It’s been a while since Shout! Factory has released a blu-ray of a Roger Corman pro­duc­tion so fans will be glad to hear this news: the sci-fi cult fave Battle Beyond The Stars will be released on both blu-ray and DVD in July.  For those who don’t know the title, it is essen­tially Star Wars meets The Magnificent Seven.  It ben­e­fits from a snappy John Sayles script and great cast that fea­tures stars like John Saxon, George Peppard and Robert Vaughn.  Read on for all the high-definition, spack-schlockin’ details…

THIS SUMMER, GET READY TO EMBARK ON AN ELECTRIFYING SPACE ADVENTURE WITH

ROGER CORMAN’S SCIENCE FICTION CLASSIC IN HIGH-DEF FOR THE FIRST TIME!

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS

Starring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, George Peppard, John Saxon,

Darlanne Fluegel and Sybil Danning

30^th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION BLU-RAY™ and DVD LANDING ON HOME ENTERTAINMENT SHELVES JULY 12 FROM SHOUT! FACTORY

Digitally Restored and Presented in Anamorphic Widescreen

Revealing Bonus Content and More!

A Battle Beyond Time … Beyond Space

A long time ago, in a stu­dio far far away (actu­ally 1980 in Venice, Calif.), Roger Corman gath­ered together a fledg­ling team of film­mak­ers to make one of the best low-budget sci­ence fic­tion films of all time, Battle Beyond the Stars, a space opera that man­aged to play­fully bor­row from Star Wars and The Magnificent Seven, to come up with an endur­ing cult clas­sic. Long out of print, Battle Beyond the Stars has been metic­u­lously restored with a new anamor­phic widescreen trans­fer (1.85:1) from the interneg­a­tive, boast­ing a new 5.1 DTS Master Audio sound­track on the Blu-ray, and fea­tur­ing a galaxy of extras, includ­ing com­men­tary by writer John Sayles and Roger Corman; a new inter­view with actor Richard Thomas; a behind-the-scenes tech­ni­cal fea­turette and much more. Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: Battle Beyond the Stars 30^th Anniversary Special Edition is a must-have for fans of Roger Corman, sci­ence fic­tion enthu­si­asts and col­lec­tors — avail­able July 12, 2011 on Blu-ray ($26.97) and DVD ($19.93) from Shout! Factory, in asso­ci­a­tion with New Horizons Picture Corporation. Pre-order now on Amazon.com and major retailers.

Special Note: Fans who pre-order Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: Battle Beyond the Stars 30^th Anniversary Special Edition from ShoutFactoryStore.com will receive an iron-on of the orig­i­nal Battle Beyond the Stars the­atri­cal key art as a gift-with-purchase.

“This was the most expen­sive pro­duc­tion I had financed. I always liked sci­ence fic­tion, and my idea was to do some­thing of the feel­ing of Star Wars. What I came up with was The Seven Samurai in Outer Space.” — Roger Corman

Corman brought together some extremely tal­ented peo­ple — who went on to big­ger and bet­ter things — to make Battle Beyond the Stars. John Sayles (Eight Men Out, Lone Star) wrote the script, his third for Corman after Piranha and The Lady in Red; James Cameron, who went on, of course, to be king of the world with Titanic and then king of the uni­verse with Avatar, han­dled the art direc­tion and spe­cial effects; Academy Award®–winning com­poser James Horner (Titanic, Avatar) wrote the score, which he recy­cled two years later for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Also on hand as pro­duc­tion man­ager was Gale Anne Hurd, who went on to pro­duce The Terminator with Cameron as well as The Incredible Hulk and AMC’s The Walking Dead.

What’s a small, peace lov­ing planet to do when they’re threat­ened with destruc­tion by a group of malev­o­lent mutants headed up by the most despi­ca­ble vil­lain? Why they enlist a sweet young boy to travel the galaxy in search of mer­ce­nar­ies to fend off the tyrant.

When the evil Sador the Conqueror (John Saxon) and his hideous Malmori army threaten the peace­ful planet of Akir, the inhab­i­tants, known as the Akira (in ref­er­ence to Seven Samurai direc­tor Akira Kurosawa) sends young Shad (Richard Thomas of The Waltons) on an inter­galac­tic jour­ney to hire mer­ce­nar­ies to defend the planet. Piloting a sar­cas­tic pre–LEXX talk­ing female space­ship (with breasts!), Shad assem­bles a fleet of seven space­ships to fend off the bad guys.

There’s love inter­est Nanelia (Darlanne Fluegel), whose space­ship houses a sophis­ti­cated com­puter to help the cause; a scotch-drinking space cow­boy from Earth (George Peppard of The A-Team); Gelt, an out­law with a bounty on his head, played by Robert Vaughn in a role sim­i­lar to the char­ac­ter Lee he played in The Magnificent Seven; the rep­til­ian Cayman (Morgan Woodward), who has his own score to set­tle with Sador; Saint-Exmin of the Valkyrie (the volup­tuous Sybil Danning), whose motto, “Live fast, fight well and have a beau­ti­ful end­ing” car­ries her into action; five clones with a col­lec­tive con­scious­ness known as the Nestor; and a pair of aliens who com­mu­ni­cate by ema­nat­ing heat from their bod­ies. The “mag­nif­i­cent seven” mer­ce­nary ships — headed up by Shad and Nell — travel back to Akir for the final conflict.

The cast of Battle Beyond the Stars also included Marta Kristen (Judy Robinson of TV’s  Lost in Space), Jeff Corey as the wise old Zed the Corsair, Sam Jaffe as Nanelia’s father, and a very young Julia Duffy (Newhart and Designing Women).

Made on a reported bud­get of $2 mil­lion, the film opened in late 1980 and quickly made back its invest­ment. The film grossed $1.7 mil­lion on open­ing week­end alone. And the spec­tac­u­lar space bat­tles and explo­sions were used over and over again in future Corman productions.

Roger Corman’s Cult Classics: Battle Beyond the Stars 30^th Anniversary Special Edition Special Features:

• New anamor­phic widescreen trans­fer (1.85:1) from the internegative

• New 5.1 DTS Master Audio (Blu-ray)
• Dolby Digital 5.1 (DVD)
• Commentary by writer John Sayles and Roger Corman
• Commentary by pro­duc­tion man­ager Gale Anne Hurd
• The Man Who Would Be Shad — New inter­view with actor Richard Thomas
• Space Opera on a Shoestring — A com­pre­hen­sive look at the tech­ni­cal chal­lenges and post­pro­duc­tion of the film with Aaron Lipstadt, Alec Gillis, Alex Hajdu, Allan Holzman, R.J. Kizer, Robert & Dennis Skotak, Thom Shouse and Tony Randel
• Trailer, TV and radio spots

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)

New World Pictures presents A Roger Corman Production

Starring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, John Saxon, George Peppard, Darlanne Fluegel, Sybil Danning, Sam Jaffe, Jeff Corey, Morgan Woodward, Marta Kristen, Julia Duffy

Executive Producer: Roger Corman

Produced by Ed Carlin

Directed by Jimmy T. Murakami

Screenplay by John Sayles

Story by John Sayles and Anne Dyer

Director of Photography: Daniel Lacambre

Edited by Allan Holzman, R.J. Kizer

Art Direction: James Cameron, Charles Breen

Music Composed by James Horner

Running time: 104 minutes

Special fea­tures are not rated

Shout! Factory will con­tinue to present Roger Corman’s Cult Classics home enter­tain­ment releases in 2011. Upcoming high­lights include Melissa Leo in Streetwalkin’, The Bird Cage, Big Doll House, Women in Cages, and many others.

Battle Beyond The Stars (DVD) As our gift to you, we’re offer­ing an iron-on of the orig­i­nal Battle Beyond The Stars the­atri­cal key art exclu­sively from ShoutFactory.com when you pur­chase either the DVD or BD.Only avail­able here while sup­plies last!Click To Enlarge30th Anniversary Special Collector’s Edition!Seven mer­ce­nar­ies are recruited from through­out the galaxy to save a peace­ful planet from the threat of an evil tyrant bent on dom­i­nat­ing the entire uni­verse. Among them are a lizard-like humanoid, a space cow­boy, a female war­rior and a brood­ing killer-for-hire.Also avail­able on Blu-ray.

Battle Beyond The Stars (Blu-ray) As our gift to you, we’re offer­ing an iron-on of the orig­i­nal Battle Beyond The Stars the­atri­cal key art exclu­sively from ShoutFactory.com when you pur­chase either the DVD or BD.Only avail­able here while sup­plies last!Click To Enlarge30th Anniversary Special Collector’s Edition!Seven mer­ce­nar­ies are recruited from through­out the galaxy to save a peace­ful planet from the threat of an evil tyrant bent on dom­i­nat­ing the entire uni­verse. Among them are a lizard-like humanoid, a space cow­boy, a female war­rior and a brood­ing killer-for-hire.Also avail­able on DVD.