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But then there's Christopher Plummer. What on earth was he thinking?
“Paycheck + paid trip to Italy.”
Paycheck? The whole film only cost $234.65. How big a paycheck could it be? 
Plummer got $146.27, along with room and board at the hotel.
I believe the special effects budget was $37.50.
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No actually the SPECIAL EFFECTS budget of PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE IN 1958 WAS $37.50, THE SPECIAL EFFECTS BUDGET for STARCRASH IN 78 was $137.50-INFLATION.
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Posted: |
Feb 9, 2014 - 8:43 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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Yes, it's a major cheesefest, but it's got a colorful design scheme
You mean that 'floating city'? Ken Begg of 'Jabootu's Bad Movie Review' describes it thus:
"When we see the Floating City--WOW. This is supposed to be the Big Reveal, of course, and it pretty much sinks the picture all by itself. For the first time I wished I could see this in a theater, because the prop for the City is so monumentally awful that it deserves to be seen that way. It’s not so much that the ‘city’ itself resembles something from a ’70s Doctor Who episode, and appears to have been made of whatever junk and household items were available. (“Take this old thermos and glue it there. It will look fine after we paint it.”)
No, it’s the utterly, insanely garish color scheme they gave it. For some reason—most likely because that’s all they had left—they apparently used canisters of various metallic finish spray paint, starting on the bottom and switching colors whenever they ran out of the current hue. The result is perhaps the single most garish prop in sci-fi movie history. Behold the glory that is the Floating City."
Check out a picture here:
http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l171/kbegg/starcrashcity.jpg
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Ah, yes, STARCRASH, the 1978 movie where planet sized super weapon endangers the galaxy but thanks to a bunch of heroes including a dashing smuggler and her alien sidekick (who fly in a fast ship and like to escape into hyperspace) the day can be saved. In between there are catty robots and space battles and swordfights with lightblades. Gee, I wonder how they came ever up with this stuff.
Irresistibly cheesy. :-)
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Check out this "classic" on Netflix Streaming as part of the current season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, especially when they sing along to Barry's theme--"Star Wars, this isn't STAR WARS . . . "
One can only HOPE that al least the actors had a good time.
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Check out this "classic" on Netflix Streaming as part of the current season of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, especially when they sing along to Barry's theme--"Star Wars, this isn't STAR WARS . . . "
One can only HOPE that al least the actors had a good time.
I think everyone but Christopher Plummer had a good time. Christopher Plummer seemed like he was auditioning for Hamlet...with every ounce of his heart.
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As far as I remember, Christopher Plummer said in some interview when asked about Starcrash that he just loved Rome and would have done even a porn-flick if that meant spending some time in Rome. :-D
And according to the liner notes of the BSX release, Barry was "tricked" into scoring the film by producer Patrick Wachsberger telling Barry it was "the biggest science fiction movie ever" and showing him a grungy black and white version of the film, claiming it was just a mock-up, since the effects weren't done yet. :-D
It's a lot of fun what went on behind the scenes on some of those B-C pictures of yore. I mean, lots of schlock gets produced, but stars like Christopher Plummer and A-list composers such as John Barry normally would have been out of reach for such a production.
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If anyone is curious, this film got the MST3K treatment with the Netflix revival of that show. Unfortunately, it is not a good way to test out the score, as the trio sing along mocking the movie at moments where Barry's score would normally shine. Although I am not really taken by the Netflix iteration of this show, there are some funny gags here and there. It was also fun revisiting a movie I hadn't seen in decades. I will never call this a good film, but it gave me a bit of a Star Wars fix when Star Wars hadn't been released on video yet, and it wasn't showing in theaters.
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