“Life’s a ride, kiddo. You fire up the engines, and you see where they take you.”

Justin’s rating: Hawk the Explainer

Justin’s review: What’s utterly crazy about Space Raiders — other than the fact that you’ve never heard of this film — is that it’s not a knockoff of Star Wars. No, it’s a knockoff of the knockoff of Star Wars. Specifically, it’s B-movie schlockmeister Roger Corman ripping off his former studio’s Battle Beyond the Stars, rushed into production in the hopes that it might enjoy some successful splash from Return of the Jedi that year.

Creepy kid Peter — easily the most alien-looking creature in a film stuffed with aliens — gets caught up in a pirate raid on a cargo depot because he’s absolutely obsessed with capturing a stop-motion bug. He stows away on the pirate’s ship and basically makes everyone’s life a living hell for the next 80 minutes.

C’mon guys, you’re pirates. You’ve got an airlock. It’s not like a little shove-and-shrug is going to tarnish your image.

The pirates can’t bring Peter back to his planet as long as they’re being pursued for grand theft spaceship, so they resign themselves to having the little weirdo stare at them until they go to sleep and, presumably, he harvests their brainstems for his collection.

The crew is a fairly likable assortment of scoundrels, including a grouchy woman, a psychic alien named Flightplan, and a middle-aged soccer coach (actually, ex-military) guy named Hawk. Man, I wish I had a cool name like Hawk. Or even Pigeon. I could be a good Pigeon, I think.

I’m sure you’re not surprised to learn that the pirates are secretly good people sticking it to The Space Man. They ultimately come up against a giant robotic deathship, but not before taking a tour through the intergalactic underworld, hanging out in bars, and rescuing Peter from all of the people trying to kidnap him. A bulk of the crew actually dies, one by one, protecting the little twerp, which should teach everyone a lesson. About. Um. Something.

Everyone seems to ding Space Raiders pretty hard for blatantly lifting the music, effects, and models from Battle Beyond the Stars, and that’s a fair observation. Yet it doesn’t stop this from being a fast-paced joyride through the cosmos. The sets are pretty cool in a low-budget way, there’s very little padding to the plot, and there are a ton of kooky alien designs to enjoy.

Derivative thought it may be, Space Raiders delivers a breezy, agreeable scifi version of Treasure Island with likable pirates and pulpy adventures. Maybe it has more babysitting than I usually look for in a space opera, but I wasn’t bored with the overall product.

Intermission!

• This actually got a theatrical release, something that would never, ever happen to a film of this quality today
• Stop-motion little alien bug! Which can chew through glass! Maybe you need to let him go, bud.
• Our heroes, murdering blue-collar workers right from the star!
• Nice Vertigo shot around the alien sensing the kid
• This ship has the worst medical setup
• They drink normal cans of beer in the future
• They’re murdering people all over the place
• I can get behind all of the times they toss and shove this kid around
• Does their spaceship have a bosom? Because it looks like it has a bosom.
• Casual sexual assault against an alien doesn’t go well
• The space bar is amazing — there are so many details to check out, including the gigantic musical instrument and ketchup bottles
• Hologram commercials are just as bad in the future (with legend Dick Miller!)
• “We never did laundry.”
• Alien cat jump scare!
• Food fight! With aliens!
• The big deathship won’t fire unless fired upon. Immediately: “I’m going to fire a warning shot!”
• Yeah just keep screaming in one spaceship hoping that you’ll be heard in the other ship across the vacuum of space
• You can’t buy rings, they have to come to you
• Time to play real-life Asteroids!
• Yeah just introduce a non-native species to an alien world. That sort of thing always goes well.
• Robots don’t deal well with water
• Vasquez Rocks, of course