Saturn 3 (1980)

[EricFate 2]

This is a film which got a decent amount of HBO airplay while I was young (pre-teen). I remembered being terrified of Hector the robot when I first saw it, but little else (including the name of the film).

 

When I saw the robot pictured on the front of a recent (Dec 2013) Blu Ray release, my reaction was immediate. I knew needed to revisit this film. So I did. And as an adult, I found it terrifying for a different set of reasons. For starters:

 

1) The acting (or lack thereof)

2) The complete disregard for pacing

3) Keitel's voice (or rather -- Ray Dotrice's voice)

 

I'd love to hear the team react to this film.

[SlidePocket 707]

It's directed by Stanley Donen, who went from "Singin' in the Rain" and "Charade" to this and "Blame It on Rio" within three decades!

[itsa7eat9world 22]

Agreed. Like a lot of other How Did This Get Made movies, this flick isn't terrible but it's hugely disappointing. Stanley Donen directing, genius British satirist/novelist Martin Amis writing the script and Clockwork Orange/Star Wars production designer John Barry with the story and original directorial effort (before Donen swept in to try and clean it up). The actors are all good enough, but just can't elevate the flat, seen-it-before story (it's basically Demon Seed). Kirk Douglas is trying to still be sexy at his advanced age and Harvey Keitel's voice dubbing is disquieting at best. Farrah Fawcett's at the peak of her acting-by-being-sexy career and you get to see her tits (hola, Jason: there's a deleted scene of her in this sexy sexy "coming out dress" that's definitely worth a view). The robot's fucking stupid and there's an incredibly simple/stupid Scooby Doo style trap they set for it towards the end. It should've been an interesting sci-fi movie, but it's boring and trite. Amis later wrote about his work on the project in Money which is funny as fuck and so much stronger overall (from a literary standpoint) than his script for this P.O.S. I wondered how it got made at several points and reading up a little bit on the imdb trivia page granted some suitably ridiculous answers. I still have more questions, however, and a HDTGM episode would hopefully answer them and put a smile on my face and a laugh in my wherever-laughs-come-from-zone. I'm relatively new to the forums and I don't know if anyone reads this shit, but Saturn 3 would make an excellent HDTGM episode. Just imagining what it could be like makes me happy. I can't imagine how happy an actual episode would make me. I beg you to consider doing one. Shout Factory put out a great Blu-Ray release with some pointless special features that are also worth a watch. Even if they don't do an episode, everyone reading this should watch this fascinatingly disappointing film.

[IJoinedJustForThis 35]

Only disappointing in retrospect! This may be one of my first proper sci-fi memories, as I saw it as a young child. I was terrified of the robot, and even though I hadn't hit puberty, the idea of being on an isolated space station with Farrah Fawcett and taking sexy pills was most appealing...

 

Worth doing still - not the perfect candidate, but you can laugh at the low tech at least. I maintain that the basic premise is rock solid to this day.

 

(pretty sure this is available on youtube in full, but I won't check/link to it, as I've posted three full youtube links on this forum, and all three went defunct shortly after)

[DOMIDARKO 7]

I just started watching this and came here to find out if I had missed anything because I haven’t seen Saturn 1 or 2?

[achoohorsey16 34]

The part at the beginning where that guy gets slaughtered like an egg in an egg slicer is pretty cool. And I did like the aesthetic of the film. But the relationship between Fawcett and Douglas is weird and gross.

[MarcNado 28]

Watched this the other night for the first time, I was convinced I had seen it before but I remembered noting of the film except from things you would have seen in a trailer.

By the end of it the only thing I could think was that this is perfect subject matter for HDTGM, there is so much  about this that is just way out there and so many its that make no sense.  There is just so so much to talk about and mock I don't even know where to start.

[nthurkettle 148]

The number of scenes just devoted to, like, Kirk Douglas exercising. It's like 10 percent of the movie. That and the number of scenes where Harvey Keitel very slowly assembles a murderbot while our heroes are like "welp, can't worry about the completely normal thing he's doing over there, let's get SEXY AGAIN."