Battle Star Wars Movie Review

Ah, hello world wide web!
I’m Decker Shado,
the internet personality
with the best hair.
And it’s that time of the year
again, that age old holiday
passed down to us for generations.
Of course, I’m talking about
May the fourth Star Wars day.
I hope this one doesn’t end up like so
many others and wound up commercialized.
It’s that special time of year
that everyone gets together
to talk about Star Wars because… um…
May the Fourth be with you!
There are plenty of Star Wars movies
out there that I have yet to review.
Because of your opinion on space fantasy
anymore seems to be a barometer
for determining
whether or not you need to be reeducated.
Fortunately for folks like me,
there are movies like
Battle Star Wars
which is not Star Wars,
has nothing to do with Star Wars,
but has Star Wars in the name
because it comes
from our good friends
at the Asylum.
Seen Star Wars?
Great! Iy’d like that,
but thrown into a blender
and without too much concern
for how the final product turns out.
Which some might say is the state
of the series itself at this point.
But anyway, let’s take a look at
Battle Star Wars

and see just what the heck
the asylum has cooked up for us today.
We open up with text exposition,
not scrolling.
This is an original work after all.
Seems this coalition runs
the joint and was peaceful
until their new leader wanted power,
which he has.
But don’t think about it too much.
There’s a rebellion now
who rebel by fleeing to a planet, Haven.
Anyway, this escape is being led by Corbryn
Raystar, played by Luke Fattorusso.
Attention vessel you’re in violation
of coalition regulation.
What the?!
Further transgression will be considered
as a declaration of war.
Well that’s a hell of an escalation
from a traffic ticket.
This coalition ship boards
next to instantly introducing our
Not-Jedi,
the Paladin Denz, played by Benedikt
Sebastian and yes, that is a motherfucking
Halo plasma sword now in foam cast
iron. Looks better than his armor at least,
but having this bad
cosplay board is too much for Ajax.
We need your ship.
You’ve got a ship. Use it.
That wasn’t part of the plan, Ajax.
Ajax!
Abandoning Corbrine in his time of need!
Cahhbraaaainnneee…
Cabriin…
Cabron…?
Oh screw it I’ll just
use the actors name, Luke.
Denz demands that Luke comply
with the coalition orders.
All the while,
his halo sword keeps changing
from pointing forward
to pointing backward.
And Luke tries to explain to him
that the coalition are the baddies.
It doesn’t matter that the Jedi serve
the republic.
It’s a motherfucking empire now, and evil!
We no longer
answer to the coalition of planets.
(no sound)
Goddamn, silencers in the future
are something else.
So Luke’s
big rebel agenda is to just say fuck it
and leave as there is a secret planet
right here that the coalition doesn’t know
about!
It’s impossible…
The coalition has no record
of a planet in this sector.
Well, if it’s not in the records then
it doesn’t exist.
Luke’s telling Denz all
this because he trusts the guy.
He’s a Paladin! Sure,
the coalition’s intentions in space
are about as evil as a leprechauns,
but surely our Walmart
Jedi can recognize
slaughtering thousands of innocent people
isn’t the right thing to do.
They find us, they’ll kill us.
What are you doing?
Long range connection,
established.
Or just Make sure they find you.
Oh, yeah. That was….
That was a lovely speech, by the way.
Right and wrong. Good and evil.
Real great.
But you know who signs my paychecks,
right?
Denz is calling back like,
hey, could negotiate terms of surrender,
but the coalition’s like,
nah, it’d be far more in character.
For us to just wipe them out.
All of them.
What’s happening?
They’re blowing the engines
didn’t even give us time to evacuate.
I told you!
They won’t they wouldn’t!
It.. it’s impossible!
Well, maybe it’s not really fair to say
that the paladins are just stand ins
for the Jedi.
They are actually pretty different.
I mean, for one thing, that the Paladins
don’t have any of the Jedi’s
magical powers
or critical thinking skills.
Realizing the horrible truth
that the truth turned out to be the truth,
Denz starts a self destruct sequence
so that maybe they can get as many people
to safety as possible
instead of just getting blown the fuck out
in a couple of seconds.
With that boom, thousands of people
are dead!
So let’s skip ahead
two years to find
Luke is still hard at work with that
rebellion, meeting up with some more space
refugees, this time
in a ship whose captain was supposed
to help him back in the opening.
Ajax.
Played by Amy Stolte,
whose filmography includes
such work as Untold Stories of the E.R.
And Sex, sent me to the E.R.
I guess they told the story then.
It seems that Luke has been leaving
little trinkets around the galaxy
as a means to lead people to Haven.
Though he’s confident Haven’s
location is still safe because they can
only actually lead you to Luke
so that he can escort you to the planet.
Also, here’s our big, burly
crewmate archetype.
Two thousand seven hundred
fifty six Novaks
perished by these hands
for this Novak to stand before you today.
Novak, played by Ross Forte.
He doesn’t talk too much.
He is a breed of clone super soldiers
who are really good at two things
killing people and following orders.
Incidentally, I find him to be one of the
most interesting characters on set.
As such, we’re going to leave them for now
and jump to the Space Princess,
Astera played by Alyson
Gorske and her holographic friend
Helper played by Alissa Filoramo.
First thing Astera
does is give Helper free will.
That way it’s her choice
if she wants to join Astera
or not, for this dangerous adventure.
I go wherever you go.
Do you mean that?
Is that just how you’re programed?
Both.
Well, I hope you
didn’t spend too much time and energy
figuring out how to give her free will
because it looks like it was all wasted.
Helper also helps establish that Astera’s
mother is not alive today.
Cool.
Let’s move on to our big bad bastards
for this rodeo Zelus, played by Canyon
Prince and Lord Malaster
played by Justin Berti.
They’re searching for a Luke, but
Zelus questions why they’re wasting time
searching a barren sector?
Malaster points out it’s
not just that criminal
they’re trusting here.
They have more tricks up their sleeve.
Speaking of criminals, hey,
Ajax is a pirate,
has a nice ship they could have used.
It would have been nice.
Have an industrial class
freighter all these years.
You did all right without it.
There’d be a lot more Haven on
Haven by now.
I get it.
Geez, ya bug out, a few thousand people die,
and nobody will let you live that down.
That gets them to argue about
who can’t trust who here.
Why would she come back?
Why can’t he forgive her for fleeing
someone who kills pirates
when he never bothered to mention
the sudden appearance of a Paladin
was still everything going
according to his personal secret plan?
How was I supposed to know
he was on our side
if you didn’t tell me?
But to be fair, Luke could have told you
that all he wanted to.
And I’m pretty sure the paladin
would still have been trying to kill you.
I mean, Luke’s not exactly
the greatest judge of character.
On that note, he points out that
the little haven beacons are made of mana,
a special unobtainium found only on Haven,
that is like the ditto of minerals.
Able to become literally anything.
Also, conveniently enough, it
emits plot waves, rendering
the planet completely invisible to sensors
…and the naked eye
apparently, unless you know the right
frequency to un-wave the waves.
Welcome the Haven.
Got a whole
damn galaxy for a little space adventure.
We only ever go to one planet.
And this is what you give us.
Earth.
But what’s this?
It turns out that Luke could not
trust Ajax,
as she was working for the coalition.
Do you realize what you’ve just done?
Made the movie
a hell of a lot more interesting.
Come on.
This is Battle Star Wars,
not Kumbaya Star Drum Circle.
Lord Malaster is like,
got the rebels? Cool.
Call my daughter.
I got to show her this shit.
But Astera distracts Zelus
with a decoy holoclone
while she and Helper flee in their own
escape pod.
Oh, well, nothing to do now, I guess,
but broadcast impotent threats down
to Haven for all to see.
There is no corner of the galaxy
that the arms of the coalition cannot reach.
So many potential settings on earth
for your fantasy space, adventure.
And the one location you pick…
is California.
After he’s done wagging his space stick,
he establishes a blockade.
That way, there’s no chance
this movie will have any more locations!
Thay escape pod,
though? Fits snugly into Ajax’s
docking bay
allowing Astera and Helper to get aboard.
Astera walks in like,
Hey, Ajax, great work.
Love what you do.
Yeah, well,
you could just hand Luke over to me,
and I’ll bring him to my father,
and you get paid.
Ajax doesn’t trust this news,
but Astera picks up her walkie Tic-Tacs.
I will not be questioned
by a lawless pirate.
Tell this self-serving captain she can
turn over Commander Corbryn, or she can
die with the rest of the criminals.
Malaster doesn’t really seem
like the hardest character to role play.
It’s kind of like a dark side
run in Knights of the Old Republic.
No matter what the question is,
the answer is murder.
That’s convincing enough.
So as soon as Ajax slips out of frame,
Astera jumps into action,
get Luke free and shout at him
to get the rebellion in gear.
Launch your fleet, activate your defenses,
fight back.
Haven doesn’t really have a fleet.
Eh, it’s less of a rebellion against an
evil empire and more just uh…
Tax evasion.
So the entire rebel alliance are like farmers
and Luke’s, never heard of a farmer
who has ever been semi-decent at fighting.
But you know who is? A Paladin, and he just
so happens to have one on ice nearby.
Of course, historically they’ve been very
strongly aligned with the coalition.
But Luke says not to worry.
Wait, you could be handing my father
the planet
if this guy decides to turn you in.
He won’t. Trust me.
Luke, you really have not had
very good luck with these things so far.
But they have to find a ship in order
to reach the guy.
That escape pod ship thing?
Well that doesn’t count anymore.
While they look for a way out,
Ajax is having to deal with the fact
that, hey, that blockade has king of prevented her
from leaving, which is more than a little
annoying considering her job is done.
Check with your daughter.
With my…
What did you say?
When was this?
Where?
But, oh, darnit!
She learned that just late enough
that they managed to get away.
Man, that’s convenient.
Stealing a handy dandy spare ship.
We quickly establish that
Helper can just teleport around
at will to mess with the hangar doors.
There’s no way
we’ll make it past that blockade.
With normal thrusters, gonna have
to jump us into light speed.
That way if we die,
at least it’ll be quick.
One jump to light speed later,
and fortunately, Helper
teleports back in,
presumably faster than the speed of light.
With that, they have reached the Paladin’s
cryogenic cargo container,
thawing him out.
They finally have their one weapon
against the coalition.
I’ve synced with coalition command, rest
assured,
you will be with your father in a moment.
Oh, Jesus, Luke, stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Stop hitting yourself.
Astera does your best to explain that
it doesn’t matter what the paladin codes
are, there will be no negotiations
and no peace.
Lord Malaster is the bad guy
and just really likes killing people.
He still doesn’t believe them,
so they must run.
Luke escapes in the pod,
while Astera remains.
Not a moment too
soon as the paladin signal is picked up.
I thought you dealt with the last of them.
So did I.
It’s an Asylum movie.
Of course order 66 was executed half assed.
The coalition contacts
Denz though, and tests the waters
to see if he still loyal to the coalition.
Can’t really find out
with Astera talking for him
telling Daddy to go fuck himself sideways.
So Lord Malaster’s like,
OK, let’s keep attacking the rebels.
And you there. Go get my daughter back.
Do whatever you want with the Paladin,
he’s not really that important
of a character anyway.
So Zelus shoots their ship!
Well they can work on repairs
and figuring out
the next course of action,
while we hop on back with Luke.
His escape pod came down in California.
(no sound)
Come on, Ajax.
You can do better than that.
You thought to add a little dialog
there to claim these two random goons
we never saw before were totally
a couple of Ajax’s pirates out to get them,
but you still, still
haven’t bothered to make
sounds for the gun, or does the gun
honestly, just make no sound
(Nailgun Shot x2)
Nice try, Ajax.
Maybe remember to like the video next time
and subscribe to Decker Shado.
While Luke continues killing random locals
and saying they were probably pirates,
we jump back over to Astera. Denz and her
have come down to California as well.
BUT WHAT’S THIS? Zelus has come to
SoCal as well!
Astera fears
he will annihilate the rebel outpost.
So she runs ahead to warn them.
Everybody out!
Leave!
Now!
I said go, it’s your only chance!
Line?
Mock calling in a coalition kill
crew gets them to scatter real quick.
That way we don’t got to pay the extras
all that much.
Using the computer,
she discerns what location her character
is supposed to head to next.
While in the meantime,
Luke is trying to escape with the rebels,
but they all just say fuck it and leave.
And he ends up captured by the Novak.
While things are confusing
as all hell,
let’s have Zeulus use his
hand-dandy
teleportation powers
to end up face to face with Denz.
Not to worry, Astera can run in
and be like, nah, nah, can’t kill me.
My father would be really mad at you.
He’s sure he’ll understand.
Overcome with grief.
After witnessing the
murder of his only daughter,
I had
to strike down the Paladin responsible.
And he’s also sure
the guys just kind of dumb as he’s made
no attempts to hide the fact
that he really, really wants to kill
everyone. He’s about as subtle
about it as Lord Malaster himself.
So they must fight
**LASER BLASTER PEW**
Hey, the guns make sound now!
In any case, this is a tough fight.
And once they are separated,
Astera calls in help from Helper.
Hey, they have teleporting powers now too.
I guess
as long as it’s convenient to the plot.
Also, real quick, that rebel days before
wasn’t THE rebel base, just A rebel base
and that’s the location
that Astera got from the computer.
So that’s where they’re headed.
Later.
First got to run right
thr fuck into Ajax!
Conveniently enough, she’s got Luke,
so they’re kind to regrouped. Ajax demands
their surrender and Denz is like,
fuck it, they’re pirates.
Can’t trust em.
But Astera believes that they can
convince Ajax to side with them.
They are obviously the good guys
in this story.
I know
we don’t have anything to negotiate with,
but I’m telling you,
my father’s
not just going to let you go free.
Hell of an offer.
I receive your assistance
in fighting the galaxy’s largest army,
which will probably kill us.
You receive
nothing.
As such, Ajax
just tosses them in the brig.
Denz’s like, Well,
that was a big fucking waste of time.
How about I rip this shit apart
with my awesome power and super weapons?
But Astera’s like,
no, no, no. Give it time.
Still got half the movie left to go.
Besides, we’ve got this handy
daily holographic lady
to try and save Luke with.
In the meantime, Ajax can contact the
Lord, get yelled out to doing a good job,
and drag the princess off
at pistol point.
Oh well, she could try negotiating again.
You can make a difference if you decide
to work with us!
Truth is…
I don’t care.
Always looking out for number one.
That’s like her only character trait.
So never mind helping Luke, Astera
secretly tells her to help Denz
instead. She gets him his weapons
and he begins kicking pirate ass.
But then…
Two thousand seven hundred fifty six
Novaks perish by these hands
for this Novak to stand
before you today.
I know you don’t have to pay them as much
if they don’t speak,
but I really don’t think that there’s
a loophole where you get to pay them less
if they just say the same things over
and over again.
Novak refuses to let him pass.
So Denz WHOOPS THAT MOTHERFUCKING ASS
easily passing. Also, Helper’s
still helping out in general.
Hijacking a pirate
fighter to fly into another pirate fighter.
This allows her to slip
in and destabilize Ajax’s
control
long enough for this to happen.
I’m sure I can find Haven without you.
Good luck.
Um, according to an earlier scene,
there were a couple of people on Haven
that were totally your goons.
So you mean to tell me
that wasn’t accurate?
The Paladin though?
Well…
He’s still on the big ship,
which promptly explodes.
Whoops.
Oh, well, only broke in half, really.
Allowing the coalition
to swoop in and search.
But they only found Novak,
and he’s not one to break loyalty
from his master, Ajax.
He offers a deal to Lord Malaster instead.
Trial by combat!
Sounds like fun. Name this one.
Name this one
your champion.
So I may bring an end to his days.
Dude, after getting your ass
royally handed to you by a Paladin,
maybe don’t pick a fight
with the Paladin killer over there.
Realizing with Novak still under
Ajax’s command, Ajax must still be alive
and getting nothing from him
over the location
of Ajax, the Paladin, Luke, Astera…
(no sound)
That is one you are owed!
Oh, God damn it.
It’s true.
In space, no one can hear shit!
So they’re getting nowhere
but Astera and friends have made it
to the rebel base.
Ajax is still out cold.
That was one hell of a punch.
Anyway, Luke shows off
hey, here’s that Mana stuff
we already established.
It does all that magical shit
we already covered.
But look, it’s pretty.
This has got to count as a revelation somewhere.
Now it’s time to strategize.
They got, like, a few ships,
maybe assault the Star Destro-
*cough*
War Ship?
The people who came to Haven,
they’re not fighters.
Yes, we know.
It’s a planet
full of incompetent assholes,
but it’s worked out for Earth so far,
so hop to it.
So we’re going with the Nike war strategy.
Just do it.
Never mind that for now.
Hey, this doohickey just so happens
to play records of travelers tokens,
which Astera just so happens
to have among her possessions.
And it just so happens to hold a message
from her dead mother.
She’s all like, Hey, Droid, um.. hologram
lady? Keep my daughter safe.
I’m in the process
of being horribly murdered.
But, you know, got to do that
sometimes to protect the planet.
So try and keep
Haven secret from your dad.
OK, now that that’s over with.
Zelus Zoom calls in HD to show them
why they need to surrender.
That’s my ship.
My ship!!!
Oh man.
It’s going to take like 20 minutes
to render another one.
Also, hey, the Paladin learned instant
transmission in the interim, dropping down
right there next to Zelus on that same
patch of California dirt road.
But he’s not quite able to fight.
So Zelus just has the coalition start
launching after effects at the rebels.
So while that goes on,
Zelus force teleports Astera
and Luke back over to Lord Malaster,
and the Paladin is like,
Hey, I’m still standing
(All battle sound except for gun)
somebody did
watch this movie before they sent out
the Master Print, didn’t they?
At least the punching has some nice, heavy
sounds associated with it.
Before Zelus finsihes him off, though
Lord Malaster
pops in
and tractor beams his ass to the ground.
Bastard.
What are you going to kill
me like you killed her too?
And Zelus knows the force.
He fucking starts force
choking Astera over there.
I mean we’re
in the home stretch of the movie and
we’re establishing
that he knows the force.
This sounds like something that would
have been really handy a lot earlier.
Thing is, Zelus doesn’t like Astera’s
tone, saying that he killed her mother.
He makes it very clear that someone else
close to her is responsible for that one.
Anyway, back with Big Bad Malaster.
He’s like, LUKE! Good to see you.
Listen, I’m going to kill like everyone
on the planet unless you surrender.
Faced with that option, Luke
makes the hard choice to do just that.
But wait, Lord Malaster is an asshole!
So he still doesn’t care how many people
who die as he forcefully tractor beams
the mana core out of the planet immediately
anyway.
But wait.
Denz can fight off that tractor beam
all of a sudden and teleport
into the ship still exhausted.
Put him back in his ship.
Make sure that he’s in hyper sleep.
Oh, and make sure he has a view.
Give him a snack and be sure to tuck him
in with his plushie Novak.
So while they freeze Denz, Luke
is tossed in a cell with Novak and spare
alien dude,
and the coalition tears into the planet.
The Lord is like, OK, you can just
go to your room now, and Astera calls
Helper to perform
a little more subterfuge.
But back on the Paladins ship…
Oh, Ajax is just waking up.
That was a hell of a punch.
She must’ve been watching the movie
in her sleep. Absolutely
no one needs to catch her up on things.
The pirate killing Paladin is her friend.
The coalition is her enemy,
and she needs to help save Haven.
Astera also bus the rest of the characters
out of the brig,
which you’d think someone would have
checked to make sure she didn’t do.
Oh, well, time to blow up the
never mind!
Zelus got those force powers,
and he’s not going to let
these two ruin their evil plans.
Grabbing the bomb before Astera grabs
his gun and shoots him into space.
OK, job done.
Better go confront Dad
about the whole murdered my mother thing
he seems to have done.
She had an option.
She chose her path.
I didn’t want to do it,
BUT SHE FORCED
MY HAND!!!
What is….
Am I getting invested in an Asylum film?
That’s all she had to hear.
Killing
thousands of people across the galaxy.
Sure. But, Mom, that’s just too much.
Anyway, time for the big rebel
versus coalition space battle.
They’re out there
trying to take out the beam.
Even spare alien dude.
How to disable the beam?
Simple! Pilot the pirate ship,
like an RC car into the coalition
warship,
killing them all, including Astera’s
asshole of a dad.
But the core is not going back
down to the planet.
Only thing to do is to use that ship
to force the core
down, killing whoever is chosen to pilot it.
Even the hologram…
Honor holds the last copy of my programing.
Helper,
I’m so sorry.
I completely forgot that you’ll
You’ll die.
Oh, shit.
I did just kill you, didn’t I?
My bad?
So while everyone else gets to safety Helprt
oes her last bit of helping by
blowing the fuck up, smacking that mana core
right back down into Southern
California, therefore happy ending.
The rebellion actually rebelled
for once and won.
Most of the important characters are alive
and they now have to band together
knowing that the coalition
will surely retaliate.
And Zelus is still alive.
He was a robot all along.
Or he just has a really spiffy
pair of contacts and I’m not sure.
Anyway, that was Battle Star Wars,
and especially considering
a lot of the Asylum movies
I’ve been seeing lately
have been absolute trash.
This was surprisingly entertaining
I mean, it’s not a great movie or anything
like that, but this genre is weirdly
almost a perfect fit for the asylum.
Do the set look low budget?
Oh, most certainly.
But that kind of low budget
that actually works for a science fiction
B-movie. And jarring cuts
from the characters delivering lines
over to CGI again isn’t a wonderful
technique in most movies, but
does actually deliver a functional movie
in this particular genre.
Most importantly of all, though, is
the acting is it’s not great.
There’s plenty of stiffness,
an awkward delivery,
but not nearly as much as I was seeing
in the likes of Ape versus Monster
or Clown with a backwards N.
And it’s balanced with some performances
that are surprisingly well acted
for an asylum film. Line deliveries
that I actually enjoyed unironically.
That leads me to wonder
if the guns that make
no sound were actually intentional
because the editor thought
the movie was coming out too good.
But hey, it does have its problems.
Locations are still very, very bare
and the CGI is still cheap as hell.
And oh god,
what is wrong with the Paladins armor?
The wardrobe comes so close
to actually being semi-decent.
And then here comes Denz walking in,
looking like a Russian trying to cosplay
TV series Master Chief with a trash can.
Then of course, there’s the constant
jumping back and forth of characters
you can’t seem to learn,
continuity problems
and Ajax is mysteriously informative coma.
The writing is clearly not that great,
but there is a charm to this movie.
The handful of varied characters
might have been simple attempts to ape off
a Star Wars Battlestar
Galactica style crew without getting sued.
But what you wind up with
is like a party in a sci fi tabletop RPG.
I actually enjoyed hearing
the lore about the Novak and the mana tokens
and the Order of Paladins.
I mean, the movie’s
still a haphazardly thrown together
B-movie
trying to make its money on its name
with the content being secondary.
But that content
was strangely entertaining to me.
Yeah, I like bad movies,
and this qualifies, but it almost doesn’t.
Coming in at two giant piles
of magic space crystal out of five.
I think this is the only time
I have ever watched an Asylum movie
and then checked online
to see if they’ve made a sequel.
I I feel dirty.
I thank you all for watching.
I have been Decker Shado
and remember,
you throw enough shit to the wall
and something’s bound to stick
ManicExpression.com
It’s time to fight.
Two thousand seven hundred
Yeah yeah yeah, a lot of Novaks.
Alright, I got it.

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