Science Fiction Fans, I Give You....

Fat Freddy wrote:

How'bout this one?

That's a great one!

I don't think I've ever seen Star Crash (surely I'd remember that) but I saw Spacehunter,Ice Pirates and Metalstorm at the movies.Ahh,good times !

While ordering the new Accept disc @ Amazon today, I went "Awww, what the hell" and threw the "StarCrash" DVD into my cart at the last minute. It comes out the same day as the Accept CD (Sept. 14) so I imagine they should arrive in the same package. Finally I'll have a chance to see this master- I mean, MESSterpiece of sci-fi schlock again after 25 years of it haunting my dreams! Viva Roger Corman!!

Next on my list of "Must Haves" from the Roger Corman Cult Classics DVD series: Joe Dante's original "Piranha!"

My "Star Crash" DVD came on Thursday... watched it Thursday night and smiled all the way thru it.

Yes, it's crap. But it's such AWESOME crap that you can't help but love it.

I gotta say, they really went all out on the DVD edition, it's a 2-Disc set loaded with commentaries, interviews, deleted stuff, documentaries and other goodies... this damn thing is packed to the gills... I had no idea that anybody but me even remembered this film, much less would wanna be bothered to go to this much time and trouble over it.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Good on ya Scott! I may have to track down "Krull" myself now that I've watched the trailer... it's been years....

Here's another oldie but not-so-goody... the sci-fi comedy "Ice Pirates," featuring Robert Urich... legend has it that this was originally written as a straight space adventure but the script was so bad that they re-wrote it and turned it into a comedy ...

I think i've seen that eons ago

Well, I have now watched pretty much everything on the "Star Crash" DVD, including all of the special features, documentaries, and interviews... and I must say, it was fascinating stuff. The stories of the making of "Star Crash" may actually be better than the movie itself... with most of my DVDs I barely give the special features more than a quick glance but this stuff was so much fun that I burned through it all in just a couple of nights!!

The guy who does the commentary tracks on the DVD is a guy by the name of Stephen Romano, who is apparently Star Crash's #1 fan. I mean, this guy is OBSESSED. He knows EVERYTHING about this movie. He claims to have seen it 17 (!) times during its initial theatrical run in drive-ins back in 1979 when he was 9 years old, and has seen it at least 500 (!) times since. He was working on a book about the making of the movie when he was contacted to do the work on this DVD. So yeah, he obviously knows his sh*t. There are actually two (!) commentary tracks to go with the film, one is a straight up "scene by scene" thing where he lays out tons of tidbits and trivia about what's going on onscreen, the other is basically a long rambling statement about "Star Crash's" place not only in Italian B-movie history, but in the history of exploitation films and science fiction in general. This dude loves this movie more than any man really should (and I don't think I would want to sit next to him on a long bus ride) but both commentaries are entertaining as hell. There's also an interview with director Luigi Cozzi, which is funny as hell (even though his thick-as-spaghetti-sauce Italian accent is hard to decipher at times). Caroline Munro aka Stella Star also gets a lengthy interview about "Star Crash" and her entire career in B-Filmdom. Plus you get a slide show about the making of the special effects, trailers out the ass (in several different languages), deleted and alternate scenes, yadda yadda yadda. This DVD is more packed than Samantha Fox's t-shirt.

It seems that Luigi Cozzi (who goes by his Americanized alias "Lewis Coates" on this flick) had been a sci-fi geek his whole life, had always wanted to do a science fiction movie, but all thru the 70s had been told the genre was "dead." Then of course "Star Wars" came out in '77 and started making billions of dollars so all the B-Movie studios started cranking out sci-fi movies of their own to cash in on the craze. He sez his producer called him from Hollywood and said "We want our own Star Wars! Get to work!" ... but the problem was, the movie hadn't even been released in Luigi's native Italy yet, so he hadn't even seen what they wanted him to rip off. So he found the paperback novelization of the movie in a bookstore in Rome, read thru it twice, and whipped up the "Star Crash" screenplay in a mere ten days. Wow! I know those B-Movie guys have to work quick, but that's insane. I mean, James Cameron probably took longer than ten days to decide what color the aliens in "Avatar" were going to be.

Anyway, nothing like this film had ever been attempted in Italy at the time, so Luigi and his crew basically made everything up as they went along. They didn't have access to modern day special FX technology at the budget they were working on, so they tried their best with what little they had. What ended up on screen may be cheesy, but it's amazing they got it to look as good as they did considering all the crap they went through.

I must admit that after hearing some of the tales of the trials and tribulations in getting the movie done, that I am appreciating "Star Crash" in a whole new light.

I've seen plenty of documentaries that are better then the actual movies

I k n ow it's only been seven years since anyone posted in this thread, but thought I'd let anyone that's interested to know, that the new mystery science theater on Netflix, gave Star Crash their own special treatment. Funny as hell too, I highly recommend it. The whole series that they redid on Netflix is really good actually. Hope they keep them coming for many years.

I just revisited this movie a few months ago for the first time in a while. Still a load of silly fun.

Didn't know it was getting the MST3K treatment, will have to check it out. Surprised it took them this long to get to it!

Fat Freddy wrote:

I just revisited this movie a few months ago for the first time in a while. Still a load of silly fun.

Didn't know it was getting the MST3K treatment, will have to check it out. Surprised it took them this long to get to it!

Not sure who the new dude is that took the place of Joel, but he's really good. Joel to my knowledge is still involved with it, he just doesn't do the talking anymore. If you have netflix streaming, and are a fan, then I suggest you watch the whole first season they redid. We haven't gotten through all of them yet, but every movie so far has been funny. I wasn't expecting much, but have been pleasantly surprised.