Saturn 3 (1980)

[Scott]

Just caught the whole movie SATURN 3 on FLIX tonight and liked it. The robot was stupid looking, kinda like a person in a headless horsemen costume with the high shoulders. The film worked though and kept my interest.  It stars Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcet. Surprised to see nudity from these to stars especially Douglas at what must have been 60 years old. Not bad for a Sci-Fi film. It had the atmosphere and story of something between 2001 and Supernova. You'll also see early ideas that are later found in Matrix. Like the imput into the back of the neck. It was a good 8pm freebie on FLIX because its something I might not have rented off the shelve because of the stars involved.

[Andrew]

I want to know why there was an airlock in the locker room.

Didn't need to see Douglas' buttocks either.  Things start to droop when you get to that age.

[Scott]

Hehe. Thats is so true Andrew, that is what made this film unique. What happened to the Spartacus that we once knew. I guess it will happen to us all one day.

[JohnL]

>The robot was stupid looking, kinda like a person in a headless horsemen
>costume

Except that if I remember the behind the scenes articles correctly, there wasn't anyone inside the robot, it was a giant puppet.

>I want to know why there was an airlock in the locker room.

I guess that's in case the crew isn't performing up to expectations, they can just blow them out into space and start fresh. :)

 Of course the way the body shattered on the way out was stupid.

[J.R.]

I always wondered, "What would it be like to see Harvey Keitel dubbed with an English accent?". Now I know.

[Squishy]

Kirk Douglas was constantly presenting his bare arse to movie audiences in the '80s, like some damn baboon in heat. (He also drops his britches in "Holocaust 2000," which is also hilarious for other reasons.) Thank God Burgess Meredith only did it once. Brrrrr. Waaaak waaak waaaak.

Oh man, the opening scene of "Saturn 3"--a massive spaceship passing over the camera for what seems like an eternity--lets you know exactly what you're in for, in terms of originality. (I'm also curious as to how one could pop an airlock on a starship without anyone getting any kind of alert. It's not like opening a window on a yacht...)

Production designer ("Star Wars," "Superman," "A Clockwork Orange") John Barry reportedly planned to direct his story for "Saturn 3" as a straightforward pulpy sci-fi-horror flick, but he died from meningitis* as production was beginning. Stanley Donen took over, and he and UK novelist Martin Amis added all the pretentious psycho-babble and "duality of character" hoohah. (Donen followed this with "Blame It On Rio" and then fell into sporadic TV work.)

"Hector" is the ugliest robot design I can remember, and as long as you stay out of his reach, he's about as threatening as Tom Servo. Ro-Man would've stomped his ass flat. Keitel's character is the only one that captured my interest even a little, and that's because they never explain why he's doing ANY of this; Douglas was annoying as Hell, and Farrah was...well, The Total Window-Dressing Helpless Female. (I wanted to see Sigourney Weaver show up and slap her.) Toss in a phony mutilated head, some sorta-cool/sorta-crappy SFX (love the trip through Saturn's rings--hee hee!), and the hair (Farrah's assorted do's and Keitel's little rat-tail), and you have another example of what made the Eighties suck.

*...what the hell IS it with creative people and meningitis? Is science studying this?

[Scott]

John L , I couldn't tell it was a puppet. I could have swore that bad looking robot was doing t he headless horseman costume design

Andrew, Kirk Douglas is to much. Woohoo. Weird stuff.

Squishy you hit this movie on the head.

[Gerry]

Haven't see this one since I was a teenager and even then I thought it was stupid and the nudity disappointing (nudity's important when you're a teenager--okay it's still important).

Must give it another look one of these days.

[AndyC]

Why is everybody so hard on Hector? As movie robots go, he's not so bad. I think he has just the right combination of being humanoid, yet very inhuman, to make him menacing. The combination of mechanical and organic styling is good. The towering body with a tiny little head, with the two beady little cameras and no features to tell us what's going on inside - very effective.

Can anybody remember the name of the anatomical drawing he's partly based on?

[Scott]

Gerry this film would have bored me to death if I was a teenager,

[JohnL]

>Can anybody remember the name of the anatomical drawing he's partly based
>on?

Gray's (Grey's?) Anatomy?