Battle of the Stars
Entry updated 19 October 2026. Tagged: Film.
Italian film (1978; original title Battaglie negli spazi stellari). Blue Bak Film, Nais Film. Directed by Alfonso Brescia (as by Al Bradley). Written by Giacomo Mazzocchi and Massimo Lo Jacono. Cast includes Massimo De Cecco, Walter Maestosi, John Richardson and Yanti Somer. 88 minutes. Colour.
A magnetic force has drawn the Spaceship Magellan to an Asteroid. The captain and one crew member take a landing pod to investigate, but are murdered by bandaged humanoids. The remaining crew, watching on a monitor, decide to depart; but two UFOs appear and bombard their ship with "thermic Rays", killing them; the attackers then head towards Earth. Mike Layton (Richardson), in charge of our planet's defences, is called to the Altair space base and – ignoring a suggestion that they try to contact the Aliens instead of destroying them – activates his missile defence system; the rockets only take out one ship. The other disappears over Yucatan: three people sent to investigate are killed and replaced by copies with their Memories. Joined by Mike and Scientist/girlfriend Diane Green (Somar), they realize Mike is suspicious and prepare to shoot the pair, only for a man, Irk (Maestosi), and Azar (De Cecco), a sphere-holding boy, to appear and scare them off; we are told the sphere is "a laser with a strength that's incredible" (see Weapons). The newcomers are from Ganymede (see Jupiter) and, having monitored the Gonian Invasion plans, are here to help Earth. Irk admits their motives are not entirely altruistic: they suspect Ganymede will be the next target, then the rest of the universe. Mike asks how the Gonians planned to adapt to our atmosphere: "It would take too long to explain to you." Irk adds that the Gonians have a Computer that "has gathered the sum of all the minds which lived on Gona during the last 300 years". This is already on Earth, in an Underground City. The Altair base decides to conduct brain scans of all staff, revealing that Gonian doubles have already infiltrated it; these escape and try to blow up the base's nuclear reactor, but Azar Teleports in and kills them with the sphere.
Later, Mike, Diane, Irk, Azar and one other are kidnapped and taken to the Gonians' "celestial base" which confusingly (see above) holds their computer. They learn the Gonians' civilization became over-reliant on machines ("Technology became our ruin") and their world Polluted; indeed their bodies are decaying, and hence their wish for human replacements. A Gonian approaches them and removes its mask (declaring "Look at me!") to expose a disfigured, maggot-ridden face (see Horror in SF). The computer then gives him the appearance of the fifth kidnapped human, who vanishes. However, on trying to copy Azar the computer discovers he is a Robot, causing it to postpone the copying. The four are imprisoned; Irk explains Azar is intelligent and has emotions (see AI) "I love him like a son": he had made him a child because the people of Ganymede are Immortal ("to a degree") and are unable to reproduce – wistfully reflecting, "No more children."
Azar teleports to destroy the computer: at first he seems to fail as it declares "I am indestructible! ... programmed to replace my own damaged circuitry ... for I am the supreme entity, and I shall exist forever!"; but shortly after it explodes and the prisoners escape. Azar has been injured and dies. Earlier, the computer had boasted how three Gonians in human bodies were planning to disable Mike's satellite defence system at the Altair base, enabling the fleet to reach Earth; to prevent this Irk teleports back to Earth, whilst Mike and Diane follow in a Gonian spaceship, which Mike is immediately able to operate it because "mathematical language is a universal language". However there is a second Diane aboard the ship and Mike must decide which is a Gonian copy: he does so by discreetly removing the ammunition from a gun and providing the opportunity for the Gonian to grab it. Cornered, it jumps out of an airlock with a scream (see Suicide). Meanwhile Irk has reached the Altair base and kills the three Gonians – but it seems to be too late, as their leader managed to disable the outer perimeter defence system, enabling the fleet to pass through unharmed ... however Mike now arrives and reveals "I've secretly been developing an inner perimeter defence system to be used only should the outer perimeter defence fail." Sure enough, the fleet is destroyed.
This is a poor film, with dialogue often involving characters stating what those around them already know; plot holes like the shifting location of the Gonian computer; the ending is a deus ex machina; acting and special effects are poor, particularly the space walks. The film's budget was clearly small and props are reused from Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977), most notably the computer. Though the concerns over the baleful effect of technology and life extension are Clichés, it is possible the original Italian version was a little better than the English one, as very occasionally a slightly more interesting sf film does seem to show through, such as when the computer assures a group of Gonians about to die that they "will continue to live within me for all eternity" which might suggest Uploaded minds. The Italian dub, based on the automatically generated subtitles, has "voi non morirete mai le vostre energie cerebrali confluiranno dentro di mi" ["you will never die your brain energies will flow into me"]. Though supposedly the star, Mike spends most of the time standing by as Irk and Azar act heroically but maybe has some emotional growth, telling Diane he loves her at the end. Diane does even less, though the leader of the Gonian saboteurs on Earth is a woman and one of the film's better characters (see Women in SF). [SP]
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