Review of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979) by Steve S — 02 Nov 2013

In 1987, Captain William "Buck" Rogers (Gil Gerard) pilots his space shuttle on a mission but a meteor storm freezes him into an orbit that returns him to Earth 500 years later. In the year 2491, his shuttle is found and captured by the Draconian flagship, under the command of Princess Ardala (Pamela Hensley) and her henchman Kane (Henry Silva). Reviving him, they return him to Earth after planting a homing beacon aboard his shuttle to track a path through Earth's defense barrier. Now, Buck Rogers must adjust to the 25th century, and convince the Terrans that the Draconians are planning to conquer Earth...

"Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" tv-pilot movie is a quite campy production in the wake of the failed "Battlestar Galactica", where both had some sort of ambition to follow the success of "Star Wars", but obviously didn´t have the money nor story to match the latter. To cut costs, some footage and various props were even used from Glen A. Larson's Battlestar Galactica series. Even some of the concept designs from Galactica were used. The Terran starfighters on Buck Rogers were originally designed as the Colonial Vipers for Galactica, but Larson had opted for a design closer the X-Wing fighters from Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Larson then employed the unused designs for Buck Rogers. This is just a mish mash of poor FX, poor action, wobbly acting and a classic storyline where someone is trying to conquer earth. The fact that there are two different Tigermen in the production says it all... According to costume designer Jean-Pierre Dorleac, it's because the fight scene between Tigerman and Buck was added later, after the original production had already wrapped. When they tried to call the actor who had played Tigerman earlier in the film back (he'd been "discovered" for the part on the Universal Studios back lot tour), they couldn't find him! So they had to replace him with a lookalike... And the intro with the song is just quite strange in a Barbarella kind of way. Nah, this is just a bit of 70s nostalgia, but nothing more.