A Short Trip!

Have you ever seen Roger Corman's 1983 scifi classic Space Raiders? It's not bad, as Corman movies go. It's about a kid who stows away on a ship full of space pirates, and ends up becoming part of their crew (well, for a little while).

The only downside is that in true Corman fashion, the movie recycles virtually everything from his earlier (and superior) film Battle Beyond The Stars. And I do mean everything. Corman was never one to spend a dime when he didn't have to, so Space Rangers reuses Battle Beyond The Stars' props, sets, spaceship miniatures, space battle footage, matte paintings and even the entire score!

This blatant recycling mars Space Rangers a bit in my eyes, but if such things don't bother you, it's worth a look. The movie's out right now on blu ray, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Like it was made yesterday.

But forget about all that and let's talk about the blu ray box art, shall we? Specifically that tag line. "He's ten years old and they've taken him ten million miles into space."

OK, I get that they're doing a thing here— ten years, ten million miles. Got it. But ten million miles is really not that huge a distance, especially where outer space is concerned. For example, the Earth is about 93 MILLION MILES from the Sun! A little over nine times farther than this kid allegedly travelled! And it's about 33 million miles from the Earth to Mars!

The space pirates were supposed to take him on a thrilling intergalactic adventure, but he didn't even make it out of our solar system!