SAINT EXMIN’S VALKYRIE SPACESHIP - from the 1979 sci-fi 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. Saint Exmin is played by the statuesque Austrian born actress Sybil Danning, and is an imposing Valkyrie Warrior (the last of her kind) who lives to fight. The compact spaceship is initially dismissd by Shad, but St Exmin and her spaceship soon prove invaluabel in the fight to defend Akir.

This spaceship was another one of James Camerons; designs and includes a afir amount of kit-bashed parts. ing. The admirable spaceship scenes were all handled by miniature experts Dennis and Robert Skotak.

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 dwarfed by ‘Nell’, it looks to be comparable in size to a WW2 jeep or possibly an Me163. I think a model about 6” in length would be 1/32nd scale. This would come in colourful purple plastic - probably a violet or purple - like some of the Life-Lkke / Pyro Dinosaur kits.

Designed by James Cameron

Visual Effects by Dennis Skotak Robert Skotak