“What you can’t stand, you run from. Like you ran from Earth.”

Justin’s rating: Meanwhile on Saturn 2, there’s a nail-biting pickleball tournament happening

Justin’s review: Sometimes you watch a movie because you’re genuinely interested in it. And sometimes you pick a flick because you’re checking off a box on your “I guess I should watch this at some point in my life just to say I did” list.

Saturn 3, check.

I don’t have many other notable ’80s scifi films left on this list (although there are still a few!), so I knew I wanted to take a peek at this early-decade effort that came on the heels of Star Wars and Alien. (In fact, legendary Star Wars production designer John Barry wrote this story.)

In the far future, Earth’s population requires more food than the planet can supply, so it’s up to “experimental food stations” around the solar system to fit the bill. I don’t know what the cost and shipping time is required to send some corn from Uranus to New Jersey, but it’s going to drive up prices at the grocery store, I can tell you.

One of these stations is Saturn 3, where Adam (Kirk Douglas) and Alex (Farrah Fawcett) handle all of the duties by themselves. Their peaceful existence is shattered by the arrival of Captain Benson (an overdubbed Harvey Keitel), a mentally unstable murderer disguised as a scientist sent to help the station along.

Benson assembles a giant robot with a weird brain core at its center, because every mad scientist needs a droid minion. The aging Adam and naive Alex find themselves overwhelmed as things go from bad to worse as both Benson and Hector the robot have the hots for Alex.

One thing is undeniable: Saturn 3 is gorgeous old-school scifi eye candy. The models and the sets pop with color and pleasing design, a more cheery vision than Nostromo’s industrial tech. It’s like the ’70s aesthetic was trying to get a jump on the vibrancy that would define the mid-80s onward. I genuinely thought that the outpost itself was loaded with detail and begging for a tour.

It’s just a shame that good production values and a nice-sized budget are hitched to a boring and disjointed story that should be more interesting than it ends up being. I mean, how hard to you have to work to screw up “killer robot in space?” One of the many problems here is that there are only three humans on this station, so it’s not like there are many targets for a potential rampage.

Benson’s motives are confusing and never really explained. Is he hoping that if he makes the project succeed, all will be forgiven? Does he want to take over the outpost? Does he really think nobody’s going to look for him after he murders a coworker? Why doesn’t he just barge in there and kill everyone in the first couple minutes?

And it’s not like the other characters make any more sense. Douglas at age 64 is clearly trying to prove that he’s still a hunk of sexpot, hilariously overdoing the athleticism every chance he gets. And Fawcett is nothing more than a flimsy damsel in distress and a prop for Douglas’ ego.

It’s a weird movie that jerks from dull, plodding scenes to moments approaching actual terror and creativity. If you like this aesthetic and don’t mind picking out interesting morsels while rejecting the rest as trash, perhaps Saturn 3 has something for you. It’s not a complete waste, but I can see why nobody — film studios or audiences alike — gave it a chance in 1980.

Intermission!

• That’s the worst title font I’ve seen in a long time
• Aaaaand there’s your gigantic Star Wars-style ship flyover
• The upside-down people on the station is as cool as it is disorienting
• Dang, that guy just shattered
• Blues help you sleep
• Monogamy is “penally unsociable” on Earth
• A giant tube of brain!
• Robots don’t like to be laughed at
• Some eye horror for y’all
• “AM NOT MALFUNCTIONING. YOU ARE.”
• The dog is dead, time to call in John Wick
• He’s rebuilding himself!
• Robots love a good severed head as a hat