History Film / Saturn3

* EatTheDog: When examining Alex's pet dog, Benson mentions he's kept a few dogs himself... for food. Alex promptly tells him to hand the dog over.

* NotQuiteDead: Hector gets dismantled at one point, but manages to reactivate himself later on, and use the lab equipment to put himself back together.

* DeadPersonImpersonation: Benson murders his intended last-minute replacement by blowing him out an airlock and quickly taking his place on his ship. Alex and Adam think they're dealing with a guy called "James."

* SympathyForTheDevil: Adam's last words to Hector are that it isn't his fault or Benson's that he's a killer robot. "It's everybody's fault."

It was conceived and partly directed by John Barry, a production designer for ''Film/AClockworkOrange'' and ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ANewHope''. This film takes cues from both. After some sort of dispute (accounts differ), Stanley Donen (of ''Film/SinginInTheRain'' fame) ended up directing most of it.

* TriangRelations: The dreaded Type 4. Plus one robot mental duplicate as a backup "A".

* UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot: Hector looks for all the world like a skinned, metallic corpse with tubes for veins and metal plates where its muscles would be. Slowly, more of it is revealed, until we come to its head... or lack of one. All it has on top are two insectile, twitching, glowing eyes on an arm. It doesn't talk -- it merely flicks its eyes around to stare at you. When you combine those attributes with its measured tread, eerie electronic "breathing," its deliberately inhuman movements and the fact that it's learning directly from [[spoiler:the thoughts of the murderous, psychotic handler who has a stalkercrush on Alex]], it invokes the eeriest elements of the UncannyValley, essentially recreating FrankensteinsMonster [[RecycledInSPACE in space]]. But scarier. What happens near the end of the film isn't pretty either: [[spoiler:Hector, his brain having been turned into a duplicate of his handler, has taken on his handler's madness as well, to the point that Hector tries to wear the man's head atop his own]].

* SameLanguageDub: Benson is dubbed by Roy Dotrice.

* SpecialEffectsFailure: When Captain James flies off the floor, the wires pulling him are extremely visible.

''Saturn 3'' [[note]]in the novelization, [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfSaturn the moon Tethys]], but in [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy the script's case]], Titan[[/note]] is a 1980 science-fiction horror film starring Creator/KirkDouglas, Creator/FarrahFawcett and Creator/HarveyKeitel.

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Based on the way Saturn moves through the moon's sky, it would have to be orbiting perpendicular to the rings. For [[RuleOfCool some reason]], it's necessary to pilot a craft straight through the rings in order to get to the moon.
** Additionally, the appearance of the moon's surface more closely hews to that of rocky, airless Tethys, rather than the thick, noxious atmosphere of Titan, where Saturn wouldn't even be visible in the sky at any point at all.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hectorpromo_2150.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"I loved you in ''Film/{{Spartacus}}''!"]]

* DeadpanSnarker: Interestingly, the two characters with the least autonomy early in the film - Hector and Alex - are sometimes bitterly sarcastic toward Benson. Hector is deliberately antagonistic toward Benson during his testing, and after Benson tries to get Alex in bed, she shoots him down and tells him to "enjoy your blues," referencing his "Blue Dreamer" pills but also Benson being left with blue balls.

* UnnecessarilyCreepyRobot: Hector looks for all the world like a skinned, metallic corpse with tubes for veins and metal plates where its muscles would be. Slowly, more of it is revealed, until we come to its head... or lack of one. All it has on top are two insectile, twitching, glowing eyes on an arm. It doesn't talk -- it merely flicks its eyes around to stare at you. When you combine those attributes with its measured tread, its deliberately inhuman movements and the fact that it's learning directly from [[spoiler:the thoughts of the murderous, psychotic handler who has a stalkercrush on Alex]], it invokes the eeriest elements of the UncannyValley, essentially recreating FrankensteinsMonster [[RecycledInSPACE in space]]. But scarier. What happens near the end of the film isn't pretty either: [[spoiler:Hector, his brain having been turned into a duplicate of his handler, has taken on his handler's madness as well, to the point that Hector tries to wear the man's head atop his own]].

* BadassGrandpa: Kirk Douglas was 63 during filming.

** Averted with the murder of Captain James by Benson, which is shown in [[ExplosiveDecompression full]] [[LudicrousGibs gory detail]].

* MileLongShip: Swooping from above and set to bombastic orchestral piece in an [[FollowTheLeader almost identical]] establishing shot as the opening of ''Film/StarWars''.

''Saturn 3'' [[note]]in the novelization, [[UsefulNotes/TheMoonsOfSaturn the moon Tethys]], but in [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy the script's case]], Titan[[/note]] is a 1980 science-fiction film starring Creator/KirkDouglas, Creator/FarrahFawcett, and Creator/HarveyKeitel.

!!''Saturn 3'' provides examples of:

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: Based on the way Saturn moves through the moon's sky, it would have to be orbiting perpendicular to the rings. For [[RuleOfCool some reason]] it's necessary to pilot a craft straight through the rings in order to get to the moon.

* BadassGrandpa: Kirk Douglas was 63 when he filmed this movie.

* MrFanservice: We get several full-body nude shots of Kirk Douglas (from the back). He sure kept a good shape well into his sixties... ok, it's fan service if you're into that. Otherwise it may be FanDisservice.

* MinimalistCast: There are only five speaking actors onscreen, six if you count the KillerRobot. Three of them carry 99% of the movie, and one dies as soon as the robot starts going mental.
* [[MurderByInaction Murder By Inaction]]: When a gigantic ceiling claw ('cause all laboratories have giant ceiling claws) pins Benson down, Adam considers just letting Hector have him as he's about to close the emergency door on him. He turns out to be a better man than Benson, and goes back to save him.

* TheVoiceless: Hector, at first. He later obtains Benson's voice, then Adam's, and he uses Alex's voice to send away TheCavalry.