I can't help it, I love this film. Yes all the FX, sounds music etc are pinched from Battle Beyond the Stars, but they are expertly pinched! The music is actually a combination of the scores James Horner wrote for "Humaniods from the Deep" and "Battle ...", scores which incidentally got him hired to do Star Trek II .. so he owes a lot to these pictures.Frankly this is the kind of film the entertains me, it's not clever but it's not trying to be it's simple an adventure and I personally think the editing and reuse of shots from Battle Beyond ... are very well done. Also you might be interested to know that all those FX shots, and the ships themselves were built and filmed by James Cameron !!, back before he'd done his directorial debut of "Piranha". So they're shots that deserved a bit of reuse. For sure only Roger Corman's company could get away with this .. but lets face it we all get a kick out of seeing the 'ship with the boobs'!Personally I hope this comes out on Blu-ray with a tonne of makings of and extras .. I'd be happy to watch that. I want more films that are in this vein of adventurous fantasy! And the reused stuff in this film is testament to the fact that Corman's company produced awesome material for previous films.Loved it, watched it and will be watching it again no matter how much it's trashed by everyone else.

This is a great 80's B movie. Its NOT a star wars rip off its a cash in. Yes the music and special effects are taken from battle beyond the stars, but this movie succeeds where that film and many other star wars cash ins failed. Like star wars it wasn't about the special effects it was about the characters. In this film you actually like and care about the characters . The pirates are all well defined. Ray Stewart is fantastic as the sadistic Zariatin and Vince Edwards is charismatic as the leader Hawk. Yes its got a star wars-esquire bar scene but every other film and TV show in the genre at this time did.Yes there are continuity errors, ( Hawk gets shot on his right side then later the wound is on the left). Yes it seemed that the future looked remarkably like the 80s with their 80s shirts and hair do's but this film was also ahead of its time in the respect that it had no problems with killing off nearly all the main characters. In short is this a massive summer blockbuster - no, is it an Oscar winning space epic -no, what this film is a rare 80's b movie treasure that you can file with Trancers and Explorers.

As several posters have "hinted," this is a sorry "Star Wars" ripoff. Now if you're going to rip off "Star Wars," at least do it right; "Battlestar Galactica" did, and there were a few other space operas that didn't do a bad job of it, but this is definitely not one of them. David Mendenhall, the juvenile lead, actually isn't too bad, though he goes overboard on the "cute" factor every so often. Vince Edwards hasn't improved much as an actor since his "Ben Casey" days; if anything, he's even more wooden than he was ten. The other performances are nothing to write home about, either. Even worse are the special effects; the best you can say about them is that they're lousy. It's glaringly obvious that the "aliens" are simply actors wearing rubber masks with a little foam or latex slopped on them, and the "battle" scenes between Edwards' raiders and the aliens are poorly staged and badly shot. A very weak effort from Roger Corman. Skip it.

Most who worked crew on this film came from around the world, all given a shot at working on a Corman film. There were some talented people involved. Vince Edwards ("Ben Casey") had a great time with all this. Much of the foam latex make-up was quite involved. The purple scarf worn by the alien 'Flightplan' is a great comic book touch. Like all Corman films, he always manages to get the job done, and have a good time doing it ...