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Battle Beyond The Stars
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Aaand I take that back. Why isn't THIS movie getting a remake!?
Set on some backwater planet, a group of diehard pacifists find themselves besieged by man in a giant spaceship with an army of mutants who decides to warn the planet that he's going to enslave them all before ****ing off for some reason that is never fully explained.
He leaves Mutant Senior Rapes-A-Lot and Mutant Mr. What-Were-Our-Orders-Again behind to guard the planet despite being confident to the point of argument that this civilization has no means of escaping or means to get help from outside their planet.
The pacifists decide that their aversion to violence is so restrictive that they are all incapable of emoting and can only speak in the flattest of expositional exchanges before the most virginest of all the virgins agrees to fly the planet's one ship (also clearly designed by starved virgins) out to go seek help from the most violentest of violent people he can find.
Battle Beyond The Stars
Sci-Fi / English / 1980
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Yet another 80s sci-fi movie with an epic poster it couldn't possibly live up to.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*Aaand I take that back. Why isn't THIS movie getting a remake!?
Set on some backwater planet, a group of diehard pacifists find themselves besieged by man in a giant spaceship with an army of mutants who decides to warn the planet that he's going to enslave them all before ****ing off for some reason that is never fully explained.
He leaves Mutant Senior Rapes-A-Lot and Mutant Mr. What-Were-Our-Orders-Again behind to guard the planet despite being confident to the point of argument that this civilization has no means of escaping or means to get help from outside their planet.
The pacifists decide that their aversion to violence is so restrictive that they are all incapable of emoting and can only speak in the flattest of expositional exchanges before the most virginest of all the virgins agrees to fly the planet's one ship (also clearly designed by starved virgins) out to go seek help from the most violentest of violent people he can find.
And so concludes one of the worst movie setups I've ever seen. Fortunately the movie significantly improves afterwards as the Big Bad's offscreen business serves to give our hero, Shad, the time to round up a small militia to fight back.
One of the best things about Battle Beyond The Stars is that it has absolutely ZERO interest in wasting time. Shad manages to gather up around 6 different party members by the halfway point of the movie and every single one of them have unique personalities, reasons for helping, and all seem reasonably convinced that his offer is in their interests.
The movie obviously suffers from the trope that Space Is Small and so it's convenient that nearly everyone he meets agrees to help, but that would bother me significantly less than if each of these characters felt rushed, but they didn't. They felt BRIEF, I mean after wrapping up a conversation with one guy it's a quick wipe transition into the next encounter, so by the end it's like, "Cripes! I didn't think it'd only take 40 minutes to convince over half a dozen people to risk their lives for me! And without pay too!"
One would hope that the first half being setup would mean the second half was all action, but no, I'm afraid it's not. There are strange clumps of inexplicable downtime when I guess the Big Bad's ship is just floating in orbit and no one's attacking him because... reasons?
Oh well, I still give a lot of credit to this half of the movie due to the MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS, WOW. I'm sorta split on how they approached these though.
On one hand, I'm glad that they were comfortable killing off major characters, but on the other hand, I'm annoyed that once I noticed the trend, that I was able to accurately predict exactly where they'd stop.
Alright, Female Lead #1, we're going down the cast list right now and deciding on people to kill off. Do you have any qualifications to live?
Sorry, that won't cut it. Space Cowboy here's a human too and he's due a "Remember the Alamo" line. What else you got?
That's not good enough either, Valkyrie Overboob's a bigger stereotype than you and her death is even being foreshadowed. Do you have anything at all?
OH REALLY? Do you have any throwaway lines to guarantee your Plot Armor?
That pisses me off. Alright, you can live.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]
One of the best things about Battle Beyond The Stars is that it has absolutely ZERO interest in wasting time. Shad manages to gather up around 6 different party members by the halfway point of the movie and every single one of them have unique personalities, reasons for helping, and all seem reasonably convinced that his offer is in their interests.
The movie obviously suffers from the trope that Space Is Small and so it's convenient that nearly everyone he meets agrees to help, but that would bother me significantly less than if each of these characters felt rushed, but they didn't. They felt BRIEF, I mean after wrapping up a conversation with one guy it's a quick wipe transition into the next encounter, so by the end it's like, "Cripes! I didn't think it'd only take 40 minutes to convince over half a dozen people to risk their lives for me! And without pay too!"
One would hope that the first half being setup would mean the second half was all action, but no, I'm afraid it's not. There are strange clumps of inexplicable downtime when I guess the Big Bad's ship is just floating in orbit and no one's attacking him because... reasons?
Oh well, I still give a lot of credit to this half of the movie due to the MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS, WOW. I'm sorta split on how they approached these though.
On one hand, I'm glad that they were comfortable killing off major characters, but on the other hand, I'm annoyed that once I noticed the trend, that I was able to accurately predict exactly where they'd stop.
Alright, Female Lead #1, we're going down the cast list right now and deciding on people to kill off. Do you have any qualifications to live?
I... I'm a human character.
Sorry, that won't cut it. Space Cowboy here's a human too and he's due a "Remember the Alamo" line. What else you got?
Umm... I uh... I'm wearing... pink?
That's not good enough either, Valkyrie Overboob's a bigger stereotype than you and her death is even being foreshadowed. Do you have anything at all?
Oh, uh I- well... uh... I can be a... flaccid love interest?
OH REALLY? Do you have any throwaway lines to guarantee your Plot Armor?
Umm... how about, "I’ve scanned information about mating. Does your species have kissing?"
That pisses me off. Alright, you can live.
Final Verdict: [Pretty Good]