ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (02/22/85)
All this discussion about the worst SF movie got me thinking
about a piece of excement called 'star pilot' that came around
a couple years after 'star wars', apparently part of the rash
of SF films trying to cash in on the publicity. It was truly
awful. Dubbed from italian, I think. Plot goes something like:
Professor studying caves under his house (?) comes upon a spacecraft.
Occupants inside awaken from suspended animation and grab him,
daughter that wants to be a movie star (wearing Fredric's of
Hollywood most of the time) and manditory Young Hero. They then
try to return home, wherever that is. Alien captain was female,
and ended up wearing some of the professor's daughter's wardrobe
and falling in love with the Young Hero, or something like that.
It's been a long time.
The odd thing about this movie is that, although most of it had
really dismal grammer school (see note below) kind of effects,
there is a short section in the middle that looks like it was lifted
from another movie. The effects are decent, and the dubbing and editing
was even worse (if that's possible) than the rest of the movie.
Like what would happen if you were trying to piece in alien footage.
Questions: Has anyone seen 'Star Pilot', and has anyone (sub-set of
first group) identified the flick the middle scenes were ripped from?
Note: I say grammer school, because our high school photography
club produced an SF film called 'The Shim' about 1971 that was much
better than 'Star Pilot'. It even got on Bob Wilkin's Creature
Feature. (Semi-famous show that played old SF and horror films
in California.)
Back to the movies. Imagine:
Now, we're pretty much burned out by all this trash, but we stick
to it mainly to see how they manage to end it. The second feature
is something unknown and we don't hold much hope for it.
'Star Pilot' finally ends, making absolutely no sense. The next
feature is something called 'Damnation Alley'. Now that's more like
it! Not excellent, but definatly worth the two bucks to see it.
Quite impressive. +2 on a -4 to +4 scale.
Lo and behold, I recently found out that Damnation Alley was written
by none other than Roger Zelazny! Be damned! Was this a hack book-from-
-the-movie job, or did the book come first? Anyone know?
--
Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.)
{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix}!wjvax!ronleeper@ahuta.UUCP (m.leeper) (02/22/85)
REFERENCES: <361@wjvax.UUCP> >Lo and behold, I recently found out that Damnation Alley was >written by none other than Roger Zelazny! Be damned! Was >this a hack book-from- -the-movie job, or did the book come >first? Anyone know? The book came well before the film and really has little in common with the film. I think the book is about Hell Tanner, ex Hell's Angel or some such, riding his motorcycle across an extremely hostile post-nuclear war US. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!ahuta!leeper
reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (02/24/85)
In article <361@wjvax.UUCP> ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) writes: >The next >feature is something called 'Damnation Alley'. Now that's more like >it! Not excellent, but definatly worth the two bucks to see it. >Quite impressive. +2 on a -4 to +4 scale. > >Lo and behold, I recently found out that Damnation Alley was written >by none other than Roger Zelazny! Be damned! Was this a hack book-from- >-the-movie job, or did the book come first? Anyone know? The book definitely came first, and was definitely much better. In my opinion, the film version of "Damnation Alley" was a terrible, typical Hollywood hack job on a decent science fiction novel. Were I given to numerical ratings, "Damnation Alley" would run several notchs below average. I thought the effects were cheap, the story a stupid derivation of what had been an interesting plot, the acting average to poor, and the direction mediocre. The film was apparently made to showcase a new, special sound effect system, back in the days when people thought Sensurround might actually be worthwhile. The sound system was worthless, too. "Damnation Alley" may look good by comparison with rotten Italian SF, but even average Hollywood SF blows it away, and that's not saying much. -- Peter Reiher reiher@ucla-cs.arpa {...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher