STELLA STAR’S SPACESHIP - from the 1978 sci film film ‘STARCRASH’ Produced by Nat and Patrick Wachsberger / directed by Luigi Cozzi

‘Starcrash’ is a space fantasy made in the wake of ‘Star Wars’. The Italian production features lost of low budget action, space battles and giant robots. It does not take itself tooseriously and stars the gorgeous Caroline Munro as Stella Star.

All the spacrraft make use of extensive kit bashing for the hull details. Unlike Star Wars where this gave the hardware a credible functional feel, the kit parts - and sprues! - are so obvious and the models so crude in general that theya re totally unconvincing. But are fun to look at. This is the main ship flown by Stella Star as she and her associates fight the evil Count Zarth Arn.

Like most of the models this was painted gray or silver in colour and ‘illuminated with various coloured lights’, giving the ship a colourful, sort of disco feel. No model kits were made at the time, but this painting imagines a ‘what if’ kit made by Italeri (the Italian model kit company). The film is mainly rememebered because of the beautiful Munro in various ‘Barbarella-esque’ costumes and co-starring David Hasselhoff in a secondary role. A fun film.

Production Designer Aurelio Grugnolla

I am not sure of the designers as evidentaly the small VFX team all did a bit of everything; Armando Valcauda, Germano Natali, Paolo Zeccara, Matteo Verzini, Simone Gallina