Where
to begin here? The Turkish Star Wars is notorious in some circles for its
unauthorized use of Star Wars
footage (often it is rear projected while the actors perform in front) and swiping bits from the
sound tracks to Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Flash Gordon, Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes, The Black Hole among several others.
The
actual name of the film is Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam translated as “The Man Who Saved the World.” It
was made in 1982 on a, presumably, low budget. But due to the very sketchy Turkish
laws surrounding copyrights made up for it by stealing all of its space combat
scenes from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.
The action sequences
are the most laughable scenes. Often our heroes fight large pink furry
creatures, obviously inspired from Chewbacca, but they come across more like
Gossamer from Looney Tunes. They effortless rip off arms and decapitate them all
without shedding blood. Also there are a number of mummy creatures, who look as
if they are wrapped in toilet paper, and can kill a man with one flick of the
wet end. These also cause our heroes no significant problem. 
My particular favorite
part however has to be the training montage. To prepare for his final battle
our hero rips off Rocky and begins exercising to build himself
up to superhuman proportions. He does
this by pounding the flats of his palms onto mounds of dirt, punching boulders,
and hopping around with rocks tied to his legs. This last exercise allows him the power to bounce
off trampolines when the camera angle is low.  |
| No copyright infringement here. |
The
plot, from what I can tell, follows Murat and Ali, whose spaceships crash on a desert
planet following a battle, shown by using footage from Star Wars as well
as clips from the space shuttle launch. While hiking across the desert, with
absolutely no evidence they guess that the planet is inhabited solely by women.
Ali demonstrates the whistles he uses on women. However, he blows the wrong note
or something and they are attacked by skeletons on horseback, which they defeat
in hand-to-hand combat. The main villain soon shows up and captures the heroes,
bringing them to his gladiatorial arena. The villain tells them he is actually
from Earth and is a 1,000-year-old wizard. He tried to defeat Earth, but was
always repelled by a shield of
concentrated human brain molecules (shown as the Death Star). The only way he can bypass this is
to use a human brain against it.
The
heroes escape by beating everyone up and hide in a cave full of refugees. Murat
develops a romantic connection with the only woman there, who looks after the
children. (The romance is shown through many long eye-contacts and smiles from
the girl, but nothing more. In fact, I don’t believe she has any lines). The
wizard’s creatures attack and turn several of the children into monsters, their
blood used to renew the evil wizard's immortality. The three then flee the cave
and find a local bar, an obvious Mos Eisley Cantina rip off. The two men
quickly get into a bar brawl, but the villain suddenly appears and captures
them again.
The
wizard separates the men and tries to convince them to join him. He sends his
queen to seduce Ali, while he orders Murat to be brought before him. He offers
Murat the chance to rule over the earth and stars if he joins him. He possesses
the power of Earth's ancestry in the form of a golden brain, and all he needs
to conquer Earth is a real human brain. After Murat refuses to give up his
brain, the wizard shows that he has captured the woman and child. Meanwhile,
monsters attack Ali when he is about to kiss the queen. They are both disabled
by guards and then unproductively tortured by the wizard. Finally, the wizard
pits Murat against a laugh inducing giant monster in the arena. Murat kills the
monster and flees, taking the woman and the child with him. Ali is left behind.
Murat finds
out about a sword made by the 13th clan, who melted a mountain thousands of
"space years" ago to forge the weapon. Murat later finds this sword in
a cave defended by two golden ninjas. He gains his light sabre equivalent- a golden sword shaped like a lightning bolt, which is obviously just made from wood and painted gold. The hero runs around awkwardly with it, touching his enemies and killing them instantly. Murat goes to free his friend from a dungeon.
However, Ali becomes envious of the sword, knocks out Murat and takes both the
sword and the golden brain. The wizard tricks Ali into giving him the items.
Now possessing them, the wizard has increased powers of some kind. He kills Ali
and traps Murat, the woman, and the child, who then escape again.
Murat
decides to melt down the golden sword and the golden human brain and forge them
into a pair of gauntlets and boots. Equipped with magical gloves and
super-jumping boots, he searches for the sorcerer to avenge his friend's death.
After fighting monsters and skeletons, he comes face-to-face with his nemesis
and karate chops him in half. He then leaves the planet for Earth in the Millennium
Falcon.
The
film, as you have read, is astoundingly insane. I first found it on sale (long
before Youtube) at a little video store in Buffalo that specialized in out of
the ordinary films, and bought it on a whim. Some friends and I sat down,
cracked open a few beers (every bad film is made better with beer) and watched.
There were no subtitles in my copy, so we made up a plot as we went along,
laughing our asses off the whole time. From what I saw it had bad editing, grainy film stock, odd
choices of music, laughably cheap props, and amazingly bad action sequences. We
had no idea what was happening, but loved every minute of it. Now that’s the
definition of so bad its good.
Full film here
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