Some may instead call it stealing–which is understandable–but I think that there’s some innovation involved, if you look close enough.

When you’re working with a limited budget, sometimes necessity is the mother of invention.  Gerry Anderson’s “Space: 1999″ was at the time, the most expensive series on television, but if you had to work with special effects, model making in particular, you sometimes had to make do with whatever you could throw together.

I mention this because I happened to be watching Luigi Cozzi‘s (credited as ‘Lewis Coates’) Starcrash, which is recycled in more ways than you could possibly imagine

Most of it, thankfully, having little to do with any Gerry Anderson production.

If you look at the image above, which is a screenshot from the film,  you’ll see what looks to be the command module from an Eagle, the multi-purpose space craft from “Space: 1999.”

Which looks that way because that’s exactly what it is.

It’t not unusual for model makers in science fiction films to use off-the-shelf parts to build their ships, though they usually do better disguising the fact.

I also happened to notice that the soundtrack was by John Barry (if a production ever seemed to buy legitimacy, then this was it), which if you listen carefully sounds remarkably like his theme to Disney’s “The Black Hole” in places.

In fact, if parts of the “Starcrash” soundtrack replaced that which was used in “The Black Hole,” it would have benefitted, because there’s some beautiful music, most of it more subtle than that used in the Disney film.

Check out the “homage” to Ray Harryhausen to Ray Harryhausen below.  Sure, it’s not that well done, but it warms the heart to see the attempt.

“Starcrash” came out in 1978, a year after a small film named “Star Wars” was released.

A somewhat obvious tell is the “light saber” scene.

It also has Christopher Plummer as the Emperor (who happens to possess the power to halt time for three minutes, which is useful when you have two minutes to escape from somewhere), and David Hasselhoff as his son, Simon.

By the way, the evil dude in this film is quite possibly the most badly protected villain in movies.  Their space station is under attack (which is shaped like a hand, with fingers that actually move, for some odd reason) and he’s literally in the center of all the chaos, shouting “Kill!”

For some reason I can’t imagine Emperor Palpatine running about while Rebel fighters are firing all over the place.