The Man Who Saved the World

The Man Who Saved the World (Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam in Turkish), commonly known as Turkish Star Wars, is a Turkish science fantasy martial arts superhero adventure film made in 1982. It is a mockbuster of the Star Wars films and part of a wave of low-budget Turksploitation superhero films produced during the 1970s to early 1980s.

Plot
The film follows the adventures of Murat (Arkın) and Ali (Akkaya), whose spaceships crash on a desert planet following a battle, shown by using footage from Star Wars as well as Soviet and American space program newsreel clips. While hiking across the desert, they speculate that the planet is inhabited only by women. Ali does his wolf whistle, which he uses on attractive women. However, he blows the wrong whistle and they are attacked by skeletons on horseback, which they defeat in hand-to-hand combat.

The main villain soon shows up and captures the heroes, bringing them to his gladiatorial arena so they can fight. The villain tells them he is actually from Earth and is a 1,000-year-old wizard. He tried to defeat Earth, but was always repelled by a "shield of concentrated human brain molecules", which looks like the Death Star. The only way he can bypass this impenetrable defense is to use a human brain against it.

The heroes escape and hide in a cave full of refugees who already fled the villain's tyrannical rule. Murat develops a romantic connection with the only woman there (Uçar), who looks after the children. (The implied romance is shown through many long eye-contacts and smiles from the girl, but nothing more.) Zombies of the dark lord attack the cave and turn several of the children into zombies, their blood used to renew the evil wizard's immortality. The three then flee the cave and find a local bar, lifted directly from Star Wars (the Mos Eisley cantina). The two men quickly get into a bar brawl, but the villain suddenly appears and captures them again.

The wizard separates the men and tries to convince them to join him. He sends his queen to seduce Ali, while he orders Murat to be brought before him. He offers Murat the chance to rule over the earth and stars if he joins him. He possesses the power of Earth's ancestry in the form of a golden brain, and all he needs to conquer Earth is a real human brain. After Murat declines, the wizard shows that he has the woman and child in captivity. Enraged, Murat fights the wizard's monsters and skeleton guardians. Meanwhile, monsters attack Ali when he is about to kiss the queen. He defeats the monsters and joins Murat's fight. They are both disabled by laser-armed guards and then unsuccessfully tortured by the wizard. Finally, the wizard pits Murat against a giant monster in the arena. Murat defeats the monster and flees, taking the woman and the child with him. Ali is left in captivity.

Murat finds out about a sword made by "the 13th clan," who melted a mountain thousands of "space years" ago. Murat later finds this sword, shaped like a lightning bolt, in a cave defended by two golden ninjas. He takes the sword after dispatching the guards in an uncharacteristically short fight. Renewed by the sword's power, Murat goes to free his friend from the sorcerer's dungeon. However, Ali becomes envious of the sword, knocks out Murat and takes both the sword and the golden brain. The wizard then uses trickery and deceit to make Ali hand over the artifacts. Having touched these items, the wizard now has increased powers and traps Murat, Ali, the woman and the child. Ali is killed in a foolish attempt to escape.

Grief-stricken, Murat decides to melt down the golden sword and the golden human brain and forge them into a pair of gauntlets and boots. Equipped with magical gloves and super-jumping boots, he searches for the sorcerer to avenge his friend's death. After fighting numerous monsters and skeletons, he comes face-to-face with his nemesis and karate chops him in half. He then leaves the planet for Earth in a ship that greatly resembles the Millennium Falcon.

Cast

 * Cüneyt Arkın as Murat


 * Aytekin Akkaya as Ali


 * Necla Fide as Queen


 * Hüseyin Peyda as Bilgin


 * Hikmet Taşdemir as Sihirbaz


 * Füsun Uçar - Bilgin's women


 * Aydın Haberdar as creature


 * Mehmet Uğur as creature


 * Kadir Kök as creature


 * Yadigar Ejder as creature


 * Sönmez Yıkılmaz as Robot creature


 * Nihat Yiğit as Beating Man At The Bar

Trivia

 * The musical soundtrack is entirely lifted from popular hit movies. The main theme used is "The Raiders March", composed by John Williams, from the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other scenes incorporated the music of Moonraker, Ben-Hur, Flash Gordon, Giorgio Moroder's version of Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes, Silent Running, Moses and Disney's Black Hole. In the scene where Cüneyt Arkın and Aytekin Akkaya find the graves of old civilizations, the director selected Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata to play. Music from Star Wars' Academy Award winning John Williams score appears, but less extensively than footage from the film.