. Um, it
Speaker 1: is so weird. Yeah, it's it's it's completely ridiculous. And
Speaker 1: then she's a she's a hotshot space pilot and so
Speaker 1: you have you have all these scenes where she's piloting
Speaker 1: the cockpit, but they have her in this pit environment
Speaker 1: that makes it look like she's getting a dental exam,
Speaker 1: like shooting there from this really unflattering angle, in an
Speaker 1: unflattering angle for just any member of the human species.
Speaker 1: So it's up the nose angle. Yeah, so this like
Speaker 1: this does not I can't I can't imagine how anyone
Speaker 1: thought this was a great shot and and needed to
Speaker 1: be used in the film. But here she is, and
Speaker 1: when she's not piloting that spaceship, she's coming onto Shad
Speaker 1: in some of the cringe eest moments in the entire film.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nothing like a like a double entendres sex
Speaker 1: joke that's based on machinery metaphor that goes on for
Speaker 1: like seventy seconds. It's it's unbearable. Yeah, alright. The next
Speaker 1: human of note in this is a Sam Joffey playing
Speaker 1: Dr he Festus. Um. Wow, I mean we're going from
Speaker 1: weirdest to almost on par weirdness. Yeah. Yeah, This one
Speaker 1: I think is a close second to st x men
Speaker 1: Um in terms of just ludicrous green presence. I don't
Speaker 1: even know how much we want to get into this,
Speaker 1: but basically, he's an android scientist who has done some
Speaker 1: silly things to his own body. And oh, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just so I didn't I want, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say it's embarrassing, but it's just so silly. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just laughing dizzy. Well, I want to be clear.
Speaker 1: You said he's an android scientist, so he makes androids,
Speaker 1: but he is originally human has become essentially when we
Speaker 1: meet him. Uh, he is a head, a human head
Speaker 1: on top of a cabinet full of synthetic organs, right,
Speaker 1: and it the cabinet opens in a way that feels
Speaker 1: kind of dirty, like he's a flasher and a trench coat.
Speaker 1: And but but I want to stress to the cabinet
Speaker 1: is really well designed as well. So it's one of
Speaker 1: these moments where on one level, yes, this looks really good,
Speaker 1: this is a great shot, and this is a great
Speaker 1: prop you created for for Sam Jaffee here, but on
Speaker 1: the other hand, just looks completely ridiculous. He and he's
Speaker 1: he's just giving this kind of like smiling, super happy
Speaker 1: grandma grandpa performance as well. Uh, It's it's a weird
Speaker 1: one to process. Yeah, but I would say, exactly like
Speaker 1: Sybil Danning, I give Sam Jaffee credit here for committing
Speaker 1: Both of these people were given absolutely unbelievably weird stuff
Speaker 1: to do, and they just go all in. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sam Jaffee lived through four actor of stage and screen,
Speaker 1: best known for The Asphalt Jungle, The Day the Earth
Speaker 1: Stood Still, bed knobs and broomsticks and Ben her I
Speaker 1: want to highlight what you just said, which is that
Speaker 1: this is an actor born in eight a product of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, who, in this Star Wars ripoff, plays
Speaker 1: ahead on a cabinet full of Organs who wants to
Speaker 1: imprison a young Luke Skywalker clone in order to produce
Speaker 1: grandchildren for him. Yes, all right, um, the next of
Speaker 1: actor of note this This is a more of a
Speaker 1: small role, but it's worth noting because so you have
Speaker 1: these nests, uh Nest Tour. It's kind of like it
Speaker 1: sounds like it should be a brand of like cheap
Speaker 1: coffee that you encounter in a hotel, but no, these
Speaker 1: are like four pale white aliens that all like think
Speaker 1: and speak and taste in unison and so yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's four different actors, you know, dalled up the same way.
Speaker 1: One of them is played by Earl Bowen, who was
Speaker 1: more than and uh it's probably best known to everyone
Speaker 1: out there as uh Silberman Dr Silberman in the Terminator films.
Speaker 1: He's the crooked psychiatrist who keeps Sarah Connor in in
Speaker 1: in the Institution. Yeah. He was also in the Man
Speaker 1: with Two Brains and he's done a lot of voice work.
Speaker 1: He also appears in the Dead Right episode of Tales
Speaker 1: from the Crypt, which started Demmy Moore and Jeffrey Tamber.
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is where he met James Cameron
Speaker 1: and how he ended up in the Terminator movies. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems I would bet that is the case because
Speaker 1: so speaking of the of the James Cameron uh acting ensemble,
Speaker 1: Bill Paxton allegedly did carpentry work on this film. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I guess you know. He's like, hey, you you
Speaker 1: you're in. How about you all right? Put down that
Speaker 1: put down that hammer. You're going to be in in
Speaker 1: a film of mine? Can you grow a mohawk? He
Speaker 1: did have a mohawk and Terminator right, Oh yeah he did? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but didn't he wasn't. There also a story about how
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford was was originally working as a carpenter on
Speaker 1: set for Star Wars before he was cast, And I'm
Speaker 1: wrong about that. Oh, seth just set us straight. I
Speaker 1: think he was in American Graffiti with Lucas before Star Wars,
Speaker 1: which but but being a carpenter had something to do
Speaker 1: I think with getting him in there. All right. Another
Speaker 1: credit of note here, Kathy Griffin plays an uncredited alien
Speaker 1: extra in this. So yeah, this is the first screen
Speaker 1: appearance of actor and comedian Kathy Griffin. Blink and you
Speaker 1: miss it, and you'll miss it unless you're you're actively
Speaker 1: looking for it. But yes, she is in there. Born
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. Uh, she's an uncredited alien. Did not catch her? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's part of She's on Shad's home planet. So
Speaker 1: she's relatively early in the film and I don't think
Speaker 1: you see her in the background anymore after that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she's walking around, she's hanging out with the guys
Speaker 1: who look like they're in Leonard skinnerd Yeah. Yeah, okay. Oh,
Speaker 1: now it's time to talk about the music on this one,
Speaker 1: because the score for this film is by James Horner.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, I believe this would be yet another
Speaker 1: James Cameron connection, right, yeah, yeah, James Horner lived. This
Speaker 1: was one of the first scores that he composed. He
Speaker 1: would go on to score a number. I mean so
Speaker 1: so many classic scores films such as James Cameron's Aliens, Uh,
Speaker 1: Star Trek to The Wrath of con Willow, Field of Dreams,
Speaker 1: Apollo thirteen, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, and Avatar, and Uh.
Speaker 1: When I think of Horner, I have to say, I
Speaker 1: often think of, you know that that great tension building
Speaker 1: bit from the Alien score. I think of various blockbusters
Speaker 1: like some of the ones I mentioned. But you know,
Speaker 1: I have to say, Uh, the score that he did
Speaker 1: for the six adaptation of the Name of the Rose,
Speaker 1: I think it's really quite excellent. It's a superb mix
Speaker 1: of chorl electronic and orchestral themes. Uh that that kind
Speaker 1: of come together in a perfect way for a film
Speaker 1: like this that is supposed to be about, you know,
Speaker 1: monastery on sort of the edge of of the world
Speaker 1: now and one. This is kind of interesting as well.
Speaker 1: Horner's last film score was a remake of The Magnificent Seven.
Speaker 1: How about that? Yeah? I never saw that. Yeah. Oh.
Speaker 1: And prior to Battably on the Stars, he also worked
Speaker 1: on the scores for Humanoids from the Deep and Up
Speaker 1: from the Depths, the Killer Sturgeon movie in the Philippines
Speaker 1: referenced earlier, And finally, like we been pointing out, yes,
Speaker 1: James Cameron has art, direction and visual effects credits on
Speaker 1: this film. Um, you know, obviously he would go on
Speaker 1: to be quite a big deal. But Cameron's big directorial
Speaker 1: writing break wouldn't come until the following year after this film,
Speaker 1: with Piranha to the Spawning and that was followed by
Speaker 1: The Terminator, and of course at that point you're just
Speaker 1: off to the races. But at this point he had
Speaker 1: done a short film titled Xeno Genesis and seventy eight
Speaker 1: he'd been a production designer on Galaxy of Terror, which
Speaker 1: he also did second unit director duties on, and the
Speaker 1: following year in eighty one would see him serve in
Speaker 1: a capacity for special visual effects and uh and and
Speaker 1: matt artwork on John Carpenter's Escape from New York. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of stories in the making
Speaker 1: of documentary about James Cameron's work behind the scenes on
Speaker 1: this movie. Uh. He like, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: just little details about him wanting to really ambitious things
Speaker 1: that some of which did end up in the movie
Speaker 1: ended up looking amazing. But I think we're sort of
Speaker 1: pressing up against the budget constraints that this movie was
Speaker 1: operating on. Uh. And so, like some of the other
Speaker 1: production designers and visual effects people who worked on the
Speaker 1: movie said, you know, we'd be working on this and
Speaker 1: then somebody would come to us and say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: Jim is uh he's got this idea and it's going
Speaker 1: to cost a lot more than we expected, So can
Speaker 1: you do what you're doing now much cheaper? And so forth.
Speaker 1: But there was also a story one person on there
Speaker 1: told about an argument that James Cameron got into with
Speaker 1: the director I think it was the director of photography
Speaker 1: on Battill Beyond the Stars, who was a unfortunately I
Speaker 1: forget his name at the moment, but he was a
Speaker 1: French guy, and they were arguing about the science of
Speaker 1: twinkling stars because the DP was saying, Okay, from the
Speaker 1: spaceship's cockpit, we should have the stars twinkling, and uh.
Speaker 1: Cameron was like, no, because stars only twinkle because of
Speaker 1: the atmosphere of a planet, and that is true. Like
Speaker 1: the reason the star twinkles is has to do with
Speaker 1: how the the light from a point like source is
Speaker 1: affected by you know, drafts and the gases of the atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Before it reaches your eyes, it takes a kind of
Speaker 1: wiggly zigzag pattern and that causes the twinkling. And according
Speaker 1: to this interview, this ended with the the DP getting
Speaker 1: up in Cameron's face and pulling his beard and sing like, ms,
Speaker 1: your Cameron, you are a brat. So James Cameron easy
Speaker 1: to work with right from the get gap basically. But
Speaker 1: but he was right, he was right about the story.
Speaker 1: Each one is a setting sun. All right, well, let's
Speaker 1: get into the Let's get properly into the plot of
Speaker 1: this film and flesh out some of these just weird
Speaker 1: choices and weird moments that the make up the runtime. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is one of those where we're not going to
Speaker 1: do every scene in the movie, but I want to
Speaker 1: focus on some some highlights and some themes. But we
Speaker 1: will start with the beginning, because in a Star Wars
Speaker 1: knockoff movie, what's your opening going to be? You know
Speaker 1: exactly what it's gonna be. In fact, I think almost
Speaker 1: all of these begin with a shot of a star
Speaker 1: field and then what's it going to be? What's it
Speaker 1: gonna be? Spaceship Spaceship Pans comes over the top of
Speaker 1: the camera um. And in this case, the first spaceship
Speaker 1: we see, I would say, is shaped pretty much like
Speaker 1: the Blockade Runner we see at the beginning of Star Wars.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the horizontal cylinder at the bow and
Speaker 1: then an array of parallel rocket engines in the stern
Speaker 1: right off the bat though this ship looks really good,
Speaker 1: I have to say, yeah, yeah, I agree. Uh And
Speaker 1: and here though, the the interesting thing is that the
Speaker 1: allegiance of this ship is flipped because in Star Wars
Speaker 1: that ship is the ship with this shape is Princess
Speaker 1: Leah's corvette. It's being chased by the Imperial Star Destroyer,
Speaker 1: and in this movie there's no chase going on. The
Speaker 1: ship just is the star Destroyer, and it's also sort
Speaker 1: of the death Star. It is the flagship of the
Speaker 1: wicked and treacherous Melmoory, who have arrived in your star
Speaker 1: system to do evil essentially space warlords, an army of
Speaker 1: of what failed mutants kind of like messed up clones
Speaker 1: or something, and they are led by John Saxon, right,
Speaker 1: And so they approach the approach a planet, and we
Speaker 1: hear technicians on this evil capital ship discussing what they
Speaker 1: see on the viewscreen. They say, this is a Kere,
Speaker 1: a planet of stone with a single green spot, life
Speaker 1: forms compatible with ours, oxygen forms with radial symmetry. I
Speaker 1: think they's a radial symmetry. They have a solar technology,
Speaker 1: no known defense capacity. And then I think somebody, John Saxon,
Speaker 1: I think, says interesting, let's check that. And so oh no,
Speaker 1: first thing, the star Destroyer just rolls up on this
Speaker 1: kind of twittering weather satellite. It is crewed by a
Speaker 1: couple of extremely polite boys from a Kre and they're
Speaker 1: staring down this doom ship and the minor cords are
Speaker 1: swelling and they're like, hello there, welcome to our atmosphere. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is the planet of here. Could you identify yourself please?
Speaker 1: And then the ship just of vaporizing. But I like
Speaker 1: how the sort of sweet Midwestern corn nous of the
Speaker 1: guys from a ker in this satellite is immediately contrasted
Speaker 1: by weird imagery when we see what the planet surface
Speaker 1: looks like. So we only get these brief glimpses, but
Speaker 1: what we see is like that the the infrastructure of
Speaker 1: the civilization on this planet surface seems to be built
Speaker 1: out of flesh trees that are also giant screaming skulls.
Speaker 1: So it's like the Ewok Village, but imagine the forest
Speaker 1: instead of wood is warped flesh and the bones of
Speaker 1: whatever species. Pac Man is. It's it's it's really quite
Speaker 1: cool looking. It reminds me a little bit of Salvador Dali.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a bit of Fantastic Planet. Uh. Overall,
Speaker 1: it has a wonderful, like weird seventies sci fi vibe
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, and I already mentioned this, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the locals have a distinct classic rock vibe.
Speaker 1: That the dunes look like the Alman Brothers. This is
Speaker 1: a film, you know, you look back at Star Wars.
Speaker 1: Star Wars is a product of the nineteen seventies, and yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look hard enough you can you can see
Speaker 1: the seventies in it, but but not nearly as strongly
Speaker 1: as the seventies often bleeds through into a picture like this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the seventies is is strongly manifested even though
Speaker 1: this is the really eighties, of course, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're still still very much a product of the late
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. The decade is strongly present in this film. Oh,
Speaker 1: it was the seventies until night four that is canon anyway.
Speaker 1: So the evil capital ship it slides over the city,
Speaker 1: blots out the sun and they are treated to a message.
Speaker 1: You see John Saxon's face projected in the sky and
Speaker 1: he says, I am say door of the Melmory. I've
Speaker 1: come here with my forces to conquer you. If you resist,
Speaker 1: I will crush you. I possess a stellar converter, the
Speaker 1: most powerful weapon in the universe. In the universe, how
Speaker 1: do you know that anyway? You cannot resist me. I
Speaker 1: want your planet to be my colony. Your harvest comes
Speaker 1: in seven risings of your red Giant. I will return.
Speaker 1: Then you will accept me as your master. If you
Speaker 1: do not submit, your planet and all life on it
Speaker 1: will be burned to ash. And I think this kind
Speaker 1: of opening would probably work better if you were to
Speaker 1: see the least bit of the flavor of everyday life
Speaker 1: before the evil space lord shows up. Like it seems
Speaker 1: kind of clumsy plotting to me because here we get
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. We we meet the good guys at the
Speaker 1: exact moment that they're being threatened with death by the
Speaker 1: big bad Yeah. The other an asting thing is that
Speaker 1: you're watching this film you would think, okay, and then
Speaker 1: they surrender, right, I mean that they have no defense capabilities.
Speaker 1: The overlord just showed up full force in their orbit.
Speaker 1: He has orbital superiority over the planet. Like that's it,
Speaker 1: the game's over. There's there's what are you? What are
Speaker 1: you gonna even try to do? Yeah? And then like
Speaker 1: just to be mean, he starts like blasting them with lasers.
Speaker 1: Also that are that are manned by what he calls snipers.
Speaker 1: Who are these the zombies that work for him? I
Speaker 1: guess they're they're mutants. Yeah, They're a little vague on it,
Speaker 1: but I kind of got the the sense that they
Speaker 1: had their failed mutants. But they're also kind of clones.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're supposed to be clones of
Speaker 1: John Saxon's character or not. There is that similarity between
Speaker 1: like the red scar on the face um overall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that that that Saydor's character is is
Speaker 1: weird and keeps you questioning what exactly his whole deal is,
Speaker 1: which which I kind of liked. I kind of like that. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was kind of wondering if all of the mutants
Speaker 1: on the ship are like clones of himself. That he
Speaker 1: created so he could harvest their organs, because we see
Speaker 1: about him later that he's constantly getting parts of his
Speaker 1: body replaced. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's a very strong,
Speaker 1: uh strong theory. Yeah, and it ultimately doesn't care where
Speaker 1: he gets those parts. He's like, that's a nice arm
Speaker 1: you got there. Uh, doctor, strap it on? Right. Uh So,
Speaker 1: down on a kre we're we're about to actually hear
Speaker 1: the locals talk to each other. Oh and just I
Speaker 1: wanted to flag one thing quickly. I suspect that this
Speaker 1: planet is called a ker and the people on it
Speaker 1: are called a Kira because he is an adaptation of
Speaker 1: seven Samurai via Magnificent Seven. Anyway, so we we hear
Speaker 1: the Akira discussing their situation, and the very first thing
Speaker 1: we get is this whiny sounding guy making a passionate
Speaker 1: case that they should not defend themselves in any way.
Speaker 1: He says, so we live by the Varda. The Varda
Speaker 1: is not to fight, and this is the first reference
Speaker 1: in the movie to the Varda, which will be brought
Speaker 1: up many, many more times. I think it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be the stand in for the force, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if it quite works. It works differently than the Force.
Speaker 1: So the Varda seems to be some kind of formalized
Speaker 1: creed like it. You can quote the Varda. It is
Speaker 1: a set of Dogma's rules and proverbs, and our young
Speaker 1: hero frequently does quote from the Varda as if it
Speaker 1: were like a book that is supposed to guide your life,
Speaker 1: whereas the Force is not like that, Like you can't
Speaker 1: quote the Force. I would say the Force is more
Speaker 1: like the Tao or like the Holy Ghost. It is
Speaker 1: a substance into being a type of divine power or
Speaker 1: will permeating all things. Yeah, Varda, I guess they're they're
Speaker 1: kind of alluding to Veda here, so yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this incongruity between the Force and
Speaker 1: the Varda is like a deliberately a deliberate choice to
Speaker 1: do something different, or if I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a deliberate choice, I guess
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting, But I'm not sure exactly what
Speaker 1: that cashes out to. But in any rate, a strong
Speaker 1: theological slash legal argument for simply surrendering to the Maltmori Empire. Right.
Speaker 1: He says the Varda is not to fight, and he
Speaker 1: says the Akira haven't fought for centuries, and then immediately
Speaker 1: we hear somebody off screen bellowing, I have fought, and
Speaker 1: this bearded guy wanders and this is z the Corsair,
Speaker 1: an old man who is nearly blind who used to
Speaker 1: fly a spaceship and has experience with war, and he
Speaker 1: cantankerously explains that the way to defeat violence is with violence. Uh,
Speaker 1: He's like, I fought once it worked, Let's do that. Yes,
Speaker 1: he says that in order to fight creatures of violence,
Speaker 1: you must use creatures of violence, and everybody's just kind
Speaker 1: of like okay. So it's immediately decided that they need
Speaker 1: to hire mercenaries. And here's our seven samurai recruitment situation,
Speaker 1: and so somebody's got to go recruit them, but who
Speaker 1: can do it well. Immediately a young character played by
Speaker 1: Richard Thomas volunteers, and emotional music plays as if we
Speaker 1: know something about this character, but we don't, because this
Speaker 1: is the first time he's talked. And I think this
Speaker 1: is a good place to point out it probably hasn't
Speaker 1: been clear in our explanation so far, but to point
Speaker 1: out how fast everything is happening in this sequence. Like,
Speaker 1: you do not really have time for any of these
Speaker 1: developments to cause emotions or or mean anything. It's just
Speaker 1: I'm sad or I will kill you. We cannot fight,
Speaker 1: We must hire mercenaries who can do it this guy
Speaker 1: and you know, of course, I enjoyed this movie very
Speaker 1: much despite all this, But I think it's also a
Speaker 1: good opportunity to point out things that make good storytelling
Speaker 1: really work, like one thing Star Wars actually does quite well.
Speaker 1: By contrast, before Luke Skywalker is called to adventure, you
Speaker 1: get to see like the dreariness and the boredom of
Speaker 1: his life on the farm, and you see him staring
Speaker 1: at the sun's he's yearning for more. He's feeling that ineffable,
Speaker 1: almost irrational angst of frustrated youth, which makes it emotional
Speaker 1: and meaningful when his life is actually upended and he
Speaker 1: he he has to go out and answer the please
Speaker 1: of the princess and and you know, respond to the
Speaker 1: death of his guardians. Here, I think the first time
Speaker 1: the young hero speaks is when he's volunteering to go
Speaker 1: on a mission, So you don't really get any of
Speaker 1: that in this movie. The call to adventure is answered
Speaker 1: immediately which is kind of an interesting sharp contrast to
Speaker 1: Message from Space, in which the call to adventure seemed
Speaker 1: to take most of the film to roll out and
Speaker 1: then was molled over and finally accepted with like in
Speaker 1: the last ten minutes of the film. Yeah, it's sending
Speaker 1: out those magic nuts that fly over the galaxy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But when Richard Thomas volunteers, the whiney guy from the beginning,
Speaker 1: he says, you you're a boy, and he says, and
Speaker 1: Richard Thomas says, but the Varda teaches us that each
Speaker 1: form has its function. So I guess the point is,
Speaker 1: even when you're a boy, you can still go on
Speaker 1: an adventure. Uh. And so it basically has to be
Speaker 1: Shad who does this. That's the character's name because he's
Speaker 1: the only one who can fly Zed's ship Nell. Now
Speaker 1: Nell will be I would say, one of the other
Speaker 1: main characters of the movie. Nel is a talking spaceship
Speaker 1: that I would say looks like a cross between a
Speaker 1: flayed horse and a bosomI hammerhead shark. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: um it's it's an impressive ship design reminds me of
Speaker 1: of a particular World War two like super glider that
Speaker 1: the Germans used. I wouldn't be surprised if I don't
Speaker 1: know if there was a model kit of that at
Speaker 1: the time, but I wonder if that was potential possibly
Speaker 1: adapted into this model for this spaceship. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the ship has character. Um it's uh, it's pretty cool looking.
Speaker 1: I like the coloration of it. It has this kind
Speaker 1: of a what is like a deep, rusty kind of
Speaker 1: brown slash crimson e color. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that's right,
Speaker 1: and it clearly has It has biomechanical design, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like sharp angles and metal like a lot
Speaker 1: of the other spaceships. To this looks like a like
Speaker 1: a naked body with a hammer head shark head. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh but then also you so you say the ship
Speaker 1: has character, and it has character quite literally because it's
Speaker 1: not just design. It talks, and it's not just saying like,
Speaker 1: you know, engage thrusters. It has a twod it's like
Speaker 1: a rooting twoton back talking robot Grandma. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit sassy, and it encourages young Shad to kill
Speaker 1: This is a strange theme that's repeated throughout the movie.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, Shad, like he first leaves the
Speaker 1: planet on his mission, which is first he's going to
Speaker 1: get weapons from a guy named Dr. He faced Us
Speaker 1: and he has attacked by some guards left behind. There's
Speaker 1: a big space battle. He's trying to escape and he
Speaker 1: refuses to shoot back at the guards, and Nell is
Speaker 1: urging him. She's like, do it, shoot them, And later
Speaker 1: Nell will blast spaceships without Chad's consent. But then after that,
Speaker 1: Shad gets a real like taste for war and starts
Speaker 1: to love blasting that. That's kind of strange, yeah, especially
Speaker 1: since again the Varda is not to violence, and yet
Speaker 1: here they are violencing all over the place. All right,
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna do super detail on this, but
Speaker 1: the sequence with Dr Have faced Us is so weird.
Speaker 1: So Chad goes to a space station seems to be
Speaker 1: populated entirely by androids, but then he meets one human Nenelia,
Speaker 1: the daughter of Dr. He faced Us, and she's like
Speaker 1: a brilliant scientist who repairs androids and she can do
Speaker 1: all the technical wizardry, but she's also very naive about
Speaker 1: the world because she has never left this space station.
Speaker 1: And uh so they they meet, and then he has
Speaker 1: taken to Dr Who faced Us himself, who was supposed
Speaker 1: to supply them with with arms to defend their planet.
Speaker 1: But oops, Dr faced Us is no longer a human body.
Speaker 1: He's now just ahead on this cabinet full of organs uh.
Speaker 1: And his plan is like, well, I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: defending your planet. Instead, Chad, I'm going to imprison you
Speaker 1: on this space station and make you father children with Nnelia. Uh.
Speaker 1: Shad is reasonably creeped out by this, but then together
Speaker 1: he and Nenelia Uh, they decide to flee the station.
Speaker 1: So they break out together, and in this scene they
Speaker 1: seem to bond by sharing scientific and anthropological facts about
Speaker 1: other planets in the galaxy. They like bond over learning.
Speaker 1: I have to say, this whole sequence to reminded me
Speaker 1: a lot of Logan's Run. It had a real Logan's
Speaker 1: Run kind of feel to it. Yeah. But now, of
Speaker 1: course this is sort of our first recruit. Nonelia is
Speaker 1: now on board for the cause of protecting a cure,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna split up and both go try to
Speaker 1: recruit mercenaries, right right. So, on the quest to recruit mercenaries,
Speaker 1: he has so far recruited uh. This this one woman
Speaker 1: who has no combat experience that we know of, but
Speaker 1: she has like, uh, that's true, but she has like
Speaker 1: scientific technical she can like do stuff with androids, though
Speaker 1: I don't recall if she ever does anymore in the movie,
Speaker 1: but they're prepared just in case that comes up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course they are going to fall in love because
Speaker 1: of course, um and in the sequence there are also
Speaker 1: there are several really funny moments. One of them that
Speaker 1: made me laugh out loud was the scenes of them
Speaker 1: riding around on these carts in the space station, because like,
Speaker 1: the cart will seat too. It's like Chad and Nenelia
Speaker 1: sitting next to each other on a love seat on
Speaker 1: a cart, and the carts are extremely slow and they're
Speaker 1: almost as wide as the hallway they're in. Now, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of the fun in seven Samurai type
Speaker 1: movies is the rounding up of the gang, right, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta pick all the mercenarias who are going to
Speaker 1: come back and help protect the village. So I guess
Speaker 1: we should talk a bit about each of the recruits.
Speaker 1: Now we've already mentioned Cowboy played by George Poppard. How
Speaker 1: exactly is he recruited? Well, Shad like runs up on
Speaker 1: his spaceship as he's being attacked by pirates, and the
Speaker 1: question is should Chad intervene and blast the pirates. He
Speaker 1: again says the var to prohibits taking life, and then
Speaker 1: Nell says ah, but the Varda says we can take
Speaker 1: life to save life, and then he hesitates, but Nell
Speaker 1: blasts on his behalf. So they blow up the pirates
Speaker 1: and and it turns out they've saved this guy named Cowboy.
Speaker 1: Uh So, as we said earlier, this is a space
Speaker 1: trucker who loves watching old Western movies. Uh he has
Speaker 1: much experience fighting. And then Shad asks him, hey, well
Speaker 1: then will you fight for us? Well, Cowboy says there's
Speaker 1: a problem with that. He says, you're fighting sad Or,
Speaker 1: and sad Or never loses and never quit, so fighting
Speaker 1: on your side, that's that's a losing game. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do it. But then suddenly Nell shares a
Speaker 1: video feed of a totally different planet somewhere else where.
Speaker 1: I guess they have of refused Saydor's uh ultimatum, and
Speaker 1: then Saydor just blows up the planet. He vaporizes it
Speaker 1: with his stellar converter, and as luck would have it,
Speaker 1: that planet that just got blowed up, that was where
Speaker 1: Cowboys buyer was stationed, so he's he can't take his
Speaker 1: his cargo anymore. And what he was transporting just happens
Speaker 1: to be blasters, so Shadows like, yes, we need those,
Speaker 1: take them to my planet, and so Cowboy agrees. So
Speaker 1: he wasn't interested in doing good until it messed up
Speaker 1: with his arms deal. So he's like, no, it's personal.
Speaker 1: Can't stand now. It's he's taken it too personal. Um
Speaker 1: and Cowboy. There's so much weirdness about Cowboy. One thing
Speaker 1: that I was like, what, I guess it? I don't know,
Speaker 1: So he there's one part where I think he has
Speaker 1: a Confederate flag on the side of his spaceship. There
Speaker 1: is definitely a Confederate flag blaster to the side of
Speaker 1: his spaceship. I'm not sure what the significance of that,
Speaker 1: thousands of years into the future is supposed to be,
Speaker 1: but weird choice to say the least. Uh. Cowboys belt buckle,
Speaker 1: though in a more charming touch, includes a Scotch and
Speaker 1: soda dispenser. So he literally like puts a glass under
Speaker 1: his belt buckle and you hear like a water sound,
Speaker 1: and it's like whiskey or soda coming out of it,
Speaker 1: And I think he can also plink down cubes of
Speaker 1: ice from his put buckle. Yeah he can do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the ice, the soda, and the whiskey all three come
Speaker 1: out of the belt buckle on And so I guess
Speaker 1: we're to leave. We're led to believe this is just
Speaker 1: a fancy bit of technology that allows him to drink constantly.
Speaker 1: But I also wonder what if what if Cowboys no
Speaker 1: longer human? And uh and this is him just simply
Speaker 1: recycling the ice cubes, soda and uh and and whiskey
Speaker 1: that he actually can't can't really process. It just comes
Speaker 1: back out again into the cup. Oh, he's like a fountain,
Speaker 1: you know, it goes down and then it like shoots
Speaker 1: back out. Yeah no, no, but then no, he's just
Speaker 1: supposed to be on Earth. Dude on Earth dude who
Speaker 1: drinks and smokes and again little else. Uh. Thinking back
Speaker 1: on it, it's hard for me to remember what he
Speaker 1: truly contributed to the film, except for the occasional bursts
Speaker 1: of comic relief and hooking everyone up with blasters. Well,
Speaker 1: in the final battle, he shows the he he plans
Speaker 1: the ground defense, so he helps them like defend the
Speaker 1: trenches they dig on the planet's surface. So there's like
Speaker 1: spaceship battles and battles on the ground with Sador's troops
Speaker 1: and he he helps them defend on the ground. Oh
Speaker 1: and then there's one part where Shad is talking to
Speaker 1: cowboy and cowboys smoking a cigarette and Chad says, is
Speaker 1: that real smoke you're putting in your lungs? And cowboys
Speaker 1: like yep, and it's not good for you. And then
Speaker 1: Chad says, I don't think you should do it. A
Speaker 1: little anti smoking message. Okay, next recruit, how about how
Speaker 1: about a lizard guy? Do we want to Uh? This
Speaker 1: is Cayman of the Lambda Zone h as as well
Speaker 1: as a few other allies portrayed by Morgan Woodward. So uh,
Speaker 1: this is a fighter recruited by Ninelia. This again, this
Speaker 1: recruitment happens sort of by accidents. So Nnelia is captured
Speaker 1: by this boss like lizard man named Caman, who seems
Speaker 1: to be planning to sell her like as as as
Speaker 1: meat to an alien butcher shop. I think, um, but
Speaker 1: then she's like, you're heartless, just like say door And
Speaker 1: then this was a laugh out loud moment, immediate music sting.
Speaker 1: He goes say do or say do or of the
Speaker 1: Melmori and when he finds out there fighting Sador, his
Speaker 1: tune changes immediately and he's like, I will fight with
Speaker 1: you because I hate Sedor. Now. Fun fact about Morgan
Speaker 1: Woodward though I didn't include him in the original line
Speaker 1: up here, but he through he was on Dallas. But
Speaker 1: the most notable thing is he's the man with no
Speaker 1: eyes from nineteen sixty seven's Cool Hand Luke That the
Speaker 1: the guard with the silver shades that you know for
Speaker 1: most of the film you you can't see his eyes
Speaker 1: because of those, and he's kind of this uh you
Speaker 1: know this, this this very threatening presence in the film,
Speaker 1: uh that it's rather iconic. You see this reference to
Speaker 1: later on in the Cohen Brothers, Oh Brother where art
Speaker 1: thou it has a similar character whose eyes you never see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yes in this lozardman um but the lizard Man
Speaker 1: also comes with buddies. He has He has a blonde
Speaker 1: muscle man who like a lot of times his butts
Speaker 1: hanging out. He's wearing like like sort of chaps and
Speaker 1: leather suspenders, and he has a face tattoo. And then
Speaker 1: there are two creatures with giant bald heads wearing silver suits.
Speaker 1: They have no ears, and they speak by emitting heat
Speaker 1: rays that burn people. Yes, those are his public relations
Speaker 1: guys exactly. Um okay, So next next recruit the Nestor's
Speaker 1: Nestor one through Nestar five. I think this is Earl
Speaker 1: Bowen and others. Uh. This is once again just like
Speaker 1: the last one. It's a recruitment via capture. So Shad
Speaker 1: is captured in space by a gang of five psychic
Speaker 1: clones who are dressed in white robes and look like
Speaker 1: a cross between the Brain guy and old Man Gary
Speaker 1: old Man Dracula with the uh so Shad. When they
Speaker 1: capture him, they bring him onto their ship. Chad points
Speaker 1: a blaster at them, but then they psychically force him
Speaker 1: to point it at himself, and he's like, my mistake.
Speaker 1: And then they say, oh, it's okay. We know you're
Speaker 1: not of a violent form. We've scanned everything you're doing.
Speaker 1: We scan everything, we scan all uh, and we've been
Speaker 1: brain scanning you from the astral plane and know all
Speaker 1: about your quest for mercenaries and well we want to
Speaker 1: join uh. And of course Shadows so like, well, we
Speaker 1: don't have any money, we can't pay you and they say,
Speaker 1: no need, We're self sufficient. We are nest store. So
Speaker 1: they explained that they are a group of clones of
Speaker 1: a species that are all that all have one unitary
Speaker 1: shared consciousness. But there's a problem with having a unitary
Speaker 1: shared consciousness, which is that life can become very dull.
Speaker 1: And it turns out they have to seek adventure in
Speaker 1: order to avoid being literally bored to death. We also
Speaker 1: find out that they have no tolerance for pain. Like
Speaker 1: basically you said the word pain, they've already had too much.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I thought this was Actually so
Speaker 1: this movie is fun, not much about it as thought provoking,
Speaker 1: but weirdly half of these characters kind of were. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the idea of uh, sort of individual drones of
Speaker 1: a species that have a constant, a synchronous shared consciousness
Speaker 1: throughout the galaxy. They cannot become bored. They have to
Speaker 1: be constantly stimulated, and they cannot bear pain, I guess
Speaker 1: because that would like share both of those states with
Speaker 1: all of them throughout the galaxy. So they have to
Speaker 1: be constantly like stimulated with interesting stuff and and never
Speaker 1: in pain. And I was like, wow, that's okay. You
Speaker 1: can like write a really interesting story about that. I
Speaker 1: felt like they were the most interesting characters that we
Speaker 1: encounter in the film, and they get two things that
Speaker 1: are great. They get I think one of the best
Speaker 1: comedic scenes in the film when they try to eat
Speaker 1: a hot dog. I mean, well, they don't just try,
Speaker 1: they succeed and they have feedback on hot dogs. And
Speaker 1: then they also have a really fun and I thought
Speaker 1: creative assassination attempt on say door tell the hot dog
Speaker 1: scenes story cowboys eating a hot dog. Cowboys eating a
Speaker 1: hot dog and um, I can't remember if he offers
Speaker 1: the hot dog or they're like, what's that? Can we
Speaker 1: try that? And then you write hot dog gets handed
Speaker 1: off to the next doors and we get a fun,
Speaker 1: just visual gag where one of them is of course
Speaker 1: holding up the hot dog and taking a bite out
Speaker 1: of it, but all four of the heads are chewing
Speaker 1: and experiencing the hot dog. They then give a readout
Speaker 1: on all the ingredients and if I remember correctly, none
Speaker 1: of the ingredients are met right. No, it's all just
Speaker 1: like soy proteins and then names of chemicals, and then
Speaker 1: cowboys like on Earth, that's what we all meat. So
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that. I thought like, okay that I think
Speaker 1: this scene landed like it was supposed to. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: then they also have this this wonderful kind of complicated
Speaker 1: and and uh surprising assassination attempt on sad Or where
Speaker 1: one of them is captured. They allow one of them,
Speaker 1: their their clones, to be captured by sad Or. What
Speaker 1: sad Or are going to do? Well, he's of course
Speaker 1: going to torture said clone. Uh. This is where we
Speaker 1: get that line about about the his his doctor is
Speaker 1: expert at inflicting pain and uh, and so they torture
Speaker 1: him to death rather quickly. But then sate Or is like,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good arm. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: that on my body. They do. His doctor does that,
Speaker 1: and he's like trying it out. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: it's got good reached, good muscle. He's only got these
Speaker 1: it's got a weird number of fingers. Will have to
Speaker 1: fix that later. But you know they're not, they too concerned.
Speaker 1: But then what did the Nestor start doing. They start
Speaker 1: controlling the arm and trying to like like cut state
Speaker 1: wars throat with his own hand. Uh, it's narrowly able
Speaker 1: to stop them and cut the arm. Off with a
Speaker 1: crystal chainsaw. It was a great sequence. I loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really good. Okay, I gotta mention a couple more recruitments
Speaker 1: before we wrap up. So one is guilt Robert Vaughan.
Speaker 1: We're back to Robert Vaughan, and I gotta say the
Speaker 1: planet where they pick up gelt looks awesome. Mountain spires
Speaker 1: made out of rocks that look kind of like veins,
Speaker 1: dark skies and lightning. This is like lv f s
Speaker 1: from Alien. It's beautiful. It's uh. I feel like I
Speaker 1: I detect some Cameron influence here, though I guess I
Speaker 1: can't be sure. Um, But to describe the set up
Speaker 1: to the scene, we're being set up as if the
Speaker 1: next stop for Shad is going to contain the most
Speaker 1: icely Cantina scene because he's headed to a wretched hive
Speaker 1: of scum and villany full of the best mercenaries in
Speaker 1: the galaxy. So you think that's what you're getting, you know,
Speaker 1: bar full of criminals and he's gonna have to you know,
Speaker 1: recruit one of them. But in a twist, when he
Speaker 1: gets there, there's nobody there. It's like this abandoned underground
Speaker 1: bunker that looks like it used to be kind of
Speaker 1: a pleasure palace. Yeah, that's right, and there's there's no
Speaker 1: one else here we encountered guilt, and guilt is just
Speaker 1: he's the only living human, only living being left. He's
Speaker 1: there with all his treasures, all his ill gotten gains.
Speaker 1: But he's like, clearly he has nothing to do. He's
Speaker 1: just he's he's like a prisoner in his own golden
Speaker 1: cell here. Right. He explains in a twist that all
Speaker 1: the planets the galaxy bound together and created a defense alliance,
Speaker 1: which they used to wipe out all of the mercenaries
Speaker 1: and criminals on this planet, and only guilt is left.
Speaker 1: He says, there's nothing left but me in the lower forms,
Speaker 1: and then he says there's a bounty on his head
Speaker 1: on every planet in the galaxy. So he's he's in
Speaker 1: this Catch twenty two. He has wealth and he has
Speaker 1: like he's he's got all this treasure for himself, but
Speaker 1: nowhere he can spend it, and no where he can go,
Speaker 1: oh know where he can rest. Yeah, and there's this
Speaker 1: wonderful shot. There's a lot of screen shots of this
Speaker 1: on the internet, but he's seated at this throne and yeah,
Speaker 1: you see all of his treasure chest around him, and
Speaker 1: it's gloriously lit. He's got this kind of stylish outfit on.
Speaker 1: He's got his laser blaster out um. And oh and
Speaker 1: the throne that he's seated upon, it has these two
Speaker 1: cherubs built into it and they're holding a crown and
Speaker 1: it's as if they are they are holding the crown
Speaker 1: over his head or lowering it onto his head. It's
Speaker 1: just this wonderful shot. It's great. And so of course
Speaker 1: he ends up getting recruited because mainly because on a
Speaker 1: keer he can rest. It's a place where there's not
Speaker 1: a bounty on his head, so he can go there.
Speaker 1: Uh So, so that's what he does. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to say about Robert Vaughan's performance in this movie. It's
Speaker 1: actually kind of interesting the way he plays the character
Speaker 1: and what he does with his body. For example, uh,
Speaker 1: Guilt never moves his head, really, he only moves his eyes.
Speaker 1: There are scenes of him talking and scenes of him
Speaker 1: like in battle, piloting his spaceship, and he almost never
Speaker 1: moves his head at all, is completely still. He just
Speaker 1: you see his eyes going back and forth, and that
Speaker 1: creates a kind of reptilian quality that really works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even though he is he's not the reptile man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Mercenary gang here. But but yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: good point about the particulars of his performance when one wonders,
Speaker 1: was that a like a choice that he made or
Speaker 1: did he have just did you have Frankenstein neck during Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just you know, ended up using it? Uh at
Speaker 1: any rate? Uh? Yeah, I really, I really like his performance.
Speaker 1: And I have to say I was not expecting to
Speaker 1: like his performance. I was expecting it to be a
Speaker 1: lot more phoned in than this, but it was. It
Speaker 1: was fun. Okay, one last Mercenary It is st x
Speaker 1: Men played by Sybil Danning. So we meet her because
Speaker 1: she starts she basically she's harassing chads ship in space.
Speaker 1: She's like zipping around taunting him, shooting blanks at him,
Speaker 1: and he hit her because she's moving too fast. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then she finally explains, like, it has been great
Speaker 1: fun jousting with you. I want to join your mission.
Speaker 1: I'm part of a warrior culture. We must fight. And
Speaker 1: shadd is just infinitely annoyed with her at times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's just constantly coming on to him and he's he's
Speaker 1: basically like, this is inappropriate. You should not be doing this.
Speaker 1: I am not interested. I already have a space girlfriend
Speaker 1: and I find you incredibly irritating. But she's just like,
Speaker 1: but I want to fight. And of course the rest
Speaker 1: of the structure is somewhat predictable. You know, the mercenaries
Speaker 1: gathered together, they gathered for battle against Sedor, and they
Speaker 1: all contribute in various ways to the effort. But all
Speaker 1: of the I think, do all of the mercenaries get
Speaker 1: slain in battle except maybe Cowboy? Does Cowboys survive? I
Speaker 1: thought he bought it too. But this is kind of
Speaker 1: this is the model, right, Like they all have to
Speaker 1: to pare it, well, not all of the most of them.
Speaker 1: But eventually the young heroes Chat and Anilia they have
Speaker 1: to save the day. They're flying around and nail the
Speaker 1: spaceship and they got to save the day in the end,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like, you know, you get something
Speaker 1: kind of similar to the trench run scene in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: The Stellar Converter is U is destroyed. The ship is destroyed.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, we we don't have to endure some sort
Speaker 1: of a lightsaber knockoff battle, which was nice. Yeah, does
Speaker 1: anybody fight hand to hand with sad Or. I don't
Speaker 1: recall that. I don't think it happens now. He's just
Speaker 1: like a straight I guess he's more in the mold
Speaker 1: of Peter Cushing in that regard. Yeah, they just blow
Speaker 1: up the ship and he's there. Yeah, it's more and
Speaker 1: more like them. Off. Well, there's a ton more that
Speaker 1: happens in the movie that we we did not have
Speaker 1: time to get into. But Rob, I have greatly enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking about Battle Beyond the Stars with you. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is a fun one. Uh, just just a
Speaker 1: fun flick. I again, I don't know if it's more
Speaker 1: fun than than Empire Strikes Back, but but fair enough,
Speaker 1: it's a really fun film. And I can i if
Speaker 1: someone likes this more than Empire than more power to them. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we we need films in our lives there that
Speaker 1: are dis enjoyable, better, more fun, more fun than Seven Samurai. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that, I would say that, of course
Speaker 1: I would. I think since seven Samurai better film, Battle
Speaker 1: Beyond the Stars more fun for me, and certainly yeah,
Speaker 1: lower investment. It's not as long and it's not as serious. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've I've reached the point in my life we have
Speaker 1: to realize, am I gonna watch Seven Samurai again? Probably? Not?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna watch Battle Beyond the Stars again? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna happen. Sorry, I don't know. If you
Speaker 1: make time for seven Samurai. It's a very rewarding experience.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a great film. I mean, I love
Speaker 1: the karat Karrosawa. I I can envision myself going through
Speaker 1: a Curasawa phase where I like suddenly have to get
Speaker 1: back into all these films. But uh, yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: great stuff. Throwing a blood? Who throwing a blood is good?
Speaker 1: All right, Well we're gonna go ahead and close it
Speaker 1: out here, but as always, right into us, let us
Speaker 1: know what you think about Battle Beyond the Stars various
Speaker 1: other Star Wars knockoffs as well. We would love to
Speaker 1: hear from everyone out there. In the meantime, we'll remind
Speaker 1: you that, yes, Weird How Cinema publishes every Friday and
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed were primarily
Speaker 1: a science podcast, but on Friday's we put most of
Speaker 1: that aside and we just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 1: I blog about these episodes at Samuta music dot com.
Speaker 1: Uh you can go there for a blog post about
Speaker 1: this movie. I also did a blog post about that
Speaker 1: name of the Rose score from from Horner. Check that
Speaker 1: out if you would like. Also, we have a letterboxed
Speaker 1: to count I think that's that's pretty much our only
Speaker 1: active social media account these days, where once a week
Speaker 1: I go in there and add the film that we've
Speaker 1: covered to Weird House Cinema or the film we're about
Speaker 1: to cover onto our list there. So if you want
Speaker 1: just an easy one, you know, glimpse look at what
Speaker 1: we've covered in our evering, that's a good place to go.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.