Some time back I ordered a Blu-Ray copy of Saturn 3. I don’t know, I must have seen a behind-the-scenes YouTube video on the trauma that it took to create this film, which as produced during the 1970s/80s scramble by studios to pump out sci-fi movies just after unexpected success of the first Star Wars movie. Also, there’s a poorly dubbed Harvey Keitel and his robot, Hector, leering at naive Farrah Fawcett. For some reason she’s not at all interested in letting him “use” her body. He’s even offers to give her drugs so that she won’t have to remember the experience and maybe her aging partner would like to watch. What’s not to like? But, before I oversell the flick, it’s not that kind of movie, although we do get a shot of Kirk Douglas’ 63-year-old butt and a split-second peak at Fawcett’s boob following a shower scene (it was the 1980s, after all). This is so bad, it’s kind’a good.

The film was originally the brain child of Star Wars production designer John Barry, and that seems evident by the designs of the interior of the moon base and the space station and the choreography of the launch of the probe at the beginning of the film. But this as also his first and only directorial effort (which he was fired from two-weeks into principal photography), and that is also evident in that the plot barely makes sense and the ending feels slapped on. 

The first plot hole I fell in (SPOILER ALERT!): what kind of space organization is so loosely monitored that someone can just put on a dark helmet and get on a ship without closer inspection, or someone opening an air-lock that results in another pilot getting splattered to bits doesn’t generate an alarm or investigation somewhere? And why did Captain Benson (Harvey Keitel) murder the other pilot before going to Saturn 3? Was he stealing the other pilot’s identity? Did he want the robot building assignment, even though he failed the training course? I got the impression that whoever gets sent to Saturn 3 feels like it’s a shit assignment? Clearly there was something wrong with him, but it seems like there was something wrong with everyone who had any dialogue. Well, it was 1980.

It would seem that Barry’s early departure from his project was due to difficulty working with Douglas, who felt like Barry was spending more time working with the $2-million robot special effect, that kept falling apart and breaking down, than with the human actors. The film’s producer, Stanley Donen, took over directing duties. This was Donen’s first Sci-fi effort, but he had a strong track record with MGM musicals. Somehow that makes sense. Given that all of the special effects were “practical effects” (pre-CGI) with miniatures and animatronics, there is a highly choreographed nature to a lot of the movie’s sequences, particularly the pilot running to the launch at the beginning of the movie and all of the chase sequences during the movie. So that tracts, it’s just all of the unanswered “why’s” that bogged things down. 

The 30-year age gap between Douglas and Fawcett is such a Hollywood trope that it almost makes sense, in that these two characters have rejected the way life is lived on Earth, him having lived it and her out of naive romanticism, to want to be disco-space hippies. All of which completely clashes with Keitel’s monotone demand for efficiency, while being also incompetent and more than a little psychotic. I guess what it comes down to is that this production and these characters are such a huge train wreck, that one cannot take ones eyes from it (or stop writing about it). I bought the R-rated Blu-Ray, but there are versions available online, though most likely those will be based on TV-friendly versions. Enjoy (and try not influencing the robots with your darker desires). JBB

[Movie watched via blu-ray on 2026-10-04]

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Tags: 1980s movies, 2026 movies, good bad movies, silly sci-fi, video Mondays

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