Battaglie negli spazi stellari

Where to begin? The clothes all look like they're from a 30's sci fi film, even though this was made in the 70s. The dubbing is terrible. The plot is almost totally incoherent; it centers around a hothead space captain who believes that he can make better decisions than computers, and therefore is always getting into trouble (though in this film, he's probably right considering that the main computer is called "The Wiz", no kidding!). The characters actions often don't make any sense, like one scene where two crew members die, but everyone else is happy for no good reason. The evil giant robot looks like something they made on purpose to make people laugh, but you're supposed to think it's scary. Throughout everything, the deadly earnest and serious tone of the acting and story just makes the whole experience more surreal and more funny. My favorite scenes: destroying the giant robot/computer, and the space command guys dealing with the reporters. This film is worth seeing with a bunch of friends, with or without any substances that may enhance one's sense of humor!

WAR OF THE PLANETS (1977) ½* John Richardson, Yanti Sommer, West Buchanan, Ely King. In this film by Alfonso Brescia (as "Al Bradley"), astronauts land on an alien planet and agree to help its humanoid inhabitants battle a super-computer that has taken over the planet. Even by 1977 standards, the sets, costumes and special effects look badly dated, the dialogue is often incomprehensible and the performances are uniformly languid. The theme of the film--that man shouldn't become too heavily dependent on machines--simply gets lost in the muck. The Italians were never that good at sci-fi, but this movie is truly an embarrassment.

In a future where all decisions are made by a giant supercomputer called "The WIZ" (I kid you not) and military men wear weird little miniskirts, renegade space captain Mike Leighton is sent on a routine mission. His ship is attacked by two alien ships. On orders from Earth he lands on the alien's planet which seems at first to be deserted - don't they always? - one by one his crew men are attacked and killed by a mysterious force (actually it's only one crew man - this film is THAT cheap).

The captain and his party are lured into a mysterious cave where they meet the "degenerate" remnants of the former inhabitants. The leader of the natives informs them that that once his people once ruled the planet till the machines they built took over. Leighton agrees to help destroy the machine brain that rules the planet (I'm making this all sound a lot more coherent and structured than it actually is). They return to the ship and consult their on-board computer who tells them the Bad computer will have a destruct button, "probably red" (I wish I was making this up). The captain and another crew member confront the Deep Thought like supercomputer and are instructed by it to replace one of its circuit boards, the only thing stopping it from dominating the galaxy. They do so and spot a red button. They press the red button. The computer explodes. The planet starts to explode (as they do) with the usual stock footage of volcanoes tinted nice reddish colours. The crew make their escape taking with them 2 crew members we know have been attacked and left for dead by the evil supercomputers robot henchthing. Big Mistake! Big mistake! Within minutes one of them is wandering around frothing at the mouth killing people as his face falls off - our hero soon puts a stop to that by jettisoning him into outer space but there is one final twist to come!... and you'll just have to watch the movie to find that out.

I was amazed to discover this film was made as late as 1977. It looks like a 1960 film. It is truly awful. The music is dreadful - almost random. At one point, when we first see the Bad computer, they actually use Bach's Toccatta and fugue in D minor!. The dubbing is hilarious and I guess the dubbed script must have been written by the Italians because the English is so tortured and twisted to make it fit the lip sync that it, at times, makes no sense at all. Even more amazingly when there is no need to lip sync, like when the natives talk to the Captain telepathically or the computers talk, the English is just as bad.

Surrealy Awful

I am tempted to mention the fact that The Film "Mission to Mars", directed by Brian DePalma, bears a strong similarity to this film.... there, I've mentioned it! One of the most remarkable things about this film is the fact that "Star Wars: A New Hope" came out in the same year. Despite the title, this film bears no resemblance whatsoever to Star Wars. However, I should note that its own title is completely unrelated to the film as well. There is no war, really. But films without plots are hard to name, so c'est la vie.

This film stars a lot of good looking actors (both male and female), though they are all too thin, just like the script, and the special effects. The technology depicted in the film is reminiscent of the first Star Trek series or even Lost in Space. The special effects are variable. Some are actually fairly decent miniature shots, but then there are a few cardboard cut-out sequences reminiscent of some of Terry Gilliam's animations in Mont Python's Flying Circus. The behavior of the actors is sometimes inexplicable, but the dialog is so bad that you hardly even notice. For example, every time the entire crew of the spaceship is about to die (and this happens a lot), they all stand up and cheers and hug each other when they survive. various subplots are developed and then abandoned (just as well IMO) and, towards the end, it almost seems as if we are going to get a coherent story-line. Maybe they ran out of film? This film is a hoot. I recommend it highly for bad film buffs and MST3K fans. MST3K probably avoided this because it was a too-easy target.

I get a big kick out of these Brescia space movies so sought out "Battle of the Stars". Most of the comments here, and even the plot outline, seem to be about another lovely Brescia movie called "War of the Planets".

"Battle of the Stars" is about an alien invasion of the earth. The Gonians have used up all their natural resources and are now a dying and decaying species. They arrive in their spaceships with their super computer to take over earth and use our healthy bodies to replace their own. With space mummies, the super computer (same prop from War of the Planets!), and their ability to take the shape of trusted humans, the Gonians need to sabotage the Earth defense system before their entire invasion fleet can land. Defense system designer Mike Layton, his pretty girlfriend/scientist Diane, and a couple helpful Gandymedeans are our only hope!

Five stars for being "out there" and fun!