Previously on Chasing Thunder:

Bluh, Bluh, bad memory. Bluh, Bluh, book I once read. Bluh, Bluh, visual earworm. Bluh, Bluh, found a movie. Bluh, Bluh, good things.

Honestly, just read part one. I’m too lazy to do extra work.

And now:

So, the second film I had an image of in my head, like being flashed by that one pervert in the park when I was five, I wasn’t sure if I actually saw what I was supposed to have seen. What I mean is, I was never certain if it was real or not. Fearing that I had imagined the nightmare image, afraid my bad dreams had oozed over the containment jar that held my fantasy world in check and infected the real world, I chalked it up to something half remembered that I’d never find. But it had to be real, didn’t it? It was animated. Who dreams in animation? Well, maybe the guys who want to marry their anime body pillows. But I didn’t know about those guys yet.

The scene I remember, and hopefully hadn’t made up in a fever dream, was a scene that took place in a swamp. A teenager or young man with amazing feathered hair and headband combo (it was the 80s after all) was running through said swamp with not a Swamp Thing is sight. He is captured by the grotesque cyborg creatures who live there who want to carve up our beloved hero (hopefully, I still didn’t know that bit, remember) for spare parts. These creatures where like the big bad from Moontrap (1987) or Virus (1999), using both mechanical and organic parts from wherever they could find them to keep themselves alive. And when I say grotesque, I mean it. They were like if H.R. Giger’s nightmares and H. P. Lovecraft’s nightmares merged together after going through Brundle Fly’s teleporter and had a baby with Philip K Dick’s paranoia. And then animated. Truly fucked up stuff. Maybe that is why I didn’t remember anything else about the film. My young mind may have just switched of and retreated hoping the nightmares wouldn’t come. Spoilers: it didn’t work.

But the strange hunchback with the giraffe like neck and the chrome skulled leader with the bulging human eyes stayed with me, for better or worse. I’ve drawn versions of these things ever since.

And so, like last time, we have to fast forward a decade and change into the future of 2005 (the same time period the action in Transformers: The Movie from 1986 takes place. Just saying) to when iMDB is a thing and other internet sites and chat room were filled with nerds arguing and analysing stuff they like. So, nothing like today. I was doing a little hunting online for movies and the like, but I wasn’t having any luck. I was looking for a film called Eliminators from 1986. I knew the film had a cyborg character in it, so I typed into the search engine ‘cyborgs in movies’ hoping for a list. This is something I had done before.

The list that I found detailed all the films featuring Androids, robots, man-droids and cyborgs in film. Wait, what was that? I said to myself out loud knowing full well the cockroaches would just ignore me. Man-Droids? My brain made the Scooby Doo sound. Why did that sound familiar to me? ‘Fuck it!’ I though and typed in ‘Man-droids in animated movie’. And there it was. A dark animated sci-fi fantasy film called Starchaser: The Legend of Orin. Directed Steven Hahn, written by Jeffery Scott and Produced by Steven Hahn and Daniel Pin, this film was released in 3D in 1985.

I couldn’t find it to watch online on YouTube (you can now), streaming services weren’t a thing yet (think I said that last time), DVDs while released, seem impossible to find. Even on eBay. I did the only thing I could do, I downloaded it from a torrent site. Still not something I’m happy I did, but living in this country sometimes it is your only option. I waited with baited breath hoping it really was the film I had quested for all this time. Holy shit!!!! It was indeed.

The story is set in the future year of 2985 and the tale opens on a planet named Trinia. Human slaves have been living (and dying) and working underground for millennia mining energy crystals from the rock that are used to power everything from calculators to robots to starships. They mine those crystals for their ‘God’, a being named Zygon (And he looks nothing like the classic Doctor Who villain) and his army of robots. And no one topside of the planet, or in the rest of the universe know that these people are down there. They are all under the assumption that the mining it done by robots.

Amongst these slaves is Orin (the young guy with the amazing hair I mentioned earlier), his girlfriend Elan and Elan’s grandfather, who in this story is just called grandfather. And I thought to myself, he isn’t going to be around long. You might as well put him in a red shirt.

Anyway, while working their shift, Orin finds a jewelled sword embedded in the rock. Orin is like, ‘I found a pretty thing’. But Grandfather recognises the sword (not sure how) and tells Orin it’s an important thing and the robots must never find it. It has to be kept a secret. When Orin holds the sword in both hands, it shakes, glows, flies out of his hands, sticks blade first in the ground and a projection of a Gandalf wannbe with less charisma appears and speaks. He tells our heroes of the outside world, a place they thought to be a myth. And to free his people Orin must journey out into the universe to find the power he needs to do that and destroy the evil that keeps them all there by finding the blade of the sword. The projection disappears and so does the blade of the sword, leaving only the jewelled hilt.

Orin and Elan decide to head out of their forced hell and, for lack of a better term, quest for the blade. They leave behind everyone, including Orin’s blind little brother Calli, and head out. Travelling through the religious temple/alter where they place the crystals after mining them and receive food in return, they emerge of the other side into a futuristic industrial complex where they are confronted by Zygon and his robots. Zygon, revealing himself to be just a man by simply taking of his mask (true Clark Kent vibes here), he says some evil things, and lifting Elan off the ground by the throat with one hand, strangles her to death (wonder where I have seen that before in a sci-fi movie). Orin, after setting off an explosion, escapes. And being trapped due to a cave in, digs his way up to freedom.

He emerges in the swamp I mentioned from my dream and is captured by the Man-Droids. The hilt produces a seemingly invisible blade after one of the Man-Droids accidentally kills one of their companions, allowing Orin to escape. Which he does with the remaining Man-Droids in hot pursuit. Orin, then runs into, quite literally, Dagg Dibrini, a smuggler lying low. Dagg quickly dispatches the remaining Man-Droids and brings Orin (who he has nicknamed ‘Water Snake’) with him as an extra pair of hands on his next heist.

That heist is to steal energy crystals. They, after a few mishaps, are successful, but end up with an unwanted passenger. A government issue robot called a Fembot (yes, you read that correctly) named Silica, thinking all the commotion is a security drill, walks on board Dagg’s ship, the Starchaser, to give them a piece of her mind and gets Bot-napped. Silica is reprogramed and she and the ship’s AI, Arthur, do not get along. They’re on a crash course to wackiness!

They meet some weird and wonderful characters in the city of Toga-Togo on the planet of Bordogon, where Dagg plans to sell his stolen crystals. At a robot slave auction where Silica is almost sold, Orin meets Aviana when they both bid on her. There is trouble, the Starchaser is damaged in an aerial firefight, and they crash. The Starchaser and Arthur are rendered inactive, Dagg is captured, Orin is rescued by Aviana after he is flung free. Silica is left on her own to fix both the ungrateful Arthur and the ship.

Orin tells Aviana, the daughter of the planet’s governor, his story. She uses her computer to do a little research. They find out that the hilt has historically been used as a weapon against evil by the guardians called the Kha-Khan. Their biggest threat, Nexus, was robot planning to rule the beings of the universe with an army of robots. And after that threat was defeated, the hilt was thought lost. They go back to Trinia, run into Zygon who takes the hilt and out heroes are imprisoned. And as plot convenience would have it, they are imprisoned in the same cell block as Dagg. 

Aviana and Orin express their feelings for each other in a romance that most porn storylines would think is quick. Aviana is taken onboard Zygon’s ship, again for plot convenience. Then a pesky starfly (who is smarter than it appears) steals the hilt from Zygon and delivers it to Orin. They all escape from the prison. Take control of the ship, us the ship to destroy Zygon’s fleet of starship, and are reunited with Arthur and Silica on the Starchaser.

Orin and Aviana enter Zygon’s base on Trinia, leaving the injured Dagg on the ship with Silica. He re-entered the cavernous hellscape from which he came and tries rallying his people, but is interrupted by Zygon. And, of course, they fight. Orin is almost defeated by Zygon, but before he if flown off the edge of a cliff into the fire below, three starflies appear, merge into one and tell Orin he does not need the hilt, the power was always within him, there never was a blade and other ‘the force with be with you, always’ lines. Orin creates a blade of pure energy from his hands out of nowhere, kills Zygon, and there was much rejoicing.

Orin uses his new found power to blast a way out of the underworld to the world topside, complete with steps and everyone is freed. They are all reunited (again) on the surface, and Orin uses his powers to cure his brother Calli of his blindness. The starflies reveal themselves to be the spirits of the previous members of the Kha-Khan and offer Orin a place with them. But he declines deciding to stay with Aviana, his new friends and family. Roll Credits.

Oh, and if you are a little annoyed at me for not saying, ‘Spoiler Warning’ before any of this, Meh. I mean, you with either watch this film anyway, or it’s not your thing. And if this film was a person, it would already have kids that are old enough to vote, so, you know, settle down.

And if you thought to yourself while reading this that this story sounds a bit like Star Wars. You would be correct. Congratulations, you get a cookie.

There have always been movies made to cash in on a popular film or trend. That is just a given. But with the emergence of the blockbuster, starting with Jaws, they started popping up all over the place. They are called ‘knock offs’. Some good, some cult classic and some bad. With the release of Jaws in 1975 we get the good like Piranha (1981), the cult like Alligator (1980) and Grizzly (1976) and the bad Devil Fish (1984). Alien (1979) gave us Contamination (1980) Deepstar Six (1989) Galaxy of Terror (1981) and the bonkers Lily C.A.T. (1987). Terminator (1984) gave us Cyborg (1989), Nemesis (1992), and Hardware (1990). And of course, Star Wars has had a metric butt-ton of them. Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) is probably the best of them, but Starcrash (1978) Message From Space (1978) and our humble film Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985) are among the more recognisable.

While many are shameless rip-offs, not even trying to disguise what they’re doing, some at least try to do something different and are fondly remembered for it, like Battle Beyond the Stars and Galaxy of Terror (thank you Roger Corman). Starchaser: The Legend of Orin, fairly or not, is lumped in with the ‘knock offs’. It seems to flip between ‘we’re doing our own thing’ and ‘yeah, this is Star Wars’

Should it be in the knock off pile? Hell yes. But that doesn’t make it a bad film. It might not be a good film, but it’s definitely on a bad one. It is simply a fun little piece of entertainment that is derivative of something else. Something you could accuse Star Wars itself to be after to realise George Lucas famously cherry-picked elements, designs, transitions and whole chucks of plots from other films and movie serials.

Starchaser is Star Wars with a new suit of clothes. Orin is our Luke Skywalker stand in, Dagg is our Han Solo (but in this case there is no argument about who shot first), Aviana is Princess Leia and Zygon is Darth Vader if he was played by David Bowie. Even Elan and her grandfather are playing on Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, being that their deaths light a fire under our hero and sever certain ties to his life allowing him to leave. And of course, Zygon’s robot army, while looking more like the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, serve the same function as the stormtroopers. Hell, even their aim is the same. 

The story follows the same beats as well. The ‘chosen one’, a hero from a backwater find out they’re special and goes on an adventure to save the world/universe. There is the wise old man that guides the way, the rogue who helps, the damsel in distress/love interest, the comedy sidekicks (being robots in both cases), and strange, otherworldly creatures and characters that they meet along the way. And the Starchaser itself is our Millennium Falcon for the film. Even if it has more in common with Star Trek’s iconic ship. Like Star Wars, there is an element of the King Arthur legend in here, and even a dash of the Masters of the Universe as well. And with a lot of stories like this, the way forward is the way back, and the power was within you all long. Hell, movie goers saw that in The Wizard of OZ back in 1939.

But the film does do a few things differently. Add little spice of its own to the meal. The R2D2 and C-3PO stand-ins are not the usual comic relief characters in this kind of movie. Arthur, the Starchaser’s AI, while he frets like C-3PO, he comes off more like Dr Smith from TVs Lost in Space without the self-serving undercurrent running through that character. He is also stationary, physically being a part of the ship. Apart from his voice, he is given character by an eye stork that pops up out of the ship’s main console. The other droid, Silica is a different beast altogether. With a design that is more similar to the sexy femme fatale robot from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (oddly enough one of the designs that influenced C-3PO look), she at first isn’t given much of a personality. Well, at first, at least. She embodies three different character types, or stereotypes, depending on how your bread is buttered. She is first shown as a by the numbers ‘ball busting’ female authority figure, then when she is reprogrammed by Dagg, she becomes the sex pot stereotype, all gooey eyes and sexy walks, who is in love with Dagg, and then when she is being sold in Toga-Togo, she becomes the damsel in distress in need of rescuing. She doesn’t seem to have a personality or a mind that is her own. The is until she IS alone, left to repair the ship and Arthur by herself. Then she becomes a ‘person’, and a member of the crew and has purpose in the story and also moves it along. She saves the day on more than one occasion. 

The film isn’t all stolen ideas and stereotypes, mind up. There are some very elements to this animated flick too. The environments are not the usual standard here. The underground mining colony seem more at home in an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom knock off, the swamp locale is straight out of a horror movie and the planet Bordogon has more in common with a fantasy sword and sorcery film than a sci-fi or space opera.

The animation itself is unlike the Saturday morning cartoon of the time. There is a fluidity to the movement of the characters similar to the rotoscoped animation of the films of Ralph Bakshi. The main villain Zygon even looks like an alternate version of the villain Nekron from Bakshi’s Fire and Ice, right down to the blue skin. Fun side note: Andrew Belling, who composed the music for Starchaser, also composed the score for Bakshi’s Wizards in 1977.

And with the film being in the ‘knock off’ pile, I do think a lot of people did see this. Maybe not on cinema screens, but on VHS and TV, because I think the film may have influenced are few things in later, more successful properties. There is a part within the aerial dogfight that Starchaser is in in the middle of the film where the Starchaser does a very interesting manoeuvre. By turning its nacelles on the side of the ship, they forcibly turn the ship around in a slip second. A manoeuvre that wouldn’t be seen until a certain Firefly class ship did the same thing in the film Serenity. Upon watching this film again for the purposes of writing this article, I couldn’t help wondering if Joss Whedon was a fan of this movie.

Another is the death of Zygon. After Orin gains his hidden strength and produces the blades of energy from with, he slices Zygon in two at the waist, and the villain falls into the fiery cavern that he was about to throw our hero. And we see split into two as we watch him screaming all the way down. I like to imagine George Lucas saw this film and lifted that scene for the death of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace. Which is fair play. They kind of owed him. Maybe that’s why he never sued them.

At the end of the day, this film is fun, but doesn’t really stand out from the crowd of sci-fi adventures and imitators that flooded the market in the 1980s. Unless the nightmares that keep you awake when you were a child where that of those fucking Man-Droids. It is enjoyable enough, with a certain naïve charm, but not memorable. Young kids might enjoy it, but I think audiences have long since moved on.

But if you are curious or, like me being a massive nerd, and has a thing for animated films from the 80s and 90s that had nothing to do with big studios, I would, oddly enough, recommend this. Not as amazing as a film by Ralph Bakshi or Don Bluth, and if you never saw the film, you wouldn’t be missing much. Bit I liked it. Flaws and all.

So far, this is the only film I’ve covered that I don’t actually own a copy of. I have to get on that one of these days.

Well, till next time fellow Man-Droids.