Turkish Star Wars [Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam] (1982) Review

Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam AKA Turkish Star Wars (1982)
Director: Çetin Inanç

Writer: Cüneyt Arkin

Producer: Mehmet Karahafiz

Editor: Necdet Tok

Cinematography: Çetin Gürtop

Music: No Original Music

Starring: Cüneyt Arkin, Aytekin Akkaya, Füsun Uçar, Hüseyin Peyda, and Necla Fide

Best Credit: All the composers they ripped off. Just scroll to "Music Department"

Runtime: 1 hour 31 minutes

Rating: None (Comparable to PG)

Genre: Sci-Fi, Space Opera, Action/Adventure

Release Date: 1982 (no date)

Intro:  One morning, I was searching b-movie clips on Youtube and I came across a video that had what it considered the worst scenes of all time. In the comments, somebody put that a movie called Turkish Star Wars was worse than all of them put together. This, of course, piqued my interest, and I was able to find a version of the movie on Youtube and decided to give it a watch. Well, this was one of the most interesting decisions I have made in a while. Turkish Star Wars was something else. It was across the board awful, but at the same time entertaining and hilarious because of this. It is a blatant ripoff of Star Wars, recycling its shots and music, and it has hilariously bad special effects and action sequences. This one was a special b-movie that kind of left me with my mouth open wondering if I really just saw what I saw, but in a good way.

Plot: To be truly honest, I'm not exactly sure what the plot was.  It's kinda all like the weirdest dream you've ever had. You don't know why and how stuff is happening, but dammit, stuff is happening and you have to go along with it. From IMDb: "Two space cadets crash-land on a desert planet, where an evil wizard seeks the ultimate power to take over the world." Also, "The earth divides in to meteors after a nuclear war. Now Cuneyt Arkin and his friend Aytekin Akkaya has to fight against unknown enemy who is looking for human brains, which he will use to destroy the human kind." I'm surprised people got a plot out of this thing.

Things people may find “objectionable”: There are a lot of fight scenes, but they are so badly choreographed that none of them are brutal at all. There is a little bit of blood, but very little. I'd say it's comparable to the movie it rips off, Star Wars, as far as content is concerned.

What was Good: Nothing

What Could Have Been Better:

     -Directing/Cinematography: Bad. It's clear the director is not very good at his job. Several times throughout the movie, there's shot sequences that make absolutely no sense because they're moving to fast or badly edited. Since the director is the main one in charge of the production, I'm blaming all the terribleness of this movie on him.

     -Special Effects: Absolutely awful. Holy crap. First of all, the director steals shots from Star Wars every time he needs an space scene. There's a space battle within the first few minutes of the movie and the bad guys are supposed to be attacking the earth. The entire sequence is just a bad montage of random Star Wars clips of ships flying in and around the Death Star. Then there's the props. Late in the movie, a magical sword plays into the plot. When shown, it is more than clear how fake-looking it is. It looks like it's a fake sword made out of wood or something, probably because it was. And finally, there's the monsters. It's clear that it's just a bunch of people wearing stupid-looking costumes, and it comes off as hilariously bad. I think I've seen better costumes from an amateur theater production.

     -Script: Well, I'm not exactly sure since I don't speak Turkish. I'm just going to assume it was bad. I used Youtube subtitles, which was an interesting experience because they were cool and a nice feature to Youtube but sometimes they didn't provide the most accurate translations. See picture to the left for an example.

     -Music/Score: Well, it was actually a bright spot in the movie, because for the most part, the music was good. The only problem is that this good music was shamelessly stolen from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. You'll just be sitting there watching a fight scene when all of a sudden, they start playing the Indiana Jones theme. It's so hilarious out of context. There was also a little bit of original music, but it was everything you'd expect out of a low-budget 1980s Turkish space opera in that it was incredibly cheesy.

     -Acting: Not horrible, but definitely not what I'd call good. This wasn't really an emphasis of the movie, and for the most part the movie can be understood just as well without any of the dialogue (a lot of people watched it without subtitles). It was just one of those things that didn't stick out as being particularly average or bad.

     -Story: Since I picked up little of the plot and it's evident from the IMDb reviews that a lot of others didn't either, I think it's safe to say it wasn't written or told exceptionally well. Also, as I mentioned earlier
     -Originality: Well, I'll admit I've never seen anything quite like Turkish Star Wars, and I'm pretty sure that isn't a good thing. I can't say it's original since it rips off so much crap from Lucasfilm, whether it be the soundtrack from Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark or all the space scenes from Star Wars. Hell, half the movie is just ripping off Lucasfilm. The story is also your typical space opera plot where this average guy gets this powerful weapon and defeats the guy trying to take over the galaxy.

     -Characters/Emotional Involvement: I did not care about any of the characters. I barely even felt like I knew any of them. The characters were about as two-dimensional as you can get.

     -Action/Suspense: Other than the use of Star Wars footage and music, it was the most entertaining part of the movie, just because of how ridiculous it was. The fight scenes were badly choreographed and looked totally faked. Sometimes they even used the old technique of speeding up the camera to make things look like they happened faster, which sometimes works, but not in this case and it just ends up looking really lame. To get a taste of the action sequences and the whole movie, check out the video to the right. -------------------------------------------------->

     -Editing: Simply terrible, especially when they inserted the stolen Star Wars shots. The shots were recycled, which is always a no-no in filmmaking, and they were edited in a way that made no sense. If there are any aspiring editors out there reading this, watch the movie to learn what not to do.

Final Score: One phrase sums up my reaction to Turkish Star Wars fairly well: What the hell did I just watch? This thing is so ridiculous, it really needs to be seen to be believed. It is truly one of the most shockingly bad movies I have ever seen. If you're a die-hard b-movie fan like myself, this one should be on your watch list. If you aren't, steer clear or just watch some clips of its best moments on Youtube.

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