It’s funny how everyone is a critic on how bad Saturn 3 allegedly is? But duh, its Sci fi, not War & Peace. You have to approach such films with an open mind. No CGI back then buddy, just scale models and a ultra-tight budget.
In fact, this is every stuffy film-critics worst nightmare in one movie: Robots gone wrong, mad scientists, ultimate chin heroes and of course Farrah Fawcett, falling out of her clothes. No wonder these narrow-minded assholes panned its release.
Anyway, who listens to critics? The worst are just sulking losers, who didn’t have the balls to go out and make crappy sci-fi movies themselves.
Which is why I like this particular film all the better. In fact, Saturn 3 is the most awsum movie ever made and here’s why.
LIVING THE GOOD LIFE.
If this film had been made by the BBC it would have been The Good Life in space. Instead of Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel, we could have settled for Richard Briars, Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith and a plot about one of Richards potato peeling robots going on a killer rampage.
But the similarity ends there. Kirk and Farrah shack up together in the ultimate working relationship on (presumably) Titan (or as its referred to, Saturn 3), doing research into Hydroponics, to solve Earths threatening food shortage problems. Anyway, Farrah and Kirk seem to be doing little else but have a whole lotta love.
Afterall they’re stuck together on a moon, supposedly doing research to save the Earth. But it seems their nocturnal activities have gotten Earth Base Zero (or whatever its called) twitchy , since productivity is down by 0.099999999 %
So much so, that they send out the cavalry to get our randy couple back on track, in the form of Hector, (the six million dollar sexless robot) and super-(over-dubbed)-sex-starved-psycho: Harvey Keitel. Naturally, mayhem ensues.
SEX IN SPACE.
Trolling the you-tube bitch fights is fun. Even more so, when people slate Saturn 3 for things you wouldn’t even think about. Usually I expect it to be slated as a Star Wars imitator. (My particular gripe is mainly some of its shoddy miniature work, in fact I was going to bore everyone with a blog about it). But the savvy kids online, are way beyond that – drilling into the very intellectual core of the issue – mainly: sex in space. Or more accurately: the morals of pre-marital sex in space.
I mean guys, come on, seriously ? One user in particular, (who shalt be named, but let’s just say, he’s Jewish) felt compelled to lecture the rest, on the wrongful non-matrimonial habits of said couple, and how they are essentially being punished by god, (or rather Hector) for their supposed sins. Which I suppose is the essence of every slasher-movie ever made, to which Saturn 3 dabbles with to a certain degree, in its content of violence and gore.
So according to the hardened working class religious groups, they should be up there working right? Not fucking around. They should be in the lab working 24 hrs, no sleep, no fun, nothing. Just work-work-work. And so the corporative entities are getting restless. Earth needs their results. Fast. But the last thing on Kirk Douglass mind (as Farah Fawcett undresses), is hydro-ponics…hydro-ponics…HYDRO-PONICS!
But it got me thinking about the underlying issues faced by our sex triangle. For we essentially have three guys (lets include Hector on that) panning for the affections of Farrah Fawcett in the middle of said triangle. Or maybe not. Another way of looking at it, is a happy (non-married) couples love, is put to the test by the sudden arrival of said psycho captain and his mad robot.
Whatever way you look at it, Saturn 3 just wouldn’t be Saturn 3 without the sex and I wouldn’t be surprised by any remake, (made by some young hotshot up and coming Hollywood director) to totally sanitise and make sex-less an echo, of what is essentially a cult sci-fi classic. In such a hypothesis, Hector would be all about the CGI and the sex (if any) would be as forgettable as whatever point I was trying to make.
Now. Where was I ? Oh yes : Sex in space.
So don’t expect no Porn Hub with Saturn 3. (although that would have made it every nerds wet dream), this movie certainly doesn’t hold back on its semi naked shots of the actors. Mainly Kirk Douglas, which is unfortunate, as I was hoping to see more Farrah action. But I digress.
So anyway, lots of sex ensues. Or allusions to sex. Or Sexual jealousy. In a way, its Star Wars in reverse: Instead of Han and Luke being passive aggressive over their lusting’s for Princess Leia, on Saturn 3 its all out bitch wars, concluding with a naked Kirk Douglass, strangling Harvey Keitel before the latters handy demise at the pincers of Hector. But that’s enough about sex. Lets get down to the plastic.
HECTOR: THE KILLER ROBOT
Hector: The first in the Demi-God Series: as he is proclaimed, is the six million dollar sexless killer robot, (I call him that, as he did cost rather a lot for what is essentially a guy in a plastic suit - with no penus). But yeah, said costume, (much like Gigers Alien) is rather striking in its design approach, as it diffuses the reality that there is an actor within.
As a costume, the actors arms were actually bound within the torso, to highlight the animatronic arms, operated by remote control. Only the legs are that of the operator, who’s vision is restricted within the torso and can only see out of the slatted breast plates of the roman centurion like armour, that adorns the machine. In fact there is probably a deliberate attempt to make the aptly named Hector more Romanesque in his appearance. (a point Kirk Douglas makes later in the film, about Hector’s dismembered body dragged around the walls of Troy).
He also has a really cool & totally visible cardiovascular system: an array of clear tubes that interweave throughout the body and there’s a couple of great shots, where the orange and blue plasma is pumped through them (like crazy straws) and the robot comes to life.
In that respect, Hector the killer robot looks fantastic considering. He doesn't need to be The Terminator or whatever. After all, this is a domestic setting on a Moon. We don’t need him to be morphing into killer shapes or doing summersaults to impress. We don’t even need the pew-pew of laser pistols either or the extravagance of Star Wars. This is not that type of movie.
Had said pew-pew been introduced, we wouldn’t have much of a movie. Pew-pew! You’re dead. The end. Roll credits. Thanks for coming.
The domestic setting (i.e. no guns) allows Hectors rampage to play out to full effect, with very little to stop him. All he needs to be is tall and imposing. That said, Saturn 3 almost boarders into slasher material. The most graphic scene is when he kills the dog and cuts off Keitel’s hand. Throw in some dumbass teenagers smoking grass and you’re onto a winner. But again this isn’t that type of movie.
What makes Hector even more terrifying (and interesting) is the fact he has a large glass canister where his head should be, filled with super-brains made from the noodles of various unborn human foetuses, which in itself is another issue hot on the You-Tube debates: abortion. Which kinda makes Hector the ultimate Frankenstein monster. Like the creature in Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus, a living body made from the dead but in Hectors case, his mind is of the living unborn. Abortion is murder, so it is said, thus Hector is the antithesis of this. A brain made of murdered babies, thus becomes a murderer itself (with a little help from psycho, Harvey Keitel).
Ultimately Keitel’s character (The Captain) becomes the robot monster. Or rather, Hector becomes the captain. Either way it doesn’t matter and he is blown to smithereens at the hands of Kirk, in one last act of sacrifice to save the woman he loves. Sacrifice. A point Kirk makes to Hector earlier, when he takes on the formidable robot in a game of chess.
Thus, Hector is well and truly disposed of, in one of the films most gratifying moments: as Kirk pushes the robot (and himself) into the labs Jacuzzi pool and detonates a bomb beneath the waters, sending up Hectors body parts, flying in all directions in superb slow-mo. It is a sort of poetic justice. Kirks character has become Achilles, slaying Hectors body to the four winds.
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST: THE CAPTAIN
Oh yeah, he’s nuts. Cuckoo as a Swiss clock.
‘You can tell the time by him!’ – Jokes Farrah. Point in case: who else would fly literally into the rings of Saturn, just for kicks? It’s a great shot by the way, achieved using a darkened bath tub with polystyrene rocks or something like that.
Despite Keitel’s new jersey voice is over-dubbed with a more appropriate english tone, this actually adds to his chilling pshychoticness. Yet everyone slates the movie because of this aspect.
But hang, nobody complained that David Prowse's west country voice was replaced by James Earl Jones for Darth Vader now did they?
It’s the same deal here. But Keitel’s character doesn't need a mask, he hides in plain view, which makes him all the more cuckoo and terrifying .
The cuckoo Captain also thinks of himself a ladies man but he’s met his match with Farrah Fawcett, who likes older men, namely Kirk Douglass. But the captain has literally gone to the ends of the Earth to get jiggy with her, but no psycho and his killer robot is gonna come between her and her man.
To what extent the Captains killer robot is actually his own design, is anyone’s guess, as he quickly disposes of the original captain and takes his place. And yeah, what about that?
WHAT IF THE OTHER PILOT DIDN'T DIE?
Harvey Keitel’s character seems enraged that he didn’t get the job for Saturn 3, suggesting that he has a vestige interest in the Demi-god Series.
We can only assume he had a large part to play in its development.
Perhaps the ultimate hurdle, was having a sane person controlling Hectors behaviour, which is where he admirably flunked.
One can only imagine what that film might have looked like if ‘the other pilot’ hadn’t been bumped off by Keitel. He seemed like a regular jock right? Sane and boring.
And in that alternate universe, Keitel might have took his rejection with grace, gave some pep-talk to the other guy and wished him luck on Saturn 3.
We can only ascertain things would have worked out smoothly for all, much akin to The Goodlife.
The Major would have found a new chess buddy. Hell, Hector might have even took up playing guitar. All in all, that version of Saturn 3 might have made a genius rom-com. But alas.
WHAT IF HECTOR HAD WON?
The stakes being raised are never really addressed in this movie. Which is a shame because its an interesting point of debate.
Why does Captain Kietel kill his predecessor Captain James? What are his wants and needs? None of this is really explained, only eluded to.
We know the captain flunked his psychiatric test. And it is implied that perhaps he has some stake in programming Hector himself and taking control of Saturn 3. But why? What is the end goal here?
Being that Earth is 'starving', climate change and overpopulation are likely candidates but never explained on screen.
Whats also never made clear is the strategic importance of Saturn 3 as a major food supplier for planet Earth.
So what better way to control Earth by hijacking Saturn 3?
This also suggests that the captain wasn't working alone, that he may have been part of a larger group intent on gaining a monopoly on Earths food supply.
But the captain hadn't figured on Alex. And she put a real spanner in the works considering the captain and his robot Hector both had the hots for her.
So Hector had a identity crises. Killed the captain and then became the captain, before re-assuming his original hijack plan.
But by this point, Hector driven insane, had probably deluded himself into thinking he could control the entire food supply himself and cut out the middle men that had sent the captain to hijack Saturn 3 in the first place.
Bottom line, had Hector won, he would have become soul Mafiaso don in space. The equivalent of Al Capone, holding the keys to Earths fate. Everybody loses but Hector.
YESTERDAYS NEWS: THE MAJOR
At the heart of this film, we see some great themes being addressed. Mainly redundancy vs mortality. We have the ageing Major (played wonderfully by Kirk Douglas) wondering if he’s gonna wind up on the scrap heap, when the much younger and virulent Captain Keiitel rocks up on Saturn 3 with the latest in robotics.
Like Charlton Heston’s jaded astronaut in Planet of the Apes, he has turned his back on the human race, preferring to work in the depths of deep space, rather than spend another minute on Earth. But now it seems he must finally deal with the Captains mad robot, before it makes shish kebab of his lover Alex.
The film is all the more unique for its unusual casting of Douglas. Normally a role he would pass up (in favour of a good western or period action film), he was intrigued by the humanising of Hector and the duality that ensues.
Thus he plays his character as the most human of the piece, displaying various moods throughout the film from jealousy for the much younger and virile Captain who taunts him via his attempts to seduce Alex (I’m today, he’s yesterday) to comic relief and despair, before finally taking charge of the situation, which ultimately resolves the conflict.
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: ALEX
Twenty something off-worlder Alex, (played by Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett), has never been to Earth and is curious about the home world that she has never seen. Very little of her character is revealed beyond that but she knows what she wants and it certainly isn’t the lusting’s of their psycho guest (the captain). Her on screen relationship with Douglas seems to shine thru (whereas off screen, production was plagued with numerous problems) and she holds the movie together pretty well, considering.
Unlike her co-stars, Fawcett was no stranger to science fiction (she played a beautician in Logan’s Run a few years earlier and appeared in the Six Million Dollar man series along with then husband Lee Majors).
However she is rather much the sex object of the piece, which is I guess the driving forces that collude to catastrophe for all. It would have been good to see her character developed a little more but there are numerous outtakes of Saturn 3 that may hold the key to her characters portrayal. There is the however, the famous sado-masochistic sex scene that was cut but I doubt she was doing any character arching there. Then again, Saturn 3 borders on space porn, so who cares right?
CULT CLASSIC
In summary, forget Rotten Tomatoes ratings. If you’re looking for deep character arcs and satisfying feel-good character resolutions, then go watch Downton Abby. Saturn 3 on the other (severed) hand, is your classic robot gone wrong movie and that’s it.
What sets it apart, is its innovative ideas and set pieces. But I’ll tell you how it is folks, its no Rembrandt by any means, co-existing in the shadow of Star Wars etc. Nevertheless, I saw this movie when it first came out and really enjoyed it. It was good to see Douglas and Keitel in a Sci-Fi movie for a change and is perhaps one of Farrah Fawcetts best movie roles.
Hector is also one of the most innovative robot designs ever filmed and the sets & model work are (for me anyway, pretty amazing).
Tho saying that, having gravity on ceilings (achieved with some dodgy split screen work) seem a little hashed.
Plus that scene with the technicians walking in unison onto the launch pad? That was pure Village People.
But the moon interiors are up there with the best of Star Wars and still looks great today.
MUSIC SCORE
The film score by Elmer Bernstein is still very catchy today and emulates the power of Hector very effectively. Although I did chuckle as the same notes from 2001 A Space Odyssey blared out, before suddenly doing a U-turn, to avoid a law suit. In fact only a small percentage of Bernstein's music was used in the final cut, despite he had scored the entire movie.
A VICTIM OF THE TIMES
Saturn 3 fell victim to the times, where Sci-Fi films were on the wane.
The movie doesn't do itself any favours by ripping off the same shot from Star Wars of a giant star destroyer filling the screen to Bernsteins 2001 rip-off music and all this literally happens in the opening scenes.
And some of the miniature work is much to be desired.
Bar that, the movie finally finds its feet with its primary plot based on saturns moon.
EVERYONES A CRITIC
Some criticise the script & acting as being shoddy. All three actors were nominated for the Golden Raspberry and Stinker awards of 1981.
Harsh.
But bare in mind such defamatory awards are run by bitter film critics with nothing better to do and usually employed by rival film companies to destroy competiton. So who cares what they think?
I thought the acting was top-notch. All the characters are quite believable. And the relationship between the major and Alex is endearing.
You really root for them and hope that they somehow beat the odds stacked against them and that is good acting.
POOR PROMOTION
Saturn 3 faced stiff competition directly against block-buster movies such as Raiders of The Lost Ark and Superman II
But what really lets the film down ultimately, is poor promotion at the time of release: Much like other classics of the time (such as Carpenters 'The Thing') it had limited cinema circulation, typically being binned as a "video nasty" and forever consigned to the dusty upper-shelves of small family run video stores, in a sun-faded VHS coffin.
CONCLUSION
It is a shame that this film got so much flack when it was released, as I consider it a cult classic and the most awsum film ever made but that’s just my humble opinion ;)
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