In the 21st Century. After six months, the spacecraft MK 31 commanded by Captain Hamilton is on the return flight to Earth, having successfully carried out a special space mission. When the on-board computer receives strange radio signals, the crew pays no attention at first. But from earth comes the order to investigate the signals. Reluctantly, Captain Hamilton obeys the instructions from earth-base. Suddenly, the MK 31 is attacked by alien spaceships with laser weapons. Hamilton loses control of the ship and it rushes toward a planet on which it will be smashed to pieces. Miraculously the dive is stopped at the last moment: "The spaceship is sustained by an anti-gravitational force of unknown origin", reports the on-board computer. Once the crew has overcome the initial shock, a landing party is assembled to investigate the planet, which has an Earth-like atmosphere. Here, however, they are soon attacked by a giant robot, who kills several astronauts with his energy weapon. Hamilton and the rest of the crew discover a large stone gate, which turns out to be a kind of transmitter. As they walk through it, they are transported into a cave from which the mysterious radio signals are coming. As they investigate the cave, they are captured by humanoid aliens. The leader of the aliens, who are actually peacefully minded towards mankind, recounts what has happened to his race. In their highly developed civilization, intelligent computer and machines played an important role in daily life. One day there was a "Rise of the Machines", which ended in a nuclear disaster. Humans evolved back into an "animal state" and retreated back into the caves beneath the planet. From the machines, a supercomputer emerged, who still terrorizes the aliens and whose aim is to conquer the universe. However, in a collaborative effort the humans and the aliens succeed in destroying the computer. This triggered a massive explosion that leads to a chain reaction which will destroy the entire planet, and with it the race of the aliens. At the last second, the MK 31 spacecraft launched back into space, leaving the bursting planet behind. But one of the aliens could be rescued and taken on board. On the flight back to Earth, the liberated, evil power of the supercomputer takes possession of one of the crew members, who transforms into a kind of zombie. He attacks the last survivor of the alien race and kills him. BATTAGLIE NEGLI SPAZI STELLARI is one of five low-budget sci-fi films that the late Italian director Alfonso Brescia staged in one go in the years 1977 and 1978, in response to the immense success of STAR WARS. For all movies he used the same, slightly modified sets and costumes, the same optical effects and animated sequences and the actors are largely the same in all the films, with only some different actors in the main parts. Of course, the technicians behind the scenes are largely identical for all the films. This extremely low-cost production method allowed Brescia to stage five films for the price of one, so to speak. The other four movies of this quintet are: ANNO ZERO - GUERRA NELLO SPAZIO (77), SETTE UOMINI D'ORO NELLO SPAZIO (78), LA GUERRA DEI ROBOT (78) and LA BESTIA NELLO SPAZIO (78). That such an approach, however, can not produce high-caliber films is obvious. And therefore, BATTAGLIE NEGLI SPAZI STELLARI is an involuntarily comic space-opera, with protagonists in funny outfits, cheap special effects, an oblique synth soundtrack and silly dialogs. The actors were put in light gray "pajamas", with extra wide belts and red inserts, a red cap, which extends up to the ears and gray boots. Simply chic! The humanoid aliens in turn are bald, have a bluish metallic skin and pointy ears a la "Mr.Spock". The set design as a whole looks at least quite expensive. Because of the idea to use the sets for four more films, the producers have probably invested a little more money into it. It seems, that the art director was allowed to let his imagination loose, because the sets are almost overloaded with a plethora of wild flashing and flickering lights, consoles and screens. On the other hand, in case of the tools the astronauts are using, it looks as if probably the red pencil again was used, and so the set decorator has had to shop at the nearest hardware store (metal detector) or the store for auto parts (hazard warning lamp). As luck would have it (for the producers at least), the surface of the alien planet is almost entirely blurred in darkness, and as the viewer does not see much anyway, the producers thought it was not necessary to evoke the illusion of an alien world. Saved money again! The already mentioned electronic music is a mix of classic elements (Bach) and noisy synthesizer sounds in the style of Raymond Scott and his "Soothing Sounds for Baby." The story of the film makes little sense, and something like suspense does not even arise. The dialog, however, are sometimes quite funny, for example when one of the astronauts exclaims indignantly, "Hey, how does that guy know our language?". In another scene, a male astronaut and a female astronaut practicing "Cosmic Love", for which they sit side by side on a bed, connected to a "virtual sex machine" and have sex with each other without even get in touch. Bleak outlook!

Everyone else pretty much summed this one up perfectly. This REALLY does look like a cheap 60s Italian SciFi movie, so the biggest surprise is that it was done in the late 70s. Wow!There are so may bad things, but a couple jumped out at me: 1) The bad computer has waited 100s or 1000s of years for someone technically capable of fixing it. It said the local inhabitants where not advanced enough, but guess what, all anyone had to do was remove a circuit board from a storage rack, walk across the room, pull out the bad card and replace it. I think those folks on the planet could have done that and besides, the bad robot created another robot that was all powerful. Couldn't he have done it?! Maybe it wasn't in his union rules. 2) The panicking reporters who, because 2 alien space ships passed by an earth space ship way out in outer space, one of which our spaceship easily blew up, all reported that the end of the earth was imminent falling all over each other to make the report. At least some of the people in the film addressed this unbelievable stupidity...and it happened twice!One could go on and on. Suffice it to say, this is one of the greatest bad movies ever and anyone who is an MST3K fan owes it to themselves to check this one out. Don't you dare miss it!

I laughed. I cried. Then I watched Battle of the Planets or whatever it was called. Seriously. Hilariously bad. This is sort of a spaghetti space western I guess. Extremely low production values -even for a 70s sci-fi flick. Really strange and bad acting complements the nonsensical story. I'm pretty sure that the stars were just white paint splattered on black boards or occasionally white Christmas tree lights. For the space walk scenes it appears that they just turned the camera on its side while people waved their arms around.I got this movie as part of the 50 Classic Sci-Fi Movies pack available at amazon.com or that deep discount DVD place. I highly recommend getting one or more of those.

I have a collection of particularly ghastly sci fi thrillers. This is one of them. I couldn't sleep a few nights ago so I've now seen it.I thank IMDb. Frankly, I was trying to figure out in which language this was originally done. It was apparently Italian. Why does that not surprise me? One must remember that this was completed over a decade after 2001: A Space Odyssey, two decades after the "Star Trek" series. So one might have expected something a bit better. Well, I think they tried to incorporate a few themes from 2001 and Star Trek. But they did so SO badly it's clearly worth watching.The overall theme I think is that machines can take over. Okay. Well, I think... Add this to your collection of bad films for long night. But, heaven forbid, don't try to take it seriously!