Battle Beyond the Stars

Battle Beyond the Stars is a 1980 American space opera film directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, produced and distributed by Roger Corman's New World Pictures. It is a science fiction-themed interpretation of The Magnificent Seven (1960; itself a Western film version of Seven Samurai; 1954) in outer space. The film stars Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon, Sybil Danning, Darlanne Fluegel, Sam Jaffe, Jeff Corey, Morgan Woodward, Earl Boen, and Lynn Carlin. Back on Akir, Shad's sister Mol is captured by Malmori pilots Kalo and Tembo, with the intent to rape her. As Shad and Company return, their approach frightens the Malmori into attempting to escape. Mol interferes with their controls, allowing Gelt the opportunity to destroy their ship, killing all three. On the planet's surface, the heroes are greeted with caution by the natives, who are wary of violent species. When Sador returns, his Malmori forces are intercepted by Shad's hired warriors. Gelt dogfights his way to the Hammerhead, which shoots him down. Shad insists that Gelt be buried with a fresh-cooked meal, as that was their arrangement: a meal and a place to hide. Cowboy and the laser-toting Akira ward off a Malmori ground force backed by a Sonic Tank. Many of Sador's troops are killed, and their Sonic Tank is destroyed; however, many Akira die as well, including Zed.

After surviving an assassination attempt by Nestor, Sador launches the remainder of his fleet in a retaliatory strike against Akir. Saint-Exmin makes an attack run on Hammerhead, then blows herself up, achieving the glorious death that she sought by disabling the Stellar Converter. Although Sador's aerospace forces are wiped out, Hammerhead picks off all the remaining mercenaries with laser battery-fire and nuclear missiles. Only Nell, piloted by Shad and Nanelia, survives the Malmori onslaught. Crippled and unable to fight, Nell is captured by Hammerheads tractor beam. Nanelia and Shad activate Nell's self-destruct program, then flee in an escape pod. When Sador commands Nell to surrender, she detonates, causing his Stellar Converter to backfire and disintegrate Hammerhead. As Shad and Nanelia return to Akir, Nanelia despairs over their friends' deaths. Shad shares with her the teachings of Akir's "Varda": nobody is truly dead when they have been loved and are celebrated by the living. The Akira will always remember the sacrifices made by the mercenaries, who will forever be honored in the legends of Akir.

Cast

Richard Thomas as Shad, a young Akira farmer who looks for mercenaries to save his people. Over the course of the story, he evolves into the next Akira Corsair, brother of the ill-fated Mol.
Robert Vaughn as Gelt, a notorious assassin with an intergalactic bounty on his head. Despite his vast riches, all he wants now is "a meal and a place to hide" Vaughn played Lee in The Magnificent Seven, essentially the same character as Gelt.
John Saxon as Sador, leader of the evil Malmori raiders, is very old and keeps himself alive using transplants to renew his body. His role is analogous to the character of Calvera from The Magnificent Seven.
George Peppard as Space Cowboy, the only character from Earth, who is defined by his many one-liners and who becomes Shad's good friend.
Darlanne Fluegel as Nanelia, Dr. Hephaestus' beautiful daughter and Shad's love interest.
Sybil Danning as Saint-Exmin, a Valkyrie warrior looking to prove herself in battle. Much of the budget allegedly went toward paying the salaries of George Peppard and Robert Vaughn, since both of screenwriter Sayles' previous films were low-budget productions.

Up-and-coming screenwriter John Sayles had already written the Corman-produced The Lady in Red and Piranha, the latter of which was both a financial and critical success. At one point, Australian director Richard Franklin was attached to direct. However, he was replaced by Jimmy T. Murakami, a veteran animator who had previously been an uncredited co-director on Corman's Humanoids from the Deep.

The film was co-financed by Orion Pictures who distributed the film in Europe. (Corman had a relationship with those executives when they worked at United Artists and had done a similar thing with them on Piranha.)

The planet Akir and its inhabitants, the Akira, a peaceful alien race at the center of the conflict, were named in honor of director Akira Kurosawa, whose film Seven Samurai provided the framework for the plot.

Casting

Prior to production, a Hollywood trade paper announced that John Wayne would star in the film, under the direction of Ingmar Bergman. In all likelihood, this was a joke, either by the trade paper or the film's publicist.

George Peppard had been the original choice to play Vin in The Magnificent Seven. Robert Vaughn played Lee in The Magnificent Seven, and essentially reprised his role as 'Gelt'.

Julia Duffy made her film debut, playing Shad's sister. Kathy Griffin appeared as an Akira extra.

Filming

To save on costs, the film was produced in Corman's own studio, his "renowned lumberyard facility" in Venice, California.

Visual effects and art direction

Corman initially hired James Cameron as a model maker for his studio after being impressed with his short film Xenogenesis. When the original art director for the film was fired, Cameron became responsible for the majority of the film's special effects, or, as Cameron later put it, "production design and art direction". This was Cameron's first "big break" in the entertainment industry, and it helped to propel his career. He was recommended by long-time working partner and future wife Gale Anne Hurd, who was at the time working for Corman.

While Cameron initially worked on camera rigging, he soon started working on special effects and production design of interior sets. The low-budget led to Cameron's designing the spaceship's corridors out of spray-painted McDonald's containers. Cameron paid great attention to detail, and hardly slept for weeks while working on the film. His hard work paid off, as the special effects were one aspect of the film highly received by both fans and critics, opening the door for his later successes.

According to Hurd, actor Bill Paxton was employed on the set as a carpenter, which is where she first met him, before working with him and Cameron on Aliens: "So my first memory of Bill was him pounding nails and cracking everybody up. I mean, we'd be working at three or four in the morning and he would be the one who kept all our spirits up. He was that person on and off set".

Sound

The supervising sound editor, also responsible for special sound effects, such as Robert Vaughn's "laser shot" – based on Clint Eastwood's .44 Magnum from Dirty Harry – was David Yewdall, a regular contract-worker for Corman films. Yewdall later remarked on the "film's frugal sound editorial budget" in his Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound, and explained some of the movie's sounds: each of the seven spaceships had its own sound. The Nestor ship's sound was made from human voices generated by the community choir from his hometown college in Coalinga, California; Robert Vaughn's ship was based on the recording of a dragster.

Music

This was composer James Horner's third film score. He had previously worked on Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep and The Lady in Red, and the producer brought him back for Battle Beyond the Stars. The score features several elements that would become regular staples of Horner's many science fiction and adventure film scores. Several fans have noted similarities between these scores and those for later films, such as Krull and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Horner was to go on to become a regular collaborator with James Cameron, eventually winning an Academy Award for Best Original Score for Titanic.

Release

Battle Beyond the Stars was released into 330 theaters on July 25, 1980, grossing $1.732m in its first three days. Corman recouped his costs upon selling the foreign distribution to Orion Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures for $2.5 million. He also resold cable rights to HBO for $750,000.

The film was released on DVD on February 6, 2001, by New Concorde. The film was later picked up by Shout! Factory, who released it on DVD and Blu-ray in 2011 as part of the Roger Corman's Cult Classics series.

Reception

Battle Beyond the Stars received mixed reviews from critics due to its similar space opera styling, capitalizing upon the success of Star Wars. Cameron's special effects were praised as being impressive, considering the film's low budget, and helped to open the door for his future success.

In his Creature Features movie guidebook, John Stanley gave the movie three and a half stars, recommending the film for its fun script, special effects and its spirit of fun. Filmink called it one of George Peppard's "best ever films" in which his performance was "warm, funny, touching... this sort of performance was why Peppard remained employed, for all his issues."

Christopher John reviewed Battle Beyond the Stars in Ares Magazine #5:

The film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 50%, based on reviews from 14 critics.

Awards and nominations

Wins

Saturn Awards

Outstanding Achievement: Sybil Danning – 1981

Nominations

Saturn Awards

Best Science Fiction Film: 1981
Best Special Effects: Chuck Comisky – 1981
Best Costumes: Durinda Wood – 1981
Best Make-Up: Sue Dolph, Steve Neill, Rick Stratton – 1981

Battle Amongst the Stars comic book

A prequel comic book, set 30 years before the film, was launched by Bluewater Productions in March 2010. Battle Amongst the Stars is a four-part miniseries that tells the story of how Zed began his adventures from the planet Akir with Nell. It also has the characters of Dr. Hephaestus and Sador of the Malmori.

Reuse of footage

The starship footage was reused in another Roger Corman science fiction film, Space Raiders, blasted by critics, as well as in the ultra-low budget Corman features Starquest II, Vampirella, The Fantastic Four, Dead Space, and Forbidden World. This same footage was also reused in later films and video games: a clip from the film (in 3-D) is shown during the movie theater fight scene at the end of Bachelor Party, and footage was also used for the LaserDisc game Astron Belt. The soundtrack was later recycled by Corman for Raptor and other films. Sections of Horner's score were reused in Space Raiders and other Corman films.