Popular reviews

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  Review by Carlo 666 4

  "With a good script, a good director can produce a masterpiece. With the same script, a mediocre director can produce a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film. For truly cinematic expression, the camera and the microphone must be able to cross both fire and water. The script must be something that has the power to do this."

  — Akira Kurosawa

  "One of the space samurai should have really big boobies."

  — Roger Corman

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★ 7

  Corman produced intergalactic-planetary (planetary-intergalactic) low budget Seven Samurai space opera that mixes the best aspects of Star Wars and Star Trek while churning out some really interesting philosophical concepts that, at least for me, elevate this movie big time... hoisting itself alongside the previously mentioned titans of science fiction—plus elaborate sets, splendid colors, impressive effects, and like... it’s super fun, so yeah, 4 Stars.

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  Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★★½ 2

  Roger Corman’s answer to the hegemonic masculinity of the Millennium Falcon: A uterine-shaped starship with huge metal knockers and laser ovaries.

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  Review by Michael501 📺 ★★★ 4

  1980 in Review - September 

  A young farmer sets out to recruit mercenaries to defend his peaceful planet, which is under threat of invasion by the evil tyrant Sador and his armada of aggressors.
  This is one of the most important film of the early 80’s. Not only did it give James Horner his breakout as a composer, it was also the film that a young James Cameron met Gale Anne Hurd, together as producer and director they would make some of the best science fiction films of the 1980’s. 
  Now when I was a kid I used to venture into my local video shop almost every day, renting out whatever sci-fi or horror I could find, good or bad.…

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  Review by Marna Larsen ★★★★★

  This is just like...utter nonsense but I loved it? Like the guy who kept saying everyone's gonna die gets killed literally because he ran out where there was shooting to say that...this is probably going to get me kicked straight off the nerd planet, but the jokes here worked better for me than Spaceballs and I just enjoyed this better than I've ever really enjoyed Star Wars, plus John Saxon as an evil overlord and that awesome James Horner score! This was a lot of fun and a great addition to my Vestron vhs collection!

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  Review by Scott R ★★★

  Cult Challenge 2023
  Week 20, May 14 - May 20
  Psychotronic Encyclopedia 

  “I am from a warrior race! We exist for battle! Our creed is to live fast, fight well, and have a beautiful ending!”

  The Saturday Schlockyness continues with Battle Beyond the Stars, a loveably cheesy science fiction romp from the master of the B-cinema, Roger Corman! This one is like a Star Wars if everyone was really horny the entire time lol. 

  The effects are actually pretty good for the time I think. Nowhere near as good as the miniatures as Star Wars, but better than other rip offs from the era I think, like Message from Space. Lots of explosions and laser effects happening constantly (the laser sounds here…

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  Review by Joe ★★★★ 3

  Like all Star Wars knockoffs this feels noticeably confined compared to the genuine article, but unlike many of them it's actually trying to compete, with a fun array of spaceships and different alien creatures, including a pair of "Kelvins," a species that communicates via body heat. Speaking of, the recently departed John Saxon burns up the screen as Sador, the story's Darth Vader/Ming the Merciless with a penchant for appropriating the severed body parts of his enemies into his own anatomy.

  Great Moments in Screenwriting: John Sayles has two different characters, one a reptilian lizard man and the other a voluptuous space warrior princess, deliver the line "see you later, hot blood," to the hero, one after the other, each with completely different connotations. See now that's clever!

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  Review by threepenny ★★★½

  Like Star Wars, if Star Wars was made by a bunch of randy, frustrated teenagers. There are only three main female characters in the entire film: First, a spaceship with tits that acts like the hero's mother. He spends most of his time inside her womb like a baby as she tries to get him to man up. Second, there's a girl who was raised by robots and has never seen a man. Her cyborg father wants her to mate with our hero, so he escapes in terror. She escapes too, and for the rest of the movie most of her lines are asking for sex - oh and she's also a computer genius - ah, never mind - sex.…

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  Review by 📀 Cammmalot 📀 ★★½

  Do you have a high tolerance for pain?

  1977 - George Lucas puts the Hidden Fortress in space.

  1980 - Roger Corman puts the Seven Samurai in space!

  Featuring John-Boy as Luke and Colonel 'Hannibal' Smith as.... Han!

  Together with a random assortment of aliens and a sassy ship called Nell, they try to save a village planet from the evil Sador.

  As goofy as this sounds, what the film really needed was a lot more fun and a LOT more George Peppard.

  Yes, there’s some hilarious low budget moments, but I suspect by the end of my 1980 marathon Flash Gordon will prove itself to be the sole king of Cheesy Mountain.

  ”Even if we plug our ears we can’t get any closer!”

  
  Cinematic Time Capsule - 1980 Ranked

  Cinematic Cheese – 1980

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  Review by laird ★★★

  Not as "cheap" looking as I remembered from seeing it as a kid, but just as dull. The effects, it turns out, are the only real attraction here as John Sayles uninspired Seven Samurai variation doesn't really do much to link together the seemingly endless, unexciting scenes of ships/people/aliens firing lasers at each other. Sybil Danning and a fully-emboobened (I made that word up) space ship sex up the movie well beyond anything you would get in a non-Corman produced domestic Star Wars riff, but there's nothing sexual about how stiff the male lead is, just barely holding his own against George Peppard doing a weird cowboy shtick and Robert Vaughn who seems to be playing Roger Corman. This movie…

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  Review by DavidNeedToKnow ★★★★

  Ruthless invaders. A defenseless planet. And a daring band of space adventurers fighting to save it.

  ,,Battle Beyond the Stars’’ is campy early 80s sci-fi cheese at its very best! 

  If you like the poster of this film, you should watch it. It delivers what it promises. 

  I'm so happy at the moment to watch all this sword & sorcerer, martial arts, action and sci-fi trash films. Comfort food!

  Shad: ,,Can we outrun ‘em?’’
  Nell: ,,We sure as hell can’t OUTFIGHT ‘em, not with YOU in the drivers seat!’’

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  Review by Bob McQueen ★★★

  Gotta say, I'm kinda impressed by this movie. It's not as blatant of a Star Wars ripoff that you'd think it would be. The characters aren't completely lame and carbon copies of SW, Shad's ship looks like flying lady parts, there's criminals, lizard people, Sybil Danning, and more, all gathering together to fight the armless John Saxon. And James Horner really blasts out a classic scifi score even if it's not recognized that much for being a classic scifi score.