This is the second or third or fourth film in a quintet (that'd be five) movies with roughly the same cast wearing roughly the same costumes as they cavort in roughly the same sets and filmed by the same production crew that made COSMOS: WAR OF THE PLANETS, STAR ODYSSEY, something called STAR BEAST and BATTLE OF THE WORLDS (not to be confused with 1964's BATTLE OF THE PLANETS, mind you), a group of Italian made science fiction ditties made between 1977 and 1979 under the haphazard director of Al Brady (Alfonse Brescia). The stories don't matter -- this one is about a renegade scientist who sells out mankind to a race of robotic androids who overrun the Earth. I *think* ...
What matters are the individual moments, some of which do have an undeniable visual power. Especially the ones with veteran character genre actors from the Italian cult scene like Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, star of the famed Alpha One Quadroligy by Antonio Margheriti in 1964, running around wearing bright primary colored rubber jumpsuits. The Al Brady films of 1977 - 1979 are an attempt to revitalize this home made Spaghetti Star Wars but while the four or five films were made they never really caught on and today exist as these bizarre collection of footage that looks like an old "Buck Rogers In the 25th Century" episode, only without a story.
And if you look at Giacomo Rossi-Stuart during his big scenes you can sort of see him all of a sudden realizing "Hey, it's not 1964 anymore, this is stupid" but grimly deciding to carry on with the proceedings. I like just wallowing in these movies and letting them waft in and out of conscious thought. They aren't very good movies but are fascinating studies in post STAR WARS fashion and pop sensibilities, which the Italians have always found sufficient to warrant making a movie about. I may beg to differ on this occasion but I'd rather watch this than ATTACK OF THE CLOWNS or whatever foistage the actual STAR WARS films degenerated into. At least the people making this were aware it wasn't any good, and made what they could out of the moment.
Recommended for people with short attention spans who can tune in or out every few minutes and follow along while doing something else.
What matters are the individual moments, some of which do have an undeniable visual power. Especially the ones with veteran character genre actors from the Italian cult scene like Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, star of the famed Alpha One Quadroligy by Antonio Margheriti in 1964, running around wearing bright primary colored rubber jumpsuits. The Al Brady films of 1977 - 1979 are an attempt to revitalize this home made Spaghetti Star Wars but while the four or five films were made they never really caught on and today exist as these bizarre collection of footage that looks like an old "Buck Rogers In the 25th Century" episode, only without a story.
And if you look at Giacomo Rossi-Stuart during his big scenes you can sort of see him all of a sudden realizing "Hey, it's not 1964 anymore, this is stupid" but grimly deciding to carry on with the proceedings. I like just wallowing in these movies and letting them waft in and out of conscious thought. They aren't very good movies but are fascinating studies in post STAR WARS fashion and pop sensibilities, which the Italians have always found sufficient to warrant making a movie about. I may beg to differ on this occasion but I'd rather watch this than ATTACK OF THE CLOWNS or whatever foistage the actual STAR WARS films degenerated into. At least the people making this were aware it wasn't any good, and made what they could out of the moment.
Recommended for people with short attention spans who can tune in or out every few minutes and follow along while doing something else.