We recently started carrying a whole mess of VHS tapes of newly released movies from Lunchmeat VHS. One of these is an 80s scifi throwback called Galaxy Warriors. I took the time to watch it today, and I wanted to share some thoughts.
Galaxy Warriors looks, at first glance, like it’s going to be a Roger Corman-y sleaze fest. It’s a movie about a group of lady bounty hunters who end up on a prison planet where they’re forced to fight the other female prisoners to the death. It sounds like it should be an uncomfortably sleazy affair. Instead, it’s no more risque than an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess (and about as well produced.)
The film is full of costumes of varying quality, and sets of varying quality, and special effects that would have elevated a bunch of the kinds of movies this is seeking to emulate. (Seriously, the practical effects for the spaceships and the stop motion monsters would have improved most direct to video scifi.)
As I said, I watched the movie on VHS. I specifically watched it on the 28″ Sylvania CRT TV we recently installed in the Cowabunga Video display at Hemlock Bazaar. A VHS on a large CRT TV is 100% the way I would recommend watching this film.
It’s a 16:10 presentation (SD TVs were 4:3 or 16:12. Modern TVs are 16:9. a film in 16:10 gets minor letter-boxing at the top on bottom on SD TVs and minor pillar-boxing on the left and right (or minor cropping on the top and bottom) on modern widescreen TVs. It’s a compromise in both cases, but it looks pretty good in both cases.
If VHS tapes aren’t your thing, the movie is also occasionally available on various streaming services.
The movie was a delight, I really loved it, and I think you will too. And to really drive home that old school charm, Lunchmeat has even released an official novelization of the film!