THE NESTOR’S SPACESHIP - from the 1979 sci film film ‘BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS’ produced by Roger Corman / directed by Jimmy T Murakami
’Battle Beyond the Stars’ is a low budget sci-fi adventure film based on ‘The Seven Saumrai’ / ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Made in the wake of the phenomenal success of ‘Star Wars’. It was produced by the master of low-budget film-making Roger Corman.
The film featured several disttinct spaceships represenating the rag tag group of mencarnaries enlisted to protect the peaceful planet Akir. The Nestors are a collective of five beings who share a collective consciousness. If one of them eats, they are all energized. Their ship is a self illuminated, translucent ‘flying saucer’. The largest of the ‘seven’.
Like all fo the spacecraft in the film this was designed by James Carmeron - who was the VFX Art Directpr for the film and worked with miniature experts Dennis and Robert Skotak on the admirable VFX and model shots.
As the film was a low budget affair, I have tried to represent a likely manufacturer from the time. ‘Life-Like’ Hobby Kits was a small outfit who produced, models of ships, galleons, civil war cannons and aircraft as well as dinosaur kits. (the latter were not patch on ’Aurora’s Prehistoric Scenes). This is all ‘what if..’ and a bit oif fun, as such I am not 100% concerned with potential accuracy, and I think this is credible enough.
No scale is indicated although this ship is dwarfs the other mercenarie’s ships. I imagine this being molded in white and clear plastic.
Designed by James Cameron
Visual Effects by Dennis Skotak Robert Skotak