Ice Pirates

The Ice Pirates (1984) It looks like the producers of this SF flick tried to make a Star Wars rip off, realized they weren’t going to come anywhere close and decided to go the comedy route to save the picture. The late Robert Urich (in almost every TV series in the 80’s) stars as a genial space pirate with designs on the galaxy’s ice supply and also on the beautiful princess played by Mary Crosby. Don’t look for anything serious or logical in this moderately enjoyable space opera. It seems after a lot of war, the evil ‘Templars’ from the planet Mithra (don’t ask who they are, you won’t find out.) have gained control of the galaxy’s ice and now rule almost everywhere. I’m not sure where all the ice went but hey, we are in a low budget movie here (don’t ask). While robbing said ice from a Templar convoy, they grab the princess but Urich and some of his trusty sidekicks are captured and sent to be neutered by a Rube Goldberg assembly line system. Saved in the nick of time by the Princess, they all take off looking for the 7th world where rumor has it there is a lot of water. The Templars take off in pursuit and they all wind up going through a time warp where everything ages rapidly and sets off some of the funniest scenes in the movie. Filled with screwy battles and reluctant robot warriors, the lead characters all start growing old in minutes while conducting a full scale hand to hand battle with the Templars. Even the robots start to lose nuts and bolts. Fortunately, Urich had a brief dalliance with the princess just before the battle started and all are saved by his son, now fully grown and the only one left physically fit to fight. The Templars are finally defeated or just die off of old age. They then reach the 7th world and click back to normal age. (Don’t ask how.) One of the good things about this movie is the level of detail in the background, there is almost always something going on back there. Populated by all sorts of interesting and whacky robots, from R2 rip offs, to robots that soil themselves from fear of combat (they gush oil); this may be an interesting rent for SF fans. The movie is rated PG for: Amazon warriors, robot warriors, robot cowards, headless robots, bodiless humans, leaking robots, sparking robots, black robots, kung-fu robots, robots with shaky knees, robot pimps, robot parts, cheesy special effects, space herpes, and for the largest gray afro ever seen in all of Hollywood.