George Lucas admitted that the original Flash Gordon films starring Buster Crabbe in the 30s is one of the main inspiration for his iconic Star Wars universe. In turn, after Star Wars made a huge splash in 1977 - breaking all sorts of box office records and spawning a universe of merchandising bonanza never seen before and has not been equaled even today - it has since inspired the creation of many other motion pictures. It is no surprise that many in the film industry try to jump on the bandwagon and unashamedly ride on Star Wars' coat tails, trying to make the same kind of crazy money that Star Wars did, but always falling short and pales in comparison due to inferior execution, unoriginal me-too vision and uninspired storytelling. I can recall many of them, let's see if you remember any:
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| The Hoff projecting his inner Luke Skywalker |
Imagine David Hasselhoff as the laser blade wielding hero going against the evil Count Zarth Arn. Oh, guess who played David Hasselhoff's father in this thing? (Gasp!) Christopher Plummer !! (I guess Shakesperean actors need money too). Insipid and ridiculous.
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| Maximillian & V.I.N.CENT The Blackhole Droids |
b. The Black Hole (1979)
back then, this film wasn't so bad, but this Disney offering doesn't age very well. Even some of the older 50s Sci-Fi flicks ages better than this. Obvious Star Wars inspired things are everywhere in this film. You check it out yourself - try to find analogues to R2D2, C3PO, Darth Vader, Stormtroopers, Han Solo, Ben Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and more in this Disney offering! You'll have a lot more fun than actually following the story. Truth be told, I watched it again very recently with my 8 year old son, Alonzo. He actually liked it (well, more like loved it - but I fast forwarded most of the uninspiring dialogue and go to the action scenes). The first thing he said was "Is this like Star Wars, Papa?". His best question for me was "So how come the Black Hole is all Red, Papa?" - out of the mouth of babes.
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| Harvey, Farah, Kirk & the giant coffeemaker/killer droid Hector |
Imagine 64 year old Kirk Douglas boinking a hot 30 year old Farah Fawcett in space (yeah, I'd be pissed too). Oh, there's Harvey Keitel as the bad guy in this flick too - can you imagine his thick Brooklyn accent in space? Weird, huh? In a way, Saturn 3 is a combination of inspiration: part Star Wars - part Alien (1979), but accomplished none of the good of the two. At least I saw Farah naked here (hey, she was hot then, OK!?)
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| Flash Gordon and the always deadly NYC's Pigeons errr....Hawkmen |
George Lucas admitted that the original Flash Gordon is one of his inspirations in creating Star Wars, so why not a Star Wars inspired new Flash Gordon film then? Too bad it was a bit too campy, because I thought the visuals are perfect representation of the original comic book series Flash Gordon. The two American leads are simply awful: Sam Jones makes Keanu Reeves looks good and Melody Anderson's Dale Arden is also terrible. FG's supporting cast is actually quite awesome with: Chaim Topol playing Zarkov, Max Von Sydow playing Ming, Timothy Dalton playing Barin and the great Brian Blessed playing Vulcan. The end result is a bit too campy for me. Pity - I'm still waiting for a great remake of Flash Gordon. C'mon Hollywood!
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| Original art poster for BBtS |
Ooh ooh - here's an idea, why not take the story of the great western The Magnificent Seven (which was already a repackaging of the great Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai) and drag it to outer space and make a space shoot out ala Star Wars? Surely we'll make huge bucks and be legendary like Star Wars, right? WRONG! The only redeeming value on this waste of celluloid is the smoldering Sybil Danning in her hot whatever-it-is clothing. Bada-Bing!
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| Pick your Hottie - Jane or Dorothy |
Or how about this - a mix of Barbarella, Star Wars, Alien and Star Trek hodge podge starring the current Playboy Playmate of the Year - Dorothy Stratten in a space western adventure. Surely this is a winner, right? NOT!!! Oh, well - at least these guys didn't take themselves too seriously. Last question: why and how is it that Jane Fonda was hotter in Barbarella than Dorothy Stratten in Galaxina? Hmmmm.
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| A Gunstar fighter and its long-lost uncle |
g. The Last Starfighter (1984).
Ok, ok, this is some years after Star Wars - but one can draw the parallels, right? Anyway, it was still right after Return of the Jedi (1983). Let's see if we can pick several things that particularly stood out as analogous between TLS and SW, shall we?
- The hero: wide-eyed trailer trash Alex Rogan = wide eyed moisture farm boy Luke Skywalker.
- The guide is a strange old man who was later killed while saving the hero: Centauri = Ben Kenobi.
- The hero is an acep pilot flying an awesome fighter craft: the Gunstar = X Wing Fighter.
- There is a bumbling android in the story: Beta = C3PO
- The Ko Dan Armada = The Imperial Navy
also: a Zando Zan looks like a Mon Calamari, Lord Xur of the KoDan Armada looks like a combination of the Emperor and Lobot of Cloud City and finally the most obvious: a Gunstar fighter looks very much like a mutant offspring of an X-Wing fighter.
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| The Italian Original Poster vs The U.S. market Poster |
h. Star Odyssey (1979) Italian rip-off.
This is so so bad that I don't want to comment much. Basic storyline: Earth is sold in the future and the alien investors then came to Earth in order to pick up human slaves to sell to other alien investors. Oh, by the way, you'll find:
- Spaced out spacers sucking on their space bong;
- Robots that looked like a CHEAP version of Teletubbies;
- Space men that look like Gold Dust the pro wrestler;
- Cheap, cheap, cheap looking bad masks
BLAH. This stinker gives B-movies a bad reputation. Maybe there should be a C-movies.
So there they are. Some of the Star Wars inspired (is that a polite way to say rip-offs?) films which made it to the big screen which I saw (some of them regrettably so), have you seen any of them? I'm sure you have and hope you enjoyed it then - because I don't think you would enjoy them now.
Ciao, Movie Fans!
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