The Last Starfighter

Now that playing videogames is an actually career choice, the premise behind The Last Starfighter doesn't seem to be quite the fantasy it once was.  But director Nick Castle's take on the Arthurian legend is still drenched in Spielbergian Americana balanced with breakthrough computer effects that might not seem quite as revolutionary today.  But for those of us who shared Alex Rogan's dream of being plucked from obscurity to become an intergalactic hero, the film remains an imaginative bit of pre-teen wish fulfillment that has aged as well as anything from the era when Slurpees and Stargate were the height of pre-teen pop culture.

Stuck plunging toilets at his mom's trailer park, Alex's (Lance Guest) dream of escaping to college with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) is crushed when his student loan is denied.  But after breaking the record on the local Starfighter machine, an alien talent scout (Robert Preston) whisks him off to Rylos to take on Xur and the Kodan armada.   Meanwhile, a robotic duplicate, Beta (also Lance Guest), left on Earth to cover for Alex's disappearance, struggles to deal with the subtleties of teenage romance.

 

Sweet, funny and inventive, The Last Starfighter is so enjoyable you hardly notice that the Starlight Starbright trailer park is just a stand-in for Tatooine and Alex is Luke Skywalker in rumpled flannel.   Jonathan Betuel's script doesn't have to apologize as it briskly cuts between space battles, egomaniacal bad guys and reptilian co-pilots, always grounding the action with Earth-bound appeal despite the laser beams and death blossoms.

 

Much has been made of the film's then-radical use of computer-generated effects, which may look unfinished to modern eyes.  But a large part of the film's success comes its the cast, including Preston whose con man act is a brilliant riff on his Music Man past.  Meanwhile Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart make for one hell of a cute couple, whether it's clumsy backseat fumbling or dodging fish-faced assassins.  Those relationships have kept The Last Starfighter relevant while other sci-fi knockoffs have faded away.  It may be a based around a videogame, but the film has heart.

 

Arrow Video one-ups the old Universal special edition by a wide margin, starting with a new 4K restoration that really makes the colors and detail pop.  Extras include two new commentary tracks, new interviews with Catherine Mary Stewart and composer Craig Safan (whose work here really gives John Williams a run for his money), screenwriter Jonathan Betuel and the special effects crew.  The archival stuff - commentary, featurettes and trailers - are carried over and packaged with a collector's booklet. 

 

 

 

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