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Thursday, July 26, 2012

Starcrash (1978)


Starcrash (1978) - Movie review plus screencaps:
"Starcrash!"  a.k.a.  "The Clash of the Stars!"  a.k.a.  "Stellar Clashes Beyond the Third Dimension!"  a.k.a. "The Adventures of Stella Star!"
 Spoilers, I guess...

This Italian Star Wars knock-off from 1978 fails on every level.  Wooden acting.  Hideous costumes.  Fake plastic spaceships.  Out of focus special effects.  Nonsensical plot twists.  Oh, and one of the stars is David Hasselhoff.  Needless to say, it's FANTASTIC!

Smooth Characters
 The movie stars Caroline Munro modeling her exciting space bikini as criminal-slash-adventurer Stella Star.  She's sort of a female Han Solo.  It also stars Marjoe Gortner as Akton, a white guy with a giant space afro who fights with a fake lightsaber and gains various super powers throughout the movie.  He's like a cross between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Other characters include a robot sidekick with a cartoonish Texas accent and a bald guy with green skin.
 
"Damn, I'm Evil!"
The villain of the flick is Count Zarth Arn who is constantly laughing maniacally while flapping his Dracula cape around.  So evil.  Oh, and I can't forget Hasselhoff; he's basically Princess Leia, although he wears a lot more makeup than I ever saw on Carrie Fisher.

Hoff's Going Heavy on the Makeup
Christopher Plummer is the only person in the film who can act, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb.  He plays Hasselhoff's dad, "The Emperor of the Galaxy." He delivers all his lines like he's in Hamlet or something, with dramatic, William Shatner-like pauses.  The effect is bizarre... like he doesn't realize what movie he's in.  He also has the best line in the movie, when seconds before our heroes are about to die in an explosion, he gazes up at the ceiling and shouts, "Imperial battleship...  halt... the flow of time!"  And then time stops so our heroes can escape, with no explanation ever given for how this amazing feat was accomplished.  Awesome.

Christopher Plummer Doesn't Know What Movie He's In
The plot is a lot of silly nonsense, with Stella Star and her intrepid band of space buddies travelling around in their spaceship getting into adventures while trying to save the universe from the evil Count Zarth.  So the film is broken up into various episodes where we see Stella fight Space Cavemen, Space Amazons, a giant space robot, and what not.
 
Pressing Buttons
Later, the good guys attack the Count's version of the Death Star, which,  is shaped like a giant flying space hand.  Oh, and when it goes into combat, the giant space hand contracts into a fist!  Awesome!  Anyway, they attack the ship by shooting giant golden dildos at it.  Once the dildos crash through the windows of the spaceship, they pop open and soldiers jump out.

Pew! Pew! Pew!
The movie's costumes and sets are ridiculously colorful and goofy.  It looks more like it was made in 1968 than '78, it has the same pop art sensibillity as films like Barbarella, Diabolik, or the Adam West Batman TV series.

Captured by Space Amazons
This movie is DUMB, but it is fun.  And Caroline Munro does look pretty sexy in her space bikini.  I recommend this title to all discerning fans of science fiction cinema.


Rating: 3½ Robots (out of 5)






I See You!
More screencaps after the jump...


Attack of the Golden Dildos
Biff!  Bang!
Blue Cockpit
Bubblegum Corridor
David Hasselhoff in Space
Electric Onion Ring
Fake Robots
Green Cockpit
Green Corridor
Hasselhoff.  (It's almost impossible for me to look at this and not hear him talking to KITT)
"Hey Now!"
"Hey Stella, Look at That!"
"Huzzah!"
I Can't Believe It's Not a Light Saber
"Did I Mention That I Am EVIL?"
Kra-zonk!
Space-Douche
My Space-Afro Gives Me Super-Powers
"Neat... Space!"
Pod Thingie
Pod Thingie Over Water
Pow!
Rainbow Space City
Ready To Rumble
Robots Walking
Space Beach
Space Brain
Space Cavemen
Space Caveman Has Bad Teeth
Space Robot Colossus Thing
Space Robot Colossus Thing, Part 2
Space Robot Colossus Thing Versus Spaceship
Space Corridor
Space Girl
Space Hand
Space Landscape
Space Nap
Space Pimp and His Stable
Space Room
Space Sky
Space Swim
Space TV - 100 Channels and Still Nothing On
Space Space
Space Space Space
Spaceship Interior One
Spaceship Interior Two
Spaceship Interior Three
"Special" Effects
Stella Descends
Stella is on the Move
Still EVIL
That Dude is Green
The Many Moods of David Hasselhoff
Zap!


1 comment:

  1. https://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/PhotonKnights.PhotonKnights.html I watched this movie, and this came out of my brain.

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