This is a film that was riffed on by Mystery Science Theater 3000. There may be debate on whether a film deserves the riffing, but this one most certainly deserves all the ridicule one can muster. A film that takes place on a spaceship, but the only reason you would even know this are the occasional outside shots showing the ship flying or the dogfights; however, those outside shots are not even from this film, but rather old clips from the television series Battlestar Galactica. The rest of the film looks like they shot in a high school for the bridge scenes, the futuristic bar scene and the Ballerines' room and all the fight scenes take place in a factory. In some of the scenes you can clearly see the sunshine coming through the windows. Do not get me wrong, there were a lot of bad science fiction films made during this time, but this film makes Roger Corman's stuff look amazing! It was certainly done on the cheap side of things, but I guess the hope is that you make it as incredibly cheap as possible and hopefully you can trick people into coming into the theater to see it with an awesome poster. Which could be done back in the day as there was no internet and suffice to say that trick did work on my parents a couple of times. Thankfully, they did not have to sit through this horrible train wreck and neither did I, that is until the gang from the Satellite of Love took no prisoners!
The story is a mess. You start out getting a voice over explaining that what is left of the people of Earth live on this large spaceship and that they are content to live there; however, there is a faction that wishes to leave said ship. Granted, I cannot say I blame them for wanting to leave if that futuristic bar is an example of the entertainment! Well there is a space battle that is completely random and is just a clip from Battlestar Galactica and then we meet Ryder who is beefy and the only one who can take out Kalgon and his evil army! Ryder falls in love with the commander of the ship's daughter. The daughter looks about the same age as her father as we get a woman trying to play the role of someone younger. Not going to say she looks bad, but she does look too old to be playing the love interest. There are kidnappings, betrayal and strange women who are called Ballerines that really serve no purpose...
This film was rightfully riffed by MST3K as it is kind of a mess. They riff the fact there are a lot of people flung over railings and rightfully so as there are a lot of people who get killed and then get flung over a railing! The woman's age is also a running joke as is the beefy hero. The most ridiculous thing that occurs in this film is when they start chasing each other in little carts that go at an extremely slow speed making one wonder why they do not just run or something?
So, this is a bad film as the best parts are the clips from an old television show. Too much going on that makes no sense as you have random space pirate attacks that really go nowhere and people wrapped in plastic. Kalgon seems to be nothing but a mere human, yet they act like he is a super powered foe and how exactly did he gain so much power? One also has to wonder why they cannot just leave the ship as Ryder the hero came on board and came from somewhere else. Just a mess, as this one has virtually no redeeming qualities. Makes another Reb Brown film, Yor, the Hunter from the Future look great by comparison.
