Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Starchaser- The Legend of Orin (1985)
"Never dig up. Up is Hell." - Mine Robot
"Don't bother with the shields. That bot's about to get a laser-enema." - Dagg
"Oh dear what have you done to me? I'm naked, put my ship back on you perverted fembot!" - Arthur
What an awesome flick! I saw this years ago and could never remember what it was about, I was so young there were a few titles like this that I got mixed up. A super ambitious bit of film making, this was the first animated film entirely made in 3D. It cost millions to make and probably only recouped about 1/15th of the cost... so yeah it was a flop. Doesn't mean its not good though. A tale of space slavery and deception, starring no one I've ever heard of doing the VO's, I present to you STARCHASER- THE LEGEND OF ORIN!!!!
This one begins in the mines of slave planet Trinia where our young hero slaves away with his girlfriend, young blind brother, and all of his people, under the rule of a terrible tyrant named Zygon who has robot guards that force the people to dig all day for crystals. The slaves think that this is all that life is, even though they've heard tales of another world beyond the Hell that their lives is. The truth is that their life is a complete facade and Zygon is using these people. One day Orin (our hero) finds a sword while he's zapping rocks. His girlfriends grandfather freaks and tells Orin to keep it safe. The old man gets a laser whip to the face for his trouble, dying to protect the sword. When Orin lifts it, some old man is projected out of the sword and tells them a whole new world is waiting for them if they'll just wake up and figure it all out. Then the sword disappears and leaves the hilt laying on the ground. The people are wary and one dude tries to fight Orin, but Orin beats his ass and splits with his girl and leaves his lil bro behind. On the way out, he gets caught and Zygon kills his girlfriend. But Orin escapes and digs up, defying the idea that "up is Hell". About to give up, Orin finally sees a speck of light flickering above, and digs himself out seeing the sky for the first time.
Once free Orin is captured by Man-Droids in a swamp and only escapes after figuring out his sword hilt has an invisible blade that only cuts evil, or seems to work when he needs it. He then meets up with this smuggler named Dagg who takes him along on his adventures. They head back to Zygon's headquarters and commence to stealing a load of crystals. Dagg also steals a fembot named Silica. He then goes to a town called Toga Toga to sell the fembot and the crystals. Word is out that he is harboring Orin, so the buyer tells him to meet him in the desert the next day. Orin is confused about everything and outbids this chick trying to buy Silica, and then Dagg instead of making money has to spend 2000 starclams to buy back his own property. They go to sell the crystals and the dudes try to buy Orin. Dagg says no way, but they pay him with a time bomb in his money box. A little Starfly warns Orin and they throw the box down and blow up the badguys.
Dagg agrees to take Orin to Norvaluna, some planet where he is supposed to find the blade for his sword. But their ship is shot down and Dagg is captured. Orin is thrown from the ship and rescued by the same chick who he outbid on Silica for. She nurses him back to help and upon hearing his story, tells him that she can help because her dad is the Governor. How convenient. Oviana (the chick) looks up Orin's hilt on the internet and it says that a bunch of old dudes called the Ka-khan used it in the past to kill badguys, and in particular this one bad super computer called the Nexus. So she and her robot protector fly Orin back to Trinia to confront some general who will help them. That general is Zygon, who turns out to be Nexus. He wants to eradicate humans once and for all, and explains that his mission began years in the past on some small planet (Earth) when the first computer beat a human at chess. And now he will beat us all for the last time.
Orin is captured, Oviana tells him she loves him, Zygon take her on his ship as a hostage and begins the last attack on the rest of the humans left (except for the ones in the mines). The starfly brings Orin his hilt, he escapes the jail and gets Dagg out and they gain control of the ship, and Silica fixes the Starchaser, so now they have 2 ships flying around trying to beat the bad guys. And so it goes. No need to spoil things for you, I do believe that they have put this out on DVD finally after many many many years being out of print on VHS. Seek it out and enjoy.
Monday, October 1, 2012