Saturn 3 (1980)

Directed by: Stanley Donen

Writers: Martin Amis (screenplay), John Barry (story)

 

 

Nothing beats a good sci-fi movie! But if you have none handy, something like Saturn 3 will do. This is a movie about love, isolation, conflicts of different cultures and a giant homicidal self-aware robot who wants to have sex with a woman. Well, at least he’s not gay.

I missed quite a bit of the beginning of the film, because I was telling my girlfriend about John Carpenter’s Dark Star, but here’s the gist of it: Some guy (supposedly a spaceship captain or something) is preparing to go somewhere, but some other guy kills him and takes his place. It turns out that this guy is Harvey Keitel and he visits Farrah Fawcett and Kirk Douglas, who live alone in a solitary base near some planet. Since it has a ring, and the movie is called Saturn 3, I’m guessing it’s supposed to be Saturn, though in all honesty I have to say it’s probably the fakest looking Saturn I’ve ever seen.

 

It also appears that the Earth is horribly devastated by something (again) and that it relies on off-world colonies or some other thing to produce food and other stuff for them. Douglas and Fawcett are apparently running one of those places. Alone, of course.

So, Harvey Keitel brings with him an object that looks like a trash bin, but it actually contains a huge artificial brain, which he uses to construct a menacingly looking large robot. Due to the advanced technology, the robot is able to pick information directly from his brain. This is done with some implants that Keitel puts in his head (remember, this was before they invented Bluetooth).

 

Alas, along with some undeniably useful knowledge (like how to play chess, for instance), the menacingly looking robot also inherits Keitel’s desire for Farrah Fawcett. As we all know from our biology classes, if there’s only one female and multiple males, they will proceed to fight for her. Of course, she’s in love with Douglas and doesn’t want Keitel (or his robot), but when has that ever stopped him? Holly Hunter also didn’t want him in Piano, and he just stood before her naked and – wham! Fortunately, he doesn’t do that here.

Instead, his first objective is to remove Douglas, but then the menacingly looking robot suddenly decides he’s pissed off at Keitel for killing that guy at the beginning of the movie. Fawcett, Keitel and Douglas then realize they have to work together to get rid of the menacingly looking large robot, who is in fact incredibly slow and looks like it’s about to fall apart any minute (that’s 80’s technology for you).

 

After a few failed attempts, they finally succeed and Keitel takes out the robot’s brain. But the robot decides it’s still too early to call it quits (after all, the movie is barely halfway through), so it uses some additional parts to rebuild itself into a really cool giant robot that’s even more menacingly looking than the previous version, complete with shiny red and blue cables and whatnot. This version of the menacingly looking robot is more successful than the first one, so it cuts off Keitel’s hand (which inspired Oliver Stone a year later to make a film about a hand) and drags him away (it was a really bad day for Keitel, because moments before that he got into a fight with a naked Kirk Douglas over Farrah Fawcett and got his ass kicked). Douglas tries to kill the robot by throwing some plastic buckets at it and for some reason fails miserably and after that the robot does some things that are not quite nice, so Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett decide they have to kill it. What happens next (and what happened to Keitel) I won’t tell you.

While Saturn 3 is certainly not a match to the greatest science fiction B-movies like Forbidden World, it does have its moments. The set looks OK and I really liked all versions of the menacingly looking robot. The sound is also interesting, there are lots of echoes and the music is often psychedelic, reminiscent of older sci-fi movies. As for the actors, Keitel acts like a robot (no pun intended), but since he’s otherwise a great actor, I’m guessing that was part of his character. Douglas was OK, but Fawcett was horrible. She should have had less lines and more nude scenes. Overall, one maniac robot and loads of silliness make for a cool movie that should keep you entertained while you prepare to watch something that actually makes sense.