Year Of The Knockoff! Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983)

...then immediately exits space, never to be seen again.

Okay, after the one two punch that was Shocking Dark, it was tough to get right back into the saddle and watch another knockoff, so forgive the delay of this post. Steve and I had to have a spa weekend, apply some cucumber slices to our eyes, and listen to the calming sounds of nature just to feel feelings again. It was a tough journey, but we made it.

I decided to head back to the Star Wars well again, as there are so many films to choose from. Its the same well that provided me the opportunity to watch Message from Space, so I figured I might find another hidden gem of a film that was chasing the big big money and popularity of Star Wars. 

I didn't realize how right I would be that Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone was chasing the money and little else. Let's see what we can find in the Forbidden Zone. Maybe it will be a well developed plot and characters. Or maybe it will be filled with a frustrating Molly Ringwald performance and a villain named Overdog. Guess you will have to read on to find out.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing.

Here's a frustrating admission. I watched Spacehunter going on two weeks ago now and have struggled to put my thoughts together about it. I had 75% of this thing written, thought I had it saved and was going to finish it today. The Knockoff Gods, who are cruel, unusual, and very low budget, decided to blank all that poorly worded humor and observation. Spacehunter may end up being the death of me, but I will try to push on. There are greater tragedies in life than losing a few hundred words about a shitty movie, but I really didn't want to go through it again.

...but I must persevere. IN 3D!

Short story long: A space cruise ship has a horrible accident, maybe they hit a space iceberg, and explodes. One emergency shuttle carrying three women escapes and lands on the closest habitable planet, Terra XI. The women are soon found by the locals, called Scavs, and are captured by them.

A space wide (?) distress signal is then sent out explaining the accident and that there is a reward for the return of the three women. Han Solo Wolff (Peter Strauss) aboard the Millennium Falcon Junky Salvage Ship, hears the message, mainly just the part about the payday, decides that he and his sexy sidekick and engineer, Chalmers (Andrea Marcovicci), are going to go to Terra XI and rescue the three women. They promptly leave space and land on the planet.

Ten minutes in and we have now left the only part of the film that takes place in SPACEhunter.

Wolff and Chalmers are able to track the women's signal and find the Scavs mid route to wherever their vehicle was heading. I used the word vehicle because I am not sure how to classify it. Is it a train with a sail? Is it a boat on tracks? Why do you need a crow's nest if you are just going to be heading along the track that is laid out in front of you? Are there life rafts or just smaller trains people get into in the case of emergency?

So do the sails help it catch fossil fuels in order for the train to operate?
I am beginning to think Spacehunter did not think its world building all
 the way through. 

Just before Wolff and Chalmers can engage the Scavs, they are beset upon by Zoners, people who I am guessing are from the zone that is forbidden, to take the women for themselves. They use space age future tech like motorcycles and hang gliders to accomplish their task.

THE FUTURE OF SPACE COMBAT!

Wolff joins the fray but fails to secure the women, and the Zoners get away with them. The Scavs explain to Wolff that the Zoners are going to take the women to The Chemist, a metal plated weirdo who talks like Tommy Wiseau, who will prep them for his leader, a man called Overdog (more on him later).

Wolff finds out that Chalmers was fatally shot during the fray and we learn that she was robot. A robot that he flirted with and had her wear a long tee shirt as a nightgown. Not exactly the same relationship that Luke Skywalker had with C-3PO.

Or was it? 

Wolff just kind of sighs and presses a button on a remote that causes Chalmers to disintegrate. He says something about her model being great. And that's that. Exit Chalmers; a character set up at the very start to have something to do but is unceremoniously turned to goo. This is twenty minutes into the movie.

I don't want to know what Wolff does with robots he doesn't find attractive.

Wolff heads off to explore some abandoned research base when he hears his vehicle being stolen. He runs outside to discover who the thief is. She is a young Scav named Niki (Molly Ringwald) who is mouthy, cocky, and speaks a jumbled form of English that never once was believable or enderaring.

She tells Wolff that she knows how to get to the Forbidden Zone and can 'track him good' (or something like that, I am really hard pressed to go back and get the exact quote right).

Quick aside: I love Molly Ringwald. I grew up in the 80's and she was one of my early crushes. Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, all good movies and she is good in them. With that being side, she is not good in Spacehunter. Like, she makes my teeth grind when she talks about how she can 'track good.' It is probably more the fault of the script and the original director (who was replaced late in the production by the much more competent Lamot Johnson) that worked with her, but man her character never grew on me like it was intended. Wolff came to value her, I never did.

Niki, I know you are going to have a smart ass grating comment about what I
just said, but let's just both agree that we don't need to hear it. 

The movie then becomes a series of events that delay Wolff and Nikki from getting to said Zone. They come across weird pale white flabby obese man babies, water hobos, a large snake dragon thing, etc. You know, all the things you would find on your typical journey to the Forbidden Zone.

All along the way, Wolff is warming up to Niki and I am just looking at the time remaining in the film.

There is one bright spot in their trek.

Ernie 'Oh Thank God He Is Here To Elevate This Film' Hudson.

Also, he can wear the hell out of that space suit.

His character is Lando Washington, a past associate of Wolff's and is there in a official space government capacity to rescue the three women. They butt heads but eventually join forces.

You may think I was making a pretty poor joke calling Hudson's character Lando, but that's actually why he was cast. The producers at least had a inkling of what people liked about Star Wars and tried to emulate the charm of Billy Dee Williams. I will always agree with putting Ernie Hudson in any movie. He just has an ease and wit that is infinitely appealing. So you win this round, Spacehunter.

So Wolff and Washington (and Niki, sigh) make their way across the desert planet of Utah Terra XI in their made for the toy shelf vehicles, soon arriving at the Forbidden Zone. 

I kind of want these as toys. I am not going to lie. 

This is where we learn that The Chemist and Overdog are keeping the three women, and a number of Scavs, captive. The Scavs are being used as fodder for Overdog's death maze, which is exactly what it sounds like. Spikes, flames, whirring buzzsaw blades, the whole shebang. Its like a less dangerous version of Ninja Warrior. This maze is used entertainment for Overdog's minions. If the Scav makes it through, they live. Supposedly.

Wolff and Washington have a plan to go rescue the women and free the Scavs, and Niki's part of the plan is to stay in the truck and not do anything. So Niki does the exact opposite of this and gets immediately captured by The Chemist and put before Overdog. 

This is Overdog. 

Billy Corgan has not aged well.

Overdog, played by the always badass Michael Ironsides, was a human once that somehow figured out how to absorb the essence of others in order to prolong his life. It's not quite clear, but it appears that he prefers younger stronger unblemished specimens in order to get the most bang for his buck. Or, he is just a creeper the likes younger women. Probably more the latter than the former. He sees Niki and is intrigued by her and offers her a deal, make it through the death maze and she can walk free.  

She makes it through and he decides to keep her anyway. Did anyone really think that the bad guy named Overdog was going to honor his word?

Wolff is now dead set on saving Niki. But he has to go through The Chemist first. Please see the entirety of the fight below. 

So did he get stabbed with a milk dagger or was he full of milk already?

Did I forget to mention that Overdog has large crane machine like hands and can shoot fireballs from them? Part of me wonders if Michael Ironsides isn't just like that in real life and they have to apply make up to make him look like a human.

The sad reality is that everytime he tries to pick up his favorite teddy bear, it just
slips out of the tips of the claws.

For a bad guy that looks kind of cool, Overdog can't actually move around all that well. He failed to understand the rules of being the boss at the end of a video game: you can't stay stationary or else the good guy is going to figure out your attack pattern and take advantage of it.

Suffice to say, Wolff fought (Over)Dog and won. The Scavs were freed, the women were rescued, the zone is no longer forbidden, Washington got to look cool while doing it, and Wolff rescued Niki. Wolff was about to head back to space, and I was about to get excited to see SPACE in SPACEhunter, and decided that Niki should join him as his new partner. The end.

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone does not have a lot tonally in common with Star Wars. It actually has a lot more of Mad Max's DNA in it. The film is described as a space western and I can see that to a degree (a very minor one). Wolff is easily a stand in for the rough and tumble gun for hire that is normally just in it for the money but who's moral compass keeps putting him into the reluctant hero role. His road trip across Terra XI with Niki reminds me of a few westerns where the two main characters are forced to get along but then grow to depend on each other. It doesn't hurt that it looks like most of this film was shot in Utah, with at least part of it clearly in Monument Valley. If you can't afford space, you can at least afford dust.

So why does this show up on a list of knockoff Star Wars films? The big reason, I believe, is its purposeful release date of May 20th 1983, just before Return of the Jedi came out. The producers knew people were going to be excited to see that film and they wanted to position Spacehunter as an appetizer to that main course. From a programming standpoint, it makes sense. I think this film is more of a knockoff in the 'let's make a sci-fi film because Star Wars is big right now' as opposed to 'Star Wars is big right now, let's make something like that.' 

Is Spacehunter enough of its own film that had I not seen it referenced on a list of Star Wars knockoffs, would I have known that is what it wanted to be? I think so. I am not saying it is a very good movie, but it stands on its own just enough that I never got the feeling that I saw bright red neon signs flashing 'Star Wars! Star Wars! Just Like Star Wars!' when watching any particular portion of it. There are bits that are somewhat similar (more on that below) but I don't think I would have associated it with Star Wars had I not already been thinking about Star Wars. 

Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone would be a good companion piece to Krull, another film that came out in the wake of Star Wars's success that was supposed to be the springboard for a new franchise but never got off the ground. Both clearly have their sights set on capturing the audience that was over the moon about Star Wars but both head in different enough directions that they have their own personalities, flawed as they may be. I can at least appreciate that something different was attempted, even if I didn't over all enjoy it.

If you want to spend a lazy afternoon seeing what could have been, Spacehunter can be worth the trip. If you don't have a stomach for troubled productions, muddled story telling, and annoying characters that get way too much screen time, then maybe the Forbidden Zone is not your choice destination. 

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I am going to give Spacehunter a 3. There are some similarities, which I will list now:

• The film starts with the loss to a larger spaceship that sends an escape pod away.
• An all desert planet.
• The three women's escape pod suit were shiny gold metal, which I think is more of a nod to C-3PO.
• A sand tank.
• A water/sewer serpent.
• Bad guys all in black armor.
• Oh, little people in the desert kind of like the Jawas. 
• A young annoying person who wanted to get away from the regular life. 
• There is actually one point where Wolff kicks his ships computer and it makes an actual R2-D2 sound. On purpose.

Outside of the R2 noise, I would have probably just glanced over a lot of these details had I not be specifically looking for them. But they are there and likely would not be there had they not being chasing Star Wars.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator is also similar to Spacehunter in the sense that Ator was clearly made in response to Conan's success but also marches to its own beat for the most part. I enjoyed Ator more because it leaned into the ridiculousness full tilt while I feel Spacehunter played itself relatively straight and safe.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else? 

Like I said above, only if you are curious as to see what other studios were doing at the time trying to get a small slice of that Star Wars pie. Otherwise, I would rather watch Bob and Doug McKenzie spoof this kind of film making with their short epic, The Mutants of 2051 A.D. over and over again.

Bonus:

The whole film is up for free on Archive.org if you feel the need to see it.

'Spacehunter = Old Sci Fi Film'
I don't know how that math works, but I appreciate it.

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Year Of The Knockoff! Message from Space (1978)

No robot that sounds like a cowboy? I am ou- Wait, is that an actual Space Ship? I am back in.

As we just dug deep into talking about Star Wars (before it was called A New Hope) and its Italian knockoff, Starcrash (it was always called Starcrash) on our most recent episode, I figured there had to be other efforts out there that tried to find the magic that made Star Wars go right or the lack there of that made Starcrash go so wonderfully wrong. 1978's Message from Space rests in the area between the two.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing.

I will start off trying to explain the context in which Message from Space exists. If you are more than a passing fan of Star Wars, you know that George Lucas was heavily influenced by Japanese cinema, especially Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (Someone much more knowledgeable than myself has taken the time to write about these influences and connections, I would suggest checking that piece out). So when Star Wars became the biggest movie at the time, everyone wanted a piece of that action and attempted to make their own star war. Enter the Toei Company. They are a hugely successful Japanese film and TV production company that are responsible for creating and/or distributing a lot of popular live action super hero and fantasy fare (they did do that odd Japanese Spider-Man series where uses a large robot to fight his enemies, and they have had their hand in some of the Power Rangers productions to name a few).

So in a very basic nutshell you have a well known Japanese Production company that has a solid background in fun live action cinema doing their take on a Ameriance made property that was heavily influenced by other Japanese films. The snake really does start to eat itself at this point and it is easy to argue that Lucas made a knockoff of The Hidden Temple and that Toei was just taking back what was already their's. I can see that argument. My counter point to that is that Message from Space would have never been made had Star Wars not been made first.

We start off on the Planet Jillucia, in another galaxy (far far away), which has been conquered by Emperor Rockseia XXII of the Gavanas Empire. The Jillucians do not want to surrender to the empire and decided to use their last hope for survival. The elder leader of the tribes sends out 8 Liabe Seeds that will seek out 8 people destined to help them fight back. The elder then tasks his granddaughter, Princess Emeralida and the warrior named Urocco to follow where the seeds go and bring back the 8. 

Their mode of travel is a space... ship.  I couldn't find a good screen capture of it from the film, but below is some concept art.

Does this mean there is a space Long John Silver's with space Hush Puppies?

I knew I was down for whatever Message from Space was going to do heading forward because there is something so weird and wonderful about seeing the Jillucia space boat setting sail to head out on a desperate mission.

The Emperor sees this last ditch effort to defy him and sends his own ship, which looks a lot more like Star Wars, to track down the Princess and bring her back. 

Darth Vader ain't got nothing on Emperor Rockseia XXII.

The story then shifts to Earth where we meet a number of people that may or may not have been chosen by Liabe Seeds to assist the Jillucians. Here is a quick breakdown of each:

• Shiro and Aaron: two 'roughriders' that basically are space drag racers that just want to have fun and avoid the space patrol. They owe money to a mobster because they took a loan out to work on their ships. 
• Jack: a friend of Shiro and Aaron. He is always dressed stylish and really only looks out for himself when push comes to shove.
• Meia: a rich girl who befriends Shiro and Aaron after they buzz her ship while racing. She knows they need money and she wants adventure. 
• General Garuda (played by Vic Marrow): a long serving military man who suddenly retires because he disagreed with the government's mandatory decision to deactivate his years long faithful robot companion. He decides to wear a pimp jacket and large hat and spend the rest of his days drinking.
• Beba-2: the new robot companion for Garuda. He is quick with a joke and warns Garuda to not drink so much.

Meia, knowing that Shiro and Aaron need cash quick, asks them to take her back to the asteroid belt where she first saw them at as she wants to go collect 'fireflies' which is some kind of radioactive phenomenon in space. It's as weird as it sounds. 

All you need to survive in space is a face mask and the ability to swim.

They soon find the Jillucian space boat and see that the Princess Emeralida and Urocco are hurt. The Emperor's ship soons arrive. Shiro, Aaron, and Meia decide to rescue them and take them back to Earth. 

Soon, some of them start finding Liabe Seeds that seem to be seeking them all out specifically. They show up in odd places, like Shiro's ship, Jack finds one in a tomato he bit into, and Garuda finds one in his drink. 

I thought this drink tasted a bit glowy.

The princess and Urocco try to convince the Liabe seed chosen that they are needed in order to help their people fight and defeat the empire. After some discussion, most of them don't really believe that this is a sign of fate and don't want to get tangled up in a fight that's a whole galaxy away. The princess decides to keep on trying to find the remaining four seed holders, believing they are on Earth and that they will help.

Jack double crosses her and sells her to an old mountain woman (witch?) and soon the Empire finds the orincess and takes her and the witch back to Jillucia. Here the Emperor scans the old woman's mind and discovers the beauty of Earth. He decides that Earth would be the ideal location for his throne from which can rule the galaxy. He then orders that Jillucia be turned on, as it is now revealed that planet has been turned into one large ship/weapon, and head towards Earth.

Once the Emperor arrives, he gives Earth three days to surrender. The Liabe Chosen start to realize that the fight has come to them and they have to make a decision. The roughriders and Meia decide to fly to Jillucia and try to rescue the Princess but get side tracked (Meia's Liabe Seed explodes and bounces all over the ship causing them to crash land on a different planet... it's weird) and meet what appears to be a Gavanas warrior. They soon find out that this warrior is not like the rest of the Empire and was the original heir to the throne but was pushed out of power by Rockseia. Prince Hans, with his own Liabe Seed, joins their team.

Prince Hans is played by Sonny Chiba. The badass score of Message from Space just went up a billion percent.

Is that a Space Hattori Hanzo sword he is carrying?

On Earth, the Earth Council reaches out to General Garuda, asking him to be the envoy on behalf of Earth, to speak to the Emperor. Garuda agrees to do this as he has always defended Earth and as he has a Liabe Seed, he knows it is his destiny. Garuda's secret assignment is to buy as much time as he can so that Earth can get its defenses in place to the challenge the Empire.

And to look dapper AF while doing it.

The Emperor calls out Garuda and his plan to stall for time. He decides to show Garuda and Earth that he is deadly serious in his intention to take the Earth by using a show of force.

...by DESTROYING THE MOON.

Werewolves everywhere cried out in relief.

No one really understands that by having the moon destroyed that the Earth is pretty much screwed anyway, but hey if there can be space boats and space seeds of destiny, then I guess the Earth doesn't need the tide cycle of the oceans to survive. 

Soon, all of the main characters (and the identities of all the 8 seed chosen) are on the surface of Jillucia, and trying to come up with a plan to defeat the Empire. They figure out that best way to win is to destroy a portion of the engine that is inside the planet. The only access point to this part is through a narrow corridor and only a crazy person would try to fly a ship in there. Shiro and Aaron are just crazy enough to try it. While they are completing their task, Garuda and Prince Hans challenge the Emperor and his men in order to distract them from the princess rescuing her people and getting them safely onto the space boat and off the planet. 

The leads to a badass showdown between Prince Hans and Emperor Rockseia.

There is so much awesome going on right now that no caption will do it justice.

Do the heroes win? Does the Empire lose? I am pretty sure you know how this ends. The only big thing left unaddressed is what is Earth going to do without a moon. I mean that really bothers me, because I have seen what happens when the moon is destroyed.

I really enjoyed Message from Space. It has the heart and story telling that Starcrash did not have while still having some silly effects that the 'limited' budget (it cost between 5-6 million, which at that time was the most expensive Japanese film ever made... Star Wars had an 11 million dollar budget by comparison) could not overcome at times. That does not mean that this film doesn't look big in scope and is not epic in its own ways. I would argue the some of the costume designs, especially that of Prince Hans and Emperor Rockseia, are on par or better than some of the ones in Star Wars. Even the more official dress worn by General Garuda was a great choice, it gave his role more weight as he negotiated with the Emperor. 

I want to mention the model work and the action set pieces as well. The model work here wasn't as ground breaking as Star Wars, though it was pretty damn close. The gif below is a quick segment of Shiro and Aaron drag racing in the asteroid belt. The shake of the camera and the use of the asteroids flying by in the background give these ships a sense of speed that Starcrash just never had. The effect looks more realistic to me than even some of the X-wing and Tie fighter movements in Star Wars. Message from Space's spaceship action worked way more often than not and it is something to see. 

DANGER ZONE!

I also want to speak about Vic Morrow for a moment. The cast in Message from Space is quite large and he is not always in the forefront of it. However, when he is on screen, his disillusioned and jadedness can really be felt. He served his country and planet for years and feels that it has gotten him nothing but frustration and the bottom of many bottles. When he is given a purpose again, he lights up just as much as the Liabe Seed that chose him. It's a great performance from a man that was coming into his prime at a later stage of his career. It is shame he didn't get a chance to do to much more work. 

My opinion of this film may be a little skewed as I went from never knowing this film existed little under 24 hours ago to diving deep into what I could find out about its production (sadly there isn't much out there at first glance, at least for a US audience) and being charmed off my ass while watching it. I have been entertained by all of the Year of the Knockoff films we have watched for the show, but usually it is in what they fail to do or in their failure of execution, but Message from Space is that rare gem I had hoped to find in my journey this year: a film that takes what was successful before it and then takes it into a different enough direction that makes it its own. 

If you consider yourself a fan of Star Wars and can watch a film that doesn't always take itself so seriously, I would recommend you see out Message from Space. Give it a few minutes and you will want to go on that space boat ride with it.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give Message from Space an 8. Here are the things that it has in common with Star Wars:

• An evil empire bent on domination with its leader all clad in black.
• A planet sized weapon that can destroy other planets a moon.
• Light saber-ish weapons. There was a laser whip at one point and Prince Hans's sword would emit energy every so often.
• Cocky flyboy pilots that took chances and owed money to organized crime.
• a club full of weird costumed people and robots with music playing.
• A princess dressed in white that was seeking out others to help them fight the empire.
• Force like powers of destiny in seed form.
• A hologram like projection of the Emperor.
• A trench run with small spaceships in order to access the one weak spot of the large planet sized weapon.
• A robot that makes jokes.

The only reason I am not giving it a ten is because it does enough on its own that is great that it should be recognized as such but the Star Wars influence is super heavy here.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator is more fun for its low budget restrictions and story decisions but Message from Space is just a better film that is a joy to watch. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

In a heartbeat. If you have any interest in heading off the beaten path even just a little bit, this film is a big recommendation to anyone that loves fun movies. 

Bonus:

The score of the film is quite nice and very John Williams like at times and other times it has the horns of a spaghetti western. Not all of it is a winner (the modern dance club portions are not great). Worth a listen at least for the intro theme.

Bonus Bonus:

The whole film is up on Youtube. Not the best quality version but certainly very watchable. 

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. 

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Year Of The Knockoff! Saturn 3 (1980)

Farrah Fawcett looks like she knows she made a huge mistake. Kirk Douglas looks like he just doesn't care.

I know I just covered an Alien knock off, but I had forgotten that 4.26 was Alien Day, so I figured why not jump right back into the Alien pool with another 1980 quick cash grab attempt that had a higher budget than Contamination, but somehow has a plot that makes less sense. Let's take off for the land of weird sex urges and tiny headed robots, Saturn 3.  

One of the few occasions where the trailer 

tells you more story than the film did.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing. 

The film starts off with Captain James running late to his shuttle to start his mission on Saturn 3. While in the locker room (?) changing, Captain Benson (Harvey Keitel.. in face only, he wouldn't change his Brooklyn accent, so he was overdubbed the entire film) is upset he wasn't given the mission as he had failed a mental exam and decides to do what any stable person would do: open the roof of the locker room to space and let Captain James get shattered/torn apart.

I don't think gravity or anything at all works like that.

Shortly thereafter, Benson is on his way to Saturn 3 with some very specific cargo. Once he lands, he is met by Adam (Kirk Douglas) and Alex (Farrah Fawcett). Saturn 3 is an 'experimental food research station (this facet of the film and story is never mentioned again and it makes me wonder why it was needed at all)' and they are the only two on the station. Well them and their dog. Also, Adam and Alex are a couple. I mean, there isn't too many other options on a space station with two people. 

They also have a control room that looks like it would be the coolest pinball parlor in the whole solar system.

Benson is very agitated by their lack of productive research and is there to help them start getting results. He immediately sees Alex and asks if he 'can use her body for pleasure'. That's how he asks it. He states that on Earth, people use each other all the time for pleasure. Since that sounds really sexy, Alex says no. Benson will not let go of his fixation on her. Adam doesn't see Benson as a threat as we all know that Adam is just secretly playing himself and Kirk Douglas is not afraid of any man. 

Benson's cargo is soon revealed to be a robot. Not just any robot, a new 'Demigod Series' robot named Hector. Hector looks to stand about 7 feet talk, with large legs and a hefty torso that holds a tube full of pure brain tissue (it looks like 10+ human brains all jammed together). He is intended to learn the roles of Adam and Alex, increase efficiency and then replace one of them.

Two things to know about Hector:

1. Hector can learn on his own but his learning is accelerated when Benson takes over 'direct control' via a remote control port in the back of his neck. This has the side effect of Hector knowing everything about Benson, including his unhealthy attraction to Alex and that Benson zero gravity murdered that other guy earlier.
2. He looks like this:

Tiny head, tiny head, Hector's got a tiny head.

It is hard to take a film about a large and potentially killer robot seriously when its head looks like a rejected Erector Set project. When I learned that that this film initially had a higher budget but another film being made by the same company at the time was running over budget and caused this one to run short, decisions like the design for Hector kind of make sense. "Hey guys, I got the legs and torso built. This robot is going to be a hulking killing machine. Hector is going to be the new face of terror." "Bill, we have to tell you that we only have 15 more dollars for the robot." "Oh, I will figure something out that will look just as cool as what is in my head." I thought poor Hector was just the victim of money drying out...

...I then learned the Hector design at the time cost around a million dollars. "Bill, we gave you a million dollars for a robot, what did you do?" "Don't worry guys, I just won't build a head. Problem solved."

To be fair, Nintendo tried the same thing a few years later with about as much success.

Anyway, Hector is also attracted to Alex and tries to remove anything that stands in the way of it and her having a weirder relationship than the 32 year old Farrah Fawcett and the 62 year old Kirk Douglas. 

Hector tries to seduce Alex through the power of well played Chess.
He heard that Deep Blue got a lot of trim that way.

Alex is not interested in Hector, so he does what any robot that has been imprinted by a psychopath would do: He kills her dog and then proceeds to grab her and pick her up off the ground.

That's probably the right number of alarms for something like that.

So Benson gets trapped trying to save Alex and Adam runs in to save the day. Seriously, they make it a point through out the film to show how spry and in shape Kirk Douglas is (more on that later). Adam convinces Benson to dismantle Hector and for him to leave with the robot as soon as he can. Benson does as he is told, but as soon as he leaves the room, Hector somehow is able to use the other shitty robots on the station to reassemble him. Now that I think about it, Hector is just a shitty version of Ultron.

Hector is then back on the slowly moving rampage. Benson decides he has had enough of Alex not letting him use her body and decides that he is going to take her with him on his ship off of Saturn 3. This results in two amazing moments:

1. Kirk Douglas nude wrestling and choking Harvey Keitel.

You're welcome.

    

  2. Harvey Keitel getting dehanded by Hector.. and then Farrah Fawcett's appropriate reaction.

"Unhand her!" says Hector from the tiniest robot mouth ever.

Benson is then drug away, leaving Adam and Alex to figure out how to escape the station and Hector. As they run around the station, they discover that Hector is using all the cameras to track their every movement. They break the camera in their hydroponics lab and set the the ultimate trap...

...just kidding, they figure out that the top heavy robot is easily knocked over as if it were a badly posed He-Man figure.

Will robot on robot violence ever end?

Film over? No, then this is where it gets odd. As Adam and Alex try to escape, Hector somehow manages to free himself of the watery grave he was tipped into and destroys their escape ship and then subdues the both of them. They awake to find that Hector has taken control of the station and can now use their voices to communicate to the outside world. He tells a patrol ship that everything is fine and they say they will be back in six months. Soon it becomes apparent that Hector wants to take direct control of Adam's brain and keep Alex alone on the station.

They then find out the sorta gruesome fate of Benson as well. 

"Now you can call me Sorta Normal Head Hector."

Adam figures out a way to lure Hector out of hiding and sacrifices himself to save Alex by blowing up both him and Hector. 

Alex then heads to earth. Lessons learned?

The End.

So the question: what does this have in common with Alien? It is a remote outpost that makes travel to and from it difficult, so it does try have an isolation feel to it. Alien did have robot who went crazy, Ash, and Hector certainly did do that as well. The hallways of Saturn 3 had the grid/grated flooring like the Nostromo and later on Adam and Alex were crawling underneath it while Hector was stalking them from above. The shafts of light coming through were very Alien-esque. The one computer Hector used to initially 'talk' Benson make the same clacking sounds that the Mother computer made in Alien. It has a female lead who survives till the end.

Oh, and the title sequence attempted to ape Alien with how different parts of the letters appear to make the title of the film. (Last gif, I promise):

This is actually on of my favorite parts of the whole movie.
Too bad it is the very beginning of it.

Saturn 3 has no atmosphere and feels flat through out the entire run time. I know I showed some crazy/silly moments above but I think they exist due to the budget and the weird direction the script went. You can see that there was money spent on Saturn 3, the sets are pretty good and some of the imagery is interesting. I do think that as they budget started to fluctuate, the vision for this film did too. Not that it was the strongest to being with, but some of the ideas in it could have had some legs had better thought been put into it. I am not saying that a robot that is imprinted with the mindset of sex driven unstable man is high art, but it could have at least been a lens in which to have the Benson character see how he sees himself as it was projected through Hector. But this isn't what Saturn 3 wanted to be. It was trying to be exploitative by using the success of Alien to make a sci-fi vehicle that would flash Farrah Fawcett's breasts and Kirk Douglas's ass briefly, thinking that would somehow appeal to different generations of audiences. 

Saturn 3 is not a good film. It isn't a bad film (okay, it's kind of bad). It is a forgettable film which I believe is a greater sin. If you are going to have that weird of a robot design, Harvey Keitel being a creeper, and a pretty big budget, then go down swinging. Get weird. Have Kirk Douglas nude wrestle the robot or something for heaven's sake. Make Saturn 3 a trip worth taking.  

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give Saturn 3 a... 3. They got a little bit right but had I not known this was chasing after the success of Alien, I wouldn't have thought about it.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Like I said before, you can tell a decent amount of money was spent of this film, so production wise it is (tiny) head and shoulders above Ator. Fun wise though? Ator the Fighting Eagle soars above this.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

Only for people that have the patience of Job like I do to see what happens when money is spent chasing something that those involved don't quite understand why the original source worked. 

Bonus:

To show how weird this film could have been, here is a deleted scene showing Alex and Adam taking a drug (what they call a Blue Dreamer). Watch how fast Farrah Fawcett changes outfits. 

Bonus Bonus:

If you want to take the trip to Saturn 3, it is free(ish) on YouTube. Weird brief nudity and all.

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

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Year Of The Knockoff! Contamination (1980)

In honor of the egg related holiday weekend, I thought I would take a look at a not so egg-cellent unofficial sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, Alien. Contamination feels like if Alien was written over and over again due to budget restraints but at the same time the plot got fuzzier and fuzzier with each rewrite. This is what Alien would look like it there was such a thing as an R-rated made for TV film.

This film, made by director Luigi Cozzi, fresh off his success (?) of the Star Wars cash in, Star Crash (don't worry people, that one is going to be covered on the podcast and we can't wait), wanted to make a direct sequel to the original alien. He literally wanted to call this film Alien Arrives on Earth. 

His producers changed the title against his will. I am not sure if that was a right or wrong decision.

The film starts off with a cargo ship, the Caribbean Lady, heading into New York at a great rate of speed with apparently no crew to be seen. Without explaining how, they get the empty ship to dock and a bunch of cops and science guys suit up in white decontamination suits and board the ship. Among them is Lt. Tony Aris. I mention Tony because he is in the rest of the film and I am not sure what purpose he serves. He and the rest of the investigators eventually find the remains of the captain and the crew. They look like something exploded from inside of them. Everyone takes this in stride, no big deal, all these dudes exploded. Mondays, right?

They discover that the ship is carrying nothing but boxes labeled as coffee. They dismiss coffee as the culprit as it wouldn't make people explode (but we know it can.) Soon, they find an open box.

I mean, I would drink some after it was ground up. I drink
  Monster and it probably has real monsters in it.

One of the eggs is near some pipes and is glowing. The guys that were just openly wondering what would cause all the crew to explode decide to do the rational thing: pick up the glowing egg that is making noise. 

It doesn't go well.

It explodes and its gunk hits most people, except for Tony. After a moment, they all explode. He freaks out, understandably.

Tony is taken into custody by the government and put in quarantine. We then meet Col. Stella Holmes, who is seen here, talking to some guy in a lab coat by the coolest computer ever.

Seriously, this thing could just make toast and it would still be the coolest.

She decides to keep Tony around as he saw what happened and because he is a cop, he may be able to help them find leads (or something, you would think the government would be able to do that part on their own). They then proceed to the rat destruction lab to show everyone what happens when you put the egg juice into a body.

No Patton Oswalts were harmed during the making of this gif.

They determine that the eggs are heat sensitive and once they reach a certain temperature, their contents become toxic. They also determine that they are not earthly in origin. This is when Stella remembers that there was a previously undisclosed mission to Mars in which one of the two men who returned was deemed crazy because he talked about seeing a bunch of eggs. 

Stella goes to see Commander Ian Hubbard, who is now a shut in drunk thanks to her assessment that he was crazy. She make him tell her about the mission from 'a long time ago.' So he starts talking about how all of this happened two years ago (I am not sure how he got there and back so fast). The film then flashes back to Ian and his partner, Hamilton, as they are walking on the north polar ice cap of Mars. They enter a cave that looks a lot like a mouth with gaping teeth and find a tunnel lined with eggs. A bright light starts to appear at the end of the cave.

Look at all of those peas, I mean eggs!

Ian seems to be not affected by the light but Hamilton is a little more so.

This is how Steve looks at me when I try show him anything about Overwatch.

Stella believes Ian is now telling the truth and recruits him to go with her and Tony to South America to investigate the coffee production plant. He reluctantly agrees to go. This sets up a forced love triangle between Stella, Ian, and Tony. It does not serve the film well. 

I should also mention that Stella, a high ranking official in the government, lets Tony slap her across the face during an argument and she lets it go. It was a bit off putting to see it almost be forgotten as fast as it happened and how suddenly she started to respect him more. Go go awkward work place sexual politics. 

Then the gang flies to South America to Scooby Doo around the coffee place. 

This is about the halfway point in the film and for as silly/gory/goofy as it was heading into this point, it had some energy and I was enjoying it. The wheels fall off suddenly as the movie grinds to a halt as there is a prolonged sequences of driving around the country, everyone getting settled into their hotel rooms, Ian and Tony bickering over Stella, and then Stella taking a shower.

The film tries to up the ante by having a mysterious stranger put an egg in her bathroom with her. She notices the pulsing egg (that is supposed to react immediately to heat but seems like it is not bothered by the steam from her shower) and does try to escape the bathroom. Of all the bad decisions this film makes, I can't forgive her for never trying to cover the egg up. She knows it can explode at any moment and that it reacts to heat, but nah, I am just going to try to jimmy the lock open and then sit down with my back against the door. Maybe she was worried she would get charged for using extra towels.

After she is rescued, they investigate the coffee plant. They discover that Hamilton, Ian's Mars mission partner, was compromised by the light in the cave and is now doing the will of 'The Cyclops.'

The big plan was to get its eggs all over the world... for something. It is never clear what the eggs do other than make people and rats explode. Maybe it is just an angry disapproving alien and wants to make everything explode.

Or that it is angry to be in this film.

The Cyclops is kept in the lower floors of the plant and doesn't seem to move much. It does mentally force people to walk towards it so that it can eat them. I wish I had that power with pizza rolls. Tony exits the film by being sucked into The Cyclops, where he can't slap anyone anymore.

The design of The Cyclops looked familiar.

Don't blame me, I voted for the other one.

It makes me wonder if the people behind the Simpsons saw this film and was inspired. If so, kudos (kodos?) to them.

Eventually, Ian and Stella stop The Cyclops, Hamilton explodes for reasons and they world is safe...

...until we see a busy street in New York in which an egg is somehow mixed in with the trash and it explodes. 

The end?! 

So it is clear what elements were taken from Alien:

• A empty ship that happens to be full of eggs.
• Eggs lead to explosions of body parts.
• A tunnel full of eggs that tries to somewhat ape the style of H.R. Giger.
• A female lead that has to face off against the alien at the end.
• The final showdown being in a room that is darkly lift with metal grating on the floor so that shafts of light can come through to mimic the look of the corridors of the Nostromo.

Not even trying to hide it.

Contamination is not the worst film I have seen. It just does nothing with its premise to make it stand out enough to be its own work. Had there been a little more thought put into place about what The Cyclops's plan actually was and showing the eggs doing more than just killing anything they touch, this could have been a cheap throwaway late night cable flick that would be a guilty pleasure. Overall, there are only two things that stand out to me from my time with Contamination: the score and the added 'elements' that the person who put this film on YouTube decided to include.

The score is done by Goblin. This is a band that I have known of but have not really crossed paths with during my horror movie watching but I now look forward to whatever I find that they are associated with. No matter the quality of the film, their music will likely carry me a long way towards enjoying it. Their prog rocky synth and guitar sound is amazing. It feels like they lived next door to John Carpenter and they would have the greatest jam sessions and drive the rest of the neighborhood crazy.

Check it out below. Doesn't it make you just want to go explore the streets of late 70's New York via Rome?

The other thing about the version of the film I liked had nothing to do with the film. The person who uploaded this to YouTube decided to add some vintage 1980's commercials in the middle of it. Moments right after Tony slaps Stella, the film cuts away to three commercials: one for the new Ford Granada!, one for Wendy's with employees way to happy to be working at Wendy's, and Jame Garner selling Polaroid cameras. It was great and weird. I was not expecting it and oddly made me start paying attention to the film more. They even add another car commercial at the end just as the credits start, just to show you they did this on purpose. Hats off to you, internet guy.

Or as my wife thought it said 'New Ford Grandma.' I like her name better.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give this a 5. You can tell what they wanted to do. Budget limitations and not the most creative thinking held them back. They understood that pulsing eggs were creepy, bodies exploding (the gore in the film was pretty good for what it was) are off putting, and the final location did look kind of like the dark interiors of the ship from Alien. Having the film transition to South America made it feel more like a cheap action film than a cheap science fiction film, though.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Production wise, better than Ator. Fun wise, Ator is still a more enjoyable watch. Contamination has a better score, Ator has a better end credits theme song. Ator will always have a better end credits theme song. Always.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

No, unless you love the original Alien as much as I do and want to see how something so right can go so horribly wrong (and boring).

Bonus:

The whole film is available to watch for free(ish) on YouTube if you want to watch. I made sure to link the version I watched with the commercials added into it.

In space, no one can hear you yawn.

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

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