“Don’t bother with the shields. That bot’s about to get a laser-enema.”

Justin’s rating: Aren’t you a little short for a cylontrooper?

Justin’s review: One complaint I never understood was the accusation of plenty of late ’70s and ’80s projects being blatant Star Wars clones. I won’t argue that there wasn’t a rash of these. Battlestar Galactica, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Last Starfighter, and so many more aimed to capture some of this market. But the complaint fails to acknowledge that Lucas created a huge demand for rip-roaring space opera adventures… and then only gave us three movies. Three GREAT movies, yes, but once we’d seen those a thousand times, we had a hunger for more.

So is it any surprise that other studios would identify the craving for Star Wars-like adventures and attempt to fill demand? And some of these actually did a halfway decent job, such as in the case of Starchaser: The Legend of Orin.

Instead of being about some whiny desert brat who dreams of Tashi Station, Starchaser follows the exploits of an underground slave named Orin. Our puffy vested hero and his fellow people are being oppressed by Zygon and his definitely-not-Cylons robots. One day, Orin finds He-Man’s power sword and decides that this is the best time to bust free, gather up a few NPC companions for his roleplaying party, and then return to instigate a full-fledged rebellion.

You can almost make a game out of spotting all of the references from a galaxy far, far away. Whether it be the whiny artificial intelligence, the definitely-not-a-lightsaber sword, a hive of scum and villainy, the two-legged giant walkers, the helmeted and cloaked bad guys, the Han Solo stand-in and his hot rod ship, a torture droid, or the triumphant musical stings, Starchaser is as shameless as they came.

Orin’s action figure-friendly party includes a saucy princess, a cute fembot named Silica who definitely hasn’t inspired generations of DeviantArt perverts, and a money-chasing smuggler supposedly modeled on (why not?) Burt Reynolds. How is this not the best movie of all time?

Starchaser got an extra dose of respect from me by how brutal it could be. It’s not bloodthirsty by any means, but neither is it an overly sanitized Saturday morning cartoon adventure. People get crushed, whipped, strangled, sliced in two, impaled, and blinded — and that just in the first few 15 minutes.

Another plus in its favor is generally decent animation that’s a cut or two above network TV (but still not Disney fluid). There are even scenes where computer graphics melded with the animation to deliver some impressive spaceship chases and battles. But it’s hard to shake off the feeling that this is Heavy Metal-lite with its character designs and rotoscoping — just without the excessive gore and nudity.

There are a couple of points where Starchaser rises above derivative homages to achieve something like clever imagination. I really liked the creepy swamp cyborgs that try to harvest Orin’s body parts for their own use.

Having never seen this before, I’m cursing the fact that I didn’t get to enjoy this in the ’80s when I was part of that “high demand” for knock-off Star Wars. While the plot isn’t anything original, the world design, animated effects, and well-paced adventure instantly propelled this to a classic in my mind.

Intermission!

• Supposedly, this was the first animated movie made for 3-D
• Laser whips are the coolest whips
• Robots HATE hugging
• All magic swords come with a glowy exposition dude tucked inside of it
• “Oh you can’t come with us, little blind kid. But hey, you’ll be with us in spirit! That’s almost as good!”
• Who thought it was a good idea to equip slaves with laser cannons and the guards with limited-range whips?
• Space leeches!
• The swamp cyborgs are genuinely creepy
• The sword turned into a lightsaber? Sort of?
• The ship’s computer is totally C3P0
• About time the good guys had robot minions of their own
• Spaceships respond to being bullied, and robots can be reprogramed via a butt-hatch
• “Don’t waste your tears on me, honey. You’ll rust.”
• About time someone in this movie got nuked
• “If there’s a heaven for computers, I’ll be thinking of you.”
• I really like the princess’ companion bot’s design