A killer robot powered by baby brains.
Kirk Douglas wrestling in the nude.
Ryan revisits the very weird 80s sci-fi movie, Saturn 3…
This article originally appeared atDen of Geek UK.
Some movies aspire to strangeness.
Other movies have strangeness thrust upon them.
Saturn 3,released in 1980, was an intensely strange film.
On the surface,Saturn 3sounds like a perfectly reasonable recipe for an intense sci-fi horror flick.
Both Keitel and the robot turn out to be evil.
you might probably guess what happens to the dog.
One or two moments are surprisingly unsettling.
Its like getting Rob Marshall in to make aSawsequel.
Barry came up with the concept forSaturn 3,a low-budget genre movie that Donen suggested Barry direct himself.
Could that trio generate enough tension for an entire feature?
Weve really got just three.
It was worrisome, but it was the nature of the idea.
Not that it was Amis fault that such a weird film came out of the creative stew.
The script was also rewritten by unnamed parties after Amis had completed his draft.
That may not be Amis fault, Gallagher said.
Youve probably gathered by now that Guyland was based on Kirk Douglas.
He didnt go nude for me but, on the set, he was always ripping his clothes off.
[Douglas] was, again, naked at the time, Amis said.
Saturn 3features a robot called Hector, powered by baby brains
Yes, you read that correctly.
But one quick reprogram from Benson later, and Hectors turned into a rampaging monster that lusts after Fawcett.
As batty as it all sounds, Hectors nevertheless a pretty cool-looking robot.
Several versions were built, most of them radio-controlled and operated by a crew of 20.
Getting Hector to do as he was told, however, brought its own challenges.
We had hilarious problems with it, Donen toldStarlog.
It has pincers which are used to take something from Farrahs eye, Donen explained.
There is no man in the hand; it is all mechanical.
The result is a vocal performance that resembles something from an old kung-fu movie.
Certainly, cringe-inducing lines like Your body is very beautiful.
Id like to use it dont sound any more poetic when uttered in a clipped mid-Atlantic accent.
We can only wonder what might have happened had John Barry remained with the production.
What are those strange insignias seemingly tattooed on the characters faces?
Accounts differ as to why Barry left the movie.
Theres the suggestion that he was fired when the production fell behind.
Another story goes that he fell out with Kirk Douglas.
Barrys vision forSaturn 3certainly sounded more nuanced than the fairly straight killer robot movie we ultimately got.
He imagined Hector as an innocent Frankensteins monster a creature that inherits the flaws of its maker.
Even as the budget mounted, it seems that nobody could quite decide what it was they were making.
Was it a tense sci-fi horror, or a camp adolescent fantasy designed to appeal to young men?
Shots like the one above suggest something a bit more artistic than a B-movie romp.
Fawcetts space lingerie wasnt the only thing to get snipped out of the movie.
One review, titled Its true, theres something really wrong withSaturn 3described it as cosmically inane.
Saturn 3wasnt exactly the sci-fi blockbuster its makers might have hoped.
This is, after all, a movie that features such bizarre lines as No taction contact!
and That was an improper thought leakage.
