The Last Starfighter

-Universal (1984)

Summary:

A young, directionless man makes his dreams come true and saves the galaxy. Much like my own life.

My Thoughts:

Finally, I own this classic on DVD. I got a big, unexplainable craving to watch The Last Starfighter again the other night so I went out on a special trip just to buy it. I was surprised to find that the disc is actually a pretty decent edition for the age of the film and its non-popularity.

The Last Starfighter is one of those guilty pleasure films that come along once in awhile. It also holds an important place in film history, but more on that later. The main gist of the story is childhood wish fulfillment. Alex is a guy who wants to do something with his life, but is stuck in a rut. His friends are inbred losers, he lives in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere, there doesn't seem to be a job for miles, the only two things he's got going for him is his hot girlfriend and he's good at a videogame called The Last Starfighter.

One particular night he starts to get higher and higher score (playing the game, pervert), until the whole trailer park gathers round to watch him break The Record!! I'd usually make fun of these people as rubes, but really what else do they have going on in there lives except collecting unemployment checks and running down to the local K-Mart for milk and cigarettes? Alex, like all movie heroes, doesn't disappoint his fans and breaks The Record.

This seals his destiny. It turns out that the game is actually an ingenious way of finding the best possible candidates to become a Starfighter gunner and bring them into space to combat the menace of the evil Emperor Xur and his Kodan armada. Silly names for sure, but still an evil threat.

An interstellar showman type named Centauri kidnaps Alex and takes him to outer space. Alex then gets to attend a regular Luke Skywalker starfighter briefing. It's during this time that we get to see the horrible and ugly unrealistic aliens. The Last Starfighter just happens to feature some of the worst looking aliens I've ever seen in a big budget film. My friend Andy nailed the alien problem right on the head. They don't have enough slime on them. That is, they don't look real because there is no moisture, they don't glisten, the just look like rubber masks. I never actually thought about this before he said that, but it is quite true. They don't have to be dripping with sweat, but they don't need to look like they just god done stitching the things together.

And to bring up Luke Skywalker for a moment again, the story is similar in a way that it's about a normal kid who's brought into a war to become a hero by piloting a space craft. That's where the similarity ends. Not only is it more believable that Alex can handle himself in the star fighter, (he logged tons of hours on the simulator) but he doesn't actually have to fly the craft, just shoot.

But, I digress. Alex gets some cold feet and goes back home.  On Earth, Alex was replaced by a robot to distract any would be assassins. The scenes featuring his robotic likeness add a lot of humor to the film, and keep the spirit of the film at light and fluffy. When an intergalactic assassin (unbelievably called a Zando-Zan hit-beast) attempts to kill Alex/his double, he realizes that he must go back and save the universe. It's a good thing that he does too, because all the other starfighters are dead from a sneak attack by the bastard Kodan armada. There can't be an even better set up for this film; it's just like the 10,000 shooter games out there: one man against an entire fleet.

I'm not going to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen the film yet, but he ends up destroying the whole advancing armada. Oops.

I'd like to note that the pilot of Alex's ship really gets the shaft. His name is Grig and aside from being the best looking alien, he's the guy that gets Alex around and keeps him alive. What does he get for his trouble? He gets to play second string to Alex at the end of the film. I think I'll write my doctoral thesis about the underlying racism in The Last Starfighter.

The best part of The Last Star Fighter is the ending. If you're anything like me, it will get you all charged up and feeling good. Yeah, that's probably the stupidest thing I've ever said, but damn it  the kid helped save the human race, the music is going all epic, and his girlfriend and him are headed for the stars. You'd have to be Hitler not to feel good after an ending like that.

One of the most memorable things about The Last Starfighter and the reason why it made film history is that all of the special effects shots are done with CGI. CGI in 1984 was a really big deal. The only other film that used computers as much as Starfighter was Tron, and that was entirely in a computer environment. The Last Starfighter was different because it tried to integrate the CGI shots into what was supposed to be reality. Even when I had first watched this film as a kid, I thought something was weird about the ships, but weird in a cool way because they moved around a lot more realistically than in other sci-fi films. While the effects look pretty dated, they aren't too distracting from the storyline.

There's also a great writer's connection in this film.  Did you know the writer Jonathan Betuel also wrote… oh man you'll never guess this… Theodore Rex? If you don't remember that film, it's the one with Whoopie Goldberg and a talking dinosaur. How the mighty have fallen.

This is a very rare DVD that's relatively cheap and a good edition. The picture is decent, the extras are good, and the price is low. My only gripe is that the surround mix isn't what it could be, but its fairly decent considering how good the rest of the disc is. 

Unfortunately, this is one of those discs that load a commercial when you put the film in. God, I really hate that! I also hate when you can't just stop the damn thing by hitting menu.

Extras:

The feature, "Crossing the Frontier" is one of the best mini-documentary I've seen in a long time. It covers many of the aspects of making of the film, with a strong focus on the digital aspect of it. This is a must see for anyone who loves this film. It's hosted by Lance Guest and it seems like he's a little spacey or something. I can't quite place it, but it’s as if he just realized the only thing he will be remembered for is acting in The Last Starfighter.

There is also a commentary featuring director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb. It's a fairly good commentary track, and it serves up plenty of trivia and facts about the film.

A picture gallery rounds out the rest of the extras. There are a ton of pictures and a lot of great trivia to boot making it a more than worthy addition.

Score:

Film: 7.5

Extras: 7.0

Edition: 7.5

-Paul