Star Odyssey

Well, as an Italian American, I am obligated to at least try to see the myriad of Italian space flicks; this being one of the worst.

I LOVED Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires, and his other very hip and "neato"(as in "gee that's real neato, Batman!") BUT this one is watchable only for the costumes, the babes, and the pretty good ships effects.

I DID love(and still own) War of The Robots", which has a good story and a good "family feeling" among the characters who make up the spaceship crew and their alien allies.

If you like hot Italian babes, post "Space 1999" space uniforms, and ships, you will like this film If you want a good story or even a semi-well written one, steer clear of this one!

"A race of aliens is en route to Earth with the intent of enslaving the human race. The world turns to a top scientist in the hopes that he, and the team he pits together, can come up with a plan to drive off the extraterrestrial invaders. Is there enough time for our hero and his companions to prepare for a fight the will decide the fate of the entire planet?" asks the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Man's first contact with an alien race turns sour when they want to take over the planet, and make us futuristic slaves. "Star Odyssey" (in English) is a another cheap attempt to cash-in on the "Star Wars" success; although it doesn't really steal much story, and attempts some of its own cheesy style. The title and advertising graphics must have lured fewer victims this time around, as there was no follow-up.

Gianni Garko (as Dirk) and Yanti Somer (as Irene) manage to keep straight hero and heroine faces. This had to be difficult with lovesick robots "Tilt" and "Tilly" wandering around. The promise to alter their parts, so the mechanical couple would be able to consummate their relationship, is never shown on screen. Alas, it might have made the movie more than a complete waste of resources.

* Sette uomini d'oro nello spazio (10/26/79) Alfonso Brescia ~ Gianni Garko, Yanti Somer, Malisa Longo

The film begins with what might be the crappiest electronic music in the history of movies! Is this is shade of things to come? You betcha! "Star Odyssey" is an Italian film that features really bad acting and amazingly low production values for a sci-fi movie. I saw a dubbed version and perhaps the original was a bit better--but it's still filled with weird and cheap costumes as well as bad camera-work and these are obvious no matter the language. Additionally, the sets look like very simple rooms adorned with just a few trinkets to make it look 'space-agy'. And, one of the few outdoor sets was in a junkyard! The net effect is a film that just almost always looks really cheap--almost like an amateur production (though I did like the villain with the face that looked like a waffle). My favorite bad special effect were the weird glowy eyes--you just have to see them to believe 'em.

The plot involves some intergalactic baddie coming to attack the earth with his silly looking robots. Much of the plot frankly confused me--probably because it was so silly and dull I had difficulty staying awake. Plus, I think the film lost a bit in translation.

Winner, Academy Award, Category: "Worst Robot in a Sci-fi Film"

Believe it or not, but I've managed to stay awake long enough through three of these Alfonso Breschia sci-fi crapfests to notice that each one of them does have a different angle. Cosmos: War of the Planets had a slight horror angle, War of the Robots was a straight forward sci-fi action flick and Star Odyssey tries to include a lot of humour. I have seen the Beast in Space but we all know the angle there is Sirpa Lane's nipples.

It does matter how he approaches these films, they are all miserable failures featuring the same sets, the same extras in blonde robot wigs, the same uniforms for the good guys (I hope they at least washed them - I wouldn't fancy getting Antonio Sabato's sweaty hand-me-downs), the same Yanti Somer, the same space battle footage and the same sense that even Breschia himself was not remotely interested in what he was creating. Let's dive in!

Or not, as the whole first half of the film seems to have been cut and pasted together as some key scenes seem to happen after other stuff has occurred. Basically, an alien that looks like he's fallen asleep on an electric fly swatter has bought Earth, and instead of making contact he just starts gathering together loads of humans for slavery. This enrages campy Earth leader Franco Rassell, who orders a crack team of human jerks to get together to sort out this intergalactic chugnut.

This lot includes Han Solo type Gianni Garko, who can hypnotise people and gets into a fistfight with Nello Pazzafini (in the confusing footage we see the fight first, then the reason it started later), Yanti Somer, ex-lover of Garko and niece of elderly scientist Ennio Balbao, who is trying to figure out some way to penetrate the weird substance surrounding the enemy spaceship (more confusing footage). There's Han Solo type Chris Avram and Melissa Longo, who is guess is supposed to be Chewbacca? Throw in a guy with ADHD and a pompous military guy and we're good to go...except for the two suicide-pact robots they pick up from a seventies scrapyard.

The fact that Tilt and Tilly have more character than everyone else shows you how bad this film is. They had a suicide pact but can't remember how (it's because they couldn't shag), and they bicker, complain, write poems to each other and wonder how the blonde-wig robots aren't attacking them. There's also this other robot which is like some child in a Halloween costume wandered on set or perhaps is a dwarf slave Breschi was humiliating for sexual purposes.

All this crapness is lost like tears in rain as the whole things just devolves into the same endless laser battles, light-sabre (pound shop version) battles, and worst of all, the interminable space battle at the end. That battle doesn't quite last as long as the one in War of the Robots, but...that's about the only good thing I can say about it.

The version I watched did have an ending, although it did cut off a guy at the end mid-sentence, so that was good.

What happened to you Gianni Gark - you used to be Sartana! What happened to you Ennio Balbao - you used to be a Mafia Don! Yanti Somer - you have no excuse - you were in the last two as well!

Out of boredom, my friends and I decided to have ourselves a "worst movie marathon". Among the titles we rented were "la guerre de l'espace en l'an 3000", "La soupe au chou", " Como rubare la corena de Ingleterra" and "Space Oddysey (english title of this movie)". Although all the movies were disgusting and hard to watch, this one had to be the worst...

Here are a few things that stood out...

• A male and a female robot ( she has metal eyelashes) in love!

• A woman scientist working in a tight leather "swim suit"

• A gymnast fighter ( we dubbed him "mr exercise" ) who jumps around during the movie

• A hero who walks around like he is constipated

• An army of evil "droids" with blond wigs and silver suits

The characters are not developed, ( some seem to come out of thin air) and the villain is laughable.

The thing that got me the most, though, is the fact that this movie has no end, literally; Music covers the dialog in the last scene, were everything unfolds.

Really, this is something you should try to find at your local videostore.

-1,5 * :)