Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine

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.

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.

Wow. This movie is just bad. It would have been bad even in the early 80s. Bad script, bad acting and horrible effects. Most fan made movies are better than this.

Badly directed, badly cast. Well lit and nicely shot, but it's DOA. The less said about the writing, the better. I like science fiction, and can overlook a lot, but this movie is a disaster.

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.