In the year 2312, Earth is attacked by an alien warlord named Kess. Kess bought the planet, called “Sol 3”, in a bidding war against other warlords. Kess paid one hundred million credits for the planet and plans on selling the human occupants to other warlords as slave labor. This is the first contact that Earth has had by an alien race. When Earth tries to defend itself, Kess lays waste to vast areas of the planet.
The alien space ship is made out of a metal called Intherium. Earth has no way of penetrating it. Commander Barr (Franco Ressel) calls on Professor Mauri (Ennio Balbo) to help thwart Kess and his android army. Mauri has mental powers that are highly advanced. Barr sends Lt. Oliver “Hollywood” Carrera (Nino Castelnuovo) as an envoy to ask Mauri for his help.
As Kess begins gathering humanoid slaves, Professor Mauri puts together a team of specialists that he believes with help him defeat Kess. He enlists Dirk Laramie (Gianni Garko), a gambler with telekinetic powers, to break two people out of prison, Shawn (Chris Avram) and Bridget (Malisa Longo). They are to make a weapon that will defeat the metal of the alien ship. The two chemists are trying to create anti-Intherium. Dirk hypnotizes Hollywood to help him break the two out. Mauri’s niece, Irene (Yanti Somer), contacts Norman (Roberto Dell’Acqua), a gymnast and boxer. He brings along two suicidal robots, Tilk and Tilly, as additional help.
The team is attacked by the alien androids but they outwit them. When Kess manages to kidnap Mauri, the team must invade Kess’ ship to try to save him and defeat the warlord.
“Star Odyssey” AKA “Space Odyssey” AKA “Metallica” AKA “Captive Planet” AKA “Sette uomini d'oro nello spazio” or “Seven Gold Men in Space” was released in 1979 and was directed by Alfonso Brescia. It is an Italian science fiction space opera.
“Star Odyssey” is one of the four low-budget Italian space opera movies directed by Italian director Alfonso Brescia. Brescia often uses the pseudonym Al Bradley or Al Bradly for the credits on the English speaking versions of his films. It is the fourth and final film in Alfonso Brescia's sci-fi series. The other three films are “Cosmos: War of the Planets” 1977 AKA “Year Zero War in Space”, “Battle of the Stars” 1978 AKA “Battle in Interstellar Space”, and “War of the Robots” 1978 AKA “Reactor”.
A fifth science fiction film done by Brescia, “The Beast in Space” 1980 AKA “La bestia nello spazio”, is an X-rated film. There is also a shortened version without all the nasty bits that was sliced up for television.
The movie is on par with all of Brescia’s other science fiction films, long, boring and confusing. The film is rich in bad acting, dialogue and dubbing. In addition the awful directing and editing are typical of Brescia’s style.
The credits use Americanized names for the actors so it is difficult to match the American name with the original actors’ names. The credits also mention that the cast is listed in alphabetical order. It starts and end up alphabetical by first name, but somewhere in the middle the names are not in any order.
The film re-uses many of the special effects, props and costumes from Brescia’s other science fiction films. Even the androids are the same blond people that were the robots in “War of the Robots”. The "light-sabers" were cardboard swords painted with fluorescent paint. The Professor’s robot is a 55 gallon drum with arms. Stock footage of black and white aerial bombings is also used in the film.