Weirdhouse Cinema: Starcrash

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Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all. Embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be talking about the 1978 space fantasy film Star Crash, directed by Luigi Cotzi, starring Carolyn Monroe, David Hasselhoff, Marjo Gortner, Christopher Plummer, and Joe Spinel. What a cast list, really like an all-star bill of different flavors of 70s screen personalities. You've got alumni of The Sound of Music, The Young and the Restless, and The Godfather. And you've got Hammer Horror Queens and Tent Revival Maniacs all in the same movie. That is an assemblage. Yeah, there's some great representation from Italian schlock cinema here as well and some exploitation cinema. So it really is like a like sediment of 70s motion pictures where you can kind of like dig down and find little little gritty bits of this and that. So the reason we're covering Star Crash on Star Wars week here is that despite the protestations of some of the film's creators, this is widely viewed as one of the Star Wars knockoffs of the late 70s and early 80s. There were many of these. At the very least, this is thought of as an attempt to cash in on the revolutionary box office success of the original Star Wars, which came out one year before. This was 78. Star Wars was 77. Yeah, I think we should be clear here for anyone who's new to Weird House Cinema. When we talk about knockoffs, I don't think we've ever discussed a film for Weird House Cinema that was in some ways a knockoff. It also didn't bring its own beauty and its own vision to the screen. So we say it with a lot more love than maybe some critics might say it. I will make the case that Star Crash is possibly the greatest of the Star Wars knockoffs. And we have sampled a lot of them. We watched Message from Space. You remember that one? Mm-hmm. The Humanoid, I think that's the one that had Richard Keel in it. Yeah, we just re-ran that one on Monday for newer viewers. Roger Corman's Battle Beyond the Stars with Stimul Danning and a whole, yeah, that was a whole thing. And they all have their pleasures. I have enjoyed every one of those in its own way. I recall Message from Space in particular being a lot of fun. But I don't think that any other one of these achieves the luscious, insane weirdness of Star Crash. Star Crash, in my opinion, is in a class of its own. It really is. It's such a strange film to watch. It's so bad and yet so irresistible. Basically, I was trying to think of a good elevator pitch for it, and the best I could come up with is Star Wars on acid but in the bad way. There's something kind of delirious and overwhelming about everything about it from its visuals to its just insane dialogue. Like, I was having to, like, text you while I was re-watching it. Because it's like, how is it that every line in the film is somehow, like, the worst line in the entire film, and also at the same time, of course, the greatest? It's one of these films where it feels like all of the dialogue was just created by alien beings or something. Yeah. This film has one particular dialogue exchange exchange that I think about all the time. It comes into my brain at least once a week. It's the scene where the character Thor is shooting at Marjo Gortner with his ray gun and the rays are not harming him. And he says, what? No one can survive these deadly rays. Marjo replies, these deadly rays will be your death. Yeah. I couldn't write something like that if I tried. Absolutely. And then the visuals more than match it. I had to look it up in the Psychotronic Film Guide. And in it, Michael Weldon describes the film's effects as, quote, garishly attractive, especially to young people and people under the influence of controlled substances. And it really does have that vibe. I mean, at times, it's very overt. Like, space in this film is like a lava lamp. It is colorful. It's, you know, we're getting every flavor of the nebula here, a very spell jammer in its sense of the cosmos, not just the dark, unforgiving void. What all dressed potato chips are to flavor this movie is to visual texture. It is a bombardment of color and texture and just all kinds of visual weirdness on the eyes. It is not the most visually artful thing I've ever seen, but it's not going to leave your eyes hungry. You know, you're not going to go away being like, I don't know if I saw anything all that interesting. It is an assault on the eyes. Weldon also pointed out that this is a film where, certainly for the time, they tried every sort of special effect. And the results range, I think he said, from bad to almost good. But there is kind of like, it's a charming aspect of it as well. There's something about a film that, yeah, it's making a lot of swings. There are a lot of misses involved here. But there's some lovingly cheesy effects in this movie. There are some pretty nasty-looking video effects that they use for the hyperspace sequence. Oh, God. That's an assault on the eyes. Yes, exactly. But, you know, one that I really loved, I don't know, I'm just a sucker for stop motion anyway, but the stop-motion robots, the two golems that look like ducks. Oh, actually, they look like B-1 battle droids. I thought it was – there are several ways that this film kind of prophesizes future Star Wars, actual Star Wars installments. And one way is that these two robots look kind of like B-1 battle droids from the prequel films. They're not droids, Rob. They're golems. Golems. Golems. That's what they called. Now, as for the originality debate, I mentioned that some of the film's creators have insisted that this is not a Star Wars ripoff. One example is the director of the film, Luigi Cozzi. He has said this is not a Star Wars clone. The idea and story concept for Star Crash predates the release of Star Wars. I can believe there may be some truth to this, but based on everything I've read, here's my best guess. It seems to me like Coatsy may have been wanting to develop a space fantasy or space opera movie before the release of Star Wars. And some of those ideas end up becoming Star Crash. But at the same time, you just cannot deny that Star Wars influenced the ultimate form and execution of this movie. I mean, this movie has lightsabers in it. Yeah. Most Star Wars knockouts shy away from that. But this one just straight up has a lightsaber. So some Star Wars is coming through. The signal is coming through here. Also, I think it would be hard to deny that the project's ability to receive funding and accelerated production timeline was driven by the success of Star Wars. So I can believe that this movie predated Star Wars in its inspiration. And in fact, you can see ways that that might even not that might even not go to originality. Like you can see ways that earlier movies than Star Wars also influenced Star Crash. I think a bunch of Star Crash's DNA can be sourced to Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda, which came out in 1968. But I think the business logic of this production and the final texture of the movie are quite obviously heavily influenced by Star Wars. Yeah, I think it's undeniable. But at the same time, yeah, the filmmakers here were likely inspired by some of the same things that inspired George Lucas. Right, the old serials. Yeah, old serials, old Flash Gordon, old Harryhausen films. But, yeah, at the end of the day, the bottom line is like Star Wars, the original picture, was too much of a financial hit and too much of a cultural phenomenon not to influence everything that came after. And make it even a desirable influence. Like how many people had an idea and then they realized, hey, producers, they know what's up. They have a feeling this is what's going to sell. If I just lean into the Star Wars-y mess of this concept I already had, I just might get this picture made. Yeah. You know, one big way I would say this movie differs from Star Wars aesthetically is it does not have that core feeling of space being lived in that Star Wars does. You know, this movie does not have the grimy old couch cushions on the Millennium Falcon. This is much more like the pristine Flash Gordon space environment. Yeah, yeah, they're going for something shinier, even when it kind of strains the budget to make it so. All right, well, if you were wondering at this point, where can I watch Star Crash? Luckily for you, it is widely available. Roger Corman's New World Pictures picked this film up and distributed it, as I understand it. This is the same year they distributed Cronenberg's The Brood, by the way. Shout Factory put out a nice Blu-ray of the film, And I think they may have put it, there's, I think, likely a DVD version of that as well. And if you're an MST3K fan, this was Rift in, I believe, 2017 by Jonah and the Bots. I've not seen the Rift, but I do have the two-disc DVD edition, so the older version of the disc that's got all the special features. I think the time that I'd watched this previously, I watched it with my wife, we watched the MST3K version, and I remembered it being a lot of fun. But, you know, I was watching it in a social scenario, and it was riffed, so I really didn't get to focus in on the authentic weirdness of Star Crash. So this time, yeah, watched it straight up, and it's still, this is a film, I love a great riff on a film like this, but this is a film that doesn't even need riffing. It is just, the quality is already perfect. I think some of the space battle scenes could benefit from some enlivening by commentary. Those kind of dragged on for me a bit. But any scene with dialogue and costumes, I don't need anything else. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clipper Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. and then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm George O'Donnell. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian. And recently, I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my stage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken stew. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken stew. This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about the folks involved here. We already mentioned Luigi Cozzi, the writer and director, born in 1947. Italian director, probably best known for this film, his two Hercules films, one of which we covered on Weird Health Cinema recently. That would be Lou Ferrigno as the Hulk. And also for his work with Dario Argento. That's interesting. I was going to compare this film's lighting and color palette to Argento. Well, there you go. Did you notice that? Yeah, yeah, a little bit. It's tough, though. I think in large part, like, this is just not the sort of cinematic world that Argento ever went after. You know, I don't think he ever did anything. Certainly never did a space opera. Missed opportunity there. But, hey, maybe there's time. Well, I just mean the unrealistic but very stylish use of gel lights and the kind of rooms and walls that glow with an overwhelming color hue. Yeah, but I think where it becomes harder for me to see that is just because the sorts of things that are being lit here. Like everything is so artificial in this movie. And Argento was always lighting. I mean, I guess Argento used sets, but always lighting something that at least aspired to be a real-world environment, you know. Yeah, lighting an airport that way or something. So Coetzee's first film was a 1969 low-budget adaptation of Frederick Pohl's novella The Tunnel Under the World. This apparently got Argento's attention, and he subsequently worked on Argento's 1971 film Four Flies on Gray Velvet, earned a story credit, and he also worked on Argento's 1973 action comedy, The Five Days, and he directed his own Jalo film with 1975's The Killer Must Kill Again. Great Jalo title there. Don't remember if I've seen that one. Not only did he direct today's epic Star Wars cash-in, he also helmed the notorious 1980 alien cash-in, Contamination. I've seen part of that one, and then I started falling asleep, but I do want to pick it up sometime again. I've read that it has some really good exploding people in it, and there is one scene from this movie that is sampled in a way that I liked a lot in a Blood Incantation album. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, yes, yes. I think I've heard that. All right, let's see. Other than that, he also worked in various roles on other Argento projects and was second assistant director on the notorious Klaus Kinski Nosferatu sequel, Vampire in Venice. Pretty notorious because it was one of these projects where everybody hated making it and nothing came out as it was supposed to. A Klaus Kinski movie that people didn't have fun making? No, well, I don't think anyone ever really had. I don't want to get too much into Kinski since he's not even in this film. But, yeah, it's pretty high up there in horror stories about filming with them. But, yeah, he had a hand in that as well. All right, let's get into the cast here, that wonderful 1970s cast that we alluded to earlier, starting with Marjo Gortner, who plays Acton. He is our – I don't know what Acton's last name is. I was thinking I was watching – maybe it's Jackson. Maybe he's Acton Jackson or something. That's very nice. It is funny that he's not the main character of the movie, but he gets top billing. They put his name first. Yeah, as we're about to discuss, I think it's just he was a pretty hot commodity at this point. So he was born in 1944, and this is a truly fascinating individual, certainly as far as pop cultural figures go, because he was born into the world of Pentecostal evangelism and began preaching at the age of four. Yeah. So a child prodigy tent revival preacher. Yeah. Which I've never seen anything like this in action, live or on video. So, like, I can't even imagine. I feel like if I'm listening to a preacher, I like somebody with a little bit of real-world experience. You know, it's kind of like a stand-up comedian. You know, you want to connect with the, like, what's a four-year-old going to say that really connects with an adult audience member? But, I mean, I guess they found a way. because there are other examples of this sort of thing as well. I guess so, yeah. So he was, yeah, he was a sensation, a child prodigy, a faith healer, at least later on. I don't know if he was actually faith healing at age four. But then eventually he grows disillusioned with the whole scene and certainly by age 16 decides that he's thinking about getting out of it. And then he famously allowed a film crew to follow him around during his final year in evangelism, leading to the Oscar-winning documentary Marjo in 1972. And we've actually had listeners write in, I think back in 2020, we had a listener write in about this saying, hey, you've got to watch, you've got to check out this documentary. I've never seen it, but we heard from a listener by the name of Forrest who said that it's incredible and that it's, you know, It gets into a lot of these elements of like manipulation and so forth. Like it's supposed to be really good. I've not seen it myself. He's like, here's how we scam people out of money. Yeah. Here's what we get. Yeah. Yeah. A real really reveals the inner workings of the operation. Yeah. So after this, he springboarded from evangelism. And then, you know, certainly the theme that came with this documentary. and he gets into music, he gets into acting. He did some TV work starting in 73 and appeared in his first theatrical film, Earthquake, in 74. Let's see. And then subsequent credits include some starring vehicles, and certainly he's the top build on this picture, but his starring vehicles include Burt I. Gordon's The Food of the Gods in 76. Been wanting to watch that. Always up for Burt I. Gordon. And his post-Star Crash credits include 83's Mausoleum, 84's Jungle Warriors, 85's Hell Hole, and 89's American Ninja 3. Does that one have the guy from Empire of the Dark in it? Yes, it does. It certainly does. I was noting that. His last two films are also notable in different ways. On one level, 95's Wild Bill seems like the classy way to go out because he has a role as a preacher in that, in a very stacked cast that includes Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok. I haven't seen it. Maybe it's not any good, but on paper it sounds really good. And then he's in 1999's The Debtors. This is a film directed by Evie Quaid, co-starring or starring Randy Quaid. Also Udo Kier is in it. And then the top billed actor in it is Michael Caine. And then the casting gets weirder from there. There are some other notable mentions. Apparently, this one was not released for a long time and it's still kind of hard to get. I'm intrigued. Yeah. It's a film that I had to double check a couple of times to make sure it was real because I'm like, am I being, is this a scam? Is this somebody's joke? This doesn't really exist. This sounds like a joke. But no, it is apparently quite real. It would be funny to make that up. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. I was going to say, I'm always intrigued by the presence of Udo Kier, which is funny because I shouldn't be intrigued because he would do anything. Yeah, he's definitely one of those actors that doesn't matter what the quality of the film is. He's going to show up. And he's going to be memorable. Yeah. Yes, I'll be in your movie. so I thought it was kind of interesting knowing all this stuff about Marjo Gortner having a I don't know this incredible history and being this skilled preacher also sort of a con artist manipulator at least in his early years and then going through this you know like exposing it how everything works and all that because I would have expected his screen presence to be more interesting and commanding. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Like, I feel like I really owe it to him to see another Marjo film to glimpse this much touted charisma because he's just stiff as a board in this picture, like just lifeless. Like, where is this natural charisma I'm supposed to see here? Well, one way in which I could make the connection to the life story is, if you know what I mean here, he often doesn't feel like he's playing a character. He feels more like he is saying his lines in the way an announcer or a master of ceremonies would say. He feels like a presenter type performer rather than a player of a character. Does that make any sense? Yes. And, you know, I think that goes for just about everyone in the picture. Like pretty much Every scene in Star Crash, you could interpret it not as drama, not as narrative, but as ritual. Some sort of ritual that must be carried out in order to bring about some sort of event in this world or the next. Right. They're not playing characters. They're reciting a liturgy. Yeah. That is how it feels. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so even though he gets top billing, the real main character of this movie is obviously Stella Starr, played by Caroline Monroe. That's right. She is the structural protagonist, as much as you can say anything has structure in this film. But yeah, born 1949, pin-up model and actress who stole many of 70s film nerds' hearts with genre appearances in the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me, 77. Maniac in 1980, which we'll come back to. Slaughter High in 86. She's in Dracula AD 1972. The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, 73. Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, 74. At the Earth's Core, 76. She also, and going back to other films we've discussed in the show before, she has a cameo as the dearly departed wife of Dr. Fibes in 71's The Abominable Dr. Fibes. and I think we may sneak a peek at a snapshot of her in the sequel as well. Yeah, I think so. Her horror credits also include, in addition to the slasher maniac, 1988's The Howl of the Devil starring Paul Mashey. So she's just all over the place. We've talked about Howl of the Devil on the show before, haven't we? We didn't do an episode on it. It's come up just in reciting the list of the different Paul Mashey werewolf films. I think that one's a little sleazier than I would have fun doing on the show, But it is, I don't know, if you've got a strong stomach, it's worth a watch, especially because it's one of these movies where you can feel different creative forces coming to a head. They're like clashing. Obviously, the pitch for this movie is it is a sleazy slasher movie. That's the business pitch. But then Paul Nasche is helming it, and he's like, well, I want to do a movie where I get to play all of the universal monsters. Oh, yes, yes. So he plays a character who is dead but was an actor and appears to a member of his family in the form of all the universal monsters in all of his appearances, just for no particular reason. Yeah, that sounds like classic Nashie there. The Spanish horror world is moving on beyond the gothic horror film, but he's forcing its hand. It's like we can get just a little more monster mash out of all of this. Let's see. Worth noting here that Monroe was married to musician Judd Hamilton at the time, and it is Judd Hamilton that is apparently in the suit playing the law enforcement robot L. Not his voice, but he is in the suit. We should also mention that this is one of those films, as is often the case with European genre films from this time period, everybody's dubbed. Some of the American or English-speaking actors did their own dubbing, but some did not. And supposedly Candy Clark does the dubbing here for Monroe's character. That is bizarre. I came across that same claim and I was just thinking, doesn't sound like Candy Clark to me, but I don't know. That's what I read. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's that's what folks say. And as much as I understand it, I think it had to do with scheduling more than anything. Like it was a situation where they just couldn't necessarily get everybody to dub their own lines. All right. Well, let's talk about Christopher Plummer here. He plays the emperor, but not bad emperor. He's a rather different emperor. This is not Palpatine. This is a good guy emperor. This is more of like a holy Jesus emperor, the holy space Jesus emperor. This is a Star Wars where the empire is good and the rebels are bad. It is really. It really is. But yes, this is Christopher Plummer, who lived 1929 through 2021, Oscar winner. reportedly only took this role in order to get a free trip to Rome. I think that's what he said in subsequent interviews. He said, I would do porno if I got to go to Rome to do it. He loved Rome. Yeah, now to be clear, he also was paid for this picture. It wasn't just the trip to Rome. And also, I'll say over the decades, decades and decades of work, he was very prolific. he did a lot of different sorts of films good and bad and I don't think he always got a trip to Rome out of the bad ones he might have been having a fair amount of fun with that statement as well this is the first time I think we've covered a Christopher Plummer film but we have covered films featuring his daughter Amanda Plummer before oh yeah wasn't she in The Prophecy? she was in The Prophecy she was in Freejack forgot about that Yeah, she's one of my favorites. Let's see, Christopher Plummer's credits include, just to name a few, and really there are way too many to even do justice to his full filmography, but he was in 65's The Sound of Music, 67's The Night of the Generals, 73's The Picks, if I'm saying that correctly, P-Y-X. This is a horror film of a sort that I haven't seen. I don't know that one. 75's The Man Who Would Be King. I believe he plays Kipling in that. that used to be one of my favorites. I haven't seen it in a long time. 79's Murder by Decree, 1980's Somewhere in Time, 84's Dreamscape. Oh, I just had to look that one up to make sure that's the one I was thinking of. Yeah, I just recently watched that one within the past year with Dennis Quaid. And it's like it's a Dream Warriors type movie with Dennis Quaid and it's got Christopher Plummer. Yeah, the bad guy from the Warriors turns into a snake. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, so let's see. Oh, he was, Plummer was in 88's Vampire in Venice. He was in 91's Star Trek, The Undiscovered Country. 94's Wolf. 95's Twelve Monkeys. Dracula 2000. 2005's Syriana. 2009's Up. 2017's All the Money in the World. And 2019's Knives Out. So, yeah, one of the greats. He really brings a kind of supernatural grandeur to this role and to this film. but at the same time it's like it's it's almost a contradiction he's at once the classiest thing in this movie but he's also still absolutely giggle inducing when he's in it's inappropriate the level of grace that he brings to this performance is inappropriate and thus goes full circle and becomes hilarious It is Yes I mean it mesmerizing because you like man what a pro What a pro. He knew he knows that he's delivering this monologue as a hologram standing in front of some shoddy wooden stairs that have been painted like they're part of a spaceship. But he's still giving it his absolute all. So it's kind of like if Subway started offering like a caviar sandwich or something. It just like it doesn't fit, doesn't fit with the rest of the menu. And thus it seems absurd, even though I'm sure, you know, caviar probably tastes good. But like people would be like, why is this here? What's the deal? What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. So we'll have more to say about his performance as we proceed. But let's see. The emperor has a son in this film. His name is Prince Simon. And as you would expect The son of Christopher Plummer's character Is played by David Hasselhoff Born 1952 Future star of Baywatch And Knight Rider He had done neither one at this point Right, right, those would come later Knight Rider was 82 through 86 Baywatch was 89 through 2003 But also don't Don't count out Baywatch Nights 95 through 97 Oh, I don't know Baywatch Nights Oh, that's when his character was like fighting mummies and serial killers and whatnot. Are you kidding? No, no. For real. I mean, I don't know how supernatural it got. I think I'll never watch one episode. But it's like basically, yeah, Baywatch at night with like Kolchak, the Night Stalker sort of sensibilities. To some degree. I don't want to oversell it and get people excited about something that's not going to deliver. You're getting me excited. I've got to find out what the deal with this is. But yeah, so at this point, I think he had mainly done TV soap operas and stuff. Like he'd been on The Young and the Restless. Yeah, this was only his second film role, following 76's Revenge of the Cheerleaders. And it would be his last theatrical picture until 88, Strong Times, and a movie called Witchberry that came out the same year. He has voluminous hair, and it is not really projecting. Like in the scenes that he's in, he always comes off as like the smallest person in them, just not physically, but in terms of presence. It's like everybody else is kind of taking up more dramatic space than he is. Yeah, I found him to just feel wooden and afraid, which is not what we come to expect from the Hoff. But again, this is very early days. And again, this picture is nobody's finest outing from an acting standpoint. So I think all can be forgiven. I also read that he apparently had food poisoning. And that's one of the reasons that when we first meet him, he is wearing an enormous golden mask. because he's not physically there on set or something. Oh, that would make sense. Yeah, the Zardoz mask. Yeah. All right. We have a character by the name of Chief Thor, and it's going to be a real roller coaster of allegiances with Chief Thor. But he is played by a character actor by the name of, and I hope I'm saying it correctly, Robert Tessier. or Robert Tessier. I'm not sure which is preferred here. Tessier or Tessier? Tessier, yeah. He lived 1934 through 1990. Menacing tough guy, stuntman turned actor whose credits include a nice array of like biker films and action schlock. Titles include 71's The Velvet Vampire, 74's The Longest Yard, 77's The Deep, 82 is The Sword and the Sorcerer and 89 is Future Force. And again, there's some biker films mixed in there as well. You get the impression he's the sort of actor you might turn to when you just need some rugged guy to give you a bad look in a bar. He's who you call in. He naturally has Popeye's face. He does. Yeah, rugged, muscular, bald dude. I believe he was a vet from the Armed Forces. always a perpetual squinting angry appearance yeah yeah oh man and then let's talk about our villain this is count zarth arn am i am i am i saying it correctly that's a mouthful are you mocking the count count zarth arn what is the stress is it zarth arn or zarth arn you hear it both ways in the movie yeah it's different uh characters sometimes the same character says it different ways. Did you like how this guy says his own name a lot? He likes to shout his own name, either in victory or in defiance. He just says, Zarthorn! Yes, there's a great deal of shouting from Count Zarthorn, played by the great Joe Spinell, who lived 1936 through 1989. A true legend of 70s cinema, from its glorious heights to its grimy middle depths. Spinell's credits include roles in the first two Godfather films, the first two Rocky films, and in all four of those pictures, playing underworld figures. It's easy to forget that in the first couple of Rocky movies, Rocky is a mob enforcer. There's like a loan shark played by Joe Spinel, and Rocky has to go out and threaten people or beat them up to get this guy's money. Yeah, and Spinel is great in these sorts of roles. But he didn't just play criminals. He also played cops and law enforcement figures, generally of the more like morally corrupt variety. And so he pops up in films like 76 as Taxi Driver, 1980s Cruising. He also pops up in such legendary weird fare as 1980s The Ninth Configuration, which has an extended weird cast. And then also The Forbidden World. I mean, I'm sorry, Forbidden Zone and not The Forbidden Zone, just Forbidden Zone. And, of course, he's also a horror icon for his roles in 82's The Last Horror Film and 1980's Maniac, both with Carolyn Monroe and he also co-wrote Maniac. I was looking deep into his filmography and I noticed something that stirred something in my memory. He was in a TV movie adaptation of The Ransom of Red Chief, which co-starred Harry Dean Stanton. And I think I actually watched this in school, like in elementary school at some point, maybe junior high. I don't know. At some point we were covering this this short story. And then, you know, like you do, it's time to pull out the giant television on its cart and watch an adaptation. And given the time, it had to have been this one. Wonder how often people end up watching Maniac in elementary school. Gosh, I hope not. Educational value. So I have to say, like Spinell, obviously a great character actor, certainly when it came to playing textured creeps and heavies, particularly when his native New York was the setting. But really, he's completely miscast here as a space tyrant. He just comes off as just completely ridiculous, like a like a vampire penguin the entire film, like a like a Ponchi Salvador Dali of Dali was also a space pimp. But like everything else in the film, it's so bad that it just becomes glorious. Like you just want to see more and more of this guy as he goes around with this ridiculous cape that I think must have been on wires to make it like flume out the way it does. Just beautiful. Yeah, the red velvet cape. I mean, bravo to every moment he's in this movie. He's not acting. He's just kind of snarling and yelling. And as we've said, it's not his voice, whoever's, or I don't know if it is his voice, but it's certainly not live sound for his scenes. Yeah. And just, it's amazing. Every Zarathane scene is just delicious. Yeah. His outfit's kind of form-fitting in a weird way. And this is another case, though, where it's interesting how his character does kind of forecast what we'd eventually get in Star Wars, particularly with Count Dooku, a space tyrant with Dracula-esque flourishes. But, of course, Star Wars actually just casts Dracula himself, Christopher Lee. it's hard to argue that Spinell is really ideal casting for this sort of character but again it's glorious to watch so we can't really complain. Yes many rounds of applause for Joe Spinell here. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clipper Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is the place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. it's a space for honest conversations stories that don't always get told and for people who are chasing something bigger so if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream Fizz is right where you need to be listen to the Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and for more behind the scenes follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok you can have opinions you can have like a strong stance and then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast of Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent and that is that our resilience rests on our relationship. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jordan O'Donnell. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, Help! On the Internet! Help! Somebody! Hey! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor, I'm a comedian, and recently I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives. Helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken soup. This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, getting into some of the supporting cast here. We have Nadia Cassini playing Queen Corellia. This is the queen of the Amazons. We go to a few different planets here. We go to an ice planet. We go to an Amazonian planet. We go to a caveman planet. Hit all the hits. Cassini here lived 1949 through 2025. American-Italian actress, singer, and showgirl who made a name for herself in a lot of, like, 70s sexploitation and also sex comedy films. Her credits include 1970s The Snake God, 72's Pulp. That one was actually a Mike Hodges film that starred Michael Caine. And then there's a 1979 film titled I'm a Zombie, You're a Zombie, She's a Zombie. Don't know much about it beyond its title, but it's a pretty great title. You're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski. Let's see. The other, there's a whole group of Amazonian women, you know, scantily clad and as you would expect from this picture. And the actresses involved here include a number of actresses, actresses who feature into various sexploitation and erotic Italian films of the era. Just to mention a couple of them in passing, we have Cindy Ledbetter, born 1955, American model turned actress whose credits include 81's Absurd, which we talked about on the show before. You might remember she was. George Eastman, a Halloween ripoff, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, very much so. She's the blonde. I think she's a babysitter, and George Eastman kills her with a pickaxe through the top of the head. Oh, okay. Wait, is she? Okay. I recall her death scene taking a really long time. Yes. Am I thinking of the right person? Okay, yeah. I included a still in our outlines to remind you. Oh, thank you. Yes. So, yes, she was in that one. She was also in 85's The Adventures of Hercules, though I don't clearly remember her from that. She was one of the other ladies in that film. And then she's also in 84's Rats, Night of Terror. Ah, I got the Blu-ray of that. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I'm excited to make it to that one. I hear great bad things about it. I did find it amusing that her first credited screen role is not an unnamed character. It is Cannibal Girl in Mental Institution from Joe D'Amato's Emmanuel and the Last Cannibals from 1977. She was active as an actress until around 85 and then popped up again in 2008. We also have another Amazonian woman played by Durche Funari, born 1957. A frequent Joe D'Amato casting here whose films include multiple Emmanuel movies, 1980s Erotic Nights of the Living Dead and 1979's Ring of Darkness. Erotic Nights of the Living Dead. Yeah, yeah. So if your film viewing includes some very questionable choices, then you may have seen her before as well. We mentioned Elle the Robot, the wonderful robot. I can't wait to see the video that we have here. Hamilton Camp provides the voice. We've talked about Hamilton Camp before because he came up in our episode on the 1989 alien boxing movie Arena. Okay. Yeah. So Camp lived 1934 through 2005. British-born actor, folk musician, mostly famous as Bob Camp with Bob Gibson. And he was also a comedian. And his credits include 78's Heaven Can Wait, 82's Eating Raoul, and 1990's Dick Tracy. He also did a lot of voice acting, and a lot of it back from a day when they really didn't do a lot of work predating the voice actors on cartoons. He played a Ferengi on Deep Space Nine. And, yeah, he also put out several folk albums throughout his life as Hamilton Camp. So if you look him up, wherever you get your music, look up Hamilton Camp, pull up some tracks. This guy had a truly beautiful singing voice. It might not seem as obvious hearing this, you know, this droid voice that he puts on in this show. But, man, he had some pipes. Oh, I'll have to check that out. You know, one thing I thought was interesting about the crediting here is that we actually get named, like you get a named voice credit and a different named physical credit for the character L, the robot. But there are clearly lots of other characters who are voiced by someone, dubbed by someone different than appears on screen, and we don't get that other person credited. Yeah. I don't know what makes the difference here. Maybe it's that Hamilton Camp, I don't know, maybe the plan was to do that from the beginning. Yeah, I'm also not sure on the full production history here. I guess it's entirely likely that some of these dubs might have happened after it had been picked up for distribution in the U.S. and, you know, someone else may have been brought in, that sort of thing. Yeah. I'll mention just in passing that Salvatore Vaccaro, who lived 1932 through 1984, pops up as one of our Neanderthal men on the caveman planet. I mentioned him in our episode on Argento's Deep Red. He often played heavies and beastmen, appearing in a number of really grimy Italian exploitation films from the 1970s, often uncredited. And in one film, 74's Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, he is credited as Boris Lugosi. Classy. Yeah. And then I'll tell you something that is classy about this film. It's the score. The film score here is by John Barry, who lived 1933 through 2011, seven-time Oscar nominee and five-time winner for his scores, too. Let's see, 67's Born Free, along with this original song. 69's The Lion in Winter. 86's Out of Africa. 91's Dances with Wolves. And, of course, he's best remembered for a quarter century's worth of James Bond scores. He didn't write the original theme song, But even listening to the score for Star Crash, it feels completely out of place in many respects, in part because it's so good. But also, it sounds like it should be a James Bond score and not a knockoff Star Wars score. It's legitimately really good stuff. One track, The Ice Planet, which you can pull up wherever you get your music, you can find the score for this film. very good and it even has something that sounds like whale song in it except it's not sampled whale song it's something created via non-electronic instrumentation and it's very nice. I didn't listen to any of this in isolation so I'm going to have to look this up after we record. Yeah, it's really good stuff and I read somewhere, I don't know if this is true, that there was legitimate concern that if Barry saw footage of the film that he was going to be scoring, he might quit and they might not get the score because I think they realized that, hey, we've landed a great score for this. No matter how it turns out, we're really punching above our weight here. Well, I mean, I think one thing that they must have correctly deduced was how important the music is to the success of a film like this. I'm not going to say that Star Wars is no good without its John Williams score, but I think it would be hard to argue that the John Williams score is not a significant part of the effect and feeling created by the movie. It's like a big part of what makes it work. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. I should also mention that we previously discussed John Barry because he did the score for Disney's The Black Hole, which is, of course, in its own way, an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars, to do it the Disney way. And, of course, in time, Star Wars would become the Disney way because Disney would purchase Star Wars. There you go. Everything is the Disney way now. If you can't beat them, buy them. Yeah. All right. Are you ready to talk about the plot? Yes. Let's get into the plot. Okay. Like so many other movies of this type, this one opens on a star field with this empty howling sound. One thing I like about the space imagery in this movie is that it is not just black space with white points of light. It's a very spicy, colorful galaxy with stars in all these different colors, like blue, orange, yellow, pink, different shades. Later in this opening scene, we're going to see a full-on hot pink planet, partially eclipsed, so that it shows up as this neon pink crescent or sickle. I like it. It's good. Yeah, I love how colorful space is in Star Crash. Again, not the dark void of so many sci-fi visions, but more of a psychedelic spell jammer sort of cosmos. You see a similar thing in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. They make a conscious effort to make space exciting and colorful and dynamic and not empty and dark. And I don't want to suggest that's the right choice for every movie. I mean, like an alien space should be empty and dark. Yeah, it would be a weird and maybe ineffective alien movie if the cosmos was psychedelic. It needs to be dark and pretty and sparkling. And then after this, we are treated to a low-budget attempt to copy the iconic opening shot of Star Wars, where Princess Leia's blockade runner flies overhead, and then Star Destroyer comes overhead close behind. Yeah, no shame. Everybody was doing it. We've seen other movies that did the same thing. Here we get a kind of combination. So it is a single ship, which appears to be huge, like the Star Destroyer, and glides over the top of the camera lens like the Star Destroyer. But it is shaped more like the Blockade Runner. And as it goes by, we get close-ups of its many intricate greebles and outer textures. I see all kinds of little consumer plastics glued to the outside of this thing and spray-painted white. Rob, I know you actually build miniatures sometimes, right? I do. I generally do little soldiers and little people. But occasionally I'll do... I have done some Star Wars tanks and vehicles before. I bring this up because I wondered what you thought about this. I saw what I thought were a lot of... I don't know what you call this, but the plastic stuff around the pieces of a little plastic miniature kit that you build. So if you're building a little airplane kit, you'll get a lot of different pieces. held in place by these little plastic bars and you twist them off. Oh, the sprues, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know what you call that, you know, that plastic lattice or square that everything comes in. I saw a lot of stuff that looked like that on the outside of these ships. Yeah, that would be the sprues. And, yeah, I mean, otherwise those things just go in the garbage, make a spaceship out of it. Yeah, exactly. It looks like pipes if you put it on that. Yeah, yeah. I have to say the ships, there are a lot of caveats to this statement, but the ships look pretty good. Yeah, medium good, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Considering this is low budget, we've seen worse. We've seen better, but we've seen worse. There's a name on this ship, which it's called the Murray Leinster. That never comes up again. Yeah. When I saw that, I was like, are we in the credits again? Are they getting inventive? Are they ahead of their time with how they're name dropping an executive producer or something? Are we later going to hear Christopher Plummer saying we have lost contact with the Murray Leinster? Never comes up. Never, never. Maybe it's the name of the guy who built the ship. I don't know. Good modeler. But, yeah, I'll say the ships look pretty good. However, I think their exact form is often a bit too convoluted for me to really form an impression. Like, it's just kind of confusing. And I certainly have a hard time telling one from the other. And then when they start moving around, all the space action in this film is just aggressively disorienting. Just loops and loops of ships soaring loudly, sonically and visually through space. Just an alarming, overbearing sense of you took too much. Yes. Yeah. As I said earlier, I think the space battles, there are problems with them. And one of them is a lack of differentiation or a lack of focus. It's just stuff happening. Yeah. So anyway, we cut inside the Murray Leinster now, where crew members are waddling around in maroon leather uniforms with these shoulder pads and cod pieces, wearing these ridiculous gold helmets. Not sure why, but almost all of the soldiers in this movie, whether for the Empire or working for Zarth Arn, they all have similar shaped helmets. And all of these guys remind me of the mom's robot oil sons. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. There's the head shape combined with the helmet shape for sure. And, you know, I don't know if there's a direct connection here. It would not surprise me if the Futurama folks were Star Crash fans. Yeah. But I'm also glad that you brought up the cod pieces. This movie really loves a good cod piece. Pretty much every costume in the film is some sort of a cod piece on the outside, thong on the outside, or chastity belt on the outside of the garment. it's just everywhere I feel bad for everybody on screen because almost all of them have some kind of rigid tight thong over their pants the denizens of the wedgie galaxy looks like not fun anyway so there is one practical effect I like in this early scene on the spaceship which is that instead of getting in and out of elevators like Kirk and Spock are always doing. This ship has a transportation infrastructure that's like a little elevator compartment. So you go down a hall, go through a door, and then you stand in a room and close the door. But instead of going up and down to different floors, it is a circular room that rotates around to point you out into a different hallway. And I was thinking about this, and I was like, how is that better than having an intersection of hallways? It is really impressive visually. But it's also kind of like a first date thing in this film. Like, are we going to be treated with this level of class and sophistication in every scene? No, no, not really. But it's pretty cool here. So anyway, on the bridge, we got a couple of these robot oil sons chatting. One of them says, and nearly all of these line deliveries are pretty weird in one way or another. One of them says, what is it like, the planet we're approaching? The other one says, nothing but ice and snow, a barren desert of whiteness. And then another one says, scan it with our computer waves. The enemy's weapons may be hidden beneath its surface. And then now we see outside, and the rock aid blunner here is flying through space, and suddenly nearby something starts happening. We get some red lava lamp wax that starts undulating in the cosmos. That doesn't seem good. Are you talking about the red monsters? Yeah. Because they will keep referring back to this as the red monsters. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what red monsters? Oh, they're talking about the globs. They're talking about the lava lamp globs. Okay. At some point, I was thinking we're going to see monsters. Yeah. We'll see what they see. We'll see the monsters. We never do. It's some kind of psychic attack. All of the helmet dudes, the robot oil sons, grab their helmets and they start groaning while the interior cabins fill up with these red spots of light that zip around in the air. They look like red lens flares. Yeah, it is highly variable depending on who you are and what your character is, depending on how this will affect you. Like when Carolyn Monroe's character is hit by it later, it's almost like an orgasm migraine seems to be the overall effect. She goes, ah, my head. And so anyway, the soldiers here, they collapse. Presumably they die. and then we watch the ship's escape pods, which look slightly like paper airplanes. They fire off one by one. Then the ship explodes. And then we cut to the credits where Marjo gets top billing before Carolyn Monroe. Again, I call foul on that. That doesn't make sense to me. We get the title. I like the title styling. It's really good. I wanted to see more of it, but they just rush it off the screen. They're like, we haven't got time for this. This is Star Crash. You read the title on the poster. Did you notice how after the credits, the credits and music cut off very abruptly? It's like the music doesn't finish the phrase it's in. It's in the middle of something happening in the song. And then it's just enough of that. Time to watch some triangles zooming around. So we fall in with the second spaceship. This one is shaped like a tortilla chip. It's a big flat triangle. and inside at the helm we meet Marjo Gortner as Acton and Carolyn Monroe as Stella Star. I would say they, in a way, both look like they're in advertisements for different kinds of hair care products. Oh, yeah. The hair game in this film is pretty intense. Everybody's hair is a definite choice, whether it's slicked back with grease or poofed out to almost supernatural levels of poofiness. Yeah. So Marjo is this handsome kind of sunbaked guy in his 30s. He's got this big crown of curly blonde hair. And like I said earlier, he has a very stagey live showbiz delivery style. Again, not really playing a character so much as projecting his lines like somebody who's giving announcements or owning a stage, maybe like a magician. And Carolyn Monroe is very sparkly, hammer glamour. And let's see, I had some notes here about the Candy Clark thing, but I guess we already addressed that. Question marks, is this really Candy Clark's voice in the dubbing? If so, that is interesting. Yeah. And again, this was common practice. Like we were talking about Hercules in the Haunted World. Like they had Christopher Lee of all people in that. And they just used somebody else to dub his voice for the English version. They're like, we already paid for Christopher Lee once. We're not going to pay for it twice just so he can use his voice. Crazy. Yeah, I remember Christopher Lee seemed very underused in that. Yeah. Anyway, so we got Stella and Acton. They're flying through space and they find themselves being pursued by space cops. Acton pulls them up on the view screen, and then they see the bald green head of Robert Tessier. And this guy says, As Thor, chief of the Imperial Police, I order you to surrender at once. Oh, since he's asking as Thor, I guess he's got to do it. And then we get a second head on the TV. This time, it's a shiny black robot that looks like Darth Vader's helmet. This character is named L, like the name, E-L-L-E, not the letter. And I think the design of this character is interesting because he is essentially going to turn out to be a comic relief, loyal droid sidekick, like C-3PO, but with a southern accent, like Sheriff J.W. Pepper in Live and Let Die. And then given all that, I think it is weird that they decide to make him look evil like Darth Vader. Yeah, like it's almost like they had this robot design and they were going to use it for a villain. And they're like, no, just use it for the good guy. It doesn't matter. And, yeah, so it looks like he should be more of a force to be reckoned with than he actually is. At least in the black hole, the robot with the southern voice, I think Slim Pickens did the voice of the southern robot in that. At least he looks like comic relief. Yeah. L, so this robot comes on the TV and says, Stella, you cheap smuggler. I am police robot L. You have the right to remain silent. So he's a southern sheriff. I mean, he's great, but so much of his dialogue specifically is like, Stella, we have to go over here and push this button now so we can stop the bad guys. Like, there's a lot of, like, almost overt narration about what is going on and why. but it becomes transcendent and it becomes to feel like a ritual yeah so you know the cops come on the TV and then Stella says in a sudden and jarringly rough bit of dubbing go for hyperspace So, you know, the tortilla chip whips around and then it squirts them out into some kind of grainy crimson video realm. This is what happens with hyperspace in the movie. It suddenly cuts to something happening on video with like huge pixel textures. Yeah, just hard to watch. Legitimately hard to stand. Stella says then in a strangely folksy voice, she says, let's hope this star buggy stays together. What's our chances? Acton says 40% total disintegration, 30% molecular ignition, 20% gamma contamination. Now, you mentioned earlier, Rob, the idea that even though this was in some sense derived from Star Wars, you could see other ways that it would prophesy future developments in Star Wars. I thought this one was interesting because C-3PO talks like this in later Star Wars movies, but I think he does not talk like this in the Star Wars movie that had come out at this point. Oh, that's an interesting observation. So in the original Star Wars, he's less of a doomsayer and negative Nelly. Well, he's negative Nelly, but I don't recall him citing the odds of surviving a dangerous situation like he does repeatedly in Empire Strikes Back. That's an empire innovation, at least from what I recall. So, you know, it feels like an element stolen from Star Wars, but actually I think it's just coincidence. Star Wars started doing something like this years later. Yeah. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clippard Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. You can have opinions. You can have, like, a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jared O'Donnell. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, Help! on the internet! Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor, I'm a comedian, and recently I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives. Helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken soup. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So they fiddle with some knobs and then they squirt back out of hyperspace. But uh-oh, they say, look, it's a neutron star. If it gets hold of us, it will crush us. Fortunately, it does not get hold of them. Instead, they cruise past it and then right up to the edge of a place that Acton calls the Haunted Stars. Ooh, what is that place? They don't really say. It's just the Haunted Stars. And then they stumble across something that's floating out in the dark. And we see it is one of the escape pods that launched from the Rockade Blunner earlier. When Stella sees it, she says, what in the universe is that? And then she gasps and says, it's a spaceship. What else would it be? Yeah, everything in this film so far has been a spaceship. Yeah. What do you normally see floating in space? Yeah. So Stella puts on a space suit that consists of a body-shaped dry-cleaning bag and then a helmet that looks like a transparent plastic toilet. And she's facewalks out to the derelict ship and finds an unconscious guy on board. And they bring the survivor back to their ship, where Acton tells Stella he keeps talking about monsters, red monsters. And they're both just standing there beside him. I guess Acton is translating for her or something. Maybe he's a protocol droid. I don't know. Question. Sorry, actually, pause. Is Acton organic or a droid? Is he human or an alien? What is he? I do not know. They never bother to really establish it, but we see a lot of evidence later to support the idea that he's maybe some sort of an energy being. But, yeah, you'd think that if that were the case, they would actually tell us what and why, and we never get that. because he can manipulate light. He eventually turns into light. I don't know what he is. So Acton tells her that the man wants them to alert someone immediately. He wants them to call the emperor of the first circle of the universe. How many circles are there? Three, four. Oh, okay. But, yeah, how do you alert the emperor? Does he have, like, a 1-800 number you can call? Yeah, I mean, weird that you can go right to the top. It seems like there would be at least a go-between for the random space jumpers to connect with instead of just speaking correctly to the Emperor. So before they can figure out what to do, they are hailed once again on the view screen by Thor and El. So they've been caught again, and this time they're surrounded. Acton tells Stella, don't worry, we'll get out of this. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy, it is time to meet our villains. So we pan over a giant spaceship that is shaped like a hand with a big boxy palm, four fingers and a thumb, each with pointed triangle claws at the end of the finger. It's hard to imagine this design is for functional reasons. Like you end up with a spaceship like this, I think because the Dark Lord insists that the spaceship must look like a huge hand. Yeah, and if this were not too much already, we'll see later that it can form a fist or a rough fist. Like, those fingers move. Clearly, the Dark Lord insisted that this be part of it. Right. It clenches when the ship's about to do something really mean. Yeah. So, inside the ship, we get a view of the bridge. Rob, how would you describe this bridge? Well, it literally has a bridge. It has, like, a catwalk. True. Well, Catwalk, of course, always a great addition to any sort of sci-fi action set, especially if you have some dedicated stuntmen that are willing to take a dive over the edge of said railing. Yeah. I would call this kind of spike chic. There are just spikes everywhere. I don't know why so many spikes. Yeah. And people here are absolutely wearing Planet of the Vampires costumes, but dopey versions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They look like a cross between Planet of the Vampires and people from House Frey. Yeah. And it is also, a film like this is a great way to remind ourselves just how good Planet of the Vampires is, at least how great it looks and sounds when you see it done, you know, not at the same level. So one of these officers on the bridge comes up to the boss and says, they found one damned survivor. This guy is Elric. He is a tooth-grinding little toady. Helm is spicy. He's a little spicy. Yeah. He looks mad all the time. He's like, meh, meh. But the boss is, again, just the wonderful, extraordinary villain of this film, Count Zarth Arn. Obviously, our Darth Vader, you know, Zarth, Darth, it's not hard to see. But since they decided to use the Darth Vader helmet already on a goofy cop droid from Alabama, They have to do something else for the actual Darth Vader character, so they just leave his head uncovered. So instead we get a Sith Lord served open-faced in a black vinyl suit with a utility belt and this burgundy velvet cape like he is some kind of mystical vampire chocolatier. He's part Darth Vader, part Batman, part Willy Wonka, part Louis XIV. Yes. Yeah. I mean, on one level, it makes sense. You've cast Joe Spinel in this role. Why wouldn't you want to look at him? Like he's a very captivating face, a very expressive face. Is he the right casting? I would argue no. But if you've cast him, you've already committed to it. Don't put a mask over him. Let's absolutely see him. Agree. so Elric says that the Imperial Navy has located one of the escape pods and that there is a survivor but quote his brain seems thoroughly damaged so you know they think there's little risk of the stolen ship being found and Zaratharn reacts to this news by walking a few paces over and saying in a growly voice come to me golems ah so golems that's an interesting mythology edition here. Is this going to be like the Golem of Prague? Not at all. These golems are droids. They're droids with angry duck faces holding machetes. Yeah, and these are absolutely the ones that look a bit like what we'd eventually see with our B-1 battle droids in The Phantom Menace. They do look like that, but you know what they also look like is the mad scientist from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah. Duck lips and the big head. Yeah. So Zarathorn says, I have a simple task for you. You must not fail me. We're going to find out later what the task is. So next we cut to a trial. I just wanted to mention this. Estella Star and Acton are tried for their crimes, which are smuggling, I think. We don't learn a lot about their crimes. They're being tried in this green disco space court where the judge is a huge green and gold head with tentacles inside a dome. and this seems to me to be a pretty obvious visual reference to the Martian controller head in an earlier movie, William Cameron Menzies' Invaders from Mars from 1953. Rob, I've got a picture of this for you to look at in the outline here. I think, like, that is so close. It could not but be an homage or nod or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's some things similar to this elsewhere, like comic books and all, but I have a feeling you're dead on here. I mean, the colors are so similar and the tentacles on the head and all that. It's amazing how weird this character is, to the extent we can call it a character. This moment is in the film, but you almost completely forget about it in the wake of everything that's to come. And all just, again, the absurd dialogue choices. It goes through the shredder of the mind within minutes after you've seen it. So Acton and Stella get assigned life sentences of, you know, they're sent to forced labor on different planets. And it sounds like he says Stella is going to have to go to Pinot Colony on Nocturne II, like Pinot Noir or Gratio. I think she also misunderstood them because she is not dressed for a Pinot Colony. Not at all. So we cut straight to Stella Starr already at her prison camp. The vibe at this place is, you know, it's your standard dilithium mines of Rurapenti. and the prisoners have to carry big translucent beach balls that the warden identifies as radium up onto a platform and then they dump the balls into a steamy hole. And so Stella has changed into her radioactive prison labor outfit here, which is a black leather bikini with high-heeled boots, like thigh-high, high-heeled black leather boots. All of the other prisoners are wearing rags with long sleeves. Yeah. But she's dressed up here. And it's weird. She will actually find ways to dress down further and wear less clothes later in the film without actually being naked. Yeah. So the guards call for a brief rest here. Stella starts complaining to her fellow prisoners. She says, I've been at this 12 hours. The radiation will burn my skin off. It's like, yeah, they know, dude. I think they've been here longer than you have. Why are you complaining at them? but uh so one of the other guys that he doesn't react like that he just says you better work if you don't want to taste the burning of their energy whips too so stella uh she begins planning an escape with the other prisoners uh something about overfeeding the furnace with a gun ray but they get caught by a guard a fight breaks out stella beats the crap out of the guard uh one of the other prisoners takes the guards blaster and then all hell breaks loose the prisoners and the guards start fighting i thought here maybe stella was going to lead a prison break you know she's like oh okay yeah we'll all rebel and we'll get out of here instead it just seems like she sneaks out the back yeah she just makes a beat line for the exit and it's like it's it's every humanoid for themselves here yeah and then the prison explodes i think something yeah or the plan i I don't know. Yeah, the scale of this explosion is uncertain. That's not the planet yet because she goes, she's out in a wheat field. That's right. She gets into the wheat field. So we soon learned that this prison break was absolutely pointless because while Stella is out running around in some fields with tall grass, a ship lands, I think maybe it's her old spaceship, maybe? Possibly. Again, hard to tell the spaceships apart in this film. It lands, she goes inside. There's a nice looking shot here with some of that Jallo lighting where she comes down a long hall holding a rifle with this hot pink background. Oh, are you talking about the Rifle Ray? The Rifle Ray, yes. Yeah, the Rifle Ray. And she goes into the ship and then meets none other than the two space cops who caught her in the first place. So, again, you've got Thor, the bald, snarling man with the green skin, and L, the country-fried robot cop. So they reveal that she has been granted a pardon. The way L says it is, quote, your sentence has been canceled. Stella says, have you both gone mad? L says, I only have logic and emotion circuits. No room for craziness. Well, I've been assigned a top secret imperial mission. We must leave now and set Acton free. And so I was thinking, oh, is there going to be a scene where they have to break him out of prison? but no, El hasn't even finished talking when he just cuts away to Acton being thrust up out of a hole in the floor on a spaceship somewhere and there's a bearded guy sitting on a throne next to the hole and he says, there, he's yours my gift to you Wow so everything we've seen from these two thus far is just completely unnecessary the whole gang's back together now and it's the four of them it is Stellastar, Acton, El and Thor, and they have to go rendezvous with the Imperial flagship to get their orders. The Imperial flagship looks kind of like a giant gold turtle with a lot of spikes on its back. And when they're approaching, El says, Act on, you are ready to, you are going to meet some real royalty. So that makes me think we're going inside the Imperial flagship, right? Yeah, surely. Why are we coming so close to it? No, the Emperor is instead going to project a hologram into the room with them on their own ship. So I was kind of wondering, do they really need to come all this way? Maybe it's a limited range hologram? It must be. And this is going to be the scene where the Emperor's hologram manifests in front of some terrible looking stairs. Like, of all the things you could have shot him against or had the hologram appear in front of, why this? There's a lot of stuff that looks better on the sets. The sets in this film are generally pretty interesting. Why these stairs? I don't know. Why is it a hologram at all? I wonder if it's trying to do the help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope thing with the hologram there. But I don't know. So this is the emperor, the good emperor. He suddenly appears and then L like points behind all the crew and he says, he's here. It's his holographic image. There he is. And he is dressed in, again, what just looks like a full body golden chastity belt. God, yeah. Yeah. Words fail me. So I'm just going to read the Emperor's monologue here. This is where he gives them their assignment. Emperor says, I come to you because my faithful robot L has told me that you are the only one who could save us. You know, you must be the best pilot in the whole galaxy. And then I was thinking, oh, she's a pilot? Yeah. Have we seen anything about that? I mean, they were both tweaking knobs. So I didn't know. I thought they were both the pilot. It seems like Acton was flying the ship earlier. I don't know. But he says, you're the best pilot in the galaxy, and you, Acton, the best navigator. Stella, our galaxy is split into two warring factions, our own and the one ruled by the evil Count Zarth Arn from the League of the Dark Worlds. Then I thought, which faction was it that sentenced her to the prison planet? I think it was his faction. The good guys, yeah. Yeah, the good guys. Okay. And then he goes on to say, there's something wrong here. There's a sentence missing a subject. He says, recently begun to receive troublesome reports from our spies among the League. They've informed us that the Count has created a weapon, a new, limitless weapon, a weapon so vast, so huge, that it would almost be called a Death Star, that it would take a whole planet to conceal it. Star Wars would eventually kind of get back to this idea, wouldn't they, in the sequel trilogy? Yeah, you need it. That's right. You need a whole planet to conceal the weapon. So, yeah, so this is the backstory. The ship that got attacked in the prologue by the red lava lamp, which, again, everybody keeps calling it the red monsters, but we just see the red lights floating around. And people, of course, clutching their heads and going, oh. So that ship was sent by the Emperor to find Zarthorne's death planet, and it came, in Christopher Plummer's words, so close, so close to discovering the Count's secret when it was suddenly attacked by a horde of unknown monsters. But he knows that the ship sent out some escape pods, like we saw earlier, so now, with the utmost secrecy, they have to sail to the Haunted Stars, find the escape pods, discover the location of the Count's secret planet, and destroy it. And then the hologram emperor turns around and starts to slowly wander away. Why is he walking away if it's a hologram? You'd think he'd turn it off instead of walking away. But then he stops and he looks back over his shoulder, and it's a one more thing. My son is David Hasselhoff, and he was the commander of the ship. You've got to find him. And then wistful music plays as we watch the Imperial flagship drift away. Yeah. So after this, they talk about the different planets they can go to. Acton says we could go to the Auriga system, also known as the world's asleep. But the problem is they can't find the system. And then he says we could also go to the white sun of ozone. But the problem is, once again, we don't know where it is. So there's only one more place we can look. Quote, the heart of the haunted stars, an unknown planet named Euryphus. So that's where they're going to go. So there's some funny chatter about hyperspace while they travel. L tells us, every time I go to hyperspace, I get nervous. This will become a theme. I was programmed to feel nervous during hyperspace. I don't know. Seems like a programming error to me. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. What's the point of that? He just gets nervous about a lot of things. and then later denies getting nervous about other things. And so they go to the planet Uraphis. Stella and El take the shuttle down to the surface while Acton and Thor stay aboard the main ship. While flying down over the ocean to the landing area, El keeps complaining. He's, again, full of anxieties. He says, don't you think we're flying a little too low? I haven't been programmed to walk on water. Ooh, me, water makes me nervous. So they go down and they investigate the crash remains of the escape pod on the beach. It looks like there are no survivors. And then while they're checking out the surroundings, they are approached by some local life forms. It is barbarian women riding horses painted red with these big red horse monster masks. They're kind of horse lobsters. And Elle says, look, Amazon's on horseback. This seems to be a known type of person to approach you. I have to add real quick here that this is one of the many, we don't spend all of our time on spaceships. We, of course, do have these wonderful locations. They make some great use of Italian locations for the film as well, including these beachside cliffs. So the Amazons take Stella and Elle back to their lair, which just looks the same as all the other spaceship interiors. For some reason, while they're walking to meet the Queen, they whip out laser guns. They say, die, robot, and they blast L. Why did they do that? They don't like robots, I guess. Okay. Amazonians and robots. It's a very old feud that we're not going to wrap up anytime soon. Tale as old as time. So Stella tries to fight them, but she's surrounded at gunpoint, and they overpower her. And then they take her to the Amazon queen, Corellia. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clipper Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clipper Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Cliver Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, A show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream with chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream with chicken soup. This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When they go to meet the Queen, it turns out Queen Karelia, uh-oh, is loyal to Count Zartharn. That's a mistake. So she accuses Stella of being a spy and then taunts her, saying, Even if you're a very talented spy, you will never discover the Count's hidden planet. Two packs of murdering guardians are there to watch and protect it from intruders. And now, put her into the mind probe. Oh, mind probe. I want to see what that is. Obviously, Stella knows what that is and fears it greatly because she drops her normally cool and unemotional facade and just starts screaming like, no, not the mind probe. but no minds will be probed we don't get to find out what that is because before we can get there, L the robot appears again, points a ray gun at the Amazon Queen and forces them to hand over Stella, so it turns out he was not dead, he says to Corellia, give me any trouble and I'm going to clean out your sinuses real good lady strangely evocative threat and not really in keeping with the tone of the rest of the script, but also the weird threat. Like, no, not my clogged sinuses. Together, Elle and Stella escape the palace. This requires a very dramatic blasting of a door that won't open. And then they make it back out onto the beach where they landed, but now they have to contend with a new threat. Queen Corellia talks to a TV screen and says, Guardian, take my revenge! Kill them! The Guardian here is a giant silver stop-motion automaton, clearly inspired by the Talos monster created by Ray Harryhausen for the 1963 Jason and the Argonauts. Even the staging at the beach is similar. The Guardian here is somewhat different in design from the Talos. It has elements of maybe kind of a Hindu goddess appearance, like Lakshmi. Other elements of a more classic robot or metal man, like the Tin Man and the Wizard of Oz. It does have breasts and nipples. Yeah. Yeah. So got a lot of different things going on. I'm not sure exactly what the main inspiration is here. But like the forearms and the hands are more just Wizard of Oz Tin Man. Anyway, Stella and El have to hide from and hold off the giant guardian until Acton arrives in the ship and blasts it with a laser. That solves the problem. I have to say this stop motion guardian, so hilarious, because this effect is barely working. I mean, I love, even bad stop motion is great stop motion. I still love it. I like the golems later, yeah. Yeah, the golems look better later, but this thing looks like it's just about to fall over at any moment. It feels so ineffective. Well, I mean, I think a big problem with this scene is it felt to me like they did not have the space or the ability to record the full range of motions that would be required to stage out the scene. So you just get kind of close-ups of a moving hand suggesting that it is swiping at the characters on the ground or something. You don't see it all interacting. I mean, again, it's another case where we can look at it done less effectively and realize just how great Harryhausen was at what he did. Not only in bringing this full range of movement to stop-motion creatures, but integrating that with human action and making it feel like everything's part of the same world. It's hard to do. And so you're not going to see it done that effectively all the time. So everybody leaves in the ship, and then there is a brief space battle where they have to fight off some of the Amazon space fighters. As I've said earlier, you know, I love Star Crash, but I think the space battles are just not where it's at in this movie. They are consistently the most boring part of the film. A lot of close-ups of people saying, fire, go to max power. And then you have these model spaceships whizzing around randomly and shooting lasers. It's like they're not good enough to be dramatically interesting. They don't look especially cool, but they also don't look bad enough to be really funny. They just look good enough, so I kind of tune it out. And they're also really jarring. So, yeah, it's actually, I found it difficult to tune them out. Like I'm not invested and I also cannot think of anything else while it's happening. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. All right. So our heroes move on. They win the space battle, of course. You know, they win and they go on to the cold planet. So they going to have to check out the escape pod on a planet covered with ice and snow where the temperature drops we told by thousands of degrees at night That that for real So once again Stella and El the robot have to go check out the crash site while Acton and Thor stay aboard the ship They get to the crash site. Everybody's dead. And then Stella begins to get fatalistic. She says, there's no hope of ever finding the other escape pod or the Count's secret planet. It's lost out in the stars. I noticed this happens a lot in the movie. Our heroine is really fond of complaining, of declaring a task impossible, and assessing there is no hope. Not what you normally get with a plucky space adventurer. Yeah, and also I guess the rest of the film doesn't really feel that bad either. It doesn't feel that hopeless. The film is not really creating that sense of doom and gloom. We're just being told that it is the case. Yeah. Meanwhile, back on the ship, Acton amuses himself with these little laser lassos in his hands. Do you know what that was? No, but again, this is a great example of like, I guess he has power over light or laser energy or is made out of light or laser energy. I don't know. It's just goofy and weird, but kind of cool to watch. I just have no idea what it's supposed to mean. We're about to reveal a double agent. And so while Acton is talking to the ship's computer, I don't think this comes up really after this part of the movie again. Do they talk to the ship's computer later in the film? No, but it's like a big brain. It's like a big glowing brain. You can touch it, yeah. Yeah, it almost looks organic. So he's talking to the ship. While this is happening, Thor, the space cop, sneaks up behind Acton and knocks him unconscious, then places a video call to his boss, Count Zartharn. So Thor tells Zartharn that he has killed the alien Pathfinder. And then I was like, oh, Acton's an alien? Or from whose point of view, I guess? Maybe everybody's an alien. I feel like they should have established him as an alien Pathfinder earlier on. He would have been more interesting from the get-go. Count Zartharn is very pleased. And so the plan from here is they're going to lock Stellastar outside and let the cold kill her. But Thor tries to take off and leave without Stella and El, and the ship announces a malfunction, so it can't leave. and then when Ella not Ella, when Elle and Stella find out what happened Elle says, Thor a traitor I cannot believe it, I cannot trust my own logic circuits anymore but anyway, Elle has an idea that might save Stella from freezing to death, he's like I know what to do, he wants her to lay down in the snow and hold his hand and this is going to put her in a state of suspended animation and then I don't know the vibe of this scene is weird while she's dozing off she starts getting all lovey-dovey with Elle like they're I don't know like they're in love now or something she says Elle as an opponent I always knew you were programmed to never give up which was infuriating but now that quality must be best you're the most faithful companion a woman ever had oh could we workshop that man I, you know, the answer may be out there somewhere, but I kind of wondered if Christopher Plummer did a rewrite of his own lines, because I feel like his little monologues. They're not great either. They're not great, but they feel a little more cohesive and a little less stupid than everything else in the picture. He doesn't talk about that quality must be best. Yeah. So anyway, oh, L also says in the scene, I like this. He says, now maybe is a good time to use your ancient system of prayer and hope it works for robots as well. So I don't know whether she prays or not, but she freezes solid and turns into an ice-crusted mannequin. Yeah, real Monroe sickle here. Meanwhile, back on the ship, Thor is busy getting chewed out by Zartharn for having not arrived yet, and Acton wakes up. So he was not dead after all. This goes into a fight scene. you know they tangle and trade blows at one point Thor is trying to crush Acton inside this big sculpture that has some sort of retracting drawer I don't even know what this is but Acton uses his eye sparkle powers yeah I get those I guess yeah like flashes his eyes like light comes out of them and this knocks Thor back Thor gets a hold of his gun and then here we get to the my favorite line in the movie that I was talking about earlier. You know, Thor shoots Acton, Acton is unharmed, and Thor says, what? No one can survive these deadly rays? These deadly rays will be your death. So he holds up his hand, the deadly rays bounce off of it, reflect back, and kill Thor. Quick thought about deadly rays. We were talking about the prison break sequence earlier, and there's a lot of gunfire, a lot of laser fire in that. I did really like the practical effects of the laser beams hitting people and tremendous sparks flying off of the person. It made the, sometimes in films like this, the ray guns can feel very neutered and fake. But this film at least succeeds in making them feel dangerous. Other times, though, people get shot with them and they just kind of disappear or something. Yeah, I guess it depends on your setting, right? Are you set to disintegrate or mangle or sparkle? what are Acton's powers and where do they come from what is the source of his power yeah they never tell us but I assume okay he's some sort of an alien he is a pathfinder he's got to be an energy being he's some sort of energy being and they just feel like this is one of the rare things that they're going to show rather than tell everything else they're happy to keep telling us about it so there's this whole sequence where they bring the frozen Stellastar the mannequin back on board and they warm her up we learn that she may survive if you warm her slowly. Give her the reverse werewolf warming. Yeah, exactly. Which is what they do. Yeah, and then Acton, he shoots rainbow beams out of his hands, and this warms her up. And then after Stella wakes up, there is what I thought was a really weird development. Acton reveals that the ship doesn't actually have a malfunction at all. The reason Thor couldn't get it to take off is because Acton removed a key component from the engine. Stella deduces from this that Acton knew about Thor's treachery in advance, but then instead of asking, like, what gave it away? You know, how did you know he was going to betray us? She just jumps right to the conclusion, you can see into the future. And she's right. Acton can see into the future. He has previously undisclosed ESP that allows him to know the future in advance, And then Stella says, all these years you never told me. Think of all the trouble I might have avoided. But act on counters. You would have tried to change the future, which is against the law. So therefore, I can tell you nothing. I love it. I love it. It's the last we hear about that. Yeah. They set it up like this is some huge revelation that's going to really play into the rest of the plot. And it doesn't. It's just like, oh, yeah, by the way, you can see the future. It just didn't tell you because it would be wrong for you to act on it. It would be against the law. It would be illegal. They might send us to a prison plan. Yeah. Suddenly these smugglers are very concerned with breaking the law. You don't want the time cops on your back. It's different when the time cops come after you. That's a good point. But Estella really takes this in stride. She just kind of shakes it off. They go on to the next thing. So they're going to go to the third escape pod planet, this time on a barren wasteland called Dimundia. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all say. Yep, that's me, Clipper Taylor IV. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment. And the next, we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shrunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to me. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream with chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream with chicken soup. This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So while approaching Demundia, everything starts malfunctioning. We see red monsters. Remember, again, that's the lava lamp and the red lights everywhere. L says, my circuits are failing. I'm out of control. I'm out of control. Meanwhile, Stella says, ah, my head. And somehow Acton pilots them through it. And then when everything is back to normal, Acton says, we've just survived an attack of the most powerful weapon in the entire galaxy. I don't know. I mean, we just saw them go through it. And we've seen the same weapon used on other people. Lots of people. It seems like explosives are probably more powerful. I would think so, yeah. So they go down to the planet's surface, and they find the ship down at the bottom of a big crater. This is where we start seeing somebody in a gold Zardoz mask following them. And Stella says she's going to go investigate the crater. El goes instead, and then there is a troglodyte ambush. So, yeah, they're attacked by cavemen. Yeah, it's really kind of hilarious, the visions for these different planets. And granted, there are budget constraints in place, but let's see, we have Amazonian planet, Snow planet, and now Caveman planet. Right. Makes sense. Yeah, totally, yeah. So the Cavemen have big stone axes, other Paleolithic tools. They smash L to pieces, like C-3PO and the Tusken Raiders. So these are, you know, I think they're Tusken Raiders. Yeah. And they carry Stella back to their cave. I think the plan is they're going to eat her. This camp suggests cannibalism. Yeah, they have her hanging from the ceiling in a way that suggests she's neat now. Yeah, okay. So they're going to eat her later, and then they just, I guess it's time now. So they're going to come cut her throat and drain her blood. But Stella is rescued at the last second by the stranger in the Zardoz mask. So the mask shoots lasers out of its eyes and drives the troglodytes away. When Stella and the stranger get to safety, the stranger takes off the mask and reveals, it's David Hasselhoff. There he is. And I wanted to note, when he takes this helmet off, he does not have helmet hair. His hair is voluminous. It is not matted down at all. Continuity error. I mean, it's a big helmet. I think there's a lot of room in there that allows the hair to be free. So we learn that this is Simon, the only survivor of the wreck of the Imperial mission ship, the one sent to search for Zarthorne's weapon planet. They share information about what they've been through, and then they try to leave the cave, but they get jumped by cavemen. They put up a good fight, but they're outnumbered, and then rescue comes in the form of, who is it going to be? Who's going to rescue them? Who keeps rescuing everybody every time? It's Acton. But this time, he is armed with a new weapon. It is some kind of energy-based sword, like a sword where the blade is made out of a laser. Could you imagine it? Oh, yes. They did it, folks. The cavemen surround Stella like they're really like, they get her down on the ground like they're going to do a Colonel Rhodes from Day of the Dead, you know, get all the guts out. Yeah. But it doesn't happen because Acton comes in swinging the lightsaber and he drives them away. It is an interesting experience having watched so many grimy Italian and Spanish films from this era that you keep expecting things to take grindier turns than they do. But at the end of the day, this is a very PG film. This is for the children. Yeah, this is less nasty than some of the other movies that have this kind of flavor but take it in a more X-rated direction. Yeah, so she's not ripped in half. But man, does Acton ever rip into some caveman with his lightsaber? Like, it doesn't get graphic, but man, he's just slicing bellies left and right here with this thing. Yeah. So Acton explains that he has reached a conclusion. He says they can stop looking for Zarthorne's weapon planet because it's this one. This is the one. Okay. We're done. And he explains why. He says, you know, the Amazon queen told you in a scene that I wasn't present for that there are two guardians of the weapon planet. Well, here you've got the red monsters we went through and the troglodytes. I mean, that settles it. Really? So that's also the two big guardians of this super space weapon are red blobs and cavemen. That's right. Yes. So they walk through the cave to a door that leads to the secret weapon. It is that simple. And, you know, while they're going there, Acton explains it is from this facility that Zarthorn will control the entire universe. So they go into another room with all these little bubble dome stations lining the walls. And Acton says, here's the nerve center of the entire operation. Stella says, this is unbelievable. Fantastic. Pre-programmed computers. They could run forever. That's great. I mean, I've said it once. I've said it a thousand times. The worst thing about getting a new computer is having to program it, starting from ground zero on it. Wish we could get a pre-programmed one for once. So they learn that this room generates the red monsters, but that the red monsters are not real. They are only mental projections in our brains. So they're going to head for the control panel. This is a scene that really highlights you start noticing all of the characters have these rigid thongs giving them wedgies. Yeah, especially when things get action-oriented. You're like, oh, wow, that is a lot of thongs. And then there's an exchange I didn't understand. Acton says, destiny must take its course. But then Stella says, no, we can't allow this to happen. And then Simon says, we must destroy it at once. And I was like, what are they arguing about? Is Acton saying they should let Zartharn keep the weapon and not do anything about it? I guess he sees something in the future that is impacting his decision making here, but is not bothering to tell us, the viewer, about what's up. Anyway, Zartharn ambushes them. He comes in with a bunch of his henchmen, dopey-looking henchmen again, robot oil suns kind of henchmen. But the cape looks amazing. Cape looks great, and his two stop-motion robot duck men with the machetes. And Zartharn tells them that, you know, he keeps trying to kill them, but they survive every trap he lays for them. But now he's got them, because in less than an hour, quote, all that will be left of this planet will be ashes and cosmic dust forever. then you will be among the dead also the emperor Christopher Plummer he's going to be killed in the explosion too because Count Zartharn has lured him here on the promise that his son David Hasselhoff would be handed over to him so the emperor will be here any minute and Zartharn says he will be here just in time to join in the fireworks and then so Zartharn leaves but leaves the two golems to keep the heroes in the room at any cost. He says, kill them if you have to. And this turns into a lightsaber versus robot duck machete battle. And Acton fights the two droids. I think he kills one of them, but then Acton is wounded and then Simon has to pick up the lightsaber and take over the fight. Any description of this fight here? I thought this one's pretty fun. I think this is the best action scene in the film. Yeah, I mean, obviously we can compare this to Harry Howzen's scenes with the skeleton men. Let's see, which one was that from? Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. Yeah, Eye of the Tiger. So we definitely can compare it to that. Not as good as that, but not bad either. In this scene, the stop motion and the live action is pretty well integrated, enough that it's telling a story, you can get into the action. So Simon defeats the other robot, but then Acton is dying. Oh, no. And they go talk to him, and Acton says, don't worry, you and the prince will live. And Stella's like, no, Acton, you can't die, get up. And then he has a great line. I think you wrote this one out. I had to note both of these, because this is absurd. It's so absurd, it's beautiful. Acton says, I'm no longer useful at this time. What? Who would say it like that? Nobody. But then Stella comes in with, I can't leave you. You're the only human-like friend I've ever had I don't understand You never die You never die You're the only human-like friend I've ever had What? So they're saying he's not human I think they're saying oh he's an alien Yeah but She has no other friend I don't know it just seems very unbelievable So Acton he fades into a screen From an oscillator And then the Emperor arrives again wearing this hilarious outfit with the metal, the full body chastity belt as you called it and they don't leave the room they're still in the same weapon control room but the emperor comes in with all of his troops and now they've got a problem, they're like oh father you're here, the planet will explode in 48 seconds and then the emperor says you know my son I wouldn't be emperor of the galaxy if I didn't have some powers at my disposal imperial battleship Halt the flow of time. Yes. Yeah, this film is big on suddenly revealing just absurd cosmic powers for characters. But then not doing anything else with those powers. Like, everybody's super ability is a complete one-shot. Yeah. Oh, you didn't know I had the green lantern ring? Yeah, I never mentioned that. So, like, a green ray zaps the planet. Everything turns green. And then the Emperor explains, quote, for the space of three minutes, every molecule on this planet will be immobilized. But after the third minute, the green ray loses its power. Time will flow once more and everything will explode. And Simon says, OK, three minutes is enough. They leave and then everything explodes. So now we are barreling toward the conclusion. As the Emperor comes up with a plan, all of his legions are going to launch a surprise attack on Count Zartharn's headquarters before he can prepare for them. This will save billions of lives. But at this point, I was thinking, I've seen this movie multiple times. What are they saving the lives from? Like, what are the stakes here? What's going to happen if Zartharn wins? Yeah, and then the way that he is going to save billions of lives, he quickly reveals, is they are going to crash an enormous floating space city. A city? Yeah, into Zaratharn's headquarters or whatever. Seems awfully destructive. I'm assuming they're going to evacuate everyone first from the space city, but they don't really flesh that out. No, you would hope they evacuate, but they don't talk about that. That's the backup plan. The first thing is, well, first of all, we check in with Count Zaratharn, who's giving a speech to his troops, and he says, by sunset I'll be the new emperor, and I will be master of the whole universe. Is there a wind sign? Yeah, it's not sunset. They're not on a planet. Master of the whole universe. But so this leads into the space battle. So the Emperor is going to attack Zartharn's ship before they get to the city crash. Again, this battle has almost no dramatic interest, early on at least. It's just the gold spaceships zipping around, shooting lasers at the claw hand ship. Now, the battle, I think, gets very funny once it goes to the boarding parties when they shoot these torpedoes full of soldiers through the windows. We learn that Zarathran's ship has windows, not like a spaceship windows. It has windows like a house. Yeah. And they shoot these torpedoes through, which then open up like caskets, and the troops climb out, which, you know, I don't know. You can certainly, you know, argue about how sensible this is. But it looks really cool. I like this. I dug it every time it happened and kept hoping it would happen again, and luckily it kept happening. But it's so funny. Zartharn is walking around while his troops are shooting at the Emperor's troops, and Zartharn just keeps saying, kill, kill, over there, kill. I mean, he's really micromanaging here. You know, you don't have to tell us about which enemy troop we need to kill. We need to kill that one and that one. Just trust us to do our killing, sir. Yeah, kill over there. Yeah. So ultimately the attack fails Zarthorn retains control of his ship And Zarthorn says We've got to use the Doom Machine We're going to send it toward the Emperor's capital world And destroy the Imperial Planet And then at this point He just shouts his own name He screams Zarthorn I was thinking during all this It would be a pretty great name for a band Zarthorn and the Doom Machine Oh yeah, that would be great It's not already taken Should we cut this part out So we reserve that for ourselves. I mean, if someone were to really do it up, if someone could dress up as Zaratharn and then the band members could be dressed like the goons and the golems here, that would be pretty cool. It's a beautiful thing. So it looks like, you know, are the heroes defeated? Stellastar thinks so. As usual, she counsels despair. She says there's no way to win. Zaratharn has defeated us. But the emperor says, no, there is a way. There's one way left. if we're forced to use it, we can use Star Crash. And Simon realizes what his father is saying. He says, a fourth dimensional attack. What? So that's what they're going to do. This is what you were talking about earlier. The only way for them to win is for the greatest pilot in the universe, Stella Star, to pilot the floating city, which is something, in a fourth dimensional attack against the Count. And so they get everything ready and they put her in the pilot seat. And then Hasselhoff reveals, oh, by the way, your robot friend L that got smashed to pieces, he's okay. And they bring him out. And he's like, hey there, feels good to be turned on again. I have to say, this movie has less foreshadowing than I think any film I've ever seriously thought about. Like, there are all these major twists, and there's nothing to tease them out earlier on, even just a little bit. So you can guess what happens from here. They're basically going to ram Zartharn with the floating city, and then Stella and the robot, the L, they jump out a window into space before it hits, and they do that, and it works. Different spacesuit this time. This one's a little bit more traditional. I think I liked the toilet-headed one from earlier more. I thought that one was weirder looking. The clear toilet was better. I agree. And then Zartharn is, like, his troops are telling him, they're going to ram us. We have to escape. and he's like, come back, you fools, you cowards. And then the last thing Zartharn says is Zartharn. I was really hoping that he would get a Wrath of Khan moment where he's like, you know, busted up and, you know, from the heart of hell I stab at thee. But he doesn't get that option. And then the last thing we get, oh, so we get the reunion of Stella and, Stella Starr and David Hasselhoff, now they're in love and they stand there looking at each other and then the robot is like, oh, oh, I guess he's figuring out what's happening. And nobody remembers poor Acton. Completely dead. Nobody cares about him anymore. And then we cut away to the Emperor. The Emperor is going to play us out here. So the Emperor has the last line of the film. He said, this is his monologue. I wrote it down. well, by the way, he's sitting on a throne that looks like the Subaru logo, like the car company. It does kind of. I mean, it looks really cool, but it does look like the Subaru logo. Subaru logo. He says, well, it's done. It's happened. The stars are clear. The planets shine. We've won. Oh, some dark force, no doubt, will show its face once more. The wheel will always turn. But for now, it's calm. And for a little time, at least. We can rest. It's like a lullaby. Yeah. Star crash. We can rest. That's the tagline of the movie. It should be. Now, for a little time, we can rest. Yeah. Or they could have gone with it happened. They definitely have star crash. It's done. It happened. Well, that that I think is the greatest of the Star Wars knockoff films and a really beautiful experience, in my opinion. It is a beautiful experience. Yeah, if you were looking for a film with ludicrous dialogue, but also some very interesting visuals, you really have to see Star Crash. Star Crash is absolutely a must-see. And like I say, if you dig watching RISC content, that MS-23K episode, I think I said earlier, Jonah episode, very good. Check it out. But also, this is a film that absolutely stands on its own. Yeah, it is quite an experience. But it also might break something inside of you. Just so be aware. Know your own limits. Know your own strengths when it comes to films like this. Absolutely. Okay, I think that does it for me. All right, yeah, yeah. And, hey, maybe we'll have to come back to contamination in the future. Yeah. All right. So we'd love to hear from everyone out there. Do you have personal experience with Star Crash? Write in. Let us know about it. Where did you first see it? What did you think about it? I'd love to hear from anyone who saw it in the wake of the original Star Wars. What was that like, to have this film injected into the immediate cinematic environment? But any kind of connections you have with the film, write in. Let's talk about it. Just a reminder, Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed, wherever you get it, wherever you get your audio podcasts, or if you watch the video version on Netflix on Fridays, that is when we do a little weird house cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. Here's thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, You can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what y'all sing. yep that's me clippard taylor the fourth you might have seen the skits my basketball and college football journey or my career in sports media well now i'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast the clippard show this is a place for raw unfiltered conversations with athletes creators and voices that not only deserve to be heard but celebrated so let's get to it listen to the clippard show on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. On the Look Back at It podcast. 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex Egrish. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to Look Back at It on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.