The aging Major Adam (an able and robust performance by Kirk Douglas) and his much younger distaff partner Alex (sweetly played with charming naiveté by Farrah Fawcett) are stationed on a lone station located on one of Saturn's moons where they are working on ways to grow food for the starving masses back on Earth. Their idyllic existence gets ripped asunder by the intrusive presence of the depraved and unhinged Captain Benson (Harvey Keitel in fine menacing form) and his equally dangerous robot helper Hector.

Director Stanley Donen offers a chilling vision of a cold, grim, and hedonistic future, relates the dark and compelling story at a steady pace, and generates some real nerve-wracking tension in the harrowing last third. The intelligent script by Martin Amis addresses such pertinent issues as overpopulation, depletion of precious resources, invasion of privacy, and the dehumanizing impact of advanced technology on mankind's soul in a thoughtful and provocative manner. Moreover, this film makes a valid point that technology is only as good or bad as the purpose it's put to use for. The lavish set design and snazzy special effects are pretty impressive (the towering Hector in particular comes across as genuinely imposing and frightening). The fact that Keitel's trademark New York accent was dubbed by Roy Dotrice with a more "continental" voice adds to the creepiness of Benson's overall character. Elmer Bernstein's spare pulsating score hits the moody spot. The glossy cinematography by Billy Williams provides a pleasing polished look. A neat and unjustly maligned movie.

I can understand what Farrah Fawcett was doing in this movie. She was just coming off the enormous success of "Charlie's Angels" and every young girl was copying her hair style. This was her chance for a career in feature films.

Then, too, I can understand why Kirk Douglas is in this movie. He was in his mid-60s and although he looked fine and retained his talent, fewer offers were coming his way.

But what is Harvey Keitel doing in this movie, made up like Bette Midler and dubbed throughout? He was at his peak, yet here he is, inexpressive, lacking in tonality, and more robotic than the android he creates. What a waste.

The story, by Martin Amis, son of the sophisticated Kingsley, borrows from "Silent Running," "2001," and "Alien," but at heart it's a clumsy respinning of "Forbidden Planet". Instead of Morpheus and his pretty daughter on a lonely planet, we have Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett living comfortably together on Saturn 3, an isolated outpost on one of Saturn's moons. Their mission is to grow plants hydroponically to help feed earth's population.

Instead of their torpid existences being disturbed by a visit from Leslie Nielsen and his crew, they are visited by Keitel, who has brought with him a robot to "help" them on Saturn 3, and once the robot is working, one of the loving couple will become obsolete.

So far, so good. But then Keitel, with his phony voice, develops a yen for Farrah Fawcett. "You have a beautiful body," he tells her. "May I use it?" And why not? Douglas has his signature chin dimple but Fawcett has her appealing attributes too. We get a brief glimpse of both of them as she sheds her robe preparatory to playing doctor with Douglas. This was a disturbing scene indeed because there is no evidence that they are married, so I'm afraid their congress is improper.

I don't want to go on with the rest of this nonsense. It's not really worth this space or your time. The robot goes berserk, as robots representing the id are wont to do, and begins to bust some moves on Fawcett. I don't blame this freaky looking machine for having the impulse, but what on earth, or on Saturn 3, can its intentions be? The climax involves a plodding chase through the internal tubes -- all lighted with neon blue -- with Douglas and Fawcett running and the robot plodding like Schwarzenegger's humanoid in "The Terminator." There is a moment of self sacrifice. Fawcett gets to visit the earth for the first time in her life.

I saw this in the theater on the day it was released in 1980. This was a Grindhouse movie shown in little theatres, not in huge complexes. I went to see it not expecting much…

Not expecting, but got: This film had the coolest robot I had ever seen in my life. Back then I was not familiar with Harvey Keitel, I did not know that Roy Dotrice had overdubbed his voice, all I knew is this creepy guy, opens an airlock on a space station and lets his Captain fall through, shattering him into a million pieces of gore, and that was disturbing, and it was shown within the first 5 minutes of this film - And Keitel, who at the time was hidden by a black space helmet, giggling about killing this guy in that horrible way, what kind of film is this with a beginning like that.

Not the best Stanley Donen film, but Donen clearly had a talent for doing the best he could with very low budgets, it could have used a few more dollars in the effects budget. It is highly Likely that John Barry directed a lot of this, and his design handiwork is evident.

After seeing Space done so beautifully and economically by Ridley Scott in Aliens, this film for me was a return to my roots of Low Budget Science Fiction, which I grew up on, so I enjoyed the cheesy view of Saturn's Rings, I even loved the 2-D effect of the space station, and Donen's directing of the initial scene where you think is this going to be a musical in space? But there were some good effects despite the Apparent lack of dollars to make them really good. And I first saw this in the theater, and things always look better on that huge screen, until you see it on TV and it looks Cheap.

So now, 32 years after I sat in that theater and was creeped out by Harvey Keitel and his robot "Hector" - I found a fairly good transfer of that film online and got it - And I watched it last night, for the first time in 3 decades.

And I still liked it, the interactions between Kirk Douglass, Farah Fawcett and Harvey Keitel were subtle and the dialog was understandable although a "future slang" was being used, we can get the gist of the conversations... "No Taction Contact!" IE, "Do Not Touch!" - Kirk Douglas was far from being a decrepit old man in this film, he plays the lead role in his usual way, although toned down from his gritting teeth roles like Spartacus. In fact, this was the first film I had seen Douglas in where he was very subdued in manner but held his authority, when usually he acts with a lot more force behind his words and actions. I think this was probably the biggest Movie role for Farah , not counting several made for TV movies like "The Burning Bed".

The Saturn 3 set is convincing as a space habitat, except of course the gravity would be less than earth's, there is no mention of artificial gravity, so we have to take all that for granted in the film.

The Hector concept, was the first time I had seen in a movie, that a robot had to be programmed from a human brain, and if that brain has problems: "I'm not malfunctioning, You are" as Hector tells "Benson"- So this film makes clear that a guy who giggles over murdering his captain in cold blood, if this guy is the template for Hector's Programming, then watch out - The film made this concept very clear. This was also the first time in a movie where we see a socket at the base of a man's skull, this has been used in Science Fiction movies up to The Matrix.

The design of some of the space-ships came from earlier science fiction movies, and we can blame veteran effects man Wally Veevers for some of the opticals in this film... The three-winged craft that comes to check on Saturn 3 is very familiar- I like that this was done that way, it connected this film which was at the time, a modern science fiction film, to its predecessors from the late 50's and early 60's. Most of the spaceships look like they came from the covers of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" or "Analog Science Fiction" or "Galaxy" or any number of those pulps where these stories came from...

And of course, the writer of this story was Martin Amis, the son of author Kingsley Amis, who wrote several science fiction stories with slants like used in this film.

So basically, this was a B Movie that got some attention because of the then use of Kirk Douglas and Farah Fawcett, it could have been a great film, but as it is, it is not horrible, the science is believable, the effects typical but not great, the resolution not perfect but satisfying. The story could have been fleshed out a bit more, but as it is, the robot Hector, I remembered that Robot, when I saw Terminator I thought of Hector, when I saw Aliens I thought of Hector, there were a lot of possibilities for that character, this was not just an "Evil Robot" but a robot that became evil because of the way it was "taught" - Much like people in that respect. And that cylinder that held "Hectors Brain" - was creepy, any brain that is 4 times the size of a human brain, well you just have to say "Why is that a BAD IDEA?"