No Good Very Bad Movies 10: The sequel to the one I thought was too bad to review

 

Title: Star Odyssey

What Year?: 1979

Classification: Ripoff/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Who Cares? (2/3)

 

In the course of my reviews, something I have been very clear on is that I not only had no desire to list “worst” movies for their own sake, but have specifically declined to review a number of movies I deem “too bad” to review. What that generally means to me is that they are too inept and too uninteresting to offer any further insight on the history of science fiction and other “genre” films. The counterintuitive part with this feature in particular is that there still haven’t been that many movies I have changed my mind about in that regard. What I’ve covered instead are movies that had been on my radar without quite fitting with anything I had done before. With this review, I have an exception to prove the rule, a sequel of sorts to a movie that was itself so terrible I long considered it the worst thing I had reviewed. With that I present Star Odyssey, the fourth entry in a saga that began with War Of The Planets, and if you’re watching it, not paying attention could be your only hope.

Our story begins with the detection of an incoming alien vessel headed for Earth, which blasts or simply ignores every effort to stop it. The occupant proves to be an alien from a distant and more advanced civilization who claims to have purchased the right to rule and exploit Earth in an auction among his peers. He comes to assert his claim with an army of androids, who look like Prince Valiant clones in gold suits and are armed with suspicious laser swords. Earth’s only chance is Professor Maury, a genius who has mastered mind control. With the professor’s powers of persuasion, he assembles a band of heroes, rogues, and comic relief, including a space ace with a mustache that seems to be peeling, a bombshell in leather, and two robot lovers who are just as annoying as their human counterparts. Their one shot is to take the overlord’s slave ship in a commando raid while Terra’s last starfighters assemble for the final battle. Can the misfits save Earth? Is it possible the answer might be no? Did anybody think to bring a gun??? Find out- or don’t!!!

Star Odyssey was the fourth in a series of five low-budget science fiction films by Alfonso Brescia, preceded by War of the Planets and Battle of the Stars in 1977 and War of the Robots in 1978, and followed by the adult film The Beast In Space in 1980. As with other films in the loosely connected saga, the film reused costumes, sets and effects from other entries, particularly War of the Robots, without significant overlap in the story or characters. The cast included Ennio Balbo as the Professor and Yanti Somer in the last of three appearances in Brescia’s films and her second to last film role. An 88-minute cut of the film was reportedly released in Italy in late 1979, while a 103-minute version reached US markets mainly if not entirely through home video.  The US cut is believed to have several scenes out of their original order. Like most of Brescia’s films, it is in the public domain and can be obtained in a range of disc and digital releases. Brescia died in 2001, with 51 directorial credits to his name.

For my experiences, this is a rabbit hole I went down by increments. I first flagged War of the Planets as of interest just looking through public-domain boxed sets in my collection. Once I saw it, as recounted previously, my initial reaction was that it was too bad to review. Meanwhile, I found out a lot more about Brescia’s saga from scholars and collectors far more dedicated and masochistic than me. It was a bewildering rabbit hole I investigated sporadically, with arguments about which films were made first, which other films were ripped off, and even whether one particular film actually existed. The bottom line is that any one of these films is easily among the absolute worst films the ordinary civilian viewer is at all likely to encounter spontaneously. If anything, the present film presented itself as an improvement, with evidently polished production values and a premise that sounds mildly promising on paper. When I decided to move forward with this feature, this one came up immediately, though I still didn’t get to it till I was about to hit double digits. I must say it was a pleasant enough surprise, in about the same sense that you’d prefer a bout of diarrhea over bubonic plague.

Moving onto details, this is a film where almost nothing makes sense, and the whole rarely suffers for it. It’s far more entertaining considered as a semi-random series of scenes and images then the story ever is. There’s the overlord, looking like a cross between Emperor Palpatine and Pinhead, unsettlingly before either of them appeared onscreen, and his more mysterious peers. There are the androids, ludicrous in appearance yet surprisingly nuanced in behavior. There are the laser swords, which at a glance look like light-up plastic toys, and per the lore and closer examination were probably even cheaper than that. There are the glowing eyes of the professor and a rogue with similar powers. There is the peppy soundtrack, which reaches the level of kitschy charm. Then there are the completely random moments, egregiously a wrestling match (kickboxing might be more accurate) between a human ant a robot.

At the heart of it, meanwhile, there is an intriguing story. Central to it all is the auction of Earth and the colonial indignities that go with it. Still more sinister are the overlord’s competitors, who seem to turn to the auction not for any semblance of legitimacy but simply to avoid fighting each other for the same prize. As we move in, the human characters are crowded by the bickering robot lovers, continually arguing over a long-ago suicide pact, who should be even more insufferable than they are yet remain vaguely amusing. (I would love to know more about the butler robot they look down on, which I swear looks exactly like a trash receptacle.) Soon enough, we reach the final battle, which has all the things that we should be able to take for granted but don’t: We can identify the ships of both sides; the stakes are defined; and it’s possible to follow the course of the battle and who’s winning. There’s an extra, ironic poignance in the contrast between the androids, who are pointedly reserved but still unquestioning as their fellows are ordered into a kamikaze attack, and the human space ace, who praises himself right up to the moment of his own death.

That leaves the “one scene”, and as often happens, what stood out to me is right around the middle. For reasons it would be useless to follow, the androids are sent against a human outpost in the middle of a wooded area. The forest is shot with the disconcerting competence of Italian movies, creating an atmosphere that is foreboding with just a hint of animistic nature worship that might put the humans ahead of the machine invaders. Even more impressively, there’s a sense of coordination and even stealth as the androids make their way through the trees, not quite undone by their bizarre appearance. A couple human heroes detect the incursion and prepare an ambush. Notwithstanding my jokes, both sides clearly have guns here. In the ensuing exchange, the robots take significant losses before driving the humans back. A genuine, tense standoff emerges as both sides fire from abundant cover. So, in the best Edgar Rice Burroughs tradition, the androids holster their guns in favor of the laser swords, and the humans do the same. It’s a sequence as ludicrous as it sounds, with just the right illogical flare to work.

In conclusion, I come back to the rating, only here, I find myself back at the whole question of whether a “worst” list is possible. Almost any of the movies I gave the lowest rating for Space 1979 would be among the worst I’ve ever watched, with the triumvirate of shame still being War of the Planets plus Inseminoid and Space Mutiny. (Alien 2 gets dishonorable mention, apt here as the most brazen of Italian ripoffs.) Of those I’ve done for this feature, only Ingagi and Creepers are much worse. By further comparison, this  one gets out of the bottom ranks just for being more imaginative and less annoying than its predecessor. On another level, there is a measure of dishonor. Brescia’s body of work blew out the bottom like no director since Ed Wood, yet after 3 outings, it had still faded down to ordinary mediocrity. Everything is on a curve, and by the time you’re anywhere near the bottom, you’ll be too nose-blind to choose. And with that, I’m done, and hopefully on to better things for a while.