A young boy named Peter (David Mendenhall) is playing in the warehouse on a corporation controlled planet when a group of raiders lead by C. W. "Hawk" Hawkins (Vince Edwards) stages a raid on the warehouse. When a shootout ensues between Hawk's Raiders and the corporate security, Peter takes cover in a nearby ship which is also the same ship Hawk and his crew steal to escape. As the crew deals with the presence of their stowaway, Hawk promises Peter he'll return him home after they complete their business as the company sends a new robot controlled destroyer vessel after them.
During the early 80s, Roger Corman sold New World Pictures for just under $17 million, but agreed to stay on for a two year period and produce five films for distribution via Corman's short lived company Millennium prior to the establishment of Corman's New Horizons. One of those films was Space Raiders which was produced solely for the purpose of squeezing what little life there was in the leftover assets from the James Cameron produced assets of Battle Beyond the Stars which had previously been put to use in Forbidden World. Space Raiders pretty much feels like an obligation film that was slapped together quickly and cheaply with not much here that you can really say justifies its existence.
At it's core Space Raiders is a western in space with the film supposedly having been inspired by The Wild Bunch in the same way Battle Beyond the Stars was inspired by The Magnificent Seven. While I haven't seen the Wild Bunch for a while and can't make an apt comparison, it is very much a typical group of western outlaws down to the station hideout resembling a U. S.-Mexioc border town complete with a saloon equivalent which of course erupts into a brawl. However unlike the previous three Corman produced sci-fi films, Space Raiders has something they thankfully didn't have: a whiny kid character who stumbles his way into the plot. I have no problem with kids having prominent parts in stories as not only did the 80s have some solid ones like E. T. and Explorers, but even classic literature features it like Robert Lous Stevenson's Treasure Island, but unlike the examples mentioned Peter never feels integral to the plot and is really just a glorified package to be delivered only if said package had little to no sense of self preservation and his presence alone made you want to see him gone. I don't blame David Mendenhall for this as he's a kid and he's only doing the lines as written, but if they were going to include a kid character they should've at least tried to make the character one with point, purpose, and substance.
Space Raiders is basically Corman squeezing what little life is left in the Battle Beyond the Stars effects sequences and trying to get blood from a stone at this point. With the proliferation of streaming and the internet, it's pretty unthinkable that a theatrically released film would be made up of mostly recontextualized stock footage and shows what a dead genre this is in the theatrical space. Not really worth a viewing, but a minor curiosity in background and production.
During the early 80s, Roger Corman sold New World Pictures for just under $17 million, but agreed to stay on for a two year period and produce five films for distribution via Corman's short lived company Millennium prior to the establishment of Corman's New Horizons. One of those films was Space Raiders which was produced solely for the purpose of squeezing what little life there was in the leftover assets from the James Cameron produced assets of Battle Beyond the Stars which had previously been put to use in Forbidden World. Space Raiders pretty much feels like an obligation film that was slapped together quickly and cheaply with not much here that you can really say justifies its existence.
At it's core Space Raiders is a western in space with the film supposedly having been inspired by The Wild Bunch in the same way Battle Beyond the Stars was inspired by The Magnificent Seven. While I haven't seen the Wild Bunch for a while and can't make an apt comparison, it is very much a typical group of western outlaws down to the station hideout resembling a U. S.-Mexioc border town complete with a saloon equivalent which of course erupts into a brawl. However unlike the previous three Corman produced sci-fi films, Space Raiders has something they thankfully didn't have: a whiny kid character who stumbles his way into the plot. I have no problem with kids having prominent parts in stories as not only did the 80s have some solid ones like E. T. and Explorers, but even classic literature features it like Robert Lous Stevenson's Treasure Island, but unlike the examples mentioned Peter never feels integral to the plot and is really just a glorified package to be delivered only if said package had little to no sense of self preservation and his presence alone made you want to see him gone. I don't blame David Mendenhall for this as he's a kid and he's only doing the lines as written, but if they were going to include a kid character they should've at least tried to make the character one with point, purpose, and substance.
Space Raiders is basically Corman squeezing what little life is left in the Battle Beyond the Stars effects sequences and trying to get blood from a stone at this point. With the proliferation of streaming and the internet, it's pretty unthinkable that a theatrically released film would be made up of mostly recontextualized stock footage and shows what a dead genre this is in the theatrical space. Not really worth a viewing, but a minor curiosity in background and production.