The Star Wars franchise has acquired legions of fans across the world ever since George Lucas made the first movie in 1977. Success breeds imitators, such as the Turkish production Dunyayı Kurtaran Adam, or The Man Who Saves the World. Cetin Inanc’s 1982 production makes unauthorised use of footage from Star Wars apart from borrowing from other Hollywood hits such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Flash Gordon and Moonraker.
The plot: two space pilots, Murat and Ali, crash-land on a planet ruled by an evil wizard who resembles Darth Vader. The wizard’s efforts to rule Earth have been thwarted thus far by an extraordinary shield of human brain molecules, but the resistance is weakening. An Obi-Wan Kenobi-like mentor guides the pilots as they face numerous monsters and the wizard’s minions.
The dark side of the Force manifests itself in Ali, who crosses over and is killed. An outraged Murat creates a weapon that ends the wizard’s reign. Murat seems to have been inspired by Han Solo and Ali by Lando Calrissian.
The footage theft from Star Wars includes the bar scene, in which Obi-Wan and Luke meet Han Solo for the first time. The sequence in which Murat and Ali train by tying boulders to their legs has also been inspired by Luke’s training session with the Jedi master Yoda.
Cetin Inanc initially wanted to make a movie that would match Star Wars in scale. The film was written by and starred Turkish screen icon Cuneyt Arkın. Lavish sets and props were built (including spaceships), but they were destroyed in a freak storm. To salvage the project, Inanc decided to use bootlegged scenes from Star Wars and other movies.
Critics eviscerated the movie when it was released in November 1982. Although some charitable commentators claimed that Dunyayı Kurtaran Adam was an allegory about religious freedom – Turkey was ruled by martial law at the time – the movie largely disappeared from view, later gaining a reputation among B-cinema fans.
Cult movie archivist Ed Glaser helped keep Dunyayı Kurtaran Adam in circulation by locating its only surviving 35mm copy. Glaser, who runs the website Neon Harbor and tracks down remakes of American movies in foreign languages (including the Turkish Rambo and Nigeria’s Titanic), found the print with a projectionist in northwestern Turkey. The projectionist had kept the print for himself after lying to the production company that it was damaged during projection.
“A 35mm print of ‘Turkish Star Wars’ is the holy grail, not just of rip-off films, but all cult film,” Glaser wrote on his company’s blog. “There are no negatives, and the few other prints of the film ever struck have been destroyed. My goal is to get this one scanned to preserve it for posterity — and hopefully screened in a theater for other fans like me.”
Dunyayı Kurtaran Adam got a sequel in 2006, titled Turks in Space. Cuneyt Arkın, the actor from the original production, appeared in a cameo, but even his presence failed to capture the appeal of the original movie.
Other Star Wars rip-offs include the American movie Starcrash (1978), which borrows the Han Solo-Princess Leia story arc but alters it by swapping genders. Starring Caroline Munro, David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer, the movie centres on the battle to save the galaxy from the evil Zarth Arn.
The Brazilian comedy group The Dabblers made a Star Wars parody called The Bunglers in the War of the Planets in 1978. In the movie, Prince Flick enlists the help of the Dabblers to fight the evil Zuco.
India is also a member of the Star Wars rip-off club. Mukesh Khanna, fresh from the success of the television series Shaktimaan (1997), created a local version called Aryamaan – Brahmaand Ka Yodha. The 2002 series had a 90-episode run on Doordarshan. Aryamaan (Khanna) takes on Mahasamant Narak to regain his kingdom and save the universe.