Capitan Rogers nel 25° secolo

If you like "Battlestar Galactica", you will love this movie, at least if you can sit through the incredibly cheesy and silly title sequence. Based extraordinarily loosely on the classic early 1900's sci-fi novel, this is a story of an American astronaut frozen in crygenic sleep for a deep-space exploration mission in the late 20th Century who returns home and awakens in the post-nuclear 25th century. He finds an Earth ravaged by nuclear war (the scene in bombed-out Chicago is particularly amusing to me, as a life-long Chicago native, even if the sets look NOTHING like State Street)but with survivors carrying on in underground cities.

Earth is about to be atacked by the evil Draconians, led by a lovely but devious Princess. Sort of an S&M version of Princess Leia. Anyway, the Draconians pretend to offer Earth help defeating some "Space Pirates", but the Pirates are really Draconian fighters.

What follows are some classic space battle scenes, a lot of running around in dark spaceship corridors, and a classic love triangle between Buck Rogers, the Evil Princess, and a female fighter pilot from Earth. Buck Rogers manages to sabotage and destroy the Draconian fighters and saves the day, of course.

Along the way, we get some amusing dialogue, and some VERY 1970's sci-fi scenes, including Buck Rogers introducing Disco music to the future. The sight of his robot Sidekick, Twiky, dancing to Disco music well saying "Get Down!" still haunts me today.

However, the babes are hot, the battles exciting, the effects good (for 1970's TV), and the story easy to follow. I like it, and wish I could find a copy. I haven't seen it in years.

I happened to catch a 16mm print of this last weekend at a sci-fi movie marathon, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. Granted, I grew up watching the TV show, but hadn't seen it in years and had never seen the film.

Perhaps it's that sense of nostalgia that clouds my thoughts on it. The plot is decent, the sets need a lot of work and the effects are top-notch... for 1979. Still, I guarantee you that you will laugh and smile repeatedly, and find it hard to dislike this honest effort.

If you're in the mood for ridiculously cheesy 70s sci-fi, dancing robots and gorgeous women, then you really can't go wrong with this. If you're like me and trying to relive one's youth, by all means, go find a copy. By the way, would it be so hard for Universal to give this a DVD release? Please?

It may be set in the 25th Century, but this 1979 version of the old Philip Francis Nowlan story is totally and unconditionally a product from the "Star Wars" era. Gil Gerard is a handsome block of wood playing Captain Buck Rogers, an American astronaut launched 500 years into the future and finding himself in the middle of a space war. Pamela Hensley is the sultry villainess Princess Ardala while Erin Gray is the no-nonsense Colonel trying to get Rogers out of her way (he seems more interested in loosening her up than flirting with the seductive princess). The action sequences were lifted from TV's "Battlestar Galactica", but the low-budget effects aren't really the problem, it's that the movie is so under-populated and blandly comical. This underachiever makes even "Logan's Run" seem like a sci-fi masterpiece. The robot Twiki is a cool creation, far outshining the humans, but even he couldn't save this from the ratings-basement once it became a weekly TV series. *1/2 from ****

Originally made as a TV movie pilot, Universal and producer Glen Larson followed the pattern they'd used for 'Battlestar Galactica' and released it theatrically first. It proved to be a modest hit (raking in $21 million), and thus NBC commissioned it to be turned into a weekly series.

It starts off with a rather Bondian opening title sequence, featuring several lovely ladies wriggling and writhing their way around, over and under a sleeping Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) as a vocalized version of the 'Buck Rogers' theme plays. I found this to be the highlight of the movie.

The rest of the film plays like a discount 'Battlestar Galactica' (even recycling many of its props and sound f/x), keeping logic at arm's length while testing the lactose tolerance of the viewer. The Über masculine Gerard gives a charming performance as Buck and Pamela Hensley deliciously vamps her way through her scenes, but they're the equivalent of two chefs attempting to make a gourmet meal out of store brand ingredients.

Some friends and I rented this movie just for the kicks of making fun of it, but it turned out to be fairly good. Except for the cheesy 70's parts (check out Bucks dance act) which no live human could ever take seriously, this is an excellent movie, which I'll check out again in the near future.

8/10