Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson July 8, 2021

While introducing John Sayles's City of Hope (1991) to my fellow undergraduates in the course, "The City in Film," my geography professor focused part of his talk on the scripts Sayles wrote and the resulting movies made for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. "They're kind of bad," he cheekily remarked. But when I later saw such Sayles-penned pictures like Piranha (1978) and The Howling (1981), the latter of which Corman didn't produce but made a cameo, I didn't think they were so bad. In fact, I consider both quite good. While I don't consider Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) to be in the same league, it sports above-average art direction, costumes, and music. Author Gerard Molyneaux writes in his biography on Sayles that BBtS and other commercial screenplays he wrote at New World earned him $40,000, which helped finance his feature directorial debut, Return of the Secaucus Seven, which actually came out a year earlier. The Fort Worth (TX) Star Telegram's Perry Stewart was delighted with the screenplay for BBtS, which he stated is "full of delicious self parody, yet has enough straight forward action to entertain on that level as well." In a 1984 interview with Gerald Peary that appeared in The Twilight Zone Magazine, Sayles opines that BBtS is "about two-thirds as good as it could have been. We didn't have the budget to do certain things. For instance, there is a character in the film who is a giant lizard. Originally he was supposed to be a big black guy with a yakuza tattoo on his back and be much more of a humanoid than this guy in a lizard suit and a Captain Hook routine. The character lost lots of depth...Originally my script was more about death and how these beings, Nestor — five guys who look exactly the same and have only one consciousness — dealt with death...The Nestor part was cut down, which happens when you're on a tight schedule."

According to the Los Angeles Times' Lee Grant, Corman and his crew shot BBtS for five weeks in a Venice, California studio recently built for this film and future sci-fi productions. The special effects work required another eight months in the same facility. In Corman's 1990 autobiography, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime, the B movie mogul deems Battle "the most expensive production I had ever financed at $2 million." However, newspaper reporters who interviewed Corman in 1980 put the budget much higher: $5-$5.5 million.

To my surprise, BBtS received its share of favorable reviews. The Gannett News Service's Mike Hughes praised director Jimmy T. Murakami and cinematographer Daniel Lacambre. "[They] have a brilliant visual sense. Time after time, they fill the screen with spectacular shots. That includes some stunning space fights, of course, plus a lot more. Their camera can take a close-up of a face or a row of buttons and turn it into a work of art." In a three-star review, Bruce Smith of the Daily (NY) News described BBtS "Star Wars meets The Magnificent Seven in this outer-space tale that has more camp than the Boy Scouts of America. It comes as a cool breeze near the end of a summer when most new movies have been as stale and sticky as the weather....a funny, entertaining movie that seems worth the price of admission." The San Francisco Examiner's John Stark also gave BBtS three stars but took it less seriously, calling it a "sci-fi spoof so bad it’s good. [T]he best terrible movie I've seen in a light year or two....it laughs at itself, and has fun."

Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A decade after Shout! Factory gave Battle Beyond the Stars a "30th Anniversary Special Edition" under the banner of Roger Corman's Cult Classics, the boutique label has re-released it on a SteelBook with a new transfer that's taken from a fresh 2K scan of the interpositive. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 boasts an upgraded image that appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. My colleague Marty Liebman covered the old release, which slightly opened up the transfer to the 16x9-friendly 1.78:1 and fit it on a BD-25. Marty noted the presence of an "occasional sprinkling of dirt, a few lingering scratches, some background noise, and a few bouts of background blocking and banding." This transfer mostly eliminates those anomalies. There are less frequent speckles, which don't pop up often, and only one effects shot that displays thin vertical tramlines and some dirt. The color palette is a bit more vibrant here and also shows better delineation. Shout! has encoded the main feature at a mean video bitrate of 34985 kbps.

Shout! provides a generous twenty-four scene selections for the 104-minute film.

Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! supplies a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (3917 kbps, 24-bit), a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (2010 kbps, 24-bit), and a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1895 kbps, 24-bit). The stereo mix is new to this release. The uncompressed 5.1 track is practically identical to the one Marty reviewed. Dialogue is consistently intelligible and audible along the fronts. A definite highlight is James Horner's rousing score. According to film music historian Randall D. Larson, Horner used a 62-piece orchestra that while not as large as he wanted, was far preferable over a smaller ensemble performing only on electronic instruments. The main theme, while somewhat reminiscent of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith's then-recent space opuses, is pure Horner: thrilling adventure music anchored by the brass section. The cue "The Hunter" evokes Sergei Prokofiev's music for Alexander Nevsky (1938). In his review of BBtS for the New York Times, John Corry observed: "there is a lot of stirring music on the soundtrack." Alan Howarth contributed additional music and special sound effects for the film. The aforesaid Larson wrote in the liner notes of the soundtrack album released by BSX Records that Howarth worked with David Yudall, the supervising sound editor, to produce sounds for the seven space ships and laser weapons. They also processed a number of dialogue tracks for computer voice effects. Using Moog and Roland vocoders, Howarth re-recorded the voices and added on flanged sound effects to those tracks.

Shout!'s first release didn't have any subtitling options but this release thankfully has English SDH that can be switched on or off.

Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Shout! includes the exact same menu design and interface (save for a couple of additional audio options) as its 2011 package. It also duplicates its original extras. Please refer to Marty's write-up for details on each.

• Audio Commentary by Writer John Sayles and Producer Roger Corman

• Audio Commentary by Production Manager Gale Anne Hurd

• The Man Who Would Be Shad: Interview with Actor Richard Thomas (15:21, 1080p)

• Space Opera on a Shoestring (33:33, 1080p)

• Radio Spot (0:32)

• Still Gallery (3:05, 1080p)

• Production Photos (5:20, 1080p)

• Posters (1:30, 1080p)

Battle Beyond the Stars Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I admire and appreciate Battle Beyond the Stars more than Marty does. The hero working in the background of this production has to be James Cameron (then known as "Jim"), who worked tirelessly to ensure that the sets were fully ready by the time filming commenced. Cameron's art decoration boasts attractive backdrops that aren't gaudy and meet at least a B-level grade. Shout! Factory's SteelBook boasts an improved transfer from a recent 2K scan. It also includes a lossless monaural track for the time as well as an alternate stereo mix. All bonus materials are carried over from the DVD and BD editions. A SOLID RECOMMENDATION for Battle Beyond the Stars.