Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine

I guess everyone who took a quick look at the cast was wondering: "Wow, really, THAT Casper Van Dien? The guy from Starship Troopers and Sleepy Hollow?" And yes, this is the only reason why I sat down at a friend of mine who collects trash movies. And it didn't take long and I got this weird "Command & Conquer 1 Cinematic" feeling. It's been 20 years ago that Titanic actually looked kind of realistic and Starship Troopers set the benchmark for action packed CGI. And here we are in the year 2017 and are being served with visuals that could have been done by a group of self taught high-schoolers. But that's only the first thing you notice - after this is goes on and on. This story. Sorry, I am usually a guy who tries to value even smallest mercies but no, no mercy here. This story is recycled, rehashed and wrecked - you are pulling your hair out because you just know everything ahead.

The camera, the sound effects, the dialogues, the music, the costumes, the locations (this was probably shot in a forest nearby), the whole way people encounter and talk to each other, it's all so unbelievably lame - i wonder what some of the actors thought when they read the script. In fact a few actors try so hard to make this work you can immediately tell the quality of someones talent. Even with bad camera, clumsy dialogue and cheesy costumes some prove that even in worst conditions they can at least deliver a believable performance - and that goes to some actors, and the actors only.

When you see some student movies coming out of some film or media universities you'd be surprised what the next generation has to offer. Even they would laugh about this embarrassing excuse for a movie. I'm so sorry, I just couldn't be nice this time. This is an insult to movie lovers - and yes, I'm also the kind of guy who also "gets" and laughs about Kung Pow - Enter The Fist.

I have to give this movie one star, even though some of the acting and effects aren't terrible. It's just that I don't understand why anyone would make a film that looks like another Star Wars rip off from the 1980s in 2017. There's absolutely nothing original in the plot, the sets, the make up, the acting, the dialogue, etc. Etc. Etc. We've all seen it dozens if not hundreds of times since 1977. There's nothing here for anyone as far as I could see. The only reason I watched it was it was being treated by RiffTrax.

I liked this movie.

It's definitely a B movie, much of the acting as well as the effects is so-so, but there are also clear nods to old school sci-fi, kind of a mix of some old Flash Gordon movie and some of the cheaper 80's sci-fi stuff, but also randomly mixed up with modern style tech/effects just to spice things up.

If you also consider that it's literally a low budget movie (at least partially financed through fundraising), it's not bad at all.

I think it works. I've seen worse stuff rating higher on IMDb...

+ + + Just to give you perspective: I like sci-fi a lot. I rarely shut off or fast forward even the shittiest of movies. It has happened perhaps 2-3 times that I can remember, and I've watched hundreds of sci-fi movies and TV shows.

I did not expect much when I started watching this one and it did not fail to deliver the not much. A film obviously trying to capitalize on the success of the more recent Star Wars films, but you know, with a lower budget so we get 75% of the movie set on a planet that looks a lot like some woods on Earth and not remotely resembling an alien world. We also get Casper Van Dien in the lead so not much else to say other than it is not very good and for a movie called Star Raiders it is very unclear who the star raiders are as no one raids a single star!

The story, well, Casper is Saber Raine and he stops people killing an alien at the beginning of the film and it is eye rolling the whole story with that so lets continue with the real story of a brother and sister kidnapped! They are being held captive by a Darth Vader like enemy who shows he has the ability to choke the two siblings and really does nothing sinister beyond that and does not even participate in any of the final action scenes. Well this trio of heroes lands on a planet and enlists Saber Raine's help, but they do not really need it too much as they are already on the planet that the siblings are on, how convenient and it saves on budget!

The film tries to do an interesting twist, but it is not all that interesting, because, you know...the movie isn't very good. The weapons frequently hit people and do nothing to them. I kept expecting fat dude with half sunglasses to die as he gets hit dead on three or four time, but doesn't faze him a bit! The villain is still trucking and he lost the top part of his head so maybe their race is just really tough?

The film is just not good and at the end you can tell they clearly expect to have a sequel as there is not too much that gets wrapped up at the end. Not sure if they are going to make this sequel or not, from what I see here at IMDB no sequel has yet materialized. With films like these though, i always wonder how they get made in the first place. I know people do go fund mes, but I just cannot see people donating to have crappy movies made, but not to people who actually need help.

Casper Van Dien and Cynthia Rothrock used to be people... and now they are reduced to this kind of barely student film fluff. The Special effects look like something a Nerd would produce to get his work rejected by the Asylum. The acting is sub-standard. The only thing to speak for it is that the creature effects are kind of good.

The movie had a very dense plot for a movie that was hard to follow, but it involves a bad guy who wants to conquer the galaxy. Most of the film is the actors walking around a forest pretending it's an alien planet. The sets are cheap as well.