There were many Star Wars copycats in the wake of the huge success of Star Wars. One, almost forgotten, was made in the 70s, starring David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer.
Everyone knows Star Wars, but what about Star Duel? Does it sound like a cheap rip-off like Battle for the 5th Galaxy? It is. But not without cinematic fascination and amusing B-movie charm.
We are talking about the Italian-American co-production Star Crash – Sterne im Duell from 1978, which came out just one year after George Lucas’ genre-shattering sci-fi classic – and which has more than just coincidental parallels to the famous blockbuster template.
Star Wars rip-off from Italy: This is how shamelessly Star Crash copied Star Wars
Space smugglers Akton (Marjoe Gothner) and Stella Star (Caroline Munro) are taken into custody by the Galactic Police. However, they are released because the Emperor of the Galaxy (Christopher Plummer) has a job for the two space crooks: they are to locate a missing spaceship that was searching for the nasty Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) and his devastating superweapon. The Emperor’s son was also on board.
Accompanied by Galactic Police Officer Thor (Robert Tessier) and his robo-partner Elle (Judd Hamilton), Akton and Stella set out on a dangerous journey across the galaxy, encountering strange Amazon warriors, giant robots, wild cavemen and the deadly minions of Count Zarth Arn. Fortunately, they soon locate Simon, the emperor’s son, played by David Hasselhoff. They need all the help they can get, because the count’s superweapon is an entire planet.
In the end, only a four-dimensional attack can help against so much space villainy: the so-called Starcrash!
Star Crash is an obvious copy of Star Wars that doesn’t try to fool anyone, but is still entertaining
Sci-Fi heroes related to the space leaders, smugglers, androids, space nobility with planetary weapons and “laser swords” make Star Crash a more than obvious Star Wars rip-off. To give the whole thing an even more international flavor, director Luigi Cozzi not only hired English-speaking stars for his cast, but even changed his name to “Lewis Coates”. At least for the film – a common practice among Italian productions at the time.
Of course, his sci-fi film, with a budget of just over $2 million, can’t match the special effects of Industrial Light & Magic. The colorful space opera design and classic Ray Harryhausen-style stop-motion moments, on the other hand, evoke memories of genre films from an even earlier time and know how to charm on occasion.
In interviews with Variety and ray Filmmagazin, Cozzi claimed years later that he had started working on Star Crash long before the success of Star Wars. Whether this is really the case remains to be seen – however, the influence of the more popular Star Wars is hard to deny.
Unfortunately, Star Crash is not currently available to stream, but home theater versions are available on both DVD and Blu-ray.
