The Vintagent Classics: Space Riders

SPACE RIDERS (1984)

Run Time: 1:39:00
Producer: Condor Film Productions
Director: Joe Massot
Writer: Felicity Hibberdine, Joe Massot
Key Cast: Barry Sheene, Gavan O’Herlihy, Toshiya Ito

FILM MAKERS

“Roger Gilbert is an adrenaline junkie who leads an otherwise ordinary life until one day he rides where no man had ridden before. On his ride to the planet Stardust 420, he meets an Aupian named Flou-krepto.” – IMDB

Recently, while researching science fiction movies featuring motorcycles, I came across several listicles that included a film I’d never heard of. Fair enough, I find forgotten treasures this way all the time as dedicated cinephiles unearth and upload them to YouTube. But this one made me pause. Space Riders is a great name, and the poster was very Tron. In this line of work a promising poster lead is exciting, but can mean a long wait before I actually see the film. It takes time to track down a copy from a network of “collectors”, have it shipped sometimes from across the globe, and transferred to a viewable format just to find out that the motorcycle in the poster only actually appeared in the film momentarily, but they led with it ’cause motorcycles are cool. But, this time I got lucky. Thanks to ‘Troll Theatre’ I was able to watch Space Riders instantly on YouTube (in classically bad VHS bootleg quality). Right from the get go the premise seemed odd for a sci-fi, but after 40 minutes of following a Japanese motorcycle road racing team manage the track as well as office politics, I started wondering when the hell we were leaving planet Earth. Spoiler alert! No one goes to space.

Now having seen the film, I gave the poster a second look. The etherial figure is in fact a Samarai, and the “space” cycles are just state of the art, early ’80s racing machines in all their aerodynamic glory. I then found an alternate poster which reads more accurately like the dramatized biopic that the film in fact is. Which is lucky for earthbound Vintagent race enthusiasts who will appreciate this British sports drama staring Grand Prix motorcycle racing world champion Barry Sheene as himself. In the end, Space Riders tells the story of Sheene’s pursuit of the world title, including his recovery from a near-fatal accident at Silverstone. The original soundtrack featuring Duran Duran, Simple Minds, and Queen is also A+.

Maybe it was the Atari pinball game of the same name from 1978 with its futuristic motorcycle theme and an objective of spelling out the words BIKE CITY that led to the name of the 1984 film and began the genre confusion? But who wrote the IMDB “stardust 420” hoax entry that has been republished on film databases across the internet?? I have no idea, but the moral of the story is to not judge a film by its can, clamshell, or jewel box and to always actually watch a film and fully research it before promoting. Enjoy!