Sci-Fi cult on the trail of “Star Wars”: Legendary space adventure finally (!) returns to the home theater

The science fiction cinema of the 1970s spawned countless cult classics. This is due in no small part to the success of “Star Wars”: George Lucas not only opened one of the most popular series in film history with his Star Wars saga in 1977, but also inspired numerous other hits with the adventures of Luke Skywalker and Co have long had a cult following themselves. One of them: “Buck Rogers”.

The movie, which was originally produced for television and served as the premise for the “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” series, but eventually even made it to theaters and took the hearts of sci-fi fans by storm, has been out for a while now. many years DVD* available, but the Blu-ray almost completely disappeared from store shelves some time ago – and is now about to make its long-awaited return: Buck Rogers is finally back on Blu-ray on May 25, 2023! Fitting, of course, in an edition that does justice to the cult film:

PLAION PICTURES brings the movie “Buck Rogers” a comeback in a collector’s edition as a steel book, containing not only the style-defining classic in HD quality, but also many bonus features – from interviews with the protagonists Gil Gerard and Erin Gray about the Super -8 version of the movie to trailers. All this packed in a stylish tin packaging, which of course features the iconic original poster motif.

“Buck Rogers”: “Star Wars” Meets “Battlestar Galactica”

The pilot, which launched the cult series known internationally as “Buck Rogers In The 25th Century,” introduces the eponymous hero, William “Buck” Rogers (Gil Gerard), who travels into space for NASA in 1987 — albeit not as planned to land on the space shuttle Ranger 3, but is shock frozen in the infinite expanse of space. When the Draconians’ flagship picks him up 500 years later, he finally returns to life and to Earth. But nothing seems to be the way it used to be…

“Star Wars” became the highest-grossing movie of all time in 1977 (until it was succeeded by “ET” in 1983), calling on all major movie studios to ride the wave of success and create their own potential sci-fi hit. wanted to bring. Universal and screenwriter Glen A. Larson turned out to be a very successful team. First they launched “Battlestar Galactica” and shortly after that also “Buck Rogers”, creating two formative sci-fi classics of the era that started in theaters and eventually moved on. TV.

Larson was heavily based on “Star Wars” – so much so, in fact, that due to the close similarities, revisions were even made again, so that not only did the robot Twiki aka TWKE4 make electronic sounds (like R2-D2), Dr. Theopolis’s is translated , but eventually gets its own voice.

At the same time, “Buck Rogers” has a good portion of “Battlestar Galactica” in it. Not only is the legend Glen A. Larson behind both authors, but it also took advantage of the parallels of the two films and formats created in quick succession:

To cut costs, props from “Battlestar Galactica” were used for “Buck Rogers”. In addition, not only were numerous designs originally intended for “Galactica” only realized with “Rogers”, isolated archival recordings were also used. And it was worth it: “Buck Rogers” grossed $21.7 million against a production cost of only $3.5 million, more than successfully launching the next TV series that will definitively immortalize the adventures of Buck Rogers were in pop culture.