Cosmos: War of the Planets

Year Zero War in Space
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfonso Brescia
Produced by	Luigi Alessi
Screenplay by	Alfonso Brescia Aldo Crudo Massimo Lo Jacono Giacomo Mazzocchi
Starring	John Richardson Yanti Somer Gaetano Balestrieri Nicolas Barthe Aldo Canti
Narrated by	Arduino Sacco
Music by	Marcello Giombini
Cinematography	Silvio Fraschetti
Edited by	Larry Marinelli Carlo Reali
Production company	Nais Film
Distributed by	Cinematografie Internazionali Associate
Running time	95 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Cosmos: War of the Planets (also released in Europe as Year Zero: War In Space) is a 1977 Italian film directed by Alfonso Brescia and starring John Richardson. It is considered a remake of the 1965 film Planet of the Vampires. It was also released as War of the Planets (not to be confused with the 1965 Antonio Margheriti film of that name), and also as Cosmo 2000, as well as Cosmo: Planet Without a Name. The movie has been made public domain and may be freely found and distributed.

The 4 films in Alfonso Brescia's sci-fi series are Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977, aka Year Zero War in Space), Battle in Interstellar Space (1978, aka Battle of the Stars), War of the Robots (1978, aka Reactor), and Star Odyssey (1979, aka Seven Gold Men in Space).

The film begins with the crew of a spaceship seeing explosions in space and asteroids flying by. They are afraid that they are going to be hit, but their ship's computer, named Wiz, tells them that they were seeing the "refraction" of an event that took place millions of years ago. Overjoyed, the ship's crew hug and kiss each other.

Next follows a scene within the Orion space complex (whose introduction includes stock footage of the Japanese space launch center) of Captain Mike Hamilton's slapping a fellow officer. Soon he is called to report on this behavior to the base commander. He says that the other officer did not give him a command personally, but told him to follow the directions of a computer. Hamilton's attitude against such machines is one of the few themes of the story.

A scene derived from 2001: A Space Odyssey next appears. Hamilton and his ship, the MK-31, are sent to repair an automated satellite. One of the crew floats over to the satellite and starts work. Viewing this on the screen, Hamilton is upset because it is required that spacewalkers work in teams of two, and predicts that the acid in the battery will eat through the astronaut's suit. The astronaut says that he's in control of the situation - but it does start to eat through his suit. Hamilton himself goes to rescue the continually screaming astronaut, whose life is saved.