Weird Movie of the Week: Galaxina
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we covered a touching tale of Vampires and Robots. This time, we’ve got voluptuous androids and Space Police! The poster is certainly an eye-catcher…
Let’s get a load of this plot description:
Galaxina is a lifelike, voluptuous android who is assigned to oversee the operations of an intergalactic Space Police cruiser captained by incompetent Cornelius Butt. When a mission requires the ship’s crew to be placed in suspended animation for decades, Galaxina finds herself alone for many years, developing emotions and falling in love with the ship’s pilot, Thor.
Sounds glorious, let’s watch it!
- We’ve already mentioned this, but the captain’s name is Cornelius Butt, and it bears repeating. To be clear, it’s not like one of those things where it says “butt” in the credits, but they pronounce it “boot” or somesuch, they actually just say butt. We’re introduced to him when he opens a ship’s log, aping the form of Star Trek, but with the content style of Dark Star (it reminds me of the line where the entire ship’s supply of toilet paper was destroyed, though let’s be real, nothing else can be that well written). He describes his ship’s boring assignment as “Joy and yummies.” Anyway, that’s just his voice. The visual reveal is accompanied by Thus Spake Zarathustra (theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey) and, well, words kinda fail me.
Look, it’s obvious that this is a parody and clearly meant to be funny, but it somehow manages to work on both that level and in an unintentionally hilarious way. Neat trick
- The film kinda, sorta stars Dorothey Stratten as the titular android Galaxina.
Stratten was a former Playboy Playmate and Playmate of the Year who was attempting to parlay that success into a career in film. She had some other small roles, but this was basically her only real starring vehicle because she was murdered by her ex-husband and manager (who also shot himself) not long after Galaxina came out. The tragic event inspired two movies (in one, she was played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and songs like Californication. The general consensus was that she had some talent and could have grown into a pretty good presence on screen. Sorry to bum out what will otherwise be a lighthearted post, but here we are.
- In space, no one can hear your space siren, but they can apparently see your billboards.
- There’s a dude who is exercising while smoking a cigar and drinking beer. It’s Thor, the guy who Galaxina will fall in love with…
- Another dude is dressed in an old Dodger’s uniform (with the sleeves ripped off, natch) and cowboy hat, clearly the inspiration for Danny McBride’s character in that Prometheus/Alien:Covenant/Whatever movie that came out recently and is somehow worse than Galaxina. Also, he’s watching a space opera on future tv. And by space opera, I don’t mean, like, science fiction, I mean a literal opera that ends with a song sung by a fat (alien) lady.
- The wine served with dinner is called Thunder Ripple, meaning that this is clearly a corporate dystopia where Thunderbird and Ripple have merged. Captain Butt comments that it’s vintage 2001, a very fine year.
- Captain Butt eats a weird space egg raw, and has an Alien moment where he vomits a monster that runs away. In a shocking twist of fate, the monster becomes the hero of the film (er, spoilers? Can you spoil a movie like this?)
- Oh look, there’s a space brothel in this movie. Very classy.
- While the crew is asleep en-route and Galaxina is left to run the ship, there’s a very David from Prometheus/Alien:Covenant/Whatever movie that came out recently and is somehow worse than Galaxina vibe, as she falls in love with one member of the crew and reprograms herself or somesuch.
- Once the get to their destination and Galaxina is sent out to retrieve the Blue Star (more on that in a sec), we have our Mos Eisley Cantina moment, only the people on this planet eat human beings, so their menu consists of things like “lady fingers” that are actual human fingers. My guess is that, economics being what they are, only approximately half of the fingers served are actual “lady” fingers though. I mean, I guess there could be some “gentleman” fingers that would be recognizably male (or at least, not ladylike?), but why throw away the revenue stream if you don’t have to.
- Every time someone says “Blue Star”, an “ah ahhh” chorus erupts in the soundtrack, but in a meta maneuver, the people in the scene can actually hear it and are kinda confused. It recalls the Frau Blucher horse whinny gag from Young Frankenstein. I’m sure there’s actually a better reference for this, but it’s not coming to mind at the moment. I know, this movie deserves better from me.
- The Mos Eisley bit culminates in a shootout that is straight out of a spaghetti western, but with laser pistols. This movie has it all.
- Oh no, Galaxina has been captured by a strange cult that worships… the great hog in the sky, Harley Davidson. Of course, her crew shows up and they all escape in the cult’s lord, an actual Harley motorcycle.
- There’s more, but what we’re ultimately left with is an intentional parody that is also somehow unintentionally funny. It’s like they invented a new way to laugh that can never be replicated. Bespoke humor. Look, I don’t want to oversell it and it drags a lot over its runtime, but I had a lot of fun with it and B Movie aficionados will get a kick out of it. The copy on Amazon Prime actually looks pretty good too (i.e. it’s not a pan and scan pal transfer, which has been known to happen to movies like this.)
So there you have it. It’s not a good movie and you shouldn’t watch it, wink, wink.
