Things are not going well on the mining planet Ordessa: the conditions are awful, the workers are disgruntled and the management is cracking down by using killer security robots. Only the un... Read allThings are not going well on the mining planet Ordessa: the conditions are awful, the workers are disgruntled and the management is cracking down by using killer security robots. Only the underground resistance movement, led by Lorca, has a chance of turning around the brutal reg... Read allThings are not going well on the mining planet Ordessa: the conditions are awful, the workers are disgruntled and the management is cracking down by using killer security robots. Only the underground resistance movement, led by Lorca, has a chance of turning around the brutal regime, but the management has hired Danny the bounty hunter to track down him and his follow... Read all
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Did you know
- TriviaThis film makes an appearance on Red Letter media Best of the Worst: Blindfold Picks.
- GoofsAt the end of the movie Lorca escapes with Grid and his female companion to Earth, they receive a radio message from the workers resistance, that they won, and they need a "transport out of here" but they simply seem to ignore it. leaving their comrades behind.
- Crazy creditsDeep Roy's character is called "Kid" in the end credits, even though he is clearly called "Grid" in the dialogue.
- Alternate versionsThe American release of the film is substantially different to the international version - over 10 minutes of footage have been removed, with sequences re-scored, and Grid's voice is dubbed from a heavy Japanese accent to a British one.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Best of the Worst: Blindfold Picks! (2022)
Following Roger Christian's troubled debut on The Sender for Paramount Pictures who recut the film without Christian's input, he decided to produce his next film independently to avoid a repeat of the experience. Christian wrote the sci-fi film 2084 (aka Starship aka Lorca and the Outlaws) alongside screenwriter Matthew Jacobs who would go on to write episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the failed 1996 relaunch of Doctor Who. Christian described the film as an update on the George Orwell novel 1984 but with an action adventure focus and lighter tone (how is it 1984 then?) and would go for a style inspired by films such as Death Watch and Alphaville. The film was financed by Swedish video company VTC and filmed in Australia and the United Kingdom and like many euro-genre productions was financed by foreign pre-sales (hence the different names). Contemporary reviews wrote the film off as a cheap knock-off of Star Wars and it certainly is, but unlike certain other Star Wars knock-offs of the time that kind of endeared themselves such as Battle Beyond the Stars or Starchaser: The Legend of Orin that were entertaining, 2084, Starship, or whatever other name it's known by dares to be a boring tedious slog and incomprehensible mess.
The movie's about as basic as you can get with a premise like this with oppressed working class and overzealous militarized villains who abuse said working class in a setup that dates all the way back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis as far as sci-fi is concerned (and possibly further if you're so inclined), but despite one of the simplest setups imaginable, the movie bungles it in terms of establishing any kind of world building, character, or motivation so while you may know "what" is going on, be prepared to be eluded by the "why" quite a few times including a climax that involves a rogue killer robot for no adequately explained reason. Despite one of the titles being Lorca and the Outlaws, Lorca's barely a factor in this movie for the first half as he disappears for a long stretch and not only is John Tarrant not a strong lead, but Abbie and Suzi are conspicuously underwritten with so little to them you could replace them with mannequins and no one would know the difference. But then we have the most prominent character of Kid the robot and with a whiny delivery and a voice that seems to have been run through a filter on top of an under annunciated delivery I maybe only understood half of what this character said if that. But to top it all off we have the film's lacklust production values which feature a host of darkly lit cooridors and a quarry complete with ordinary looking dumptrucks and contemporary automobiles.... THE FUTURE! Rather embarrassing for a man who was nominated for an Academy Award for his art direction on Alien and WON an Academy Award for his work as a set dresser on Star Wars.
The movie sets a precedent for Roger Christian's directorial career that would bring him to future films such as Battlefield Earth. The fact that the best regarded film Christian ever made as a director was his first film the Sender is a massive indictment of his skills especially since it was taken away from him and re-edited by Paramount. Watching this movie: it's undeniably Christian's film through and through.
- IonicBreezeMachine
- May 15, 2023
- How long is Lorca and the Outlaws?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 24 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1