The 80s, as a zoomer, to me its nothing but a time of legends, of atrocious fashion sense, of fantastic Tv-shows, but most importantly, and the subject of today’s article, of amazing movies.
I still remember stumbling upon this little gem after I was returning home with my dad, and we decided to watch a movie, so we got some pizza, we went to the shady pira- *ahem* reputable DVD store, and he allowed me to go and look at the covers and pick whichever caught my eye.
The rest as they say, is history.
A simple premise
The Last Starfighter has a quite fun premise, a teenager is recruited to fight for the sake of the galaxy, the how he is selected is the fun part.
The idea came to writer Jonathan R. Beuthel when he happened to walk inside an arcade, he had been reading a book about Arthurian Legends, and he happened to see a kid playing a game, that was an eureka! Moment for Jonathan.
What if Excalibur, was a videogame instead?
Quickly he got to write, and slowly but surely, The Last Starfighter came to be.
In the movie, we follow Alex, a teenage guy who dreams of leaving the small trailer park in which him, together with his mom and younger brother, have lived the entirety of their lives, of course, taking his girlfriend with him as well.
The trailer park is a quite lovely and tightly knit small community, in which everyone knows everyone, but, suffocating for a young man such as himself, with greater aspirations. Seeing that his current state of being the handyman as a dead end life
Aspirations which come crashing down, when his application for the student loan he needed in order to go to college in the big city is rejected, don’t know man, bro dodged a bullet right there.
All he has to vent his frustrations, is a little arcade by the name of, Starfighter, so, as he usually does, he decides to burn the midnight oil by shooting down some spaceships.
The idea came to writer Jonathan R. Beuthel when he happened to walk inside an arcade, he had been reading a book about Arthurian Legends, and he happened to see a kid playing a game, that was an eureka! Moment for Jonathan.
What if Excalibur, was a videogame instead?
Quickly he got to write, and slowly but surely, The Last Starfighter came to be.
In the movie, we follow Alex, a teenage guy who dreams of leaving the small trailer park in which him, together with his mom and younger brother, have lived the entirety of their lives, of course, taking his girlfriend with him as well.
The trailer park is a quite lovely and tightly knit small community, in which everyone knows everyone, but, suffocating for a young man such as himself, with greater aspirations. Seeing that his current state of being the handyman as a dead end life
Aspirations which come crashing down, when his application for the student loan he needed in order to go to college in the big city is rejected, don’t know man, bro dodged a bullet right there.
All he has to vent his frustrations, is a little arcade by the name of, Starfighter, so, as he usually does, he decides to burn the midnight oil by shooting down some spaceships.
This night however, he is in the zone, taking down fighter after fighter, command ship after command ship, that score counter keeps going up.
And, before he knows it, everyone from the trailer park is already there giving him their support, in a quite lovely scene, Alex manages to break the world record, and celebrates the moment with everyone, even though most of them don’t even know what he just did means, they were still there to support him nonetheless.
And, before he knows it, everyone from the trailer park is already there giving him their support, in a quite lovely scene, Alex manages to break the world record, and celebrates the moment with everyone, even though most of them don’t even know what he just did means, they were still there to support him nonetheless.
In the aftermath of his achievement, he is approached by a strange man driving something akin to a Tesla fused with a Delorean, that man calls himself the developer of the game, and, tells Alex that this is the beginning of a great adventure. CoD wishes it was that effective at getting young men into the military.
To make sure the people at the trailer park don’t miss him, the strange man leaves behind a robot, known as a beta unit, meant to imitate Alex and make sure people don’t pry too much into things.
And, this is as much as I am going to say about the plot of the movie, go watch it, seriously, if you are in the mood for a feel good movie, with some really nice science fantasy action, as well as some excellent performances from everyone, stop reading right now, go watch The Last Starfighter, and come back.
Do tell me if you liked, or not, that’s fine too.
To make sure the people at the trailer park don’t miss him, the strange man leaves behind a robot, known as a beta unit, meant to imitate Alex and make sure people don’t pry too much into things.
And, this is as much as I am going to say about the plot of the movie, go watch it, seriously, if you are in the mood for a feel good movie, with some really nice science fantasy action, as well as some excellent performances from everyone, stop reading right now, go watch The Last Starfighter, and come back.
Do tell me if you liked, or not, that’s fine too.
Some extra trivia
Before we move on, lets take a little detour, to have some fun with some trivia.
It was shot in only 38 days, and surprisingly enough, it was shot mostly at night (you will understand why in a second), truly a different time, how long did Avatar 2 take?
Funnily enough, the scenes with the Beta unit (played by the same actor as Alex, duh), did quite well with test audiences, so they decided to add more, thing was, the actor, had cut his hair, and he had a cold, so he filmed those scenes, with a wig and heavy make-up, a truly dedicated man.
It was shot in only 38 days, and surprisingly enough, it was shot mostly at night (you will understand why in a second), truly a different time, how long did Avatar 2 take?
Funnily enough, the scenes with the Beta unit (played by the same actor as Alex, duh), did quite well with test audiences, so they decided to add more, thing was, the actor, had cut his hair, and he had a cold, so he filmed those scenes, with a wig and heavy make-up, a truly dedicated man.
The Last Starfighter, is also quite well known for something else.
Its CGI effects, being one of the first few to use them (along with the first Tron movie, I believe), to mixed results, it looks decent at times. Now you understand why it was filmed at night.
They still used practical effects for certain moments, even making some surprising seamless transitions between practical and CGI.
Surprisingly enough, the CGI had on average 250000 polygons (imagine that for the 80s) of 3000 x 5000 36-bit pixels, which is a reason as to why it still looks quite good in modern upscaled re-releases.
Funnily enough, it was programmed using the Fortran programming language, because it was the only language with good vectorization they had at the time (it did 3D good, for those of you who don’t understand the jargon), this is the second article of mine in which Fortran shows up, makes me wonder if its gonna be a trend.
Its CGI effects, being one of the first few to use them (along with the first Tron movie, I believe), to mixed results, it looks decent at times. Now you understand why it was filmed at night.
They still used practical effects for certain moments, even making some surprising seamless transitions between practical and CGI.
Surprisingly enough, the CGI had on average 250000 polygons (imagine that for the 80s) of 3000 x 5000 36-bit pixels, which is a reason as to why it still looks quite good in modern upscaled re-releases.
Funnily enough, it was programmed using the Fortran programming language, because it was the only language with good vectorization they had at the time (it did 3D good, for those of you who don’t understand the jargon), this is the second article of mine in which Fortran shows up, makes me wonder if its gonna be a trend.
It was difficult to get good ones, the CGI is used very sparingly.
Here is the coolest fact, many of the spaceships, including The Gunstar, were designed by Ron Cobb, an artist known for making concept art for: Star Wars, Back to the Future, Alien, Dark Star, Total Recall, among other films.
Sadly, the movie didn’t really get much praise at the time, besides the special effects that is, with most science fantasy movies having to be compared to Star Wars, the inevitable comparisons were made, I can’t really deny that it gives me New Hope vibes… Still, the movie managed to get a cult following, via the usual suspect, home media releases.
This was a time in which CGI was actually cheaper, allowing the movie to get some money back.
There have been talks of a sequel for a very long time, but they never leave idea stage, IMO the movie doesn’t need a sequel, nor a remake anyway.
This was a time in which CGI was actually cheaper, allowing the movie to get some money back.
There have been talks of a sequel for a very long time, but they never leave idea stage, IMO the movie doesn’t need a sequel, nor a remake anyway.
Videogame adaptations.
There aren’t any…
Tell me sweet little lies.
Nah, I am joking, its a bit more complicated.
Originally, Atari was meant to make a recreation of the arcade in the movie in real life (it is alluded to at the end of the movie), but, they didn’t go through with it (probably too busy going bankrupt and burying copies of E.T), apparently the suits didn’t think the movie would be a hit after they saw the post-production footage.
Oh Atari, your decisions are always baffling.
Thankfully however, there is an entire fan-game which does recreate the arcade of the movie, and, its Freeware! You can go and play it right now.
I did try my hand at it, but I was pretty bad, clearly I can’t cut it as Starfighter, what a shame.
They even made a cabinet for themselves.
There were meant to be some releases for home computers as well, but they too suffered some rather strange fates, especially taking into account, Atari peacing out from everything Last Starfighter related.
One, was released, as Star Raiders 2, there is a prototype floating around of when it was actually Last Starfighter, but, from what I saw, its pretty much the same game gameplay wise, only some changes in the visuals.
I managed to play the C64 version, and I found it pretty meh.
You are tasked with protecting some planets from enemy ships, and all you have to do is warp there and fight, minding your energy usage, as well as having to use specific weapons against specific enemies, its a decent time waster, but nothing to write home about.
One, was released, as Star Raiders 2, there is a prototype floating around of when it was actually Last Starfighter, but, from what I saw, its pretty much the same game gameplay wise, only some changes in the visuals.
I managed to play the C64 version, and I found it pretty meh.
You are tasked with protecting some planets from enemy ships, and all you have to do is warp there and fight, minding your energy usage, as well as having to use specific weapons against specific enemies, its a decent time waster, but nothing to write home about.
The other games I didn’t play, so lets cover them quickly.
Another game by Atari, was developed under the name Universe, it was going to be turned into The Last Starfighter, but got tweaked and later released under the name Solaris, cause Atari is being Atari.
There is also a NES game called The Last Starfighter, but it has nothing to do with the movie, its just a conversion of a game called Uridium for the C64.
Quite a tragic thing for a movie to be so centered around a game, not to have an actual game for itself, at least the fan-game its ok.
Another game by Atari, was developed under the name Universe, it was going to be turned into The Last Starfighter, but got tweaked and later released under the name Solaris, cause Atari is being Atari.
There is also a NES game called The Last Starfighter, but it has nothing to do with the movie, its just a conversion of a game called Uridium for the C64.
Quite a tragic thing for a movie to be so centered around a game, not to have an actual game for itself, at least the fan-game its ok.
Was this whole thing an elaborate excuse to talk about The Last Starfighter?
Yes.
I wanted to have some variety, a more casual article about a movie I like.
At least, I hope I got you curious enough to check it out.
I wanted to have some variety, a more casual article about a movie I like.
At least, I hope I got you curious enough to check it out.
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