Turkish Star Wars (1982)

It’s Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam if you want to stay true to the original Turkish. It’s The Man Who Saves the World if you prefer a tidy English translation. However, if you want to cut to the chase as to why this no-budget sci-fi action job is interesting, you call it by its nickname, which is Turkish Star Wars. This is no remake, though. There’s nothing in the saga of Luke Skywalker about an evil wizard out to steal human brains because that will somehow help him conquer a desert planet. The story here is more of a mish-mash of post-apocalypse wasteland flicks with a little outer space adventuring. Along the way, it takes about two minutes of special effects shots directly from Star Wars, clips ’em out like coupons for fish sticks, and uses them over and over again. We see tie-fighters and X-wings exchange lasers. We see The Millennium Falcon barge through the cosmos. We see The Death Star. We see monsters from the cantina scene. And we hear it with the famous John Williams score on the march throughout, all copyright laws shirked, broken and forgotten. Also, keep your ears open for instantly recognizable music cues from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flash Gordon. It’s a hoot. This is solid entertainment if you don’t mind a story that falls apart every two minutes and you have room in your heart for a hero who karate chops stuffed animal monsters in half when he’s not stomping them to death with his high-jumping skills. As with most of the best Turkish exploitation films, to see this film is to join the makers on a heist job of Hollywood. They’re pirates, thieves and mountebanks. They’re unscrupulous, mischievous and totally ridiculous. I admire them.