Starcrash starts as a huge spaceship sent out by the Emperor (Christopher Plummer) of the entire Universe is attacked by red blobs, they are supposed to be monsters but looked like red blobs to me. All contact with the ship is lost. Space pirates & smugglers Stella Star (Caroline Munroe) & Akton (Marjoe Gortner) are on the run from the Emperor's police force including comedy side-kick robot Elle, jumping into Hyperspace Stella & Akton think they have outwitted their pursuers but this is not the case & both are caught, arrested & sentence to hard labour on different prison planets. However they are soon pardoned & released as the last remaining hope of the Universe, the Emperor himself ask's for Stella & Akton to find the secret new weapon that the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) has built (not himself personally, though) that he intends to use to take control of the whole Universe. If that wasn't pressure enough the Emeror ask's Stellar & Akton to find his missing son Simon (David Hasselhoff) who was on the ship that was attacked by red blobs...
This Italian & American co-production was co-written & directed by Luigi Cozzi under his more English friendly pseudonym Lewis Coates which also let him hide the shame of making this under a different name but I digress, like a lot of Italian produced films back in the 70's & 80's which were blatant rip-off's of popular big budget Hollywood films Starcrash is no different & is a shameless rip-off of the classic Star Wars (1977) which was released a year before this. While Star wars has quite rightly gone on to be one of the most popular & influential films ever made that has taken a firm foothold in pop culture Starcrash hasn't, some rather unkind viewers have actually renamed Starcrash to Startrash which I personally wouldn't disagree with & feel is quite an apt title for this. Everything about Startrash, sorry Starcrash is completely awful, lets start with the script & the story that unfolds before the disbelieving audiences very eyes. The story is a Star Wars clone, evil bloke has a planet sized weapon of immense power to conquer the Universe with, yeah OK but why does he let it get blown up inside that planet? The appearance of red blobs is hardly terrifying & quite how he plans to take over the Universe is a mystery. The whole story makes little sense, the character's, twist's & set-pieces are bizarre like the two skeletal robots who instead of having laser guns carry old fashioned swords & the scene where the flying capsules that look like huge dildo's crash through the windows of Count Zarth's hand shaped fortress with no loss of air pressure, no decompression or loss of gravity. The narrative & technical science witnessed in Starcrash is bizarre, but some may like that I suppose. While many will point out to me that Starcrash is fun & shouldn't be taken seriously I understand that point but where's the fun in watching such a poorly made, dull, predictable & frankly boring film such as Starcrash? I didn't have much fun watching it that's for sure. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for such a, well, unique film like Starcrash but I just didn't like it.
Also known as The Adventures of Stella Star & bizarrely Female Space Invaders this has some rotten special effects, from the goofy looking stop-motion animated robots to the rubbish red blobs of fear to the awful rear projection, split screen, miniature model work & some really camp 70's sets with all sorts of horribly dated looking technology & flashing lights. Again, I don't think Starcrash looks quaint or cheesy in a good way I just think it looks awful & amateurish. There's a strange sequence that is a direct rip-off of the thrilling huge bronze man scene from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with less than great results. The bad guy Zarth is a complete idiot & is a basic copy of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon with his cape & bad facial hair with their is also a lightsaber fight scene that is so stiff & poorly choreographed that it makes you appreciate Star Wars even more. For some reason space looks like multi coloured Christmas lights shining against a black black-ground, to be fair it probably was. The spaceship dogfight scenes are terrible, it's hard to tell one ship from another & they just seem to fly in straight lines making silly noises rather than actually fight or dodge anything. Most uninspiring & totally forgettable as far as I am concerned.
Filmed in Italy & Switzerland the budget was so low that they couldn't afford most of the cast to dub themselves & as such the admittedly gorgeous Caroline Munroe is completely dubbed throughout, to be honest she's just about the best aspect of Starcrash & does look good but gets less & less to do as the film progresses & by the end just sort of stands there listening to ridiculous lines of dialogue that have to be heard to be believed. Joe Spinell is totally bonkers as the bad guy. In fact the acting varies, some play the thing up as the silly rubbish it is while other's seem to take it deadly seriously. This is not Oscar winner Christopher Plummer's finest hour. David Hasselhoff seems to be taking things too seriously.
Starcrash is a really bad film, it has some unintentionally hilarious moments, some of the worst special effects of any post Star Wars rip-off's & a terrible script that just makes things up as it goes along. Caroline Munroe is very attractive, an early appearance from David Hasselhoff is fun & Joe Spinell's performance is unique but at the end of the day it's still crap. Some find it good entertainment & good fun but I cannot count myself among their number.
This Italian & American co-production was co-written & directed by Luigi Cozzi under his more English friendly pseudonym Lewis Coates which also let him hide the shame of making this under a different name but I digress, like a lot of Italian produced films back in the 70's & 80's which were blatant rip-off's of popular big budget Hollywood films Starcrash is no different & is a shameless rip-off of the classic Star Wars (1977) which was released a year before this. While Star wars has quite rightly gone on to be one of the most popular & influential films ever made that has taken a firm foothold in pop culture Starcrash hasn't, some rather unkind viewers have actually renamed Starcrash to Startrash which I personally wouldn't disagree with & feel is quite an apt title for this. Everything about Startrash, sorry Starcrash is completely awful, lets start with the script & the story that unfolds before the disbelieving audiences very eyes. The story is a Star Wars clone, evil bloke has a planet sized weapon of immense power to conquer the Universe with, yeah OK but why does he let it get blown up inside that planet? The appearance of red blobs is hardly terrifying & quite how he plans to take over the Universe is a mystery. The whole story makes little sense, the character's, twist's & set-pieces are bizarre like the two skeletal robots who instead of having laser guns carry old fashioned swords & the scene where the flying capsules that look like huge dildo's crash through the windows of Count Zarth's hand shaped fortress with no loss of air pressure, no decompression or loss of gravity. The narrative & technical science witnessed in Starcrash is bizarre, but some may like that I suppose. While many will point out to me that Starcrash is fun & shouldn't be taken seriously I understand that point but where's the fun in watching such a poorly made, dull, predictable & frankly boring film such as Starcrash? I didn't have much fun watching it that's for sure. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for such a, well, unique film like Starcrash but I just didn't like it.
Also known as The Adventures of Stella Star & bizarrely Female Space Invaders this has some rotten special effects, from the goofy looking stop-motion animated robots to the rubbish red blobs of fear to the awful rear projection, split screen, miniature model work & some really camp 70's sets with all sorts of horribly dated looking technology & flashing lights. Again, I don't think Starcrash looks quaint or cheesy in a good way I just think it looks awful & amateurish. There's a strange sequence that is a direct rip-off of the thrilling huge bronze man scene from Jason and the Argonauts (1963) with less than great results. The bad guy Zarth is a complete idiot & is a basic copy of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon with his cape & bad facial hair with their is also a lightsaber fight scene that is so stiff & poorly choreographed that it makes you appreciate Star Wars even more. For some reason space looks like multi coloured Christmas lights shining against a black black-ground, to be fair it probably was. The spaceship dogfight scenes are terrible, it's hard to tell one ship from another & they just seem to fly in straight lines making silly noises rather than actually fight or dodge anything. Most uninspiring & totally forgettable as far as I am concerned.
Filmed in Italy & Switzerland the budget was so low that they couldn't afford most of the cast to dub themselves & as such the admittedly gorgeous Caroline Munroe is completely dubbed throughout, to be honest she's just about the best aspect of Starcrash & does look good but gets less & less to do as the film progresses & by the end just sort of stands there listening to ridiculous lines of dialogue that have to be heard to be believed. Joe Spinell is totally bonkers as the bad guy. In fact the acting varies, some play the thing up as the silly rubbish it is while other's seem to take it deadly seriously. This is not Oscar winner Christopher Plummer's finest hour. David Hasselhoff seems to be taking things too seriously.
Starcrash is a really bad film, it has some unintentionally hilarious moments, some of the worst special effects of any post Star Wars rip-off's & a terrible script that just makes things up as it goes along. Caroline Munroe is very attractive, an early appearance from David Hasselhoff is fun & Joe Spinell's performance is unique but at the end of the day it's still crap. Some find it good entertainment & good fun but I cannot count myself among their number.