Turkish Star Wars (aka: The Man Who Saves The World / Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam) (1982)

This is not meant as a criticism, but the film I am about to lay upon you is, I can honestly say, a really bad film.

Plan 9 from Outer Space? It was better than this.

StarCrash? At least it had Caroline Munro.

Even Supersonic Man had some intentional laughs.

But Turkish Star Wars (aka: Dunyayi kurtaran adam, aka: The Man Who Saves The World) - this is the equivalent of watching a student film made by kids with a broken camera and no script.

Again, not a criticism. Because I really do enjoy this film a lot. But it is as technically adroit as Harold P. Warren's home movies.

You can tell you're in for a rough ride from the minute the credits start. Why? Because unlike Star Wars, this movie can't afford a fancy text crawl: Turkish Star Wars has titles painted in orange on black cardboard. Yep: painted. And then they just pan down the cardboard from one credit to the next.

(and one crew member, Aslan Tektas, must not have been liked very much: he just gets a static card with no fancy paint job or pan or nothing. Poor guy.)

So that's the beginning credits for your big Star Wars film, huh, Turkey? Fine: bring it on....

Then the movie starts, with random scenes from Star Wars and clips of NASA missiles launching interspersed throughout a Turkish-language narrative (with English subtitles, thank GOD) explaining how Earth has been pummeled by a nuclear war and repeated attacks from an Evil Wizard, until Earth protected itself with an outer shield melded together from human brain cells.

(...sorry, that's what I got out of it.)

And because of the pictures they show, we are led to believe that Earth now looks exactly like the Death Star. And the good guys of Earth ride around in TIE Fighters. And the Evil Wizard (more on him in a bit) has his forces attack in X-Wing Fighters. And the Millennium Falcon is in there somewhere, too, but it's not clear whose side it's on.

As confusing as that is, this is only the first TEN MINUTES of the movie.

Seems the Evil Wizard needs a human brain to conquer the Death Star...oops, I meant Earth. Sorry...and breach its protective crust of brains. Like a "diamonds-cutting-diamonds" sort of thing, I guess. I'd need a neurologist to explain that to me.

Then we finally meet the Evil Wizard and...wow. Decked out in red and gold with a huge spiky helmet and a faceplate that looks like a test reject from Excalibur, this is not your father's Darth Vader. In fact, this bad guy looks more ready for Mardi Gras than ruling the galaxy. And with a big bushy beard poking down beneath his "scary" mask, this Evil Wizard is like an armor-plated hobo. In long, flowing red robes.

Okay, anyway...two Earth pilots (from Turkey, natch) named Murat (Cuneyt Arkin) and Ali (Aytekin Akkaya) are flying around in their TIE Fighters, shooting down X-Wings, and as they are first shown, it is painfully, painfully obvious they they are NOT sitting in TIE Fighters. They are instead sitting in front of projected images of the dogfights from Star Wars (whose images keep changing on them repeatedly, usually multiple times in one scene).

As an added bonus to this scene, these space jockeys are wearing futuristic space gear which consists of tight-fitting beige football helmets and foam-padded headphones like the ones that came with the first generation of Walkmen (remember those, fellow children of the Eighties?). Not entirely evoking a galaxy far, far away, here.

So they get shot down eventually and crash onto a desert planet, both jockeys emerging from beneath dirt, rocks and rubble but without their TIE Fighters anywhere in sight, not to mention their football helmets. They proceed to walk along, marveling at what appears to be the same Sphinx, Pyramids and Egyptian hieroglyphics that are found on Earth. Not that they actually walk up to these artifacts and touch them or anything; they simply react to unrelated footage of these same-said items. It's pretty bad when you can't even get your actors in the same shot as hieroglyphics.

Jockey Ali starts whistling for women (because yes, Virginia: there is sexism in space) and armored skeleton fighters on horseback arrive. That's the way things go in this movie. This leads to a two-fisted fight scene that looks to be choreographed by Jerry Lewis, and after they defeat their attackers the space jockeys steal two horses and ride away to the strains of the Indiana Jones theme....

See, right there's something else altogether: anyone who's read my review for 3 Dev Adam is already familiar with Turkey's lax copyright laws, so not only do we have blatant misuse of Star Wars footage, but also thievery of the aforementioned Indy theme, as well as music from The Black Hole, Flash Gordon, Planet of the Apes, the James Bond film Moonraker, a disco version of the Battlestar Galactica theme and a tinkly little beginning credits theme I cannot place for the life of me but would love to have as a ring tone.

So Murat and Ali ride off, Indy theme blaring, as random guys in Halloween masks pop up about three times and growl into the camera - yeah, I dunno, either. Then three or four...robots, I think, maybe Turkish Cylons...zap them off their horses with flashing space guns, Murat makes a wise-ass comment and another Halloween mask growls into view.

That's just the way Turkish outer space is, I suppose.

Murat and Ali are then led in ropes by the skeleton guys to an outdoor arena to witness a bunch of Roman gladiators fighting to the death and a blue robot made of rubber, a water cooler and a police light crushing a young boy's head....

...okay, I was going to just do this review by giving a rundown of every single scene in this movie, but with that last paragraph I realized that if I were to continue doing that, I'd run the risk of an aneurysm, writer's cramp and several reader letters along the lines of "Aw come on - you made all that up!". It's all the truth and, this indeed may be the first film to actually be better enjoyed by NOT knowing the native language.

Seeing that Turkey is a big exporter of sword-and-sandal epics, Turkish Star Wars decided to utilize the vast deserts, mountains and rocks at their disposal to equate an outer space setting...see, this is supposed to be a broken-away planetoid from the Earth, but who knows - it might as well be Turkish Tattooine.

I mentioned the masks used earlier. The first scene in which these masks are used is so clipped and short that the viewer can barely notice that these rubber masks are of, in order of appearance, a jungle native, a bright red devil mask (complete with mustache, goatee and horns) and Quasimodo - like from Hunchback of Notre Dame, that guy. Yeah. These same masks are much more pronounced in a later scene set at the Turkish Tattooine cantina where the film-makers break out every Halloween mask in Turkey - even an Asian stereotype mask guy in a silk robe jumping around and kung-fu fighting against the space jockeys.

But Murat and Ali can fight too. Kinda. Much is made of the fact that these guys can beat up every alien on this stupid planet and, in one training montage that is pretty darn nigh famous for bad-movie lovers such as myself, punch the ever-loving heck out of rocks and boulders and tie stones around their legs to train them for super-human jumps that almost make it look like they're jumping on trampolines. Almost, that is.

Oh! And then there's the Muppets! I'm serious! There are freaking Muppets in Turkish Star Wars! Big red furry Muppets with black claws! Brown Muppets with deadly tinsel hanging from their fingers! Killer Muppets! Take that, Big Bird!

Something else I almost forgot to mention: the stone fox they have playing Turkish Princess Leia. This actress, Necla Fide, has long blonde hair, big eyes, great legs, and a radiant smile. Too bad she only has like 15-20 words in the whole film. She may be Turkish Princess Leia, but her presence suggests Turkish Darth Maul.

I know that I've forgotten a literal ton of other smaller, more superfluous characters but Turkish Star Wars, while a foreign ripoff of a far-better film, is so jam-packed with characters, set details, people bound by phone cords and neon tubes, thickly gauze-wrapped mummies, demon heads cut out of sheets of tin and several clips from the Bert I. Gordon film The Magic Sword, that it is a visceral experience the viewer will love by default. It may be bad (it is), it may be inept (oh yeah), it may be opportunistic (definitely) and sloppy (ditto), but it is not boring, never mundane and endlessly fun.

Now as far as the plot - who really cares? The version I got had subtitles but you could watch Turkish Star Wars without subtitles and without sound, for that matter, and it would still be a great film - wild sights dazzling the viewer every minute - the perfect party video.

Yes, Turkish Star Wars is a bad movie, but I love it with all my heart because of everything it tries, accomplishes, mimics, begs, borrows and steals. The movie's director, Çetin Inanç, while probably not as well-remembered as George Lucas, still created something quite rare in the world of Star Wars ripoff films - a project that brings a smile to the viewer's lips, even those viewers who are so jaded to Hollywood's normal product. This is unique. Fun. A throwback. Way back.

And the best part about Turkish Star Wars? Having seen Star Wars beforehand isn't a prerequisite.

In fact, it's probably even more fun if you've only seen The Magic Sword.