I'm never quite sure about "Star Wars", whether it really deserves its status as a classic film or whether it's actually not all that good once you cut through the above-average design, effects and musical score. But when I watch something like "Starcrash" one of the copycat movies rush-produced in its wake, I'm forced to conclude that "Star Wars" had a lot more going for it than its surface gloss. However much "Starcrash" may try and emulate its more famous predecessor, it falls desperately short in every respect.There are a few token ingredients which "Starcrash" shares with "Star Wars", such as shoot-outs with hand-held laser weapons, dogfights in space, a laser sword or two, a robot sidekick with a human personality, a quest to find/rescue a person of noble origin whom the main protagonist subsequently falls in love with, and an evil empire bent on subjugating all other races, the leader of whom is in a space station ready to put his sinister new super-weapon into action.But there the similarity to "Star Wars" ends and "Starcrash" goes off on its own tangent of banality. The plot casts a pair of space smugglers in the hero roles: Stella Star (Caroline Munro), described as the best pilot in the galaxy, and her alien (but human-looking) companion Akton (Marjoe Gortner) who, likewise, is supposedly the galaxy's best navigator. Despite their combined skills, the pair get caught by patrols and are sentenced to hard labour on a penal colony. Feisty Stella soon contrives an escape (running away, no less, while her fellow up-risers get slaughtered) only to then find she would have been freed anyway for the Emperor has need of her services – he wants Stella and Akton to find his missing son who was on a top secret mission to stop the evil Count Zarth Arn from using a deadly new weapon to take control of the universe.That is the catalyst for Stella to be propelled from one deadly situation to the next as she travels from planet to planet encountering a race of unfriendly Amazon warriors and their giant robot (which itself sports a pair of female breasts), nearly freezing to death on an ice planet, being trussed up by a band of babbling troglodytes (who either want to eat her or sacrifice her, it's not clear which) and so on. She ultimately locates the missing son who of course is a heart-throb even if he does wear the same amount of eye-liner as she does, and they return to the Emperor who launches an all-out attack on the Count's base, which proves unsuccessful. The one last hope for the galaxy is for Stella to wipe out the Count's fortress by engaging in a desperate kamikaze mission – the 'star crash' of the film's title.If that all sounds like exciting stuff, then don't raise your hopes: writer-director Luigi Cozzi completely wastes whatever potential this storyline may have had. The action sequences are perfunctory but lack impact because the whole film is devoid of soul. The characters are so bland and one-dimensional that the viewer never feels any real involvement with them. Worst in this regard is Count Zarth Arn, a snarling pantomime villain prone to frequent bouts of maniacal laughter. He even has the standard goatee beard to prove he's the baddie... He's so camp you have to wonder how anybody takes him seriously, let alone how he rose to such a position of power. And his ambition? Well, to conquer the universe, of course! Equally bad, and yet by some degree entertaining because of how lame it is, is the dialogue. Some choice lines include "I don't tolerate malfunctions!", "No one can survive these deadly rays!", "What in the universe is that?", "I'll fix you!", "Soon I will join you as your prince of darkness!" and, "Imperial Battleship: Halt the flow of time!" The script is also riddled with far too many token utterances such as "What's that?", "Hey, look out!", "Let me go!" and "Come on!" which demonstrate just how little effort was put into it.As the main character, Stella may certainly look the part thanks to Munro's stunning physique, garbed in a series of outfits that Barbarella probably discarded on the grounds that they were too kinky, and she may be gutsy, but... Well, she doesn't actually do very much except blunder into a series of perils in the best traditions of Pearl White and get saved by one of her colleagues, often via a hitherto unmentioned special ability. These abilities know no bounds of credibility, such as freezing an entire planet in one moment of time, or being able to foresee the future whenever the situation calls for it! The special effects are variable, with nothing reaching the standards of even "2001: A Space Odyssey" which was produced a decade earlier. The spaceship models look decidedly chunky, almost like they're made from Lego. At one point in the movie Stella has been frozen and when she thaws out, the effect is achieved via a rather poor series of cross fades reminiscent of the the effect used for the transformations of Lon Chaney Jr's Wolf Man in the Universal films of over thirty years earlier.Did I mention the acting? That's bad too, almost without exception, although it's difficult to blame the actors when they're equipped with such a bad script. Also, many of the cast have been overdubbed in the English language version, including Caroline Munro, so it's not actually her voice we hear.Even John Barry, one of cinema's best composers, is operating below par on this one. He probably realised when he saw the rushes that it just wasn't worth the effort. If so, he was right. 'Starcrash' is beyond redemption.

I saw this movie in a cinema in 1980. It was the second feature showing with Galaxina, a sci-fi farce starring Avery Schrieber (have those words ever been written before? "starring Avery Schreiber") and Playboy Playmate of the Century Dorothy Stratten as a sex robot. There weren't many people left in the theater to begin with. There were fewer when Galaxina finished and fewer still when StarCrash started. I'm positive that the entire audience numbered no more then a dozen, all teen-aged boys. Who else would have gone to see Galaxina and stayed for more film abuse?StarCrash was terrible and it was late at night. I was just drifting off to sleep when the audience turned against the movie. In yet another scene in which Stella Star was in peril and her scant clothing was strategically torn, a voice in seats rang out: "When is someone gonna bang her?" Instantly this switched from being one the worst movies I had ever seen to one of the best cinema experiences of my life. With the ice broken by that first comment, the audience shouted back at the movie for the balance of the film. I don't know if this random, self-selected group was particularly talented or if we were inspired by the visions on the screen, but I never heard such funny lines. About a third of the audience input was earthy comments about Caroline Munro, another third were derisive remarks about Marjoe Gortner previous career as a faith healer, and the rest ridiculed the broken plot, the Star Wars ripoffs, the costumes and make-up, and the performances of the other actors who either chewed the scenery or were stilted beyond belief.Make no mistake. This is a terrible movie. Badly written, badly performed, badly edited, and just plain bad. But I will always have fond memories of seeing it at the Rolling Hills Theater in Torrance, California that night in 1980 and the ten or eleven other young men who shared that experience.

If you want to see how bad this is, spare yourself the whole thing and just watch the opening scene. Watching the horrible actors manage flub the timing of their three-word sentences is a sight to behold.Funny? Absolutely! Watching the bad guy order his troops into combat with the stirring words of "Kill!" while they slide down the bat poles will bring a smile to the face of anyone. And that soundtrack, wow!Forget the nonsensical plot, terrible special effects and poor acting, it's got Christopher Plumber and a bunch of excuses for Stella Star to get attacked by the worst stop-frame animated robots in history. What more could you ask for?

The galaxy is involved in a civil war. On one side are the forces of the "Emperor" (Christopher Plummer) and the other side is in the grip of the evil "Count Zarth Arn" (Joe Spinell) who happens to possess a new weapon of awesome destructive power. Not knowing where it is, the Emperor sends a spaceship on a secret mission to locate it so that it can be destroyed by his forces. On board this spaceship is the Emperor's son, "Simon" (David Hasselhoff). Unfortunately, while exploring a certain sector of space the spaceship is destroyed. Just prior to that, however, three small vessels manage to escape. Meanwhile, a pair of smugglers named "Akton" (Marjoe Gortner) and "Stella Star" (Caroline Munro) are being chased by the Imperial police. While being pursued they stumble upon one of the small vessels but are caught while looking it over. They are then sentenced to hard labor in prison. However, needing a good captain and navigator the Emperor releases them from prison and gives them a secret mission: Find and destroy the planet hiding the secret weapon and rescue the Emperor's son. All things considered that's not a bad plot for a science-fiction movie. Regrettably, neither the director (Luigi Cozzi), the writers nor any of the actors were able to make it work. Not only was the script extremely bad but the acting was some of the worst I have ever seen. Now, don't get me wrong—Caroline Munro looked great in her skimpy leather costume. But other than that nobody really stood out. Quite the contrary. In short, considering some of the decent actors featured in this movie I imagine some of them regret signing up for such a bad film. It wasn't the worst I've ever seen, but it was pretty bad all the same.