Tuesday, January 25, 2022

The Shape of Things to Come (1979)

Star Wars spawned many space opera imitators which ripped off George Lucas' film to various degrees, this film tries to rip off a number of other films too. One thing it doesn't rip off is H.G. Wells' story, it has pretty much nothing to do with it despite his name in the titles. The excellent Things to Come already exists of course.

We are in the future, Earth is inhabitable following a robot war and mankind lives on the Moon and elsewhere in space. The Moon, however comes under attack by a suicide freighter sent by Omus (Jack Palance) from Delta 3, which is also where the drugs which mankind needs to survive come from. Dr Caball (Barry Morse), his son Jason (Nicholas Campbell), Kim (Anne-Marie Martin) and the exploding robot Sparks (Greg Swanson/Mike Parr) set off to stop Omus...

Meanwhile, on Delta 3 Omus and his army of ridiculous looking robots are evilly hunting down the last survivors of President Niki (Carol Lydney) and her supporters. Omus has a devilish machine that can melt minds too, quite why is not quite clear...

This isn't a terribly great film, the space effects are passable (on the whole) though the sets and costumes betray a lack of budget. The story is rather slow and meandering, including a detour to Earth which doesn't really go anywhere plot wise. It has the required camp value for a late 1970s space opera but lacks much of a spark, despite Sparks' efforts. Palance is superbly over the top as the evil Omus.