Saturn 3

June 15, 2006

SATURN 3 is a decent, if somewhat ill conceived Sci-Fi thriller originally planned out by the late production designer John Barry. Things didn't work out between Barry and producer Stanley Donen so he quit and Done took the directorial reigns.
It's perhaps due to Donen's unfamiliarity with the Sci-Fi genre that SATURN 3 became a mixed bag of reviews. The movie has everything going for it in the production design department (Thanx Barry!) and Elmer Bernestein's creepy score (though intensely mutilated and to this date unavailable as an offcial release). The star here is Hector, the psychotic robot who develops the hots for Alex (Farah Fawcett) and who becomes a big threat to everyone in the space station.
The movie suffers from a weak plot and little character development. Think of ALIEN and instead of a creature you have a robot. The movie is not boring by any means and it does manage to entertain, but plot holes abound and the ending leaves much to be desired. I have a soft spot for this movie, since I saw it as a kid back when it was released. Back then, it was marketed as a "Sci-Fi/Horror" movie, and while there are some gruesome moments, the tag hardly fits SATURN 3. Still, SATURN 3 deserves a new DVD edition, because the sadly out of print version that's circulating out there is austere at best.