he planet Akir is an agricultural world, guided by an enlightened philosophy of non-violence. When ruthless galactic tyrant Sador (Saxon) arrives at Akir with his mutant hordes, he sees easy pickings. Sador's got other things to deal with at the moment, but he leaves the Akirans with an ultimatum. When he returns, they will be conquered, and Sador will claim their harvest as tribute. The Akirans don't want to be enslaved, but an enlightened philosophy of non-violence clearly isn't going to be much use against Sador, who guns down a number of the locals at random just to show them he isn't kidding.
There is one fighting starship on the planet, a distinctly feminine craft (it has breasts!) named Nell. Nell belongs to old Zed, who was a warrior in his younger days but is now well past his prime. Young Shad (Thomas) is the only one Zed has taught to fly Nell, so Shad volunteers to go out among the stars and recruit mercenaries to help defend Akir. Shad goes through a series of adventures as he collects a colorful group of aliens.
His ragtag band of mercenaries include the ice-cold killer Gelt (Vaughn), the Valkyrie warrior Saint-Exmin (Sybil Danning), the earthling Space Cowboy (Peppard), a hive mind named Nestor distributed across an endless supply of cloned bodies, and more. One member of Shad's armada is Nanelia, the beautiful daughter of weapons designer Dr. Hephaestus. Shad and Nanelia are immediately attracted to each other. However, romance will have to wait as Sador returns with his planet-destroying Stellar Converter (the most powerful weapon in the universe).
Despite the Stellar Converter, the battle for Akir turns into a war of attrition, with pitched ground assaults, a Trojan-horse-style plot to assassinate Sador, and space dogfights galore. Few of Shad's mercenaries will survive. Based on the story this far, you might expect Shad to save the day in the end and win the girl. You'd be right about that.
Star Wars on $2 Million
During his colorful movie career, Roger Corman has earned a reputation for squeezing every penny out of his tiny budgets, and for catching big talent on the way up. With Battle Beyond The Stars, he did both in spades. Battle was part of the post Star Wars boom in effects-laden science fiction epics. This was a challenging genre given the kind of budgets Corman was used to, and Battle was the most expensive film he'd ever produced, at a whole $2 million. Battle isn't Star Wars, but it's a heck of a lot of fun.
The script by John Sayles (yes, that one) unabashedly rips off Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai. It's hardly the first film to do that, though. In fact, in a clever bit of casting, Robert Vaughn essentially reprises his role from another Seven Samurai homage, The Magnificent Seven. The story translates well to outer space, and Sayles does a good job differentiating his mercenaries and giving his plentiful supporting characters memorable moments. Richard Thomas, fresh from his role as John-Boy on The Waltons, is an odd choice for Battle's low-rent Luke Skywalker, but he's okay, and Saxon chews the scenery with villainous delight.
The film includes an enormous number of special effects, and it's amazing what Corman's crew managed to create. Sure, some effects look a bit cheesy, but most are surprisingly good even without grading on a curve for the low budget. Of course, Corman maximized his investment by gleefully reusing Battle's effects shots and spaceships in countless films that followed.
Battle Beyond The Stars is also fondly remembered by a startling number of Hollywood heavyweights who worked on it early in their careers. In addition to Sayles' script, the film features music by James Horner, who went on to score Titanic. Gale Anne Hurd worked as Corman's assistant. And all those great spaceship models? They're by none other than James Cameron, who started out as a modelmaker and ended up as art director. Put it all together and Battle Beyond The Stars is quite a ride. Battle Beyond The Stars isn't as slick and sophisticated as Star Wars, but for my money it does an even better job of evoking the feel of those old science fiction serials that inspired George Lucas in the first place.
