Movie Review - Turkish Star Wars

    Back in the 80's, Turkey loved to rip-off Hollywood movies that they couldn't watch in their own country. This is one of them. Now Turkish Star Wars isn't the movie's real title, as the real title translates to "The Man Who Saves the World." In addition to that, the plot has very little to do with George Lucas's cinematic classic. So why is this movie called Turkish Star Wars? The answer is simple really, it directly uses Star Wars footage. If this were done in North America, there would be lawsuits galore. Some of these rip-offs weren't all that bad, but most of them, like Turkish Star Trek for example, are an absolute chore to watch. Turkish Star Wars happens to be one of the bad ones.

But the real question is, how bad is it? Read on to find out.

    First of all, skip the opening credits as they offer an English speaking audience absolutely nothing. The music's pretty crappy too, but we won't hear it again. Turkish Star Wars starts off with the narrator talking crap about brain and will power being Earth's primary defense and humanity's greatest weapon. The movie never explains what this means or how it works, yet it's vitally important to the plot. That's always a good sign, when a strange mystical element in the movie's mythos is never explained. The narrator then tells us how humanity has been traveling through space for thousands of years, and has become one united culture known as earth-people. I have no idea what they're trying to say, and the bad grammar in the subtitles really doesn't help, but it's all put to Star Wars space footage that has nothing to do with anything this narrator is talking about.

    Once the narrator is finished with his confusing barrage of Turkish Star Wars-babble, he talks about out a bunch of fighters sent out to attack the enemy. Yeah, we only ever see two of these fighters - some fighting force Earth has. We see various people standing in front of a movie screen playing space battle footage from Star Wars and acting as if they're dog-fighting; it's not even close to convincing.

    If you can find this movie with subtitles, you'll be treated to text saying things like "This isn't ending, they are coming crowded," and "we must exceed the space speed." Yeah, it's a poorly translated movie too. Sometimes the footage is even moving in the wrong direction - apparently these fighters are flying backwards and looking in some rear-view screen. To make matters worse, it's cut in the most confusing manner I've ever seen in any movie. This fight goes on for seven minutes, all of which made me want to watch Star Wars episode 1 - that's saying something.

    Intercut with this overlong space battle we see Turkish Darth Vader talking about how he wants to capture a human brain. He goes on and on about how a human brain will help him destroy our home world. By the way, if you get tired of his ramblings now - YOU WILL HATE THIS MOVIE! His footage will make you feel like you're tripping on acid too - the editing is really bizarre. Beyond that, his costume is ridiculous...just look.

    Turkish Darth says "Earth, not reaching you is not loosing you." what the crap does that mean? the human space fighters are also talking about some unknown force that's pulling them toward...something. I am so confused right now. The dialogue's very repetitive too, as they mention this unknown force at least four times without explaining anything. Also, the Indiana Jones theme starts playing out of no-where. What? you're ripping of Indiana Jones too? what's next? Flash Gordon...oh wait, they rip off Flash Gordan's music too, never-mind.

    Anyway, the humans win the battle, and Turkish Darth says "You got away again, Earth, but nothing will be able to save you again. Then I'll be the strongest in space." Anyone else confused yet? How exactly does a planet get away? Isn't it just orbiting the same star over and over again - it's not exactly hard to find. Oh, and all of this happened within 7 minutes of movie time. Out of no where, a sun appears to go supernova, and then we see explosions in a desert followed by a bunch of fast moving cuts and spinning shots that are dizzying to look at. Ugh, this movie already hurts.

    After the montage of sickening film footage, the two space fighters dig themselves out of a huge pile of rubble in the middle of the desert. The one guy says "We definitely need to find out where we are, otherwise we'll die from hunger and thirst here." Immediately after, the other says, "Oh! I'm so tired, let's have a rest." Where's your sense of urgency? You're lost in the middle of some unknown desert that you've only been walking in for five minutes and you already need a rest? How'd you get into the military? Also noteworthy is how, as far as I know, these two characters are never given names. The subtitles certainly never name them, so I'll just refer to them as the heroes. They continue their nonsense conversation as I try to think of anything else. You can tell they don't have a camera tripod because every single shot shakes around as if the crew's filming during an earthquake. How cheap can you get, seriously?

    Our two heroes find ancient ruins in the desert as the narrator tells us about this long lost civilization that also "faced the unstoppable, unknown power and enemy millions of years ago." OK, Turkish Darth was talking about destroying earth, if some unknown enemy attacked earth millions of years ago, Earth wouldn't exist. And to make this sound even cheaper, they're just showing Egyptian drawings. then the two start talking about how this unknown force dragged them into this desert without their ships, weapons, and equipment. Funny this "power" didn't take their military uniforms too."The signs that they have pictured are signs of evil and death resembled the nuclear weapons of our time very much." Don't you just love the awkward verb tense there. and again, these are just hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt, I'm not seeing any images of death, nuclear power, or anything.

    The one guy starts to play some whistle thing, which gave me a headache in seconds. out of no where, a bunch of Turkish Vader's minions ride in on horses and we get our first real fight scene. the fight's kind of entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. the fight choreography is stupid, the stunts are weak, and our heroes jump over the horses far too much for me to take anything seriously. anyway, the two heroes take a horse each and ride off to more Indiana Jones theme music. as they ride along, there are several cuts of random masked heads jumping at the camera.

    This scene is a perfect example of how not to make a movie.

    Suddenly, a bunch of white tin-men show up with the deadliest weapon I've ever seen in any movie...bright flashing lights. OK, their supposed to be laser guns, but the only special effect used is to flash the entire screen white over and over again. If you have epilepsy, do not watch this movie, IT WILL KILL YOU! They shoot the heroes off their horses, but then allow the heroes to stand back up. "They look so weird," one of the heroes says. Finally, a quote I can agree with. the four tin-men surround our heroes. "Looks like we're caught." "Aren't you smart...I wish I was as bright!" then another random mask face rushes at the camera, and suddenly there's hundreds of people around. what is going on?

    Some announcer dude starts talking about a fight, and how it will bring his master youth...what? so a bunch of...I guess gladiators start killing each other. For some unknown reason, a guard starts grabbing a screaming kid in the middle of the fight; I'm so confused right now. our two heroes are watching this whole nightmare, tied up by four guards who look strikingly different than the guards that captured them earlier. The heroes decide to fight against "the injustice" by spinning around, somehow throwing their guards in circles as if they're on a merry-go-round that's moving too fast. How is that physically possible? You need leverage to make someone spin around like that, and being in the middle gives you no leverage. There's also four of them and two of you and...somebody send me help! Anyway, they free themselves and beat up all the guards. The heroes fight all the gladiators too, and guess what music theme's playing? You guessed it, the fricken Indiana Jones theme. Wrong George Lucas Movie boneheads! Turkish Darth shows up and his minions attack our heroes, giving them a few minor cuts - these friggin idiots deserve it. Turk Darth then starts rambling on about how he's been waiting for this human blood...wait, I though he was after a human brain, what does he want with blood? Before he can capture their, err...blood and brains, they just run. For some strange reason, nobody chases after them. A woman and her child, whom were watching the brawl of insanity, invite them into their cave home.

    She looks like she's been living in a cave for years doesn't she. with her perfect teeth, lipstick, jewelry and...yeah, this movie fails.

    In the cave home, we get a long staring scene between one of the heroes and the mother, and it's all set to the Indiana Jones's love theme. Apparently they're spontaneously in love despite never speaking a word to each other. The two heroes then talk to each other about how the people of this planet don't understand laughter, but if they destroy Turkish Vader that might change. Whatever, I don't care. Some human scientist randomly shows up, and he explains that the people in this cave house are humans from the old civilization. They say they have knowledge and our heroes have weapons...wait, no they don't. Just after the heroes landed they explained that all their weapons were missing. We never even see the heroes taking any of the gladiator's weapons. The movie's plot holes are piling up by the minute. "This place is an eternal land of darkness and secrets." he then talks about how thousands of years ago, the earth suffered it's first nuclear war. The earth was destroyed, and this desert thing they're on is a piece of it. Wait, that's physically impossible. If it's just a piece of earth, then there wouldn't be any gravity. Also, if the earth was destroyed, then how is anyone still alive, and if there were any survivors, you'd think they'd all suffer radiation poisoning or at least some serious mutations.

    After...that mess of exposition, we see more Star Wars footage as Turkish Darth travels toward earth (actually it's Yavin 4, but oh well) Again, he's talking crap that doesn't make sense as I long for movies like Double Dragon (it's also really bad.)

    Everyone but one of the heroes is asleep in the cave. The heroes are looking around cause' they heard something. For some unexplained reason, the cave's mummies come to life and reach for the camera. What's this movie's obsession with monsters attacking the camera? Also, why would anyone want to sleep in a building filled with corpses? Maybe it's just me, but I think that would be a bit, you know, creepy. Not to mention the stench of rotting corpses and diseases floating just outside your bedroom. We then cut to the woman looking around, even though she was asleep a minute ago. She sees one of the mummies and starts screaming, About 10 seconds later, everyone wakes up at once - you'd think screaming would wake people up quicker. The mummies kill a few kids as our heroes fight them. Most of the humans escape through a tunnel and roll a giant stone in the doorway on the other side. Then a giant furry, um, thing comes along and smashes the stone. We see a pile of round boulders falling over; I'm guessing they were supposed to be the stone door breaking because it's no longer there. The hairy thing starts flailing his arms around, killing the remaining humans in this tomb-like cave. I guess I shouldn't complain that the movie's over, even if the ending is kind of sad.

     The movie ends with...wait, how did the heroes get back outside with the mother and her kid? We saw them running into that cave and closing the stone door, and that room didn't have any other exit. Also if they could get out, why didn't anyone else follow? Frickin cowards, leaving their fellow humans to die a horrible, horrible death. Anyway, more Indiana Jones music plays as we see the newly killed humans get set where the mummified corpses all came from. Turkish Darth is seen drinking all their blood. OK, so Turkish Darth is a vampire? Who would have thought. Wait, then why isn't the sunlight killing him. We're only half way through this movie by the way people, this much insanity has happened in half the movie. Please, bring me anything else; bring me Troll 3, bring me Bloodrayne 2. Heck, I'd almost rather watch Garbage Pail Kids - and I'm not kidding either.

    We are then treated to the most brutal training montage I've ever see. OK, this part's actually pretty funny. The heroes are seen smashing large rocks with their bare hands. They're punching them, chopping them, slapping them - by the time they'd finish this brutal training session their bones could be sold as mashed potatoes. Frig, at the end of this insanity the one guy chops a giant boulder clean in half. He then gets his hands cleaned by the mother whose using...lettuce? Why? OK never-mind, the montage isn't over, they just had to remind us that there's supposed to be a romance sub-plot. There's more slapping and smashing rocks, and the one guy even ties boulders to his legs and starts running and jumping around.

    He then takes the boulders off and starts throwing and punting boulders all over the place. We then get another staring scene between the mother and the one hero with the Indiana jones love theme...again. Also worth noting is that the mother keeps taking her ear-rings on and off between takes. How's that for consistency?

    The next scene rips off another famous Star Wars scene; it's a bar scene reminiscent of the cantina. In here we have another fight scene. They're clearly trying to make a martial arts fight here, but it looks more like a bunch of untrained 10-year-olds imitating Jackie Chan. After the fight, Turkish Darth warps in to brag about how he's immortal. "Whatever I desire, I can also have immediately." wait, if that's true then you should already have earth. You even said earlier that you've been waiting thousands of years to destroy earth, you fail! Anyway, his tin-men with the flashing lights gun warp in and capture the heroes again.

    Some robot leads the one hero to Darth Turk. Darth rambles on more about how he's undefeatable and how he'll defeat the earthlings, and how he'll use the human brain to control the universe. We've all heard it before, blah blah. There's also a spelling mistake in these subtitles, "afraid." His masks randomly disappears for several shots before re-appearing with no explanation. Wouldn't it have been more dramatic to only show his face at the end? So much for a mysterious enemy if you can see his rather humanish face. He keeps warping things back and fourth. Seriously if you can warp all stuff around, just warp the hero's brain out of his head. What's stopping you? Stop screwing around with these villain speech scenes, you've outdone Dr.Evil by this point. Out of no where, we get another random fight. again, if Darth Turk is so powerful, why doesn't he just subdue this guy? OK, admittedly there is one awesome move in this fight, where our hero pulls off one monsters arms and chokes him with them. the other hero eventually joins in the fight. There are plenty of extreme closeups in this fight, as well as the one guy literally catching a sword with his mouth and smashing it in two. I've also noticed that the one hero really loves smashing both his hands into his opponents' heads. well, eventually they're subdued and are buried alive as a method of torture. wait, what?

    The heroes dig themselves out of the burial of torture and are sent to a Gladiator fight for another kind of torture. OK, the movie makers have no understanding of what torture truly is. The one hero is matched up against the giant hairy beast that destroyed the rock door earlier. The fight consists mostly of the hero constantly jumping over the hairy beast as it turns around and growls. This fight, along with this movie, is just going on and on. Oh dear, every time he kicks the beast, the entire crowd shouts "Hooray." we then get another "love scene" between the hero and the mother, and then the movie starts talking about Islam being the ultimate belief out of no where. I can understand the Islam reference in a Turkish movie, but why wait so long for such a tacked on theme that honestly has no real detail or an ounce of care? It doesn't help that the movie never mentions Islam again.

    We then have a running scene, followed by another fight scene. This particular fight brings a whole new set of problems. First of all, he's surrounded by five or six buffoons and yet every time we zoom in on his face, he's the only one on camera. the scene also features one bad dude flipping around a nun-chuck for a full 30 seconds only to have the hero beat him down in 5. It's not even done for comedic purposes; when you introduce a bad guy in such a fashion, either knock him out in one hit or have an epic fight - this movie does neither. Every fight scene brings a whole new kind of failure and I'm honestly getting tired of this crap-fest.
We then get another "religious" scene, except as I said it has nothing to do with Islam. According to this scene, 13 or so fighters resisted this evil force with Jesus as their guide. What? You reference two different religions and get them both wrong? Jesus had 12 followers, not 13. Anyway, the hero walks into some tomb and grabs some artifact sword...after another pointless fight scene of course. This movie has more crappy fight scenes then Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Then we get a random explanation on this Turkish Darth Vader stoner. He's a human magician who had followers. Somehow he became immortal and wants revenge. I don't know either so don't ask. The other hero suddenly shows up and they fight each other. Suddenly the one hero morphs into some beast, obviously filmed in another location. The good hero stabs him, the other dies, and suddenly we see him strapped up to a machine alive. I give up people, there is no understanding this pile of insanity.

    Anyway, the hero starts fighting random baddies with his sword, and the bad guys keep falling even though the hero isn't even touching them. We also see the other guy connected to the machine again. The Magician talks about how he can't get the hero's brain as he's somehow connected to the other hero. Oh yeah, we get that exact scene twice in a row - shot for shot and word for word. The hero rescues the other, and they escape the magician's lair.

    The two heroes argue for a moment, and the previously captured hero takes the main hero's sword. He goes to the "priest" character who told the main hero about the magician's past and asks the secret of the sword. The priest transforms into the magician and starts beating on the one hero. the main hero comes back and saves his friend, but the magician warps away again. We then warp to inside...something. The real priest is dying, and apparently the magician really only wanted to touch the sword. When was that explained? The bad hero runs into a hallway to take his revenge, only for an explosion to occur. Wha? Anyway he dies, and there's just the good hero left. He then sticks the sword into a fire, melts it, and sticks his hands in the liquid substance. This covers his hands into and suddenly makes him awesome...somehow. Why didn't the intensely hot magic sword liquid just melt his hands off?

    Anyway, the final fight is an indescribable mess of everything that's been confusing up to this point. It really is the most chaotic mess of fighting, pulling prisoners around, Star Wars stock footage, bright screen flashing, and nonsense dialogue I've ever seen. Between cuts the hero's metal gloves keep disappearing and re-appearing. There's a countdown from 10 that lasts several minutes, beheading furry beasts, lasers that look like film scratches, and exploding mummies. This whole ordeal is inter-cut with the magician talking about how he wants humanity to suffer for thousands of years...by destroying earth. Yeah, because destroying an entire species is the perfect way to make them suffer, makes perfect sense. Eventually we get the final confrontation between the hero and Turkish Dar... the magician. It's nothing but constant jumping, explosions, and stock footage until the hero chops him cleanly in half. They were too cheap to make a dummy of the guy chopped in half, so they just blacked out half of the film footage (only showing half the actor's face), then blacked out the other half. The movie then ends exactly how it began, with Star Wars stock footage in space.

    Quality-wise, this is the worst movie I've ever seen. This movie is actually worse than The Room by far. As bad as The Room is, at least the plot makes sense. In fact, The Viking Sagas makes more sense than Turkish Star Wars. How is human brain power the most physically powerful force in the universe? What the crap is that sword thing and how does it contain the brainpower of a long-lost soul. How does the mother keep getting captured and why don't we ever see it happen? Why isn't anyone given a name within the movie? I can understand the use of stock footage if their budget is so low, but why not try to match the footage with what's frickin going on rather than just using random action scenes and saying that the characters are in the middle of a battle? Apart from a few laughs here and there, this movie is so un-entertaining that I'd rather watch Garbage Pail Kids again, and if I'm willing to go that far - SOMETHING IS WRONG!

Two word review - Incredibly bad