(MST3K'd) Let's first look at Caroline Munro (and sure if you want to look at her like *that*, have at it, but I mean something different) - she happens to be in what can be said to be a half-naked outfit (with knee-high boots of course), and she wears it with confidence as she "acts" (by this I mean she does a great job of reciting her lines in an expertly, even adorably wooden way if that makes sense), though it is also... not leaving much to the imagination. The curious thing is that halfway through the movie - and this is a piece of trivia about it that I confirmed by that reliable fountain of information, IMDb - she stops wearing the skimpy, awesome "B-movie" Barbarella ripoff suit because the producers didn't think they could keep up the PG rating for the kids to watch this.
And of course one can understand: 45 minutes of magnificent and gratuitous cleavage is just fine... 90 minutes, it's pushing it, you know? Starcrash is lovably horrible, a shameless knock-off of Star Wars even compared to *other* shameless knock-offs of Star Wars that would come out like Battle Beyond the Stars. Although, frankly, this might be a little more fun than that due to how terrifically s****y the special effects are here. If you happen to watch this (and you can't not now that it's got the MST3K revival treatment), you may get a better understanding why George Lucas was so nervous about having a decent enough budget for his space epic: Starcrash is what would've happened had Fox had a firmer hand and torn the money to shreds. It's almost like the matte shots just said 'eff it' and decided to go on strike, and that the simple things like, you know, COLORS somehow got messed up in the washing machine and it all comes out like a lava lamp that hit its head on concrete.
Did I mention this is a knock-off of Star Wars? Oh, actually, it's also a knock-off of Harryhausen and Planet of the Apes and any other given science fiction or fantasy type of movie (it may even rip-off Battlestar Galactica, which is impressive given how that was its *own* knock-off of Star Wars made at the exact same time). You get all the tropes of rival sides fighting over the universe (including Christopher goddamn Plummer as, no BS, the "Emperor of the Universe"), and one actor, Joe Spinnell, playing Count Zarth Arn in full cloak and somehow, miraculously, discovering time travel because he is doing his riff of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (which wasn't due out for another two years!) and is glorious. Spinnell may be enough reason to see the movie alone; yes, even with David Hasselhoff, who isn't in the movie quite enough, Spinnell makes up for it as he eats ALL the ham in sight and become it times 11.
I had a blast watching this; the little robots and dude in the corner commenting certainly helped, but this is a laugh riot all on its own. This is the kind of cheese that makes Corman productions from the period look like grand David Lean epics by comparison, with fantastically dated hair-dos, action that doesn't make sense as far as how figures appear in the framing (i.e. when those would-be Planet-Ape characters appear out of nowhere to attack the bullet-head robot with the southern accent!) It's a wonderful pleasure of the almost guilty sort.
And of course one can understand: 45 minutes of magnificent and gratuitous cleavage is just fine... 90 minutes, it's pushing it, you know? Starcrash is lovably horrible, a shameless knock-off of Star Wars even compared to *other* shameless knock-offs of Star Wars that would come out like Battle Beyond the Stars. Although, frankly, this might be a little more fun than that due to how terrifically s****y the special effects are here. If you happen to watch this (and you can't not now that it's got the MST3K revival treatment), you may get a better understanding why George Lucas was so nervous about having a decent enough budget for his space epic: Starcrash is what would've happened had Fox had a firmer hand and torn the money to shreds. It's almost like the matte shots just said 'eff it' and decided to go on strike, and that the simple things like, you know, COLORS somehow got messed up in the washing machine and it all comes out like a lava lamp that hit its head on concrete.
Did I mention this is a knock-off of Star Wars? Oh, actually, it's also a knock-off of Harryhausen and Planet of the Apes and any other given science fiction or fantasy type of movie (it may even rip-off Battlestar Galactica, which is impressive given how that was its *own* knock-off of Star Wars made at the exact same time). You get all the tropes of rival sides fighting over the universe (including Christopher goddamn Plummer as, no BS, the "Emperor of the Universe"), and one actor, Joe Spinnell, playing Count Zarth Arn in full cloak and somehow, miraculously, discovering time travel because he is doing his riff of Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon (which wasn't due out for another two years!) and is glorious. Spinnell may be enough reason to see the movie alone; yes, even with David Hasselhoff, who isn't in the movie quite enough, Spinnell makes up for it as he eats ALL the ham in sight and become it times 11.
I had a blast watching this; the little robots and dude in the corner commenting certainly helped, but this is a laugh riot all on its own. This is the kind of cheese that makes Corman productions from the period look like grand David Lean epics by comparison, with fantastically dated hair-dos, action that doesn't make sense as far as how figures appear in the framing (i.e. when those would-be Planet-Ape characters appear out of nowhere to attack the bullet-head robot with the southern accent!) It's a wonderful pleasure of the almost guilty sort.