Battle Beyond the Stars was Roger Corman’s contribution to Star Wars (1977) mania. Here Corman quickly jumped in on the post-Star Wars boom with a thin science-fictional reworking of The Magnificent Seven (1960), which was itself inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s epic samurai film The Seven Samurai (1954). The Seven Samurai connection is acknowledged by the film’s naming the beleaguered planet named Akira after Seven Samurai director Akira Kurosawa, while the Magnificent Seven connection is cheerfully recognized in the casting of Robert Vaughn, who gives the only decent performance in the film, in the same role he played in The Magnificent Seven. The Japanese themselves had earlier offered up a likeable space opera version of The Seven Samurai with Message from Space (1978).

However, Battle Beyond the Stars never emerges as much more than a flimsy trip through the post-Star Wars cliches. It is clearly science-fiction made by people who regard science-fiction and Westerns as fairly much interchangeable. George Peppard’s role as a spacegoing comboy is awful. Sybil Danning, whose only two possible reasons for her cult status are amply revealed by her costume, gives an appalling performance. (When the film was screened on US tv, whenever Danning appeared on screen the image had to be blown up into closeups to hide her rather too revealing costume). The film sets up an obligatory Star Wars-styled interstellar dogfight climax with tiny ships doing strafing runs and shooting each other with laser beams. However, instead of being the dramatic highlight of the film, these scenes slow proceedings right down. The problem here is that the models are too poorly built to allow any close detail, necessitating total reliance on medium and wide angles, which makes it often difficult to tell one ship from the next. There is none of the zip and exhiliration there was in Star Wars. There is a certain amusement to some of the improbable model designs for the ships – one is shaped like a hammerhead shark, one like a WWI biplane, one like a mini UFO from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), another a giant scrotal sac.

Films like Battle Beyond the Stars are always worth noting for the up and coming names on the credits. (Roger Corman was notorious for employing talents eager to break into the industry and paying them next to nothing). Here one can find on script John Sayles, since become one of America’s foremost independent directors with the likes of The Brother from Another Planet (1984), Matewan (1987), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1995), Lone Star (1996), Men with Guns (1997), Limbo (1999), Sunshine State (2002), Case de los Babys (2003), Silver City (2004) and Honeydripper (2007). Even more intriguing is the name of James Cameron – since become the director of the likes of The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989) and of course the Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009) phenomena – as art director.

Director Jimmy T. Murakami subsequently moved into animation. He went on to make the well-worthwhile nuclear holocaust animated film When the Wind Blows (1986) and A Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001).