Trailer
Plot summary
The peaceful farm world Akir has only food and shelter to offer when the warlord Sador, who keeps his failing body alive with organs taken from others, orders its people to submit at his return in seven risings. Zed, the last of the Akira Corsairs, lends his starship, and Shad, its young pilot, volunteers. On a station of androids he meets the cyborg Doctor Hephaestus and his daughter Nanelia, who joins him. Recruits include Cowboy, an Earth freighter pilot carrying laser handguns; five clones who share one mind; Gelt, an assassin who wants somewhere to hide; Saint-Exmin, a Valkyrie; and Cayman, a zyme hunter with a grudge against Sador.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before production, a Hollywood trade paper reported that John Wayne would star in the film under the direction of Ingmar Bergman, a claim the article says was almost certainly a joke by the paper or the film's publicist.
- Producer Gale Anne Hurd first met future actor Bill Paxton on this set, where he was working as a carpenter; she later recalled him pounding nails and cracking everyone up during overnight shoots, before they went on to work together on Aliens.
- James Cameron got his first big break here: when the original art director was fired, he became responsible for the majority of the film's special effects, or, as he later put it, its production design and art direction, and it helped to propel his career.
- The film names its peaceful alien planet Akir and its people the Akira in honor of director Akira Kurosawa, since the story reworks the plot of his film Seven Samurai.
- Sound editor David Yewdall built Robert Vaughn's character's laser-gun sound effect from the recording of Clint Eastwood's .44 Magnum in Dirty Harry.
