Here we have a strange and curious entry in the scifi genre, a science fiction comedy with a tragic backstory. The film was to be among the first few serious roles by playmate Dorothy Stratten, this was supposed to be her first starring role that would launch her real acting career but her life was cut short, her boyfriend got jealous of her relationship with director Peter Bogdanovich and decided to murder her by shooting her and then committing suicide. The movie was released just one day prior to the murder-suicide and was pulled a day after in order to receive a later release. A sad story of a life and a potential star taken away too soon.
Galaxina is about a group of Space Police members in the year 3008, they have different misadventures in their cruiser and in an asteroid brothel but then a mission requires the men to be placed in suspended animation for several years. In the meantime, the android assistant of the captain, Galaxina, begins to become more sentient and more human, beginning to develop emotions for Thor, the first officer. Several space shenanigans occur then.
The film has decent special effects and production design for a movie of its kind, the light tone makes it somewhat palatable and there's interesting creatures and settings but it's overall a very mixed bag at best. Probably the biggest problem is the lack of agency and importance regarding the title character (she doesn't even show up until 24 minutes into the film!), by this time in mainstream cinema most female heroes werent truly popular in Hollywood and the only reference people had was Alien (1979), a few female secondary characters (Leia in Star Wars for example), the women in prison movies and the rape revenge genre, but two years earlier we saw a much better heroine in Starcrash (1978) who was not only tougher than Galaxina but also the main character, by comparison, this is just kind of dull.
Most of the movie is just a collection of flat jokes and slow plot development, often opting for a horribly sluggish pace, trusting that the sets will entertain and dazzle the audience. They don't. It tumbles down into a very boring experience with little conflict and banal jokes without effective punchlines or proper set ups. Not to mention, this is simply a rip off of much better movies, it imitates the Star Wars cantina scene (two times!) and several other moments from more well-known films but it never achieves more than just a tiny snicker here and there.
There’s a potentially interesting idea about Galaxina wanting to be more human and experience love but that's just an excuse to add romance or sexy scenes to the movie more than anything else.
The best sequence is the one with Galaxina walking into a western town looking for a gemstone named the Blue Star and encounters a bunch of human-eating aliens and has a duel with an alien. The ambience is as loony as it should be, the shots are striking because of the attractive and imaginative visuals and Galaxina looks wonderful in action (finally!). The movie needed more scenes like that one but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be.
You see, the shooting schedule for the film was cut short due to bad weather and several scenes had to be cut in order to finish the film in time. Even the director, William Sachs, admits that the pacing is too slow and that the story doesn't really make much sense, the ending and plot development feel rushed or downright non-existent for the most part, skipping plot points and the meat of the story, leaving us with a rough cut that is missing a good chunk of the story. Perhaps one day someone can remake it with the full script? Would be a good idea.
As for now, just stick to the artwork and the few decent scenes with Galaxina because her design and Dorothy's screen presence are worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment