Saturn 3
Dir: Stanley Donen, John Barry
1980
*****
Saturn 3 is commonly known as something of a
disaster, indeed, it is the infamous film that Martin Amis (who wrote the
screenplay) based his cult hit novel Money on. However, being
one to always defend the underdog, I’m here to put the record straight. Saturn
3 is a great sci-fi movie, a classic I would go as far as suggesting. The idea
came from John Barry, who was a bright young talent in the world of production
design who worked on such classics as A Clockwork Orange, Superman and Star
Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. He had worked with legendary director/producer
Stanley Donen on a couple of films; The Little Prince in 1974 and Lucky Lady in
1975 and was given the chance to direct Saturn 3, his first story, in 1979
under Lew Grade’s ITC Entertainment production company, with Donen acting as
his producer. However, it soon became apparent that Barry wasn’t suited to the
job, having had no directional experience. It was widely thought he was sacked
by Donen and Grade but the truth is he walked as a result of being replaced and
also because his vision was being butchered by financial constraints. As Donen
later put it, "It was my fault, not John's.
The truth is John had hardly ever been on a set, which I didn't realize. He was
such a terrific talent, but he'd spent most of his time in an office. He knew
next to nothing about staging a scene, or handling actors. And since nature
hates a vacuum, the actors jumped on him. The film started floundering. Finally
I had to tell him : 'it's not working. I'll have to be on the set with you'. I
had a moral commitment, after all ; I'd make sure the film went all right. But
when I did turn up on the set, John said he just couldn't work like that, so he
left. There was no question of his being fired." Grade’s ITC Entertainment
was also producing 1980’s Raise the Titanic at the time Saturn 3 went into
production but when it went over-schedule and over-budget and ultimately bombed
at the box office, Barry’s vision was cut back dramatically. Saturn 3 was meant
as a challenger to the sci-fi horror throne that Ridley Scott’s Alien had
recently claimed and the original script was a far more lavish and epic look at
the future than the finished project. Amis had added flourishes on instruction
by Grade and the other executive producers that weren’t in the original script
that added a bit of titillation, namely, Farrah Fawcett in a revealing costume,
which would help with the film’s marketing. Grade also ordered the removal of
key horror sequences, so not to upset the film’s classification. It is safe to
say that money, the title of Martin Amis’s book that tells you everything you
need to know about the murky world of film production, is what lead to Saturn 3
becoming something different from Barry’s original story. However, it’s still
pretty good. The set looks like it’s from a late 60s/early 70s idea of
futurism, unfashionable in the early 80s for sure, but retro-chic today. It
certainly didn’t look cheap and I can think of hundreds of films made before
and after that failed to look as glamourous and space-age. The original plot
might have changed and simplified but the crux of the story remained the same;
In the future, the earth is overcrowded and hungry, it relies on research
conducted on remote stations across the solar system to produce safe and
sufficient food for them, using modern methods of agriculture and experimental
hydroponics. Adam and Alex (Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett) live on Saturn 3,
a base built on Saturn’s third moon. They live in peace together, romantically,
and have done for a few years. However, food is needed urgently and their
research is seen to be slow, and so earth’s government sends a robotics captain
to build the pair a robot to assist them to speed up their productivity. Seeing
the assignment as an opportunity, a captain Benson (played by a dubbed Harvey
Keitel) murders the original captain assigned to the mission and makes his way
to Saturn 3 to build the station their very own ‘Demigod series’ robot.
However, the robot, named ‘Hector’ (a nod to The Trojan Wars in Greek Mythology
where Hector was the Trojan Prince and the greatest fighter of Troy) is
programmed using direct input from the programmer’s brain. Since captain Benson
is murderous, ‘psychologically unstable’ and has sexual desires toward Alex, so
does Hector. So while Adam and Alex are suspicious of Benson’s behaviour and
advances on Alex, they were unprepared for a horny killer robot chasing after
them in their home. In a further twist of personality, Hector also turns on
Benson, as he is automatically tuned to know murder is wrong – until he goes
about killing people himself, in the interest of replacing Adam, growing
vegetables and having his wicked way with Alex, one has to assume. Once again
the human brain ruins the purity of an innocent robot, just when will the human
race learn this? The original script sees Hector ripping Benson’s body apart
but Grade decided it too gratuitous, making him something of a party pooper. I
forgive him because he saved the Muppet show, and the best bits are still left
in, such as the little dog being ripped in half and when Hector decides to wear
Harvey Keitel’s decapitated head as a hat. The horror element isn’t quite on
the same level as Alien but there is a certain something about it that I love.
It’s quite serious and quite camp at the same time, two qualities any space
sci-fi films should have. It’s like lost in space, but a horror version, an
element always missing from the original TV series I thought. The effects are
old school and old school is best in my book. Hector the killer robot looks
pretty rubbish to be fair, hard to believe special effects guru Colin Chilvers
modelled him on a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing, even harder to believe he cost
over a million dollars to make. The exterior shots in space are dated but still
wonderful, with a bit of psychedelia thrown in for good measure. The soundtrack
by Elmer Bernstein was amazing but only a few minutes was used, once in the
title sequence and again during the final credits. Why his work was cut is a
mystery because it is up there with some of the best. I think it looks great,
what more could you want from a sci-fi horror; Spaceships, murder, killer
robots, severed hands, Farrah Fawcett naked, Kirk Douglas naked… there really
is something for everyone. I love it, although I do wonder what the Sean
Connery/Michael Caine version would have looked like, as was originally
planned. It’s about time people woke up and realised that Saturn 3 is a sci-fi
classic that deserves a bit of respect. So it didn’t do that well at the box
office, that means nothing, it has great performances, a brilliant story, an
even more brilliant script and, it’s worth repeating, a killer robot
wears Harvey Keitel’s decapitated head as a hat. Watch it now.
