The 90 minute theatrical movie was the pilot for the television series Buck Rogers: El aventurero del espacio (1979), but was shown in theaters several months before the series aired. The movie made over $21 million in North America alone.
Originally Buck Rogers was to have been put on trial, found guilty, and then banished to Anarchia along with Twiki and Theopolis until Wilma Deering comes looking for him with an idea that might prove his innocence. In the finished film, after reshoots, the story was restructured so that Buck Rogers chooses to explore Anarchia (with Twiki and Theo tagging along) until Wilma Deering arrives to bring him back, then he's put on trial, found guilty, and sentenced to be terminated until Wilma presents him with the opportunity to prove his innocence. Since these changes came late into production there were several tie-in publications released (including the novelization and comic adaptation) which followed the original sequence of events.
The space dogfights were choreographed with the assistance of a Hewlett-Packard "45" computer.
The theme song used in the movie is entitled "Suspension" and features lyrics sung by Kipp Lennon. The theme used in the television series was an instrumental version of the song.
Originally, Twiki was just going to make unintelligible electronic noises (the "biddi-biddi-biddi" sound) and Dr. Theopolis was to act as his translator. However, this was deemed to be too similar to R2-D2 and C-3PO from La guerra de las galaxias (1977) so Twiki was given a voice of his own.