Saturn 3 (1980): *1/2

Directed by Stanley Donen

The story of a horny robot.

I am always stunned when movies can so obviously ignore the films that came before it. This sci-fi crap-fest came out three years after Star Wars, and even after the original Alien. Yet it seems as though it could have come out in 1972. Way, way out of date.

Anyway, it stars Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, and a very young and stilted Harvey Keitel (who looks like he's wearing women's makeup throughout most of the film). From this film I learned several things: When you open an airlock in a big spaceship, it won't set off any alarms or be noticed by ANYBODY else on the entire ship. Also, in the future, razorwire will be strung across any airlocks in order to cut people up when they try to get out of the airlocks. All the food needed to supply Earth are some leafy plants that fit in a room about twenty feet long. You have to actually hold explosives in order to detonate them.

Other than that it's a big crapfest, with Harvey murdering a man in order to take his place on a mission to Saturn 3, an experimental food growing Saturn Moon station. Why does he do this? Who knows? After he gets to Saturn 3 he gets the hots for Farrah (duh), who is shacking up with Kirk, complete with unecessary toplessness (on both of their parts). Harvey is building a robot to replace Kirk, so that he'll have to leave and Harvey can be alone with Farrah. In order to program the robot, Harvey sticks a probe in his brain and transfers info directly into the robot's brain (which is organic). Of course, since Harvey has the hots for Farrah and is very jealous of her, the robot gets horny and goes crazy, making the last half of this film just another killer thing loose in a space station movie. The only difference being that this one is even stupider than most. Ugh.

The only really redeeming value in this film is a very classical approach to the future, like somethign out of a 50s sci-fi novel by Heinlein or Asimov. The allusions made to what life is like on Earth are very nice, but since the film doesn't take place there, who cares?

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