“The hydrogen booster units are already at 6000 mega-degrees.”

Justin’s rating: I’m getting flashbacks to that first season Star Trek the Next Generation episode where they find the planet of the people who have sex all the time and kill kids for falling into flower beds

Justin’s review: If ’80s B-movies have done anything for me, other than inserting unrelenting pain in my joints, it’s to show that the directors were shameless in copying, plagiarizing, and recycling material. So let’s not put on airs and pretend that Starcrash II is the first time we’ve ever witnessed an awful sequel that’s functioned as some sort of regurgitated vomit of the first film’s special effects and ideas.

That acknowledgement doesn’t make this follow-up to 1978’s Starcrash any more bearable, though. After the cheesiest of all love ballads, we’re told that the “King of Night” Oraclon has shown up in his super-powerful spaceship and will be wiping out civilization post-haste. Oraclon is dressed up like an over-enthusiastic court jester (complete with a full-on glitter beard!), but his archnemesis, King Ceylon, isn’t doing the fashion world any favor with his lavender snuggie.

After a confusing battle of — yes — recycled special effects from the first movie, Oraclon wins and is like ha ha ha I won. Only Ceylon’s daughter and her swarthy Italian concubine (I’m guessing?) escape to earth for a good portion of this movie, which certainly won’t look good for Oraclon’s resume. This turns out to be a post-apocalyptic earth where everyone’s been thrown back into the hippie renaissance faire age because that’s a cheap thing to film.

Oh, and in case your mind isn’t already starting to wheeze from the outlandish costumes, dorky dialogue, and campy actors, the princess and her pal develop superpowers, immortality, and some red hot passionate feelings for each other while on earth. Sex, superpowers, and space — the three Ss of Italian cinema at that time.

Suffice to say, all of this comes at the cost of extreme confusion to the local natives, who were enjoying a fairly calm late August before these two bumbling sexpots crashlanded. Now they’re all in a tizzy over this apparent invasion, but also, teach us how to love Mr. Spaceman!

Starcrash II — AKA Escape from Galaxy 3 — has a lot in it, but do not mistake any of it for a plot. It’s an aimless, dull time-waster that probably lost the interest of the director long before doing the same to us.

Even the smooches can’t heat up a small cup of water, nevermind a full scene. Awful late-70s synth and warbling love ballads fill the soundtrack to convince you of imminent steamy activity, but the truth is that there’s nothing steamy over the next horizon, only Lorraine McFly kissing Marty in a car and instantly regretting it. Or something similar.

This is the kind of movie that feels made by and for people who have never had any real dates but have a vivid imagination about what it might be like. You know, if they got shunted off to a backwoods planet with nubile natives and a gullible princess and had special powers. I’m sure it would’ve been exactly like this, instructional kissing and waterfall nudity and all.

It’s also the most ’70s ’80s movie I’ve ever witnessed in all of the worst ways — guy perms and a 15-minute “Festival of Love” and cheesy choreographed dance scenes and a complete misunderstanding of what made Star Wars so good.

It’s not as though Starcrash was a masterpiece, but at least that had David Hasselhoff.* All Starcrash II has is low-grade misery that presumes upon your patience from start to finish. Partake at your own peril.

*This is the same logic I used to defend Sharknado 4.

Intermission!

• This sappy main theme is no John Williams’ Star Wars, I can tell you that
• A spacecraft that “doesn’t belong in our galaxy?” That’s a pretty bold statement
• “King of the Night” sounds pretty metal
• Glitter in your beard is a bold choice
• I dare you to tell me what’s actually happening in this hyperactive space battle
• Haha he zaps the good king to death out of nowhere before blowing up his space station
• I’m embarrassed for the princess because she has to wear half a uniform
• He checks one (1) hut and declares the entire village empty
• They’ve never seen water before? Ever? Even though they’re made up of a bunch of it?
• Wow, we graduated to burning people in effigy fairly quickly
• Super-jumping! Super-stacking! That looked utterly realistic!
• They’re scared of a water buffalo and the soundtrack goes BUH BUH BUM you idiots
• Apparently girls love being woken up by strange dudes rubbing flowers all over them. Go figure.
• If you have sex, you give up your immortality. This is slasher movie logic at work right here.
• Oh wow, this choreographed dance is making me embarrassed for everyone involved
• Go away! But you need us to protect you with our superpowers! Oh, then stay! But we should go! Then capture them! MAKE UP YOUR DANG MINDS
• Laser hands! Where did that come from? Nobody knows.
• In the middle of an intergalactic chase scene? That’s the perfect time for a love scene! They roll around a LOT.