STAR ODYSSEY/ SPACE ODYSSEY DVD

Star Odyssey is a horrible, Italian movie from 1979 that was clearly made only to try to earn a few bucks off of Star Wars' success. One of the movie posters for this film shows a thin, golden robot like C-3PO and a guy holding a lightsaber! Here's the front of the cheap, one dollar DVD box made by PC Treasures, Inc. in 2006 that I got at Target. The DVD also includes episodes of Superman, Felix the Cat, the New 3 Stooges, and Rocky Jones, Space Ranger.

You may think that sinister looking guy would be the main bad guy in the movie (the "Darth Vader") but he's not; he's just an auctioneer. The villain of the movie is some guy who looks like he was hit in the face with a hot waffle iron. The characters get worse, though... Let's look at the back of the box.

In the first picture we see one of their versions of C-3PO. There's two humanoid robots that look like a mix between C-3PO and a Teletubby. One's name is Tilk (male voice) and the other's Tilly (female voice). They bicker with each other and talk about committing suicide more than once in the film. They also use an annoying amount of robot related puns.

The film also has its answer to R2-D2 who, if I remember correctly, is a drink serving 'bot.

The back of the box calls this movie "Star Odyssey" and "Space Odyssey". I believe Space Odyssey is what the film is sometimes referred to in United States, but the box's front proves that that's not always the case.

The text claims Space Odyssey to be a "sci-fi classic". It definitely has your classic, stale science fiction kind of music, unlike Star Wars' epic classical music.

"...this incredible saucer-shaped DVD..."?

Star Odyssey is about a waffle-faced guy trying to take over the Earth with his army of robots (guys with wigs on... I'm not joking). A group of heroes is assembled that includes an overly dramatic guy nicknamed "Hollywood", a gambling scoundrel named Dirk (who has powers very similar to the Force), two scientists, the robots, and an acrobatic boxer whose name I forget (he's the guy in blue to the right of "C-3PO"). They discover the evil robot army's weakness: lightsabers. These swords with reflective blades can somehow penetrate the androids' bodies.

Here's "Hollywood".

And here's that acrobatic guy... He's boxing a robot in this picture.

This is from a scene where planets are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. The costumes in this scene are pathetic, they really make you appreciate the Cantina aliens in A New Hope.

The back of the box says, "Starring YANTI SOMMER, GIANNI GARKO, and MALISA LONGO. Cinematography by SILLVO FRASCHETTI. Edited by MARIO ARDITI. Original Score by MARCELLO GIOMBI. Written and Directed by AL BRADLEY. Runtime 106 minutes."

I've seen other DVDs put out by PC Treasures that resemble this one. Here's the Gamera movie Destroy All Planets along with The White Gorilla. I think I've seen Lone Ranger and Beverly Hillbillies ones, too.

I'm going to warn you, I love strange Star Wars stuff, but Star Odyssey is beyond a bootleg figure or a knockoff toy. Watching this film left me feeling like I wasted time that I'll never get back. I don't recommend watching this movie.