Sunday, April 10, 2011

News: BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980) Blu-Ray & DVD Available For Pre-Order

Thanks to a head's up from Space: 1970 reader Brandon Gantt, I can report that Amazon has just made the Shout! Factory "Roger Corman's Cult Classics" Blu-Ray and DVD for Battle Beyond The Stars available for pre-order through their site.

The listing says it will be out on April 12th (this week!), but I believe they are mistaken. The last I heard, the disc is due out this Summer, probably in July.

Here are the links for the Blu-Ray and DVD editions:

Battle Beyond The Stars [Roger Corman's Cult Classics] (Blu-Ray)

Battle Beyond The Stars [Roger Corman's Cult Classics]

If it turns out that Shout! is indeed stealthily releasing the title this month, and any of you Space: 1970 Star Kids actually get your hands on it, please drop me a line. Battle Beyond The Stars is currently my most-anticipated forthcoming Blu-Ray release, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

UPDATED  4/11: Just updated this post with a large scan of the Blu-Ray packaging.

7 comments:

  1. That may be my favorite Roger Corman, with Death Race slightly behind it. It's a fun SF film. I was unaware of it until a friend brought a copy and we watched it a few years back at a little SF club I used to attend. I don't have a blu-ray, but maybe they'll do a regular copy as well. I thought I read somewhere it's based on Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

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  2. Oh, it's heavily based on the Kurosawa story (and to some extent The Magnificent Seven). Heck, Robert Vaughn plays the same character from M7. It's a lot of fun, although some people refer to it as "John Boy in Spaaaaaaace."

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  3. As it says both in the post and in the headline, Shout Factory is maiking both Blu-Ray and standard DVD editions available.

    The John Sayles script for Battle Beyond The Stars is absolutely and unabashedly based on Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, as is Message From Space, The Magnificent Seven, and countless other movies.

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  4. Amazon is saying that the Blu-Ray is temporarily out of stock while the DVD isn't on sale until July 12. Oh well it will be a nice birthday gift.

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  5. As I said in the post, I was quite sure that Amazon had screwed up the release date -- but when the packaging key art showed up yesterday on their site, I admit I started to get my hopes up a bit, since the art looks like it came from Shout! Factory. Considering that the title was originally announced for last September, I wouldn't have been surprised if it did show up unannounced today.

    Can anyone point me to an official announcement from Shout! Factory that says July 12? I keep being told that date second-hand, but no one seems able to direct me to any information actually posted by the company....

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  6. any ideas if this release will play on uk blu-ray players(region b) ave been waiting a long time for this. I bought starcrash and had it imported it worked allthough the disks with the extras was locked to region a

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  7. I have no idea what sort of Region coding it will have; I still haven't gotten definitive info on its release date. Sorry.

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