As soon as a film works at the box office, every studio in Hollywood wants a piece of cake and puts a similar project into position. In recent years we have been able to observe this in a wide variety of comic films. The film world has been copying much longer, for example with Star Wars.
Almost five decades ago, George Lucas brought his war on the big screen and unleashed a star Wars manie. No wonder that even James Bond had to go to space afterwards so as not to miss the biggest cinema trend of the time. But there were completely different imitators.
Star Wars copy from Italy: Fight for the 5th Galaxy even copies George Lucas’ name
Two years after the cinema of the stars of the stars, a science fiction film with the epic title fight for the 5th galaxy came to the cinema. Behind it is a low-budget production from Italy that shamelessly uses Star Wars-starting with the iconic running text at the beginning of the film that takes us to the universe.
Here you can see the trailer for the fight for the 5th galaxy:
Fight for the 5th Galaxy Trailer (German)
Even if the struggle for the 5th galaxy comes with various action elements that cannot be found in Star Wars (such as a nuclear war and a dangerous substance called Kappatron, which manipulates people), there are numerous similarities, especially with regard to the design of sets and costumes.
For example, there is the villain Lord Graal, who, like Darth Vader, marches through the area with black armor and a striking helmet – preferably on a spaceship that is like a star destroyer in its triangular form. Even the director has adapted his name to George Lucas: In the credits it is not Aldo Lado, but George B. Lewis.
Fight for the 5th galaxy could not repeat the success of Star Wars to this day
Today, very few fans probably remember the fight for the 5th galaxy. Like many other sci-fi films who wanted to copy Star Wars’ success concept in the 1970s and 1980s (such as the Star Crash-stars in the duel, which also comes from Italy), production has now been forgotten.
In large streaming services such as Disney+ or Netflix, there is no trace of the fight for the 5th galaxy far and wide. You shouldn’t hope for a decent home cinema publication. The film probably had its last big moment when Oliver Kalkofe and Peter Rütten watched him in an edition of Schlefaz four years ago – the worst films ever.
A thematically similar article has been published on our sister page Allociné.