Remembering The Miniature Effects For Battle Beyond The Stars

Friends, two weeks ago when we received the sad news about the passing of John Saxon, in coming up with my article on some of the roles I enjoyed of the late actor, I happened to stumble across this remembrance of the miniature effects for Battle Beyond the Stars. The video which was uploaded to YouTube in 2013 is apparently a deleted scene from a documentary entitled Sense of Scale by Berton Pierce, the focus of the film was to listen to those who artists whose work was being taken away by CGI. While Battle Beyond the Stars is most certainly a cult film, those interviewed for the documentary have worked on the likes of Star Wars, Blade Runner, Space: 1999, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Ghostbusters, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to name a few.

Now in this deleted scene from Sense of Scale below, you will get to hear Patrick McClung (Masters of the Universe, Apollo 13) as well as Robert Skotak (Escape from New York, Tremors) talk about working on 1980’s Battle Beyond the Stars. Including some wonderful behind the scenes photographs from the picture – in addition McClung shares the story of how a young man was hired after showing up to the studio with a short film called Xenogenesis… that person turned out to be none other than James Cameron (Aliens)!

After a quick glance I am sad to say that I’ve been unable to find a streaming service that is currently offering Sense of Scale at this time – although at the very least you can enjoy Battle Beyond the Stars on Tubi for free. Furthermore you can watch more deleted scenes from the documentary including Martin Bower and Bill Pearson chatting about the effects used in the Space: 1999 television series as well as 1978’s The Medusa Touch.