Bullet Points: Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine

History has a tendency to repeat itself. In 1977, a movie was released that changed the entire motion picture industry. Star Wars, as it was then known, was a box office juggernaut like nothing anyone had seen before. And in the aftermath of Star Wars’ success came a slew of space adventures looking to tap into the market that Star Wars had created.

Then in 2015, Star Wars: The Force Awakens reignited the franchise in theaters with an opening weekend box office that nearly hit one quarter of a billion dollars. And like the 1977 original, the success of The Force Awakens also opened the door for other space adventures to be produced both big and small. On the small side is the subject of this edition of Bullet Points, 2017’s Star Raiders: The Adventures of Saber Raine.

• Blame it on the Raine: Casper Van Dien plays Saber Raine. CVD is no stranger to space adventures as any fan of Starship Troopers can tell you. But Saber Raine is a much different character than Johnny Rico. Raine, once a high ranking officer, quickly becomes a mercenary wanted for treason by his former comrades after he interferes in the extermination order of Crotalus (Holly Westwood). Crotalus is a lizard like creature (I got a real Enemy Mine vibe off her look)  that provided valuable intel to Raine and his fellow soldiers during the war, but now the very side she helped wants to exterminate her. Saber Raine thinks that is bullshit and saves Crotalus’ life and changes his life forever in the process. Raine now hangs out with some unsavory characters on a planet that was quarantined after the big war.

• The Premise: There is a great and powerful source of evil on the quarantined planet, that evil is named Sinjin (James Lew). Sinjin has kidnapped the son and daughter of his rival king and now the king has dispatched three of his best soldiers, Commander Voss (Andy Hankins), Fade (Brit Laree) and Ryll (Will Beckingham), to rescue the fruit of his loins, Prince Tyr (Tyler Weaver Jr. of Underdog Kids fame) and Princess Caliope (Sara N. Salazar). When the trio arrives on the planet, they are nearly eliminated by some zombie like creatures until Saber Raine comes to their rescue. The trio is hesitant to join forces with Raine, especially Ryll who considers Raine treasonous scum, but they realize they will need Raine’s help navigating the unfamiliar planet if they want to rescue the royal progeny. Crotalus the lizard woman, eventually gets in on the heroic action too and her character is something of a scene stealer.

• Like You’ve Never Seen Him Before:  I mentioned Sinjin and the fact that he was played by James Lew. Now I have seen Lew in countless movies before many of which have been reviewed on this site over the years including Showdown and Mission of Justice. But the role of Sinjin was unlike anything I had seen Lew in before. He wasn’t just a thug thrown out there to be cannon fodder for our action hero, he was the main villain in this and he was also in costume. The role of Sinjin did not rely on Lew’s fighting skills but instead on his acting skills that he has developed over the course of his four decades in the world of television and movies. Like Emperor Palpatine before him, Sinjin’s big claim to evil fame is when he breaks up a family by seducing Caliope to the “dark side” thus adding a whole other layer to the story.

If you go into Star Raiders expecting Star Wars you are going to be highly disappointed because it is not a fair comparison. Star Raiders was not a big budget movie and if you did not know that going in, it will become apparent the moment you see some of the computer generated images that would look much more at home in the 1990’s than they do in a movie released in 2017.

But I felt like Star Raiders did the best they could with what they had. Casper Van Dien and James Lew are the real strong points of the movie. Both give the film action movie credibility and made the movie worth watching for me.

To make sure this review was worth reading for you, I have included some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Familiar Face: Cynthia Rothrock (Sworn to Justice) has a small role in the film as Kandra Syn. Syn is a member of the governing body Prince Tyr appeals to when he suggests the idea of creating a military task force to battle Sinjin.
• Triple Duty: Mark Steven Grove was the director and writer of Star Raiders. Grove also played the part of Kor’Rok, a pilot that Prince Tyr meets while both are imprisoned by Sinjin.
• Gets The Red Out: Many of the characters in the film have red eyes.
• If You Ever: Wanted to see Casper Van Dien have a sword fight with a princess, then this is the movie for you. AND if you ever wanted to see Casper Van Dien married to a princess, try tracking down the reality series I Married a Princess starring Casper and his wife Catherine Oxenberg and all of their children.
• AKA: Star Raiders is known as Galaxy Raiders in the UK. The working title for the project was Rogue Space: The Adventures of Saber Raine.
• The Adventures Continue?: The end of the movie sees the creation of the heroic military task force, a developing romance between Raine and Fade and the evil duo of Sinjin and Caliope plotting their next move… smells like a recipe for a sequel to me.