New Feature here on Dead Robot Heavy Industries: When I was looking around for cult films to talk about I realized there are a solid corral of movies that may be covered in shit, but somewhere in the pool of poo, there’s shards of diamondy goodness. Like a Scat Prospector, I’ll wade through all the crap and cultivate the brilliant bits just for you. I call this new feature Pull the Nugget Out.

First up: Battle Beyond The Stars.
Directed by: Roger Corman
Stars: Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard
IMDB link

Okay. Stop yelling all at once. Yes, it’s a blatant Star Wars rip off, hoping to cash in on the massive gap between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. But I think Corman really wanted to make a good movie here and tried to base a lot of artistic (snicker) points on Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai and in part, The Magnificent Seven. So keep that in mind as I serve up the nuggets. Ready? Blast off!!!

Leading man Richard Thomas was hot off that successful TV show The Waltons and wanted to leave the naive hayseed character he played on the show for a… uh… naive space hayseed, destined to defeat the evil space despot. I remember when it was announced he was going to be in a Roger Corman space epic, people started right into the gufawing. While this uncomfortable, yet comforting typecasting didn’t do much to quell the inevitable comparisons to Star Wars, just having Richard on the cast elevated the quality of the movie, theatrically. Most of Corman’s budget for the movie wasn’t on effects but on salaries (George Peppard and Robert Vaughn’s) so there’s indication he was reaching for respectability, which makes this movie full of nuggets!

Let’s just touch upon the rest of the cast real quick:

Robert Vaughn and Richard Saxon – both are awesome. Okay they’re spouting some awful lines (“If you resist, I will crush you. I possess a stellar converter, the most powerful weapon in the universe. You cannot resist me.”) but they’re committed!

Sybil Danning – late 70s vixen brings the inevitable Aryan boobs to the Corman production. She went on to cameo in Tarantino’s Grindhouse as a Nazi werewolf.

Sam Jaffe – You may remember him as the awe struck professor in the original The Day The Earth Stood Still. Here he plays a befuddled body-less professor obsessed with robots who tries to get his daughter knocked up.

Kathy Griffin – Yes. As an “uncredited alien”.  My attempts to contact her on Twitter to find out what scene she’s actually in, is replied with silence. What good is Twitter then?!

As for the technical, the first thing I noticed about BBtS right off the top (other than the We’re Just Like Star Wars Font and Credit roll) was its music. It’s surprisingly rousing and well orchestrated, considering this is a Corman production. The music is by James Horner. Yeah, the same guy who tooted Avatar, Titanic and The Abyss (James Cameron worked on this movie too – go figure). Horner also did music for Star Trek 2 & 3. I thought it might be him when a mighty hammer-on-piano-keys BOOOONNNNGGG!! resounded when the villain’s spaceship flew into frame for the first time – like in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Other than that wince-making cliche, the music is amazeballs. Sadly, all of the music is reused in the eye-bleedingly horrid Space Rangers. Horner wept.

The second thing I noticed was the ship designs. The art department outdid themselves with the various ships. I’ve stopped the video when a ship appears on screen to see if I could recognize any model parts, having been an avid model builder in my youth. Happy to say, I have no clue if they used any spare Star Wars parts, but I did see a couple drive shafts and military grade radar dishes. IMDB reports that the Hephastus space station was basically found in a dumpster. Still, they did a commendable job on creating different alien styles.

Which brings me to poor old Shad’s Ship. The flying testicles. Or Boobies, I would have to contend, since this is a Corman production. But come on…! Saggy nutsack!! Tell me you don’t see that. In all the publicity shots, they never show the side of the ship, which resembles a graceful hammerhead shark, or a kid’s slippery ride ’em toy. With a nutsack in the front.

Oh man I could make fun of that ship all day long…