This certainly isn't a masterpiece, however it's something that shouldn't be overlooked. It's Japan's attempt to make Star Wars and is a complete failure. That doesn't mean it's terrible. It's history. These types of movies are so cool to look back on and watch. We shouldn't forget or overlook them.

This movie was ready for release in Japan when Star Wars was released.

If this film "rips off" anything, it's "The Seven Samurai".

And, since Star Wars is a blatant "rip off" of two or three Japanese films - mostly Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress", but also somewhat his "Yojimbo" - and took other major action bits - the attack on the Death Star, for instance - from English World War 2 films, accusing *anything* of being "a STAR WARS ripoff" simply shows how little the accuser knows of film history.

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Extra line.

Now of course, Message From Space is a Star Wars rip-off, but the Japanese have been doing space operas for a very long time anyway. But still, there are some direct steals from Star Wars, but hey isn't that part of the fun?

This isn't quite as enjoyable as Starcrash as far as bad Star Wars rip-offs, but it's still a blast. Everyone is over the top, except for Vic Morrow, who pretty much sleepwalks through the entire thing and acts as if someone has a gun to his head the whole time, forcing him to appear in this flick. The FX are interesting and fun to watch, and as bad as they are, I'd still rather see these FX than today's crappy computer-generated cartoons.

The TIE-Fighter type enemy ships are cool, especially the way they fire their lasers, and so is the rip-off of the Star Wars trench battle scene. Notice in this scene near the end, in the trench, the ships fly down trenches that actually curve away, so the FX people wouldn't have to worry about making "distance" shots appear realistic as in the Star Wars trench sequence.

This definitely has "Japanese B-flick" all over it, and you gotta figure a DVD release would be a decent seller (as far as these kind of films go). This film proves that the only thing as enjoyable as a decent Star Wars rip-off, is a bad one!