You know, for all of the cheapness of his films, Roger Corman can occasionally turn out a pretty entertaining film. This was one of them.

Back in the day, my friends and I clamored for anything remotely like Star Wars. Unfortunately, other than some quickly made knock-offs from Japan and Italy, there weren't many. Then, around 1980, I came across an article in Starlog about this movie. It looked interesting, although it was obviously inspired by The Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven; but, hey, Star Wars stole from Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress. I didn't get a chance to see the film in the theaters, but caught it later on cable. It was a pretty entertaining film, despite the cheesy scenes and hammy acting. Everybody seemed to be having fun and it didn't take itself too seriously.

Richard Thomas, fresh from The Waltons, takes to the stars to recruit mercenaries to save his agrarian world from invaders, led by John Saxon (sitting in for Eli Walach). He recruits a motley band of space cowboys (George Peppard), lizards, heat manipulating aliens, clonal telepaths, gunfighters (Robert Vaughn) and T & A valkyries (Sybil Danning). Together, this rag-tag band leads the peace-loving Akirans in battle against Sador.

The film is great fun, with good ship designs and exciting space battles (effects supervised by James Cameron). The script (by John Sayles) is good, with many in-jokes and light character moments. The effects, although not as good as ILM, are still eyecatching and work in service to the story. The actors play it straight, but with enough of a twinkle (with the leads making up for some of the really horrible secondary actors). The designs are interesting, especially Shad's ship-with-breasts and Saint-Exmin's costume, which has a decoration that looks like hands clutching her breasts! You can definitely tell that this was made predominantly by young males.

Corman is best known as a mentor to great filmmakers and this film features work by future big names John Sayles, James Cameron, Gail Ann Hurd, and music by James Horner.

Do yourself a favor, watch this and then compare with more recent films of the genre (i.e. Star Wars prequels) and see which has a greater sense of fun. It's no 2001: A Space Odyssey; but, then again, neither was Star Wars.

Let's pretend we've never heard of Roger Corman nor The Magnificent Seven etc.

As a kid, that was me. I heard about this movie through my friends, when I was about 9 or 10. To us, this was another great space epic, along the lines of Star Wars. It had good effects, plenty of laser blasts and bad guy with a massive ship that could destroy planets. Awesome!

Many years later, I bought this on DVD and, to my pleasant surprise, found that it hadn't aged too badly. The low budget is very apparent but the movie is slickly edited such that it perhaps feels richer that it should. This is however it's biggest drawback because the character development is poor in places and the stars play second-fiddle to the ships and the costumes they inhabit. Gelt and Space Cowboy are perhaps the most fleshed-out of the pack, the remainder either being weak or there to make up the numbers.

The true star of the show is James Horner. It's a great score and all the best moments of Star Trek 2 are audible here first.

It's an inventive film, even if the invention is mainly facsimile, and an entertaining one. In the archives of sci-fi, there's no contest between this and its obvious "raison d'être" influence, as to which film is the better, but it's a noteworthy addition from the same era, what I consider to be the golden-age of special effects.

The peaceful planet Akir is threatened by the evil warlord Sador. Having no army of their own, the people hire a strange group of mercenaries with varying agendas to help them. Can they prevail, and can they trust their new protectors ?

Cashing in on the Star Wars boom, this cheeky little movie is really more of a science-fiction remake of The Seven Samurai - the people are called the Akira, Vaughn reprises his role from The Magnificent Seven and whole scenes (such as the return to the empty village) are lifted straight from the Kurosawa film. It's a bit cheesy, to be sure, but it's fun and witty and hard not to enjoy. It was made by a bunch of talented young filmmakers at Roger Corman's New World Pictures company; Murakami went on to become a respected animation director; scriptwriter John Sayles is one of the most original directors currently working, composer James Horner is now one of Hollywood's best and many of the special effects crew have had prestigious careers. Its other gift is its mixed cast of bright young things and likable old has-beens. Everybody is good, but I particularly like Peppard's aw-shucks cowboy, Saxon's cartoon villain and the eye-popping Danning's Valkyrie warrior woman. If you have an aversion to B-movies this is probably not the film for you, but I happen to be very fond of them and this one is terrific. Put it on a double-bill with Reds, and I can guarantee you which film you'll enjoy more.