A Colisão das Estrelas

Starcrash is a movie that gets its name from... the very last few minutes of the film, where the name is casually dropped in a conversation, never to be uttered again or its origin explained. The entire plot is Caroline Munro running around in a bathing suit and having completely inappropriate facial expressions. The rest is chaos: a villain taken straight from children's stories, a benevolent emperor played by Christopher Plummer and his son: David Hasselhoff, a mysterious companion who is basically the Deus ex Machina needed to resolve some scenes and a robot with an American South accent that gleefully declares his chauvinism, regardless of him not having a nation or a gender. The acting is so bad it's hilarious, the effects are so special that psychiatric wards come to mind. All in all, ridiculous at all levels.

Some people say it is a ripoff of Star Wars, but I don't see it. There is no story to talk of. The only commonality seems to be a lightsaber that ... just is, with no explanation. I would like to say that Caroline is so sexy that watching the movie is worth it, but really, if you are not drunk out of your mind you can't possibly enjoy this film at its true potential. Just saying.

When "Star Crash" appeared in the U.S., my local newspaper's film critic noted: "...You have to be suspicious of a movie that literally sneaks into town...". That remark left me curious, but not curious enough; after just one week "Star Crash" had left town as quietly as it had come in. Why would any movie get so little push from its' distributor, I wondered? Could it really be that bad? It took me years to find out. Some dozen or so years later, a friend of mine told me he had a copy...well, I couldn't pass this up. After seeing it, I decided that the critics were right--and wrong. Such a hoot! Caroline Munro definitely set the mood in her almost-not-there "space-kini" and high-heeled boots, with Marjoe Gortner pulling backup as 2nd banana. Cheesy special FX, a painfully earnest performance by Christopher Plummer (you can practically see him wondering if his paycheck will clear the bank when he's finished), and a surprisingly good score ( hey, it's John Barry, what did you expect?)make this a pleasant surprise, as long as you're not expecting anything on par with E.E. "Doc" Smith, etc. A small note: I got to meet Ms. Munro at an SF convention back in '82, and I totally agree with Harlan Ellison...she was so gorgeous in person that "they had to ugly her down, so that the cameras wouldn't melt during filming!"....Though I forgot to ask her if it was true that only copy of the shooting script had been stolen by members of Italy's Red Brigade terrorists and held for ransom! Ah, rumors...anyway, try and catch it for free and you won't feel cheated.

In the same vein as Jason of Star Command and Flesh Gordon, Starcrash is a campy, fun throwback to the old serials of the 30s and 40s. It looks, feels, and tastes like an old serial, minus the chapters. Yep, it is a cheesey attempt to cash in on the great sci-fi craze of the late 70s, fueled by the likes of syndicated Star Trek reruns, Logan's Run, Close Encounters, Space: 1999, and ESPECIALLY Star Wars, of course. It is guilty as charged. That said, it is an absoloute low-budget blast. For detractors, here's your first clue that this film is not to be taken seriously: A robot with a long, southern drawl. L the cowardly robot is a riot!

Starcrash shamelessly pilfers elements from Invaders from Mars (1953) (a brief appearance by an alien judicial judge), Ray Harryhausen films (a couple of model animated aliens & robots), and Star Wars (a lightsaber duel), not to mention the old serials.

The whole thing never stops to catch its breath, and neither does the viewer, overwhelmed by alternately cheesey and surprisingly good special fx and generally porn-level acting and dialogue. One minute Stella and L are battling Amazons, the next L is gunning it out with troglodytes, and the next Akton is having a lightsaber duel with those model-animated robots. There are psychadelic images and scenes, almost worthy of the equally bizarre Barbarella. And along the way are allusions to classic sf authors Edmond Hamilton, Murray Leinster, and Ray Bradbury.

For the b-movie or old time serial lover, or someone who doesn't mind some campy lightweight space opera, Starcrash really can't be topped.

When I saw stills of this movie back in 1979, I thought someone had finally made a film just for me. It had spaceships, and robots and something that Star Wars didn't have: Caroline Munro. I waited in vain for its appearance at the cinema. It turned up on TV one afternoon in the beginning of 1985. Well, it was nearly the film I had been waiting for. Overall, it's got everything a b-movie addict can want: ambitious, but not always successful visual effects, at least one Shakespearian actor forced to recite comic strip dialogue, plenty of continuity errors, and a number of very attractive young women, principally, the said Miss Munro, as Stella Star.

It was a shock to find that the very English tones of Caroline had been dubbed by an American voice artist, but that's the movie business. The French speaking version(even for non-French speakers, such as myself) is preferable. Stella's voice is light and playful, and the robot, instead of the 'amusing' cowboy voice in the English language version, talks in mournful, echoey tones, which, for me, works very well.

Caroline Munro, although playing the central character, gets rather sidelined throughout the proceedings; however, she has two scenes in the first part of the story in which the action revolves around her, and if these are the best parts of the whole movie. Her skirmish with a tribe of amazons makes for a very exciting sequence. Inexplicably, but stunningly clad in a shiny black bikini, and thigh length boots, she dominates this sequence. It's a shame that an important section of it, in which the amazons attach her to a mind-probe device, was deleted because of film exposure problems. The film does, unfortunately, contain several instances where a prop or effect has been abandoned at the last minute, and a build-up is all for nothing.

Seek out one of the early drafts on the script (tucked away on the DVD set, if you dig deep enough), to get some idea of what might have been, had not the production been plagued with misfortune.

There are several ways to enjoy this movie. Pick out the bits you like, and ignore the rest; look on it as a latter-day Flash Gordon Serial-style entertainment (it does rattle along at breakneck speed when it gets going), and forget all about logic, and literacy, and the rules of storytelling; or just shut your eyes and listen to John Barry's fabulous orchestral score.

I like Starcrash for two reasons. Caroline Munro is one of them. The other is the fact that Luigi Cozzi wanted to make the movie he'd always wanted to see. He'd written the script before Star Wars came out, and it was only pressure from the studio that forced him to imitate elements of that film. Conversely, it was budget restraints and studio disputes that hampered his efforts.

At the beginning of this review, I made what may seem like a disparaging remark about the visual effects. In a day when we're used to spectacular CGI extravaganzas produced by hundreds of artists and technicians, and costing millions, it's well to consider that most of the effects on this movie were created by one guy with little time, few facilities and a comparitively tiny budget. It's easy to guffaw at the occasional stray shadow on a sky background, but I think what Armando Valcauda achieved, under the circumstances, was, to quote Stella, 'incredible'.

Ultimately, one of the most appealing shots of Caroline Munro as Stella Star is near the end, when Stella Star is swimming through space, and we get a close-up of her very beautiful smile through the visor of her helmet. It kind of makes you feel better, just looking at her.

Starcrash (1978)

** (out of 4)

Stella Star (Caroline Munro) is asked by The Emperor (Christopher Plummer) to set out and locate his missing son (David Hasselhoff) and along the way she must battle countless robots and other space creatures. This Italian-American co-production was clearly influenced by STAR WARS and I think fans of that film are probably going to hate this simply because it is a rip-off. Those who enjoy silly, campy and over-the-top science fiction will probably get a few kicks out of this thing while people like myself, not crazy over the genre, will probably get a few laughs and of course be thrilled by Munro. STARCRASH is an ultra-cheap movie but I think the cheapness actually works in its favor because you just can't take any of it too serious and this is something that kills a lot of "B" movies. A lot of time "B" movies take themselves so serious that the director never allows the viewer to just sit back and have a good time but director Luigi Cozzi makes sure you don't take anything too serious. I really liked the happy tone that runs throughout the movie and it's clear that they weren't trying to scare, shock or go for crazy action scenes but instead they just delivered a campy story. The special effects really aren't as bad as you'd expect in such a low-budget film. A major plus is the cast, which includes the beautiful Munro. While her acting might not be the greatest she at least fits the role perfectly and there's no doubt that her charm really helps keep the film moving. The highlight of the film would have to be that leather bikini thing she's dressed in for the majority of the running time. Plummer picks up a paycheck appearing in his brief part and the young Hasselhoff is pretty funny in his bit. Hamilton Camp deserves mention for his Southern voice of the robot and we get Joe Spinell as the bad guy. It's interesting to note that Spinell and Munro would go onto appear in MANIAC just two years later. STARCRASH isn't a masterpiece and it's not even a good movie but fans of camp should at least be entertained by it.