The Last Starfighter
It’s another day of sunshine and dusty chores in the trailer park in Coombs County, California, teenager Alex Rogan living with his mother Jane and younger brother Louis and serving as handyman for the other residents, the only break in the monotony the arcade game Starfighter at which he has become an experienced and proficient player, his friends enjoying themselves over at Silver Lake while he has responsibilities.
His ambitions evaporating when he is rejected for a scholarship which would have allowed him to escape to the chance of a better life, instead the unexpected happens when his high score on Starfighter attracts the attention of a man who identifies himself as Centauri, the inventor of the game; in fact, the game is a recruitment tool for the desperate and depleted Rylan Star League, at war with the Ko-Dan Empire and in need of fighters.
While British cinema approached 1984 in a predictably bleak manner with a prestigious but sombre production of George Orwell’s ominous novel set in that titular year, America celebrated the future and glory of war with The Last Starfighter, a science fiction wish fulfilment action adventure which pushed the special effects industry in a new direction only a handful of years after it had already been revolutionised by the motion control rigs which allowed the complex modelwork of Star Wars and its immediate sequels.
Limited computer generated sequences having been featured in The Wrath of Khan and Tron, both released in the summer of 1982, The Last Starfighter was the first feature film to boast extensive digital work, replacing traditional detailed model for the “hero” vessel of the Gunstar and the armada of the Ko-Dan Empire, the ships designed by Ron Cobb whose resume included Dark Star and Alien and rendered on a Cray X-MP supercomputer, heralding a process which would be adopted by Babylon 5 a decade later and is now the presiding industry standard.
Directed by Nick Castle, like his frequent collaborator John Carpenter his resume was broad including acting, writing and various crew roles, appropriate for a film which would carry huge technical challenges but would be equally dependent on the audience connecting with the young cast, Late Phases’ Lance Guest in his first lead role as Alex and Night of the Comet’s Catherine Mary Stewart as his girlfriend Maggie alongside Hill Street Blues‘ Barbara Bosson as Jane and ebullient Hollywood legend Robert Preston as Centauri.
With RoboCop‘s Dan O’Herlihy stealing scenes as Gunstar pilot Grig, like the Harry Potter films Castle’s approach seems to be to support his leads on all sides with experienced performers to carry the weight of the film, and like those The Last Starfighter is not particularly sophisticated, produced by Lorimar, best known for the glossy but vapid sheen of their prime time soaps such as Dallas, Jonathan R Betuel’s script leaning heavily on the prevailing science fiction media property of the period, though there is also something of Ender’s Game in the recruitment of children as tools of war.
With Alex “the chosen one” of innate but overlooked ability guided by the wisdom of an older former warrior turned sage who apparently sacrifices himself in battle, the single point of failure of the Ko-Dan mothership is not dissimilar from the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port, and the film never breaks free of being obviously a children’s movie, and where Carrie Fisher carried a blaster gun alongside the guys Stewart’s plotline back on Earth involving boys, trucks and kissing androids is tedious and embarrassing.
Restored for Blu-ray from a 4K scan of the original 35mm negative, Arrow’s new edition of The Last Starfighter is overflowing with supporting material including a commentary by Guest, interviews with Stewart, Betuel, composer Craig Safan and special effects supervisor Kevin Pike and features on the Starfighter arcade game and the company who created the digital effects for the film and a booklet including new and archive writing.
The Last Starfighter is available on Blu-ray from Arrow now
