Space Raiders

My cousin dragged me to see this movie in the theaters 20 years ago and I'm still talking about how awful it is. It is just so freakin' bad -- worse than the "Star Wars Holiday Special" bad. Mostly, this kid carries an alien bug around in a beer can for half the movie before releasing it on some other planet where it will undoubtedly (unbeknownest to him) either a.) die a terrible, horrible death or b.) over-run the planet's ecosystem and destroy life on the planet. BAD, BAD, BAD movie. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. IT WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE IF YOU WATCH THIS MOVIE!!! That's how terrible this steamin' pile of celluloid is. Even these strong words cannot convey to you just how unbelievably bad this "movie" is. If only I could get that time in my life back........

SPACE RAIDERS ought to make a good old fun-filled Saturday morning staple for the baby-boomers who remembered watching "Jason Of Star Command" on CBS many years back. As all is said and clear, this is shades of Roger Corman's previous sci-fi efforts, and it looks so terribly dark that the same old tiring explosions make up for the poor planning. The dialogue contains plenty of unfittingly abusive words every so often, but you've got to giggle over Flightplan's spoken line, which is incredibly campy: "Robots. I can't sense robots." Leave it to the spaceship fights and 'bot blastings for your enjoyment. They're not great, but they're worth the movie alone. Who could ask for anything more? No other sci-fi saga, past or present, can dethrone or even match the legendary STAR WARS!

A mercenary and his crew try to stop a robot force and return a stowaway boy to his home planet.

Directed by Howard R. Cohen, Roger Corman's production shamelessly reuses sets from his other small budget productions, also special effects and the music from Battle Beyond the Stars, and music cues from Humanoids from the Deep. Nevertheless, to Cohens credit he brings the patch work of elements together throwing in some brief stop-motion animation; and cheap alien masks.

Thom Christopher as Flightplan a psychic alien is notable alongside likeable young David Mendenhall as Peter. Memorable is Drew Snyder as Aldebarian. It rips off Star Wars and Return of the Jedi at every opportunity. But thankfully it's brisk pace, solid acting with plenty of heart makes up for Space Raiders short comings.

Overall, it's a cheap and cheerful space adventure, and even with the recycled ingredients that may take you out of the moment it flows surprisingly well.

This is, after all, only a fantasy, but I liked it. The idea that a promise was given to a boy by a man who was once an honorable officer, and was kept even though it meant death to Hawk, was special to me. What a memory this young boy must have had all his future life for this man. These characters lived on the edge of excitement all the time, facing death throughout their adventurous lives. I found it good, but perhaps a little hokey at times. Fun to watch anyway. I would rate it at least 6 or 7. It had a good moral.

Okay, picture it: a ten year old boy has nothing better to do but to mope around the house. He turns on the TV and BOOM! It's a Star Wars rip-off! HOORAY! I was that ten year old kid and I so loved Star Wars (and still do) that anything with space battles, robots and smart-arse heroes was immediately watched with great suspension of disbelief. I really thought that Space Raiders was, along with Battlestar Galactica, the mutt's nuts, as it were, of Star Wars-type films. It was duly taped on a later broadcast and said tape did wear out because said kid watched it so much. I still watched it while I was a secondary school, and I'd even get up at some hideously early hour so I could watch it before going to school. After the tape went the way of the dodo I fortunately found a second-hand copy in a cash converters store and was able to keep watching it, though more out of habit that for a fix of space hokum. It will never earn the mantle of greatest sci-fi flick ever as that honour will go to the original Star Wars, but it's still watchable if you are a member of the kid-young-teen bracket. It's fun, it doesn't get too heavy and bogged down in volumes of exposition and it's got some very good ideas. The problem is that the budget didn't do justice to those ideas. The effects are very cheap, but I have seen worse. The robots were pretty well done, even if it is obvious that they're men in plastic suits. The acting isn't brilliant, but then this is an escapist b-movie, not Shakespeare, and to be honest, the level of acting is about right for the film - the actors are all pretty competent in their own way but they won't be winning any awards. Space Raiders - not great, but not rubbish either.