Star Trek and Star Wars are met together (on a Corman budget)

This meshes the space-oriented science-fiction of Star Trek (the Original Series and the 1979 movie) with the space fantasy of Star Wars for a colorful interplanetary adventure on a Roger Corman budget. The protagonist’s planet is called Akir and the denizens Akira because the basic plot was taken from Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (which, of course, was also the basis for “The Magnificent Seven”).

On the female front, Darlanne Fluegel is noteworthy as Nanelia, the potential mate of our greenhorn hero (Richard Thomas). Meanwhile stunning Sybil Danning works well as Saint-Exmin of the Valkyrie warriors, albeit hammy. Julia Duffy can be observed as one of the Akira, Mol, in a curious extraterrestrial (near) rape sequence. On the masculine side of things, there's John Saxon, George Peppard, Robert Vaughn, Morgan Woodward and more.

This was one of the first fairly big theatrical films to be scored by James Horner (although he previously did “Humanoids from the Deep” the same year), which paved the way for his notable career (think “Wolfen,” “Star Trek II,” “Star Trek III,” “Cocoon,” “Aliens,” “Field of Dreams,” “Glory” and so on).

Corman’s $2 million budget was mostly spent on the salaries of Peppard and Vaughn, but he had to up his game with the special effects to compete with the new standards set by “Star Wars” (which cost $11 million), “Alien” ($11 million) and “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” ($35 million). Sure, the F/X aren’t as good as those movies, technically speaking, but they’re quite effective (and fun) all things considered, not to mention superior to “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (the theatrical movie that was also the pilot for the TV series), which had $3.5 million to work with.

The flick was very profitable at the box office and deservedly so since it’s all-around entertaining. You could say it was the low-budget precursor to the Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy flicks of modern times.

It runs 1 hour, 43 minutes and was shot at Corman's own studio in Venice, California, his "renowned lumberyard facility.”