Post by RedKing on Jan 25, 2007 8:00:06 GMT -8
Here's another really bad, but fun, Italian sci-fi film riding the coat tails of STAR WARS, which it borrows liberally from. However, it also swipes alot from other things like Trek and BARBERELLA. Unlike other Italian space operas like those of Antonio Margheretti in the 60s(WILD,WILD PLANET,SNOW DEVILS,ASSIGNMENT OUTER SPACE,etc) or the delightfully goofy STARCRASH of Luigi Cozzi made around the same time, STAR ODYESSY is not nearly as much fun, and clocking in at a long 103 minutes(not 85 like it said on the dvd case!) it can certainly grate on one's nerves if not seen in the right mood. It was written and directed by Alfonso Brescia who also made 4 other very similar films:COSMOS;WAR OF THE PLANETS(1977),BATTLE OF THE STARS(1977),WAR OF THE ROBOTS(1978),and BEAST OF SPACE (1978). All of these movies use the same costumes, sets and alot of the same effects shots. Now first off I have to comment on 2 glaringly dumb errors in this movie-first, in the opening credits, after the "starring" billing is done it has the rest of cast listed"In Alphabetical Order" then proceeds to just randomly list everyone in nothing even aproximating alphabetical order! The second thing is not the filmmaker's or english title maker's fault-somewhere along the line, someone re-edited the movie and completely messed up the continuity of the beginning! The movie is supposed to start out with a auction somewhere in space among the "Lords of the Universe" where the villian buys the earth, well, for reasons i can't comprehend, they moved this scene some 10 or 20 minutes into the film after they've already started showing the villian approaching earth and everything. They also then show the beginning of a scene in a gambling hall that they had shown the second part of earlier! Aside from these two big mistakes, there's enough foolishness in the movie itself to provide alot of laughs. The space army "hero" struts around like some caricature of a cartoon hero and has the dumbest pencil moustache. I honestly think it was painted on! Then there's this other guy on the "good guys" squad that jumps around like the mute guy in the 3 Supermen movies. Totally out of place in this film. And best of all, we have Tilt and Tilly-the absolute worst C3PO rip-offs I've ever seen! They are 2 humanoid robots that were part of some experiment to give robots human emotions, so naturally Tilt is male and Tilly female and they are in love. Tilly has long eyelashes so you can tell them apart. The villian(I was not able to make out exactly what they called him-it sounded like Koss of ketch or something equally dumb. actually looks pretty cool. He has a gold scaled reptilian skin but is otherwise human looking. He bought the earth to start up a slave operation, us humans being the slaves! In one ridiculously offensive scene they show our villian watching a slave gathering operation on the "sub tropical continent" where 1000 "dark-skinned units" have been captured!! To save our planet, a super genius scientist and his sexy niece gather together their "old team". You see, this guy isn't exactly the kindly old professor type and apparently used to head a crimially minded group! One of the group is the hot Italian actress Malisa Longo and she gets to wear a black vinyl Barberella type outfit.Malisa Longo,incidentally, was in a great deal of Italian exploitation movies and was no stranger to wearing even less than her costume here. She also was in Bruce Lee's WAY OF THE DRAGON. Anyways, this motly band of outlaws manage to save the day-i think. The ending really makes no sense as it shows what appears to be the villian's UFO blow up and take malisa and her lover's space fighters with it, then we cut to the intergalactic auction house where the villian sells off the earth for about 7 times what he paid at the beginning of the movie and turns behind him where malisa and boyfriend are standing and says "You get 50% you swindlers!" and a quick cut to the end credits! even for bad movies that are still fun, this one definitely is very borderline between fun/bad and all bad! The very long running time doesn't help either, by about 80 minutes I was ready for it to end! So I'd have to say watch this one at your own risk!
