Saturn 3

The talent working on this film should have meant the end product was a lot more coherent than it actually was.John Barry who was involved with a story credit but was production designer for Star Wars and Superman must have had a big hand in the set design for this film as it looks incredible.The sets are so good they are a character in themselves and lend effectively to creating a sense of isolation.The sets remind me of Alien,yes they are that good which would be testament to the brilliance of Barry.Its a shame then that the rest of the film is rarther poor.It shows glimpses of promise but seems to falter just as its picking up.An expressionless Harvey Kietel seems dubbed and gave a physically hollow performance alongside an energetic Kirk Douglas and an airhead Farrah Fawcett.The visual effects are actually OK but the film seems to be missing big chunks and i get the feeling there's a version out there on the cutting room floor that is actually a lot better than what we have here.This film could probably be remade quite successfully,it has a great premise and is lacking a quality director to see it through. 6/10

A lot of people bag on this film and I'm the first to admit that it is not a good film but I would be lying if I said I wasn't entertained by certain things in it. I was entertained by the incredibly bad set designs. Here's a film with a good budget, big stars and directed by the great Stanley Donen and it looks like it was filmed in someone's garage! And of course Farrah gets naked. Thank god for VHS and the pause button! If your wondering why Farrah was a sex symbol in the 70's freeze the scene where she takes her clothes off. And Keitel was creepy and his voice sounded different. Maybe it was dubbed but he gave a convincing menacing performance. Not a good film but the story had promise.

Saturn 3 (1980)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Adam (Kirk Douglas) and Alex (Farrah Fawcett) are lovers who are working on a space station right outside of Saturn. The two of them spend their times working as well as messing around but they're thrown for a loop when Benson (Harvey Keitel) shows up. What they don't know is that Benson has killed the real Captain that they were expecting and he's brought on board a new robot that can think and act for itself.

SATURN 3 is a film that was released to some really awful reviews with most critics calling it one of the worst films of the year. Even worse for the filmmakers was the fact that people believed the critics and stayed away from the pictures making it a huge disaster at the box office. The film eventually gained a cult following on video but there's no question that this is one of the weirdest movies released from this era.

The film was released early in 1980 but there's no doubt that it has a 70's vibe to it. The film is without a doubt one of the dumbest science fiction movies ever made. You can read Roger Ebert's review where he points out countless flaws with the scientific aspect of the film including such easy stuff as gravity. I will admit that the film is really dumb and there's an even bigger problem with the screenplay and that's the fact that we don't really know why Benson wanted on the spaceship and we really don't know why the robot goes crazy.

Speaking of the crazy robot, the final twenty-minutes of the movie are basically like a slasher as Alex and Adam must run, hide and try to fight the robot that is after them. What's even stranger is the three-way love story that blossoms and the fact that the robot wants to join as it falls for Fawcett. Douglas, for the most part, gives a good performance and Fawcett does what she was paid to do and that's look sexy. Her role doesn't really allow her much to do but the two stars do show off some nudity. I think Keitel was good in the part but the awful dubbing really hurts the film. I'm familiar enough with his voice where I could picture it saying the lines in the movie and I can't help but think things would have played out better with it.

SATURN 3 has a lot of bad things in it but at the same time it's weirdly watchable. Some of the special effects are good, although quite dated. Some are really lousy looking but at the same time they're still fun. The film really does play out like a film that tries to be intelligent and thinks that it is intelligent yet most people are laughing. It certainly takes itself way too serious but overall the film is mildly entertaining as a cult film.

This movie is about a couple that lives on this outpost in space. They are lovers and their world is carefree and simple. That is until a criminal comes and builds a robot that goes insane. The problem with this movie is that there just isn't enough cast here to make this movie as cool as it should have been. The robot needed people to kill, but there were only three people around so it didn't really get to flex its muscle. On the plus side Kirk Douglas is good, and so is Harvey Kietal as the criminal. Fawcett isn't great, but she does ok. The plot should have included more though as a lot of this movie goes unexplained, like Kietal's character motivations, or why didn't anyone warn Kirk and Farrah that a criminal was out there. In the end this movie has its moments, but tends to become a bit tedious.

I first watched Saturn 3 with my father when I was about 12 years old and I remembered liking it and being creeped out by it as a kid. So I revisited the film again last night. Even though it has been over 15 years since I first saw this film, I still really enjoyed it. I was very surprised to see so many negative comments here on IMDb. All in all, the film is a little dated, but it still contains some very striking visuals and original ideas. The sets used for this film were extremely well detailed and thought out, as were the costumes and props. "Hector" is perhaps one of the coolest looking cyborg/robot characters ever conceived. The scene where he is first "booted up" and filled with "cyber-blood" is just vivid and stunning. After watching this film, it was also *quite* obvious that this movie influenced some of the more modern science fiction masterpieces like Robocop, the (1st) Matrix and James Cameron's Aliens. Several of the reviews harshly criticized the acting and the story, but I however found no problems in this department. Nowadays we seldom see good films with a small cast and a simple story. Not every movie has to be as advanced and as complex as films like Minority Report. And I am sorry, but Mark Hamill and Keanu Reeves can't hold a candle to Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel when it comes to acting. I think people are trying to compare this film to all the super budget modern sci-fi movies. Or perhaps this movie is regarded as "crap" by many because they think Star Wars is the end all, be all sci-fi movie of all time, which in my opinion, Star Wars is MUCH more cheesy and way too light-hearted to take seriously. If you like serious, dark sci-fi flicks, be sure to check this one out. Don't listen to all those Star Wars nerds who crap on this film. Judge it for yourself. 7/10