Episode 753: Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

The Projection Booth Podcast

The Projection Booth

Film Reviews, Film Interviews, Film History, Tv & Film

4.8 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 18 July 2025

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sci-Fi July rolls on with Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), Roger Corman’s ambitious space opera directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and written by a pre-Lone Star John Sayles. This wild interstellar remix of The Seven Samurai stars Richard Thomas as Shad, a naive farm boy turned cosmic recruiter who must assemble a team of eccentric mercenaries to defend his planet from the tyrannical Sador—played with ruthless relish by John Saxon.

Mike is joined by Father Malone and Chris Stachiw to dig into the film’s unforgettable cast of characters, James Horner’s rousing score (which sounds suspiciously like his work for Star Trek II), and the early visual effects work of James Cameron. Special guest Allan Holzman, the film’s editor (and future director of Forbidden World), offers behind-the-scenes insights from the golden age of Corman’s New World Pictures. Low-budget spectacle, recycled spaceship sets, and alien oddballs abound in this scrappy cult favorite.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hold your ears, folks. It's showtime.
0:08.6	People pay good money to see this movie.
0:10.9	When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth.
0:17.3	Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
0:20.2	Shut it off.
0:25.7	Turn it off.
0:26.8	Turn it off.
0:31.6	Yeah! Ruthless invaders, a defenseless planet.
0:50.3	A defenseless planet.
0:57.0	Battle beyond the stars.
1:09.0	A lone youth escapes on a last-ditch mission that begins at the edge of the universe. Oh no. The story of a boy who finds more than he expected.
1:34.3	And all he can handle.
1:37.3	Does your species have kissing? Oh yes. We have that.
1:42.3	Try what. That's a hot dog.
1:45.5	It comes to Earth.
1:47.8	Do you like it?
1:49.2	There's no dog in this.
1:51.4	Soybean meal.
1:53.4	Nyerson, dextrose, and sodium nitrate flavoring.
1:58.5	That's what we call meat back home.
2:06.6	Battle Beyond the Stars Starring Richard Thomas, George Papard
2:21.3	Robert Vaughan John Saxon
	...

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