Galaxina

People in the future are so afraid of the dark they need really big night lights.

The name of one of the major characters in this film is Captain Cornelius Butt.

Does that make you laugh? If it does, then you are the kind of person for whom Galaxina was intended. This is supposed to be a sci-fi comedy, but no one bothered to write any jokes, figuring that bestowing mildly amusing names upon the characters and making them wear anachronistic outfits was funny enough. What could have been a really funny movie ends up as the least amusing Star Wars/Star Trek/Alien parody this side of porn.

Speaking of porn, the Galaxina of the title is Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten, playing a mostly mute android. Because the film is named after her, you might think she would be a dynamic presence in the film. Other than her talent at filling out a skin-tight bodysuit, however, the only impression she leaves is the one in her glow-in-the-dark armchair. Although the fact that Stratten was murdered around the time the movie came out increased her legend to some degree, this film wouldn't have moved her any closer to mainstream stardom even if she had lived.

In the far future, space travel is common and the spaceways are policed by the likes of Captain Butt (Avery Schreiber) and his raggedy crew aboard the ship Infinity. Shortly after we meet the crew, the Infinity gets into a fight with a ship that looks like Hawk's fighter from the later seasons of Buck Rogers. The Infinity, to the amusement of no one, loses the fight. Space pilot Thor (Steven Macht), whose favorite pastime is exercising on his rowing machine, makes some advances towards Galaxina, only to be rebuffed by her built-in security system -- an electric shock force field. The hilarity continues when Captain Butt eats an egg of unidentified origin, and then vomits up an alien.

"'Infra-red rays' my butt!"

After about forty minutes of this silliness, the plot finally kicks in. The Infinity is charged by the Space Police commander to retrieve the Blue Star*, an artifact that will do... something. We forget if they ever told us what. The Blue Star* is a thirty year journey from the Infinity's current position, so the crew stops by a brothel just long enough to attempt a parody of the cantina scene from Star Wars. Then the crew puts themselves in suspended animation and head out to find the Blue Star*. During their slumber, Galaxina reprograms herself with the ability to speak and disables her force field so that she and Thor might fulfill their love. Kinda gets you right there, don't it?

The Blue Star* is on the planet Altair 1, a realistic alien enviroment created by filming on a studio backlot somewhere in California, and then tinting all the resulting footage orange. Some hastily added narration informs us that this is because of the extra "infrared rays" in the atmosphere, but we wonder if it was in fact due to someone's mistake while shooting which was then covered up to save the money involved in reshoots. Galaxina, now fully capable of making her way around unaided, leaves the ship to retrieve the Blue Star* from its human-hostile environment.

The makers of Galaxina couldn't decide whether Ordric should be Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi, so they went for both.

The script says that the environment is human-hostile because it contains aliens who like to eat people. We think it's really because no human could walk around on the set of an old Western populated by so many alien suit rejects without busting a gut laughing. If the goofy aliens don't get you, maybe the appearance of the Batmobile* on the set will.

Galaxina finally comes into posession of the Blue Star* after a showdown with Ordric, the alien in the mysterious ship at the movie's beginning. The rest of the movie concerns Galaxina's quest to return to the Infinity and her true love, Thor, despite the collection of half-assed obstacles in her way.

Good God, this film has to be someone's revenge upon someone else. Or something the director was forced to make on a dare. It's just too awful to contemplate the fact that some producer thought a movie like Galaxina might actually make someone some money. Sure, it seems like a good idea to mix science fiction with some humor and a good-lookin' babe in tight outfits, but if you make even a small mistake (like letting Avery Schreiber improvise his dialogue), it can blow up in your face real quick. It probably didn't help that the copy we saw was from the dawn of home video, and it looked like it had been transfered from film by projecting it onto a dirty piece of cardboard and taping it with a camcorder.

But why would anyone bother giving Galaxina a quality video release? It wouldn't increase the entertainment content. Unless your idea of funny includes lines like "Ya have a bad habit kid. Ya breathe," followed by an awkward reaction shot when the insulted character tries to understand what was said, stay far, far away from Galaxina.

Stratten with Stephen Macht, the prototype for Kevin Sorbo.

Galaxina and Ordric play "keep-away" with the you-know-what.

More of Galaxina's trademark humor: "Mr. Spot," the alien with downward-pointing ears and the upside-down Starfleet insignia.