1983 - SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE, more bad science fiction movies

Bad science fiction films continues with this odd piece of junk.  Television actor Peter Strauss, completely miscast,  is a Han Solo type who lands on a planet where some hot science fiction babes have landed.  Strauss must save the women from the evil ruler "Overdog McNabb,"  in order to claim some reward money.  Along the way Stauss teams up with a teenager played by Molly Ringwald in a very shrill and loud performance which is just about impossible to endure. Ringwald was on the cusp of her John Hughes teenage film series after she appeared in this film.

The director was Lamont Johnson a very talented television director who really never made a successful transition to feature films.  Johnson was good with actors and dramas but there was nowhere in his resume with the exception of The Twilight Zone that showed he had any understanding of the science fiction genre.

The film firmly has it's tongue in it's cheek but it's not enough to redeem this mess.  The action scenes are not bad.  There is a conscious effort to copy Star Wars right down to the sound alike musical score.  Clearly the makers of this film knew they kind of had a "dog" on their hands.  They deliberately waited until a week before The Empire Strikes Back to release it.

 

The film was produced by Ivan Reitman and was written by David Preston, Edith Ray, Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum.  The running time is 90 minutes.