The Last Starfighter
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| The Last Starfighter | |
|---|---|
| Image:Last starfighter post.jpg The Last Starfighter theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Nick Castle |
| Produced by | Gary Adelson Edward O. Denault |
| Written by | Jonathan R. Betuel |
| Starring | Lance Guest Robert Preston Catherine Mary Stewart Dan O'Herlihy Barbara Bosson Kay E. Kuter Norman Snow Peter Nelson Chris Hebert Wil Wheaton |
| Music by | Craig Safan |
| Cinematography | King Baggot |
| Editing by | Carroll Timothy O'Meara |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures Lorimar Productions (original release; joint venture) Warner Bros. Television Distribution (successor-in-interest to Lorimar) (television broadcast rights) Universal Studios Home Entertainment (home entertainment distribution rights) |
| Release date(s) | July 13 1984 |
| Running time | 101 min. |
| Country | Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 (estimated) |
| Gross revenue | $28,733,290 (USA) (sub-total) |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Last Starfighter is a 1984 science fiction adventure film directed by Nick Castle. There was a subsequent novelization of the movie by Alan Dean Foster, as well as a video game based on the production. In 2004, it was also adapted as an off-Broadway musical.
The Last Starfighter was one of the earliest films to use extensive computer graphics, instead of physical models, to depict real objects.
The Last Starfighter was the final film role of actor Robert Preston before his death. His character, a "lovable con-man," was a nod to his most famous role as Harold Hill in The Music Man.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a teenager living in a remote trailer park, becomes the top player of Starfighter, a stand-up arcade game where the player defends "the frontier" from "Xur and the Kodan armada" in a space battle. After achieving his best score, he is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri (Robert Preston). Stepping into Centauri's vehicle, Alex is horrified to find that not only is the car a spaceship, but Centauri is a disguised alien who whisks him off to another planet.
Upon their arrival, Alex is given a flight suit and fitted with a translator to understand the League's alien languages. He discovers that he has been recruited as a pilot, and that the images and territories in the Starfighter arcade game represent a conflict that actually exists. Alex is taken to the briefing area and meets fellow compatriot, Starnavigator Grig (Dan O'Herlihy), a jovial alien. When confronting Centauri, Alex learns that the Starfighter game is a test devised to find those "with the gift."
Furthermore, the game's story about defending the galaxy against enemies is real, with a full-blown Starfighter battle preparing to be launched. Alex is shocked by this new reality and refuses to participate, so Centauri brings him back to earth and gives him a high-tech pager to use if he should change his mind.
At home, Alex discovers that he was not missed because Centauri replaced him with an android, called a Beta, that is an exact replica of Alex. The android tries to convince Alex to return to space and serve as a Starfighter. Angered, Alex activates the pager so Centauri can remove the impostor. But an alien assassin appears and tries to kill both Alex and the android. During the resulting chase, Centauri arrives and kills the assassin, but is seriously wounded. Centauri warns Alex that more assassins are on the way, so his only choice is to become a Starfighter.
Alex agrees to return and finds the remains of the Starfighter base. Centauri apparently dies from his wounds just after landing, leaving Alex alone with his friend Grig. After getting Alex suited up in Starfighter gear, Grig places him in the gunnery chair of the experimental fighter named the 'Gunstar'. Grig serves as navigator while Alex is the gunner. Alex is delighted to find that the controls are just like those of the arcade game, but is horrified to learn that all the other Starfighters have been destroyed, leaving Alex alone to battle the enemy. He briefly insists to be taken home again, until Grig points out that Xur's plans of conquest would expand towards Earth sooner or later.
Meanwhile, on Earth, the Beta is having a difficult time replacing him, failing at Alex's job as a repairman, ruining Alex's relationship with his girlfriend Maggie Gordon (Catherine Mary Stewart) and nearly being discovered by Alex's younger brother Louis (Chris Hebert). An assassin discovers the existence of the android and rushes to his ship to alert the enemy. The android is destroyed, but not before successfully interrupting the assassin's transmission. An enemy commander receives the incomplete message, assumes Alex is dead, and proceeds with the invasion.
Alex and Grig attacks the Command Ship, destroying its communications, therfore catching the Deckfighter wing off-guard. As the battle reaches a fevered pitch, Alex's weapons are depleted. In a desperate move, he triggers the Death Blossom and destroys every single Deckfighter. Xur, the enemy's general and Emperor of the Armada, escapes in a pod and lives to fight another day, all the while Krill and the Commandship meets their end by the time they collide into the Moon. At the victory celebration, Centauri reappears, having come out of what was actually a dormant state. While Alex is being proclaimed the savior, he is informed that the galaxy is still vulnerable and Xur is at large. Alex is asked to stay and aid in rebuilding the Starfighter Legion.
Alex returns to Earth, dramatically landing in the trailer park in his spaceship. He explains to his family where he was and reveals that he has decided to return to space and serve as a Starfighter. With the blessing of her family, Alex's girlfriend decides to return with him. The story ends with Alex's brother preparing to play the Starfighter video game, dreaming of joining Alex in space.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Lance Guest | Alex Rogan / Beta Alex | The film's protagonist. A teenager who finds himself recruited as a starfighter. |
| Dan O'Herlihy | Grig | Alex's copilot, navigator, and sidekick. |
| Catherine Mary Stewart | Maggie Gordon | Alex's girlfriend. |
| Norman Snow | Xur | Evil leader of the Kodan armada. |
| Robert Preston | Centauri | Alien recruiter. He makes contact with Alex in the beginning of the movie after he passes the arcade game test. |
| Barbara Bosson | Jane Rogan | Alex's mother |
| Chris Hebert | Louis Rogan | Alex's younger brother |
Wil Wheaton, known for his portrayal of Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, had a part in the movie, but his scenes were cut. However, his name still appears in the closing credits and he can be seen as the tallest child running through the trailer park in one of the earliest scenes. Marc Alaimo, who played Gul Dukat in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, also has a cameo appearance as one of the assassins in human disguise sent to Earth to kill Alex Rogan by Xur (before it is "detected" and erased by a nearby Last Starfighter game).
[edit] Production
The Last Starfighter is one of the earliest films to make extensive use of computer graphics for its special effects. In place of physical models, 3D rendered models were used to depict space ships and many other objects. The Gunstar and other spaceships were the design of artist Ron Cobb, who also worked on Alien, Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian.
The computer graphics for the movie were rendered by Digital Productions on a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The company created 27 minutes of effects for the movie. This was considered an enormous amount of computer generated imagery at the time.[2] For the 300 scenes containing computer graphics in the film, each frame of the animation contained an average of 250,000 polygons, and had a resolution of 3000 × 5000 36-bit pixels. Digital Productions estimated that using computer animation required only half the time, and one half to one third the cost of traditional special effects. The result was a cost of $14 million for a film that made about $21 million at the box office.[2]
Not all special effects in the movie were done with computer animation. The depiction of the Beta unit before it had taken Alex's form was a practical effect, created out of materials and produced on-set. The StarCar driven by the Centauri character was also a real prop. It was later reused in the movie Back to the Future II as a car parked on one of the streets in the 2015 future setting.
Craig Safan's score for the film calls for an unusually large orchestra, including six trumpets and six trombones, all of which are called into use simultaneously to blare the main theme in twelve-part harmony.
[edit] Adaptations
The Last Starfighter's popularity has resulted in several non-film adaptations of the storyline and uses of the name. Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the movie shortly after it was released (ISBN 0-425-07255-X). In the same year as the release of the movie, Marvel Comics released a three issue mini-series adapting the film to comics format. In 2004, it was also adapted as an off-Broadway musical debuting at the Storm Theatre in New York City.
Several hip-hop artists have since taken to calling themselves "the Last Starfighter." Sean Daley, aka Slug from the Minnesota based hip-hop group Atmosphere, often refers to himself as the Last Starfighter in his lyrics. In RZA as Bobby Digital in Stereo Bobby Digital also refers to himself as the Last Starfighter.
[edit] Game
A real The Last Starfighter arcade game by Atari, Inc. is promised in the end credits, but was never released. If released, the game would have been the first arcade game to use a Motorola 68000 as the CPU. Gameplay would have been taken from game scenes and space battle scenes in the movie and would have included the same controller that was used on the first Star Wars arcade game. Ultimately, it was not released because the arcade machine would have had a sale price of $10,000, which the vice president in Atari considered too high.[3] A freeware playable version of the game, based on what is seen in the movie, was released for PC in 2007.[4]
Home versions of the game for Atari 2600, Atari 5200 and Atari 800 were also made, but never marketed. Ultimately, the games 16-bit version was renamed and, after removing the Last Starfighter references, sold under the name Star Raiders 2, a sequel to the very popular game Star Raiders. The Atari 2600 version was released as Solaris.
In 1990, an NES game titled "The Last Starfighter" was released, but it was actually a conversion of Uridium for Commodore 64, with modified sprites, title screen and soundtrack.
[edit] References
- ^ Crossing the Frontier: Making "The Last Starfighter" (behind-the-scenes retrospective), Universal Studios Home Video, 1999.
- ^ a b Ohio State University CG history page
- ^ PDF article about the game
- ^ Download page for freeware version of The Last Starfighter videogame
[edit] External links
- The Last Starfighter at the Internet Movie Database
- The Last Starfighter at All Movie Guide
- Animation Timeline from Brown University
- Reviews of the 2004 off-off-Broadway musical
- The Last Starfighter video game
- Arcade game specifications by Atari
Image:United States film.png American films of the 1980s |
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fr:Starfighter it:Giochi stellari ja:スターファイター (映画) ru:Последний звёздный боец (фильм)
