User reviews

On the remote mining planet Odessa, miners work long grueling hours to extract minerals and fossil fuels for shipment back to a resource depleted Earth. The government sends down a legion of Military Police Droids to enforce their brutal rule on the Odessa miners which is resisted by a ragtag band of young resistance fighters including Lorca (John Tarrant), Abbie (Donough Rees), Suzi (Casandra Webb), and their short statured robot Kid (Deep Roy). When they uncover a conspiracy to replace the miners with a robot workforce and kill the miners, the group sets out to stop this insidious plan being carried out by the cruel Captain Jewitt.

Following Roger Christian's troubled debut on The Sender for Paramount Pictures who recut the film without Christian's input, he decided to produce his next film independently to avoid a repeat of the experience. Christian wrote the sci-fi film 2084 (aka Starship aka Lorca and the Outlaws) alongside screenwriter Matthew Jacobs who would go on to write episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the failed 1996 relaunch of Doctor Who. Christian described the film as an update on the George Orwell novel 1984 but with an action adventure focus and lighter tone (how is it 1984 then?) and would go for a style inspired by films such as Death Watch and Alphaville. The film was financed by Swedish video company VTC and filmed in Australia and the United Kingdom and like many euro-genre productions was financed by foreign pre-sales (hence the different names). Contemporary reviews wrote the film off as a cheap knock-off of Star Wars and it certainly is, but unlike certain other Star Wars knock-offs of the time that kind of endeared themselves such as Battle Beyond the Stars or Starchaser: The Legend of Orin that were entertaining, 2084, Starship, or whatever other name it's known by dares to be a boring tedious slog and incomprehensible mess.

The movie's about as basic as you can get with a premise like this with oppressed working class and overzealous militarized villains who abuse said working class in a setup that dates all the way back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis as far as sci-fi is concerned (and possibly further if you're so inclined), but despite one of the simplest setups imaginable, the movie bungles it in terms of establishing any kind of world building, character, or motivation so while you may know "what" is going on, be prepared to be eluded by the "why" quite a few times including a climax that involves a rogue killer robot for no adequately explained reason. Despite one of the titles being Lorca and the Outlaws, Lorca's barely a factor in this movie for the first half as he disappears for a long stretch and not only is John Tarrant not a strong lead, but Abbie and Suzi are conspicuously underwritten with so little to them you could replace them with mannequins and no one would know the difference. But then we have the most prominent character of Kid the robot and with a whiny delivery and a voice that seems to have been run through a filter on top of an under annunciated delivery I maybe only understood half of what this character said if that. But to top it all off we have the film's lacklust production values which feature a host of darkly lit cooridors and a quarry complete with ordinary looking dumptrucks and contemporary automobiles.... THE FUTURE! Rather embarrassing for a man who was nominated for an Academy Award for his art direction on Alien and WON an Academy Award for his work as a set dresser on Star Wars.

The movie sets a precedent for Roger Christian's directorial career that would bring him to future films such as Battlefield Earth. The fact that the best regarded film Christian ever made as a director was his first film the Sender is a massive indictment of his skills especially since it was taken away from him and re-edited by Paramount. Watching this movie: it's undeniably Christian's film through and through.

Yow, I remember this movie when it came out in the 80's. There I was, with a bunch of friends, I was about 15, popcorn in hand, expecting to see a great sci-fi movie at the theater.

We were all disappointed. The plot was totally unoriginal, the b-grade acting & the special effects were a let down. The masks they used for the bots were ugly, and the ship designs were bad. 18 years later, they stick in my head like a bad, umm, movie.

The whole underground resistance idea could have worked if they put more idea and thought into the story line and had somewhat of an interesting dialogue, but there is none worth remembering. To be fair, the movie is probably better then some of the garbage that we see today that passes as sci-fi, but that's not saying much.

3 out of 10

The opening scene - where youthful protesters are seemingly trying to influence the "thinking" (more accurately, the programming) of military androids - set's the mood for this entire film: nothing makes any sense!

Roger Christian hasn't had a lot of hits in his career. Well, actually, he's not had ANY. Be that as it may, this one could be his worst movie ever. The week before I saw "Starship." I watched "Battlefield Earth." It was dreadful, of course. But it had at least two things "Starship" didn't: a plot that made *some* sense and action that didn't put you to sleep.

However, "Starship" DID have unintentional humor every so often, which saves it from being a complete and utter waste of time. For instance, why were the androids programmed to feel pain (reminds me of a parody from "The Simpsons")? Why was this movie called "Starship" when it is primarily terrestrially-based? Why was it necessary to have this movie based on some distant planet? (I didn't see anything different about Ordessa compared to an Earth of the future.) Who were the miners? (All we saw were teenagers playing video games, protesting and blowing up things.) The intrepid bounty hunter (who doesn't seem very menacing) is named "Danny"? Oh, I could go on and on...

Anyway, if you can stay awake through it, you might get a chuckle or two out of it. However, if you are looking for an interesting, exciting, well-made movie - take a pass on "Starship"!

My rating: 2

When I first saw Starship, I was actually pretty impressed. Sure it's kinda dim and has badly cliche'd characters, but I thought the direction and general style of the film lended itself well to the subject matter. It's fun in a cheezy sort of way, and even vaguely artistic to a certain extent. Where things really go wrong is the inclusion of Deep Roy as "Digit"...the robot companion. Oddly enough, most version of this film have mysteriously dubbed over Digits name and changed it to "Grid." Considering it's low budget, Starship comes off as a more entertaining sci-fi style film than alot of higher budget, straight-to-video drek. Just don't take it too seriously.

This movie is pointless...some of my friends and I had a Crappy sci-fi movie party and this was by far the worst. I looked amazing on the package. But it is possibly the most boring thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life...

It made me Physically Ill having to sit though this after ten hours of other horrid Sci-Fi trash such as Abraxas and Star Crash.

There was huge mining trucks...and weird robots wearing football helmets wielding M-16s that I called OJ Simpson robots. But this was just the most lifeless and horrid drivel in the world.

This is actually, the worst movie I have ever seen...no exageration...by far the worst.

This is the third movie I have rented tonight with the word 'Star' in it. However, it isn't 'Star Wars', 'Star Trek', 'The Last STARfighter', or even 'Star Kid.' This movie was made 'down under' and we can expect no less from foreign movies. Like 'Star Crash' before it and 'Star Knight', we have a movie that wants to be so many things we Americans made but simply could not do. And, like everything else, it comes out so dirty it should be condemned in the laundry pile to be burned completely. I'm sorry, folks, this sucked hard.

The back of the box mentioned and stole a few words from the Star Wars common terminology and compared itself to the likes of Blade Runner, which wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. The 'droids' here are simply people with jumpsuits, aluminum guns and creepy Chinese/Buddhist masks - and more often than not, these are midgets. With someone whose name is 'Deep Roy', which is really downright hilarious (especially the name typo - Kid? Grid? Fail.), this is pretty bad. The 'storm troopers' are all poorly designs animatronics which look like something a child did for a science project out of whatever was in a junkyard.

The music goes on to copy, blatantly, the same motifs as Last Starfighter - and blatantly rips most of Luke's battles in Tattooine from the first movie. The villain even looks like Darth Vader! Gah, originality must be pretty hard to find, is it? Jesus Christ on a stick.

None of the movies I have seen so far are recommended. It's a proved fact you'll ignore most of them for private time on the computer or with a loved one rather than pay attention.

Holy makerel, how did I end up on this page? Right, after cringing at the dismal career of director Roger Christian, many gleefully bad reviews for "Battlefield Earth" and realizing that Christian was actually responsible for one of my first cinematic epiphanies.

See, as a wee lad, I was convinced that everything Science-Fiction was perfect. Didn't matter whether "2001", "Omega Man" or a Japanese Gozilla film. The good, the bad and the ugly where all good and wholesome to me; until my dad brought me a VHS-copy of "Starship" and for the first time in my long life, I reached for the controller and actually pressed STOP during the second half of a science fiction film! "Enough", reeled my young mind. "Why bother finishing this crap"? A realisation set in that there are films really not worth sitting through.

Honestly, since I've spent many precious hours on utter garbage, b-films cheapos – sometimes regretting, sometimes not – but I've never finished watching the last half of "Starship". And I'm still kinda proud of that.

Let's just hope that "Starship" will never be transferred from VHS, never makes it unto DVD or the internet and will just one day be forgotten in time and space … it's the best it deserves. No points from me although IMDb forces me to give at least one. A

I've come up with a drinking game to play while you watch Starship. Here's what you do. Get a bottle of your favorite liquor and a shot glass for everyone who wants to play along. Fill up each shot glass to start off, and then slap Starship in the VCR. The rules are that everyone takes a shot whenever something interesting happens. Suitable for teetotalers. Unused liquor can be deposited back in the bottle utilizing a funnel.

This is the absolute worst kind of movie: a boring one. I watch lots of terrible movies. In the right frame of mind, an onslaught of cheese and surprise 80s dance numbers and mullets can provide a fun evening like nothing else. Battlefield Earth, for instance (and by the same director), is wonderful because it aims for real emotional impact over and over again and achieves not an ounce of it. Starship, on the other hand, might just be aiming to put me to bed early.

Action matters when we care about its outcome. Nothing we give the least little tiny crap about is ever really in jeopardy in Starship, and the one time something terrible happens to a main character it's filmed so poorly we're left for a minute wondering precisely what happened.

This movie's a mess. But not, let me stress, a hilarious mess. It's not an interesting mess. It's not something to get drunk and make fun of. It's not a crappy, crappy, crappy movie; the situation is altogether more dire than that. It's boring.

Very boring star wars clone, but there is something to be said about a universe where FTL travel is a thing, but we use boring 20th century stuff on the colonies. That and the fact the robots have people faces definitely says something interesting about their world. The movie ain't gonna say it though.

STARSHIP is touted in the tagline as a "warp speed adventure". Instead of being anything like an adventure this film throws great visuals at the audience and absolutely no story. STARSHIP is weird and disappointing, and not worth viewing or effort it takes to thrust it in a VHS deck.

Lorca and his friends are fighting against a Robot-Army that is controlled by the evil commander of their colony. They are in underground an are kidnapping and reprogramming some robots to have a better stand against the overwhelming forces of the "Empire". Last but not least there always has to be a little love-story ;=)

Well i ordered this from Amazon.com and i must say that found several things interesting. As for the American version of the film the android voices have been dubbed over and some stupid music score has been put on it to, which makes it much less impressive than the original version. And the sound effects of the guns have been altered also as for some minor edits... It was like they tried to edit this film so it would adapt better or more to children which its not meant to do! So in my opinion get a hold of the international version and stay away from this imperial American crap! As for the movie itself, i enjoyed it when i watched the other version when i was a kid!

I like to watch obsolete/obscure movies, but I must say that this one was not high on my list. Starship is cheesy, corny, etc, but they could have done much better. While I liked the general idea (underground army, post-nuclear holocaust, etc), the approach was, well, limited, to say the least. The Grid/Kid/Digit character was one of the most distracting in the film. Also, hinging the fate of the future on one character seemed to stretch the plot a bit, to put it mildly. There were some positive aspects... but they are hard to find. What I mean to say is that if I myself had a home video camera and a couple of football helmets, I could have made a similar movie. But if you're looking for excitement, or the winner of the "best obsolete film" award, this is not it. Sorry.