When you become a fan of cult film, or maybe a person for whom films naturally become a cult, three things happen – first, you go deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole looking for stranger and more unusual films. Second, your affinity multiplies with curiosity to make you want to find out as much as you can about them. Thirdly, you want to share what you’ve found with as many people as possible.
Turkish Star Wars is the perfect film in that regard. Most people know it from terribly subtitled clips drawn from fourth generation VHS dubs. Its strangeness and its audacity, coupled with the absurdity of the supposed dialogue, will hook anyone’s attention. That version of Turkish Star Wars was one of the first films Matchbox Cineclub screened, and Turkish Remakesploitation one of the first topics I wrote about seriously – because I wanted to know just what the fuck was going on with these films.
Meanwhile, Ed Glaser and Iain Robert Smith separately pursued their passion for cult film inexorably toward Turkish Star Wars. It makes me very happy that our curiosity about incredibly strange films has brought us to the point that we can share the best possible version of Turkish Star Wars and tell people the incredible story behind it.
Notorious for the ways in which director Çetin İnanç edited footage from Star Wars into his own film, along with music from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flash Gordon, Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (1982) is the “holy grail” of remakesploitation cinema. The Man Who Saves the World revolves around two Turkish space pilots who crash-land on a desert planet enslaved by an evil wizard. Memorable sequences involve the heroes battling robots inspired by Battlestar Galactica and Forbidden Planet – plus mummies, skeletons, and multi-coloured yetis. Another sees them in starfighter “cockpits,” wearing motorcycle helmets, as footage from the Star Wars Death Star battle is projected behind them.
For many years, the film circulated only in those low-resolution bootleg copies, but in 2016 a 35mm print of the film was discovered, and a 2K digital scan has been made so that the world can finally see the film the way it was intended. Because of the obvious rights issues around the film, there are currently no plans for a home DVD/Blu-Ray release so this Scalarama tour is the only way to see this new 2K version of Turkish Star Wars. Get yr tickets before they sell out!
Sean Welsh
Turkish Star Wars 2K UK tour dates:
14/09 Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh | Tickets
15/09 Square Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax | Tickets
19/09 Phoenix, Leicester | Tickets
22/09 Rio Cinema, London | Tickets
24/09 Connaught Cinema, Worthing | Tickets
28/09 Cube Microplex, Bristol (with Bristol Bad Film Club & Hellfire Video Club) | Tickets
Matchbox Cine 