An entertaining mix of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien released, rather unsuccessfully, to an audience hungry for more action-centric fare like Star Wars, 1980's Saturn 3 was originally intended to be directed by John Barry but he passed away early on in the project and it wound up with Stanley Donen calling most of the shots behind the camera. The movie was a flop at the time but over the years it has found a fan base, thanks likely to an odd cast and some decent effects and miniature work.

When the movie begins we see a rocket readying for takeoff. A man decked out in full astronaut gear with his face covered kills the intended pilot and makes his way off to Saturn 3, a research station where two scientists, an older man named Adam (Kirk Douglas) and a beautiful young blonde woman named Alex (Farah Fawcett), hope to be able to solve some of the Earth's food shortage problems. The man lands and introduces himself as Captain Benson (a dubbed Harvey Keitel) and soon, in his uniquely cold and humorless way, sets about building a large robot. The intent here is to replace the obsolete member of the research team with the robot in order to speed up their work. Benson is able to infuse into the robot, dubbed Hector, some of his own intelligence and personality quirks, but given that we know him to be a murderer, this is obviously not going to bode well for Adam and Alex.

And it doesn't. Soon enough Benson is insisting that Alex let him use her body for pleasure (he tells her that it's customary on Earth for things like that to happen) and trying to get her to pop some pills he calls Blue Dreamers.' Adam isn't particularly keen on Benson's activity and quickly realizes that he's building the robot to get rid of him. After the robot kills their pet dog and tries to have its way with Alex, Adam tries to get Benson to take the robot apart but he's not having any of it and with the robot developing its own sort of intelligence, it won't be long before it sets out to get what it wants.

Though it's easy to see why this picture didn't connect with audiences at the time, Saturn 3 is actually a pretty sci-fi movie with some mild horror elements thrown in here and there. The movie is heavy on dialogue and drama, resulting in some interesting conflict and character development and it puts these qualities ahead of the more sensationalist aspects. As such, you could see why audiences expecting another Star Wars might be disappointed, but taken on its own, this is fairly well made despite the fact that it was done on a modest budget. The picture is well paced and features a great score from Elmer Bernstein as well as some impressive cinematography from Billy Williams (yep, this was shot by the same guy who shot Ghandi!).

The performances here are pretty decent and while the giant killer robot will no doubt be the selling point for most, Kirk Douglas does quite well as the aging scientist. What makes him interesting here is that he knows Keitel's character is right. He's aware of the fact that they're not moving their research along as quickly as they could be, instead he's content to spend his golden years lounging around in bed with a woman much younger than he. He plays the role well, he has that dignity you'd expect from him and we can buy him in the part. Farah Fawcett looks great here, and while her character is naïve in many ways, she plays the part well. She's into Adam but we also realize that since she's never visited Earth she doesn't really have much to compare him to. Adam is aware of this too, which gives their relationship an interesting dynamic. In one way he's almost a father figure to her, but at the same time, they're sleeping together. Keitel, even dubbed as he is here, brings a good tone of cold, calculating menace to his character. He's very unfeeling, obviously capable of murder and not above killing to get what he wants. He uses his unique facial features very effectively, and in short, he looks like a killer.

Some of the miniature work, while not without its own retro charm, looks painfully obvious and there are some effects shots showing various forms of space travel that never quite convince, budgetary issues likely the reason, but outside of that, we get some good acting, an interesting killer robot, some cool sets and a solid score. Yes, it does feel a little derivative at times and won't ever win any awards for originality but Saturn 3 is occasionally smart, more than a little creepy in spots, and overall just an entertaining picture.

Video:

Saturn 3 is framed at 1.85.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. For the most part, this is an excellent transfer. Eagle eyed viewers might spot a bit of print damage here and there but it's never more than an odd speck or two, the elements used appear to have been in great shape. A few of the shots that use optical effects look a bit grainier than others but this is likely a result of the photography as generally the image is crisp and clean and remarkably colorful (the blues in the hallways of the ship look fantastic). Black levels are nice and strong and skin tones look lifelike and natural. Detail is quite good throughout the movie and there are no obvious problems with compression artifacts or edge enhancement. Texture is also pretty solid here, yeah, Saturn 3 looks great on Blu-ray.