Dark Star
Eighteen parsecs from Earth, the crew of the scout vessel Dark Star are engaged in work which is intermittently dangerous but on the whole tedious, their mission having lasted two decades on the calendar yet with only the passage of three years experienced aboard ship due to the time dilation of the hyperdrive they use to jump between systems seeking planets whose unstable orbits could render them a hazard to potential colonisation.
Led by Lieutenant Doolittle since the unfortunate death of Commander Powell, the mood aboard ship is understandably low, the crew quarters having been destroyed along with the entire supply of toilet roll requiring them to berth in a storage locker, Talby having retreated to the observation dome to silently watching nebulae drift past, Pinback’s attempts to engage rebuffed by Boiler, the sole alien life form they have encountered a disappointment, and Bomb 20 exhibiting aberrant behaviour.
The first feature film released by director John Carpenter, co-written with Dan O’Bannon, Dark Star was never intended to be such, initially a student graduation film project shot across an extended period from 1970 at the University of Southern California then with additional scenes added in 1973 before the premiere in March 1974 in the version which received theatrical distribution the following year, something which could not have been conceived during the production.
The antithesis of the cool but distant intellectual professionalism of the crew of the Discovery on their monumental exploration of the distant solar system in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the crew of the Dark Star are less lofty, Doolittle (Brian Narelle) missing his surfboard but finding comfort in a jerry-rigged musical instrument, Pinback (O’Bannon) maintaining a video diary of his mood swings, Talby (Dre Pahich) gazing at the stars and Boiler (Cal Kuniholm) passing the time with unsanctioned laser target practice.
Commander Powell (Joe Sanders) lying in deep freeze, awaiting revival to offer uncertain guidance, there is much of O’Bannon’s later script which eventually became Alien in the mix, the unruly passenger from the Magellanic Cloud and the underlying premise of “truck drivers in space” as opposed to dedicated and qualified scientists, more akin to the crew of the Valley Forge in 1972’s Silent Running and finding its most specific form in Stuart Gordon’s Space Truckers, and like that 1996 film Dark Star is a comedy, though more absurd and abstract.
The men functionaries, abandoned by the company to their own devices and making the best of what little they have, it is a film of existential ennui, a mission with no end and no direction, the futurism of Carpenter’s electronic soundtrack contrasting with the longing of the traditional country song Benson, Arizona which plays periodically, though perhaps unsurprisingly the crew themselves seem to enjoy stoner rock, adding to the film’s cult reputation within that segment of the audience.
A melancholy film of loneliness and insignificance, of men travelling the stars but finding no meaning in the universe, destroying planets rather than exploring them, no strange new worlds or new civilisations to behold, the performances play to the archetypes of the commedia dell’arte but ultimately find acceptance, even serenity, in the infinite, Doolittle surfing through the darkness and Talby illuminated by the mythical and mystical Phoenix Asteroids.
Restored from the original 35mm film reels as both the seventy-two and eighty-three minute cuts, the new edition of Dark Star is supported by a feature-length documentary charting the strange course of the film, an interview with Alan Dean Foster who novelised the screenplay, a commentary by Andrew Gilchrist, an animatic of the titular ship, trivia notes and a written introduction by O’Bannon, with a limited edition box-set also featuring a reproduction press book, posters and lobby cards and new essays.
Dark Star is available now as a 4K UHD and Blu-ray double disc set from Fabulous Films
