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There are bad films. There are laughably bad films. Then there is Turkish Star Wars. A film made back in 1982, it was originally titled Dünyay? Kurtaran Adam, roughly translated out to "The Man Who Saved The World". But, over here in the States, we know it as Turkish Star Wars.

But, why do we call it that?

Well, there is no delicate way to phrase this, so I'm going to forego my usual literary prose and just go for the proverbial jugular.

THE FILM LIFTS ENTIRE SCENES FROM STAR WARS.

And I don't mean that they got Turkish actors to play out Star Wars scenes, (though I will admit, they probably would have done a better job than the actors in the prequels). No. They literally cut footage from the film....RIGHT FROM THE FILM...and spliced it into their own movie. And they don't stop there. We're talking Battlestar Galactica, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Moonraker. I'll give you a moment to catch your breath from laughing too hard.

You back? Good. To explain why they did this, I guess some historical context is in order. You see, back in the early eighties, there was a huge ban on American made goods in the middle east, and this included films. As a result, many filmmakers bootlegged famous American movies, or just re-shot entire movies using an all Turkish cast. They did this for E.T, The Wizard of OZ, even The Exorcist. So seeing footage of another movie, a movie from another country no less, being spliced into another was not uncommon.

This blog proved to be the most difficult to write, because I didn't, and still don't, know where to begin. Probably the box art would be the best choice.

You see that "I'm going to rip your head off and shit down the throat hole" look the guy is giving? Or how about the fact that his foot sort of disappears into the mountain behind him? Maybe you notice that the guy looks like a NASCAR driver who moonlights as a janitor. But then you see him actually in the film and it is INFINITELY more hilarious. The guy's lumpy and mis-shapen, it's like they took three hundred pounds of fried dough and stuffed it in a life like man costume. And seeing this guy perform super natural feats of strength borders this side of transcendantly awesome. THE GUY CAN KICK BOLDERS AND THEY EXPLODE!

Not only that, but he fights monsters that look like...well, they look like this.

Like a college football mascot gone horribly awry.

The one scene that propels this film from just a few cheap laughs to almost a nirvana like state is...heaven help us...the training montage. Now, the usual montage is bad enough, but at least with most, you get the feeling that time has at least passed a good deal and that it seems a bit feasible that they could have gotten that much better. Not so here. Not only does Fried Dough Man train in the most rediculous way possible (pounding a hill of sand, tieing rocks to his ankles and goose stepping around, all to the tune of the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme no less) but he miraculously becomes almost god like in physical prowess in the exact same time it took to watch the whole montage. The guy can jump 80 feet in the air and split rocks in half with his bare hands!

As you may have noticed, I have talked little to nothing of the movie's plot. My explanation? There isn't one. Go ahead, here's a link to the movie, the whole movie. See if you can't make out what the hell is going on: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7069307816427160377

And trust me, it makes just about as much sense in Turkish as it does in English.

And how in the hell did I get this far into the blog without mentioning the main bad guy? If you thought Damodar from Dungeons & Dragons was the most laughably bad villain ever, you have not seen... THE WIZARD!

He looks like King Leonides from 300 if he were crowned Marshal of the Gay Pride Parade.

Where do I begin with him? How about the fact that he commands an army of Storm Troopers, Rebel Alliance fighters, Cylons, mummies, sasquatches, Robbie the Robots, Darth Vaders, and gorillas. I could not make this shit up if I tried, people.

Now, I know that theres a lot of debate over what is the worst movie ever made. You have your Plan 9 from Outer Space's, your Battlefield Earth's, and your Gigli's, but do any of them have a doughy janitor split a gay King Leonides right down the middle with a karate chop to the head? No. No do they not. Game, set, match.