Starcrash Review

The galaxy is divided into two factions. On one side are the forces of the evil Count Zarth Arn, bent on destruction and domination. On the other are the forces of the benevolent Emperor – stunningly underwritten and over acted by Christopher Plummer in a performance that easily trumps any of Ben Kingsley’s recent outings on the list of bad performances by good actors. But ignoring both factions entirely are the beautiful smuggler Stella (Catherine Munro) and her alien navigator Acton. That is, they ignore both factions until captured by the police and forcibly enlisted to help the Emperor.

Zarth Arn, safe in his fist-shaped space station lair, has developed a powerful super weapon, so massive that it requires an entire planet to hide it. The Emperor has sent out a battle ship led by his own son Simon (Hasselhoff) to discover the location of Zarth Arn’s hidden weapon and destroy it, but the ship has fallen prey to Zarth Arn’s might and the entire crew presumed dead. Believing Stella to be the finest pilot in the galaxy and thus his best hope the Emperor frees her from prison to track down Zarth Arn’s hidden fortress and, hopefully, find his son accompanied by the menacing cop who captured her in the first place as well as police robot El, who bizarrely speaks with a western accent throughout.

Starcrash was clearly intended to be a cheap knock off of other successful science fiction epics of the time and is absolutely shameless when it comes to cribbing designs, effects and entire shots from better known – and better made – efforts such as Logan’s Run and Battlestar Galactica, going so far as to mimic the opening shot of Star Wars and have Acton fight with a light saber.

But even as shamelessly derivative as it is what elevates Starcrash into the ranks of classic badness are the enormous leaps of logic and incredibly inane dialogue. When an early bit of dialogue features the command to “Scan it with out computer waves!” it becomes immediately obvious that Cozzi and company are in way, way over their heads and it all goes downhill from there. Caught in the most obvious trap in history? No problem! Freeze time for three minutes, because as everybody knows, any Emperor worth his salt has to have some powers and stopping time is apparently among them. Building a fist shaped fortress to satisfy your own ego? Make sure that the fingers can clench and that you use standard plate glass windows on the command bridge. Assaulting said fortress? Don’t do something useful like fire a weapon through said windows – which somehow magically keep the air from escaping even when shattered – oh, no! Fire torpedos loaded with live soldiers who can pop out and be slaughtered by the waiting army! And the dramatic final gambit? Let’s just say that the film’s title is apt, though no stars are involved.

Starcrash is a classically bad film, one fully deserving of the MST3K treatment. The French DVD release includes an anamorphic transfer of a rather damaged print – plenty of dirt and noise – with the original English audio plus the Italian and French dubs. Though there are plenty of special features – a feature length making of and lengthy spotlight on Cozzi chief among them – none include English subtitles or audio, which is also the case for the included sequel. Yes, they made a sequel, which boggles the mind. And here you thought that Hasselhoff’s involvement with questionable sci-fi started with Knight Rider …