Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Battle Beyond the Stars = That Nestor Dabbles Yet

There are a few movies I’ve found through badmovies.org.  Not all of them are horrible, but a good number of them are.  Battle Beyond the Stars is one of the not-so-memorable ones.

The movie starts with a planet, Akir, being attacked by some space pirates, led by Sador.  Sador wants to take their crops.  He’ll be back in a few days to pick up the goods.  Meanwhile, one resident of Akir, Shad, is sent out with his planet’s only ship to recruit help.  Being such a poor planet, they can’t really offer anything for payment.  But who knows?  Not everyone is motivated solely by money.  Maybe Shad will find people willing to help for other reasons.

He initially goes to get help from Dr. Hephaestus, who runs a space station.  He finds that only Hephaestus and his daughter, Nanelia, live there.  As Hephaestus is on life support, he ahs to start thinking about his daughter’s future.  Even if he won’t live to see his grandkids, he wants Shad to hook up with Nanelia.  Shad and Nanelia leave the station to find help on their own.

Shad and Nanelia do eventually meet people that will help.  Shad recruits Space Cowboy, played by George Peppard.   He’s delivering some weapons to a planet that happens to get destroyed by Sador.  Space Cowboy realizes that he has no buyer.  Not having been paid, he can’t get home.  So, he agrees to help Shad.

Shad and Nanelia meet several others that are willing to help.  There are five clones that go by the name Nestor.  Nestor has sent the clones to help.  There’s also Gelt, played by Robert Vaughn.  He has all the money he could need, but is wanted everywhere.  He agrees if he’s given a place to stay.  A lot of people don’t make it to the end of the movie, but Shad is able to save the day.

The only reason I rented this is that I was able to get it streaming through Netflix.  This is very much a B movie.  From what I understand, it’s a remake of The Magnificent Seven and The Seven Samurai, as told by Roger Corman.  Not having seen either movie, I can’t comment on this.  However, it has that low-budget feel.  The big plus is that it does have a few recognizable faces, like Peppard and Vaughn.  (Also, Sybil Danning is pretty nice to look at.)

I always find it odd when there’s just one of something important for an entire planet.  I don’t think that the population on Akir was very big, but how is it that they have just one ship?  I’d hate to think what would have happened if the ship didn’t take off.  At least in this case, it makes sense that they wouldn’t be able to afford a second ship.  Still, if it hadn’t worked, we might not have had much of a movie.

If you’re in to cheesy science-fiction movies, this is the way to go.  You have some fight scenes.  You have a bad guy who’s surrounded himself with ineptitude.  You have good guys that you wouldn‘t expect to win, but do well anyway.  It’s not big budget, but it will at least hold your attention for a few hours.  I suppose that’s all you can really ask for from a movie.


Battle Beyond the Stars trailer



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