The Raunchy Star Wars Knockoff That Gave Us The Terminator

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 39 seconds ago

The modern discourse on social media around the sheer amount of remakes coming out of Hollywood forgets that the entire movie industry has always been about remakes since the very beginning. Take, for example, Akira Kurosawa’s legendary 1954 film Seven Samurai, remade for Western audiences in 1960 as The Magnificent Seven, then remade again as The Magnificent Seven in 2016.

In between those remakes, producer Roger Corman took the black and white genre-defining samurai masterpiece and decided to turn it into a space epic. The result was 1980s Battle Beyond the Stars, a B-movie to its very core, praised for its incredible special effects on a shoestring independent budget. The man in charge of those special effects was working on his first of many major films in a career that would redefine Hollywood special effects for decades: James Cameron. 

James Cameron’s Second Unit Directorial Debut

Best known today for Terminator 2, Titanic, and the Avatar franchise, a case can be made that James Cameron is the most successful director in Hollywood today. Back when Roger Corman took a chance on him, Cameron was a model maker for New World Pictures. His care and attention to detail, right down to who would be flying the ships and why they each looked different, impressed the producer so much that Corman made Cameron the second-unit director.

Battle Beyond the Stars was directed by Teruaki “Jimmy” Murakami, who later helped produce and direct the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Still, Corman knew even before the final edit that the second-unit footage was coming out better thanks to James Cameron. 

Battle Beyond the Stars benefited from the keen eye of the future Aliens director, but the space opera retelling of Seven Samurai had a boost in front of the camera as well, thanks to a pre-A-Team George Peppard having the time of his life as Space Cowboy. One of the warriors recruited to help protect the peaceful, nonviolent planet of Akir from the warlord Sador, Space Cowboy found himself with a cargo of guns and no place to deliver them after Sador blew up his original clients. It’s a delightful bit of dark comedy, and one of many reasons why, even a film that’s almost all introductions to hardened killers, it’s a cult classic over 40 years later. 

The rest of the team is equally as colorful, from the hive mind aliens, each named Nestor, to the gatorman Cayman and Saint-Exmin the Valkyrie, and Gelt, an assassin wanted on so many planets, she’ll work for free if she gets to hide on Akir. Battle Beyond the Stars is more Blake’s 7 than Star Wars, and once the final battle kicks off, everyone gets a heroic moment, no matter how grizzled, battle-hardened, and criminal their background was before coming to Akir. There’s no question that Gelt would shoot first. 

A B-Movie Cult Classic

Released on July 25, 1980, Battle Beyond the Stars was an immediate hit for Corman. Not only did it make over $1.7 million in three days from only 350 theaters, but Warner Bros. bought the international rights for $2.5 million.

That may not sound like a lot, but the film was made for only $2 million. Not only did it turn a profit, but for a New World Film, the critics liked it, praising the special effects and George Peppard’s performance as the two highlights. 

Roger Corman would go on to produce countless other B-movie classics, while James Cameron went on to work as a production designer for Galaxy of Terror before writing and directing a small sci-fi film called The Terminator. Cameron’s constant push to redefine what’s possible with special effects reached its apex with the 3D underwater technology powering Avatar: The Way of Water. He’s been obsessed with turning the impossible into the possible for over 40 years. The technology has changed, and now he can use computers instead of having to spray paint the insides of McDonald’s containers.

James Cameron’s underrated and innocuous start as a director proves two things: that he’s always been talented, and that no one could identify future stars like Roger Corman, the man who secretly built Hollywood. 

Battle Beyond the Stars is streaming for free on Tubi and Pluto TV.