"You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada"
The Last Starfighter was released in 1984, part of a wave of science fiction films released in the wake of Return of the Jedi, trying to capitalize on the success of Star Wars. Most of these were relatively awful and forgettable, at best pastiches that tried to emulate the window dressing of the franchise without the talent or effects to compare to the trilogy or stand up on their own. The Last Starfighter is the only exception I'm aware of, and to this day I think I actually like it more than Star Wars, though its definitely a smaller, less ambitious story.
Together with its contemporary, Tron, Last Starfighter is notable as the first film to make extensive use of CGI effects, ironically the element that would come to define the Star Wars prequels and re-releases. Though obviously dated, the effects hold up surprisingly well to this day.
Together with its contemporary, Tron, Last Starfighter is notable as the first film to make extensive use of CGI effects, ironically the element that would come to define the Star Wars prequels and re-releases. Though obviously dated, the effects hold up surprisingly well to this day.
This is a film I rewatch on a pretty regular basis, and the potent blend of nostalgia and that optimistic charm that defined the 80s, but was largely cast out in favour of the cynicism of modern Hollywood, makes returning to it a pleasure in the same category for me as Critters, Better Off Dead, and Buckeroo Banzai.
The concept is a strong one as far as children's fantasies go: a teen growing up in a small rural community dreams of getting out into the wider world. To pass the time he plays an arcade game at the local gas station eponymously titled "The Last Starfighter." Typical teens trials and tribulations regarding friends, girls, and family occurs, and one night, full of frustration and angst, he makes his way to the game and finally manages to beat it. And this is where things get weird.
The concept is a strong one as far as children's fantasies go: a teen growing up in a small rural community dreams of getting out into the wider world. To pass the time he plays an arcade game at the local gas station eponymously titled "The Last Starfighter." Typical teens trials and tribulations regarding friends, girls, and family occurs, and one night, full of frustration and angst, he makes his way to the game and finally manages to beat it. And this is where things get weird.
Our protagonist is suddenly confronted by the game's designer, who - naturally - turns out to be an alien, who designed the game as a recruitment test to find starship pilots to fight in an actual intergalactic war. This improbable means of enlistment is an act of desperation as the "good guys" are losing pretty badly at this point, and sure enough after our hero initially freaks out when confronted with the reality of an off planet battle (Campbell's "Hero Reject's the Call" archetypal trope #1), the good guys are pretty much wiped out and he finds himself the universe's last hope.
This isn't the sort of film that can be taken too seriously, but it makes up for its small budget and goofy story with some exceptional veteran actors, an improbably witty and intelligent script, a very good score that manages to tap into the spirit of William's iconic Star Wars themes without simply bastardizing them, and some pretty high quality creature effects.
From what I understand, the film was a modest success, and everyone I know who saw the film growing up in the 80s remembers it fondly. I suppose one might consider it a "cult classic" in this day and age, one that surprisingly (perhaps mercifully) was never subjected to a sequel or reboot. Though there was, oddly enough, an off-broadway musical adaption!
This isn't the sort of film that can be taken too seriously, but it makes up for its small budget and goofy story with some exceptional veteran actors, an improbably witty and intelligent script, a very good score that manages to tap into the spirit of William's iconic Star Wars themes without simply bastardizing them, and some pretty high quality creature effects.
From what I understand, the film was a modest success, and everyone I know who saw the film growing up in the 80s remembers it fondly. I suppose one might consider it a "cult classic" in this day and age, one that surprisingly (perhaps mercifully) was never subjected to a sequel or reboot. Though there was, oddly enough, an off-broadway musical adaption!
...But the curious story of this film is actually its relationship to video games. The LAst Starfighter was conceived of during the height of the Arcade era. For those who never lived through this brief cultural phenomenon, its difficult to explain. From the late 70s to the mid 80s, arcades were as ubiquitous as gas stations in North America. Every kid I knew would spend hours at these places, that became social meccas for youth in the same manner as supermalls. The Golden Age of video games saw vast innovation for a time, but began to cool as arcades were saturated with generic copies of popular games. What in 1981 was a billion-dollar business would crash in 1983, just before The Last Starfighter's release.
Which is why there wasn't a Last Starfighter video game when the film came out. Generation X is the "merchandising generation", and even at that tender age I thought it was bizarre that I couldnt play this game from a film I loved so much. Especially as the end credits of the film actually advertised a game from Atari!
Which is why there wasn't a Last Starfighter video game when the film came out. Generation X is the "merchandising generation", and even at that tender age I thought it was bizarre that I couldnt play this game from a film I loved so much. Especially as the end credits of the film actually advertised a game from Atari!
This was different than the similar situation with Superman III, which feature a videogame sequence that it turns out was far too advanced for the period.
The Last Starfighter's featured gameplay was completely in line with the game technology of the era, being similar in concept to the original Star Wars arcade game.
It was also the opposite of the situation with the contemporary Arcade game Dragon's Lair, which I waited for years an animated feature of which to be released*...
...and the original Legend of Zelda game; the illustrations in the original game manual I was for years was convinced were cells from a Japanese animated film that for some reason was never released Stateside.
Anyhow, it turns out there was a Last Starfighter game developed, and was about 75% complete when it was cancelled for budgetary reasons, the most prevalent being the Arcade industry crash. If finished, this game would have been the first to make use of the newly-designed Motorola 68000 CPU, a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor that would later be utilized by the first Apple Macintosh computer and whose underlying architecture is still in use to this day.
A home version of the Last Starfighter game for the Atari console was also developed, but was similarly shelved, until later being released as Star Raiders II, a sequel to the original Star Raiders, which was actually a graphical version of a text-based Star Trek game!
6 years later, in 1990, Nintendo would release an 8-bit Last Starfighter game, though it was much too little, too late, and was actually simply a conversion of an old unrelated Commodore 64 game that had no similarities to the game featured in the film.
With the dawn of the internet, for years there were rumours that The Last Starfighter game actually existed, in its completed form. This became one of the more persistent video game urban legends, up there with Polybius (the game that caused players to go insane). But this was not made a reality until 2012, when a company called Rogue Synapse got a hold of the original designs and finally made a completed version.
Though purchasing the actual arcade cabinet is a bit prohibitively expensive for most of us, luckily Rogue Synapse was nice enough to make a ROM of the game available for free download online: http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php
I've...never done so. It warms my heart to know that this is out there, and exists now, I feel like that in and of itself completes some childhood quest. But I've long since outgrown the me that would have enjoyed this. I prefer it exist as a memory.
And now if you'll excuse me, I think in writing this I've just engendered the urge to once again pop in my Last Starfighter DVD...
I've...never done so. It warms my heart to know that this is out there, and exists now, I feel like that in and of itself completes some childhood quest. But I've long since outgrown the me that would have enjoyed this. I prefer it exist as a memory.
And now if you'll excuse me, I think in writing this I've just engendered the urge to once again pop in my Last Starfighter DVD...
* There was however, quite recently, an Indigogo campaign by Bluth to finally make an animated film based on Dragon's Lair. Dragon's Lair is something I'll probably devote an entire post to at some point in the future.