Old Sci Fi Movies Ball Funny
A demented outer space comedy from John Carpenter.
Dark Star (1974) was a student film that John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon worked on while they were in college. They later found a film distributor who asked them to expand it to feature film length. The movie takes place in a small, cramped out of date spacecraft. Several astronauts are on board (who have been around each other to long) trying to complete their mission of destroying unstable planets. I found this film to be very entertaining and bizarre. I enjoyed it very much. The highlight of this film is when a computerized bomb decides that he doesn't want to take orders from the astronauts anymore and ponders the meaning of life. Highly recommended, but it's not your average Sci-Fi film.
A.
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I Get It & I Don't!
When one takes into account that this was the first real film venture of John Carpenter and Dan O' Bannon, two incredibly influential and talented movie personas, Dark Star is not all that bad. It has some imaginative camera shots, an intriguing storyline, and some unique, definitely not mainstream humour. The story about the humdrum nature of flying in space for an interminable time has several layers peeled in the script. If I judged the film solely on those merits, it would indeed do well. However, the film has a snail's pace and some uneven plot twists, not to mention some not very good acting. Many of Carpenter's soon-to-be-signature trademarks are clearly evident in this film. No denying it, the man has talent. The film was made with a shoestring budget, but Carpenter and crew do a workmanlike job with the resources they had. Clearly, the greatest appreciation for this film is not for the product itself but for the potential and early, evident development of Carpenter and to a lesser degree O' Bannon.
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Spaced out in outer space
Warning: Spoilers
John Carpenter's delightfully droll, dry, and deadpan debut theatrical feature relates the bleakly amusing story of a hapless spaceship crew -- mellow surfing enthusiast Lt. Doolittle (amiable Brian Narelle), gruff, belligerent Boiler (Dre Pahich), the remote and detached Talby (Cal Kuniholm), and the dim-witted Sgt. Pinback (an especially inspired performance by co-writer Dan O' Bannon) -- whose thankless mission is to float around the universe destroying unstable planets. The only problem is that after twenty years in the last great frontier these guys have become exceedingly coarse, hostile, and emotionally blank to the point where they are barely even human any more.
This often wickedly hilarious pitch-black comedy's key impressive achievement is the way it totally deromantizes the concept of space travel and reveals the drab mundane reality of drifting through various galaxies on a regular basis as basically just another soul-sucking and dehumanizing job that's just like working in the same dreary office for far too long. The amusing offbeat humor offers a wealth of genuinely clever and frequently sidesplitting moments: Pinback attempting to feed the cute, but crafty and aggressive alien mascot (said alien mascot is obviously nothing more than a beach-ball with claws!), Doolittle having a ridiculous philosophical debate with a neurotic talking bomb that's eager to blow up real good, Pinback's priceless bitter video diary, a sultry-voiced "female" computer who cheerfully warns the crew about assorted impending dangers, the deceased frozen captain dishing out advice in a whiny tone, and Doolittle using a piece of spaceship debris as a makeshift surfboard in the gloriously trippy closing shot. This grimly absurdist sensibility in turn gives the picture a feeling of remarkable peculiarity that comes across as quite natural, unforced, and ultimately endearing. The irreverence at work throughout acquires additional kooky charm and substantial impact for being presented in an admirably low-key and subtle manner. Moreover, Carpenter manages to create sequences of exceptional nerve-wracking tension amid all the rampant tomfoolery; the set piece with Pinback trapped in the elevator shaft is really harrowing at times. Douglas Knapp's cinematography makes the most out of the cramped, confined, and claustrophobic sets. Carpenter's shivery synthesizer score likewise does the trick. The twangy country song "Benson Arizona" is extremely catchy and used perfectly at the very end. The special effects are surprisingly good considering the paltry budget. Granted, the acting is pretty rough around the edges, but it works in the context of the film. A pleasingly different and distinctive one-of-a-kind treat.
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The captain is dead, but that is no problem
It all started out as a short film made at film school made by the now legendary John Carpetenter, but then they wanted to make a longer version, however they couldn't get money to remake it, so they simply added extra scenes in the middle (example, the beach ball alien).
The story is this, on a ship where the captain is dead (but you can unfreeze to ask him questions) and the rest crew are going basically crazy they have problem. One of their bombs has become sentient and is busy contemplating the nature of existence.
The effects are OK, and who would have thought the beach ball would become the inspriration for the movie Alien.
Over all one of the great classics of science fiction and of low budget film making.
I heard of this movie a long time ago and it took me over 10 years before I finally found it in my local video shop. Great and amazing movie.
What will bomb number 20 do, now it is intelligent...watch the film and find out.
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In space, no one can see you be weird
Being that this is one of the first of Carpenter's works, and that it had O'Bannon's involvement(more the former than the latter), I made it a point to get to watch it. I noticed that, for being listed a comedy, there aren't that many laughs in it... which is not at all to say that it isn't funny, portions of it certainly are, with several kinds of humor blended together well... some is clever, there's a remarkably well-done absurdity bit(and more than one thing herein is bizarre), and there are black parts, as well. Not every gag or joke works, and with how far there can be between them, I should think that someone just going into this expecting only that will leave disappointed. Meanwhile, if you dig John and the other two genres, you're likely to have a great time. There is genuine tension(he managed to do that skillfully even then), and among the technology and such are interesting aspects to be found(according to the Trivia, a little of it was even inspired by two marvelous writers in the field). Music, as usual on one of his films, is done by John Carpenter himself, and also to be expected, is really good(if not necessarily his best or most memorable). Cinematography, editing and effects all show promise of things to come, from both men. Acting could be better. Writing varies, but there is the occasional nugget of pure gold. I recommend this to any fan of Mr. Carpenter and/or Dan, as well as those who are into sci-fi. 7/10
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The Bizarro 2001
I saw this film as a kid, dismissed it as boring, and moved on. Luckily, fate forced me to see it again about 2 years ago and (some are going to hate me for this) now i consider it second only to Kubrick's 2001:A Space Odyssey. The scope is gigantic, even though we're trapped inside the goofy little ship with these rejects (and they ARE rejects). It is a spoof of man's uninformed view of his place in the universe. It is filled to capacity with malfunctioning technology, illogical solutions to self-inflicted conflicts and a very genuine feeling of the isolation of deep space.
The music (John Carpenter is an innovator in film scoring) is strange and often indistinguishable from the zany noises of the ship's equipment and displays (who would ever create such tortuous bleeps and sirens for EVERY function of a spacecraft designed to house a couple of guys in the outermost regions of the galaxy?). The ship's computer is a perfect contast of Hal9000 (2001) in that SHE seems to understand her crew's dimwitted plight and ,after speaking to them in her programmed monotone, recognizes the need to go back and dumb herself down so that they can function accordingly. It is never explained whether she has assumed a mother-figure role or is simply acting out of self-preservation ,but ,like most of the more thought-provoking elements of this absurdist's fantasy, the viewer is merely given the bare-bones information and allowed to decide for itself.
Maybe all of this implied data caused me to make the movie better in my head than it actually is ,but how many films have you seen lately that can give you that freedom?
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I never realized Pinback wrote Alien!
I first saw Dark Star about 25 years ago and have enthused about it ever since. It's definitely a movie that you've got to be in the mind for but it is funny, the music has the characteristic Carpenter style, is very hippyish in a lot of ways and the low-budget style works very well. The alien is great - apparently its feet are the ones used in "The Creature From The Black Lagoon"
It's a shame the DVD doesn't have any extras. I suppose there isn't much left lying around for them to use!
It's also incredible to think that it was only 5 years between the release of this and the release of Alien. Pinback is one of the characters in Dark Star, played by Dan O'Bannon and he is also the co-writer. Then he went on to write Alien!
Do see this film - but be in a laid-back mood when you do.
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Delightful madness in a galaxy far, far away from Benson - Arizona!
It's an undeniable truth; - John Carpenter is one the biggest geniuses to ever contribute to landmark horror, Sci-Fi and cult cinema. There are more than enough titles to exhibit his mastery in all genres ("Halloween", "The Fog", "Escape from New York", "The Thing", etc) but I never knew that his debut long-feature was a zero-budgeted and student-made spoof of space exploration cinema, and of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in particular. Moreover, since co-written by Dan O'Bannon, scripter of "Alien" and half a dozen of other brilliant classics, we actually witness the first venturing steps of two majorly influential titans! And no, their fondly cherished "Dark Star" is not a totally boring and clumsily inept try-out, but a cheerfully spirited and subtly intelligent spoof for people with a peculiar sense of humor (although, admittedly, it also took me two consecutive viewings to realize that).
The small spacecraft "Dark Star" is endlessly voyaging through the galaxy, on their twenty years long mission to destroy redundant little planets. To be entirely honest, and confirmed via a formal video message during the beginning, nobody on earth really cares about the men aboard; - not even following the electrocution accident that neutralized the Commander and reduced the crew from five to four. The cheesy (but adorable) country song playing throughout the opening credits is already quite clear and significant. Benson, Arizona, is probably one of the most boring places on earth, but still a location to desperately crave for when you're stuck in a claustrophobic shuttle in outer space! Personally, I find it genius to revolve an entire film around the message how utopic and anti-adventurous space-traveling can be, in fact, but I also reckon that many spectators are put off by the incredibly slow pacing, the almost complete lack of action and the utmost silly visuals & sound effects. The key secret to truly enjoy "Dark Star", if you're open-minded enough, is to look out for all the delightful absurdities and the insane dialogs between the astronauts mutually and with the "intelligent bomb". You simply got to love the pet alien, for instance, which is just a beach toy with duck feet, or the useless but nevertheless formal and stoic video-diaries. Heck, I even find it hilarious that the crew members don't remember each other's first names - or even their own ones - after addressing them by their last names for 20 years straight! Admittedly you require an odd cinematic taste to laugh out loud with dialogues such as: "Hey bomb, what's your number one purpose in life?" "To explode, of course!", but I certainly prefer this over dull and pretentious milestones like "Star Trek" or "2001".
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Interesting low budget sci-fi
Warning: Spoilers
This low budget sci-fi features four men far from Earth aboard less than reliable spaceship. Their mission is to find planets in unstable orbits and destroy them with the sentient bombs they are carrying. The crew have grown bored on their long mission and do what they can to keep entertained but with little success. An accident has already lead to the death of the commander and substantial damage to the ship and an encounter with an asteroid storm causes further damage to various systems; most notably one of the bombs which now wants to starts its mission.
The films low budget shows in the special effects that make those on the original 'Star Trek' look hi-tech and an alien creature, looking like a large beach ball with claws that make early 'Doctor Who' monsters look believable… surprisingly this turns out to be part of the films charm. There aren't as many laughs as I'd expected from a film billed as a comedy but there were some decent chuckles and more tense moments than I'd expected. The acting isn't the most dynamic but that helps emphasise how bored the crew are meant to be.
This film is mainly of interest because it was director John Carpenter's first film and was co-written by Dan O'Bannon who would later go on to write 'Alien'. Also it is one of the earliest films to depict space travel as something far from glamorous in the way the ship isn't large and gleaming; instead it is claustrophobic and malfunctioning. If you are a fan of sci-fi I'd certainly recommend this; it may be far from perfect but I suspect if it weren't for this little film some of the best known modern sci-fi classics would be quite different or not exist.
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Let There Be Light
(There Are Spoilers) It's a dirty and boring job but somebody got to do it: Distorying unstable planets in deep space. The scout ship "Dark Star" has been navigating the Milky Way Constellation taking out unstable and rouge planets to make safe the many solar systems in it for human colonization. With let.Dolittle, Brian Narelle, in command after the captain of the "Dark Star" Capt. Powell (Joe Sounders) was killed due to a short circuit of the spaceship caused by an violent asteroid shower.
Let. Dolittle's crew consists of Boiler Talby & Pinback, Cal Kuniholm Dre Pahich & Dan O'Bannon, who have now been in space some 20 years, 3 years in earth time, and the job that their doing is really starting to get to them mentally. Trying to liven up the ship Pinback picked up this cute little alien in space that he's made the "Dark Star's" official mascot just to bring some entertainment on board. The mascot looking like a beach ball with a pair of crows feet seems to be getting very violent due to it being stuck on the ship for years with nothing to do and is becoming a threat to itself and the crew.
Both Let. Doolittle & the ship's navigator Talby have dreams about earth and the stars that keep them from going insane from the loneliness of outer space. Dolittle dreams about his days back home in Malibu Calif. riding the waves of the Pacifc on his surf board. Talby dreams of seeing the fable Phoenix Asteroid shower, that circumnavigates the universe ever 12 billion years, and is due to come within sight of the "Dark Star" any day now.
It's the ship's beach ball looking mascot who soon gets out of control as it's master Pinback tries to clam it down. That's by giving it something to eat which in return it almost ends up killing him. Fed up with the mascot's antics, that are a danger to the ship and it's crew, Pinback finally shoots it with his ray-gun thus deflating and killing it.
Things get even worse for the "Dark Star" when it runs into a asteroid shower that, unknowing to Let. Doolittle and the crew, knocks out one of the ships lasers that controls the bombs used to obliterate the unstable planets. With the "Dark Star" now within range of a new targeted unusable planet it's ready to launch bomb #20 to detonate it. What Let. Dolittle doesn't know is that bomb #20 is unable to be launched and will explode the "Dark Star" if he arms it.
Talby finding the damaged laser, shaft #17, tries to get in touch with Let. Dolittle to stop him from activating bomb #20 but is too late. Let. Dolittle had already armed it and the bomb has 24 minutes left for it to blast off. Realizing what he did Let. Dolittle goes to see the deceased Capt. Powell who's in what seems to be an advanced state of suspended animation. Cryonicly frozen with his brain still working Capt. Powell tells Dolittle to just talk to it, the bomb, using the science of phenomenology to convince it not to explode itself as well as the crew of the "Dark Star". But as we soon find out the bomb had developed a mind of it's own which isn't on the same wavelengths as that of that of Let. Doolittle!
Sci-fi classic with direction and imagination that more then make up for it's cartoon-like special effects. Both Let. Dolittle & navigator Talby survive the "Dark Star's" destruction due to them being thrown clear from it and are left helplessly floating in their star or spacesuits in dark and endless space.
As the movie ends both the crewmen have their final wish come true. Talby is swept up by the Phoenix Astorides and becomes part of them circling the endless universe forever. Now alone and with no hope of surviving Let. Dolittle grabs onto a piece of debris floating in space from the shattered "Dark Star" and Using it like a surf board Let. Dolittle gets that perfect wave he alway look for back surfing on earth. As the film ends Let. Doolittle sails into the atmosphere of the unstable planet that the spaceship "Dark Star" was to destroy. And as he does he slowly burns to a crisp by doing it to the Country & Western tune of "Benson Arizona".
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One of my favourite films!
John Carpenter's feature debut 'Dark Star' is an absolutely brilliant little curio, that'll make you laugh and laugh. I first saw the film on England's Channel 4 a few years back, and remember wondering what the hell I was watching. I quickly tracked down a copy and rewatched it to see if it was really THAT good...
The story involves a bunch of astronauts who have been in space for many years: they spend their time blowing up unstable planets and rocking out to surf music. During this time, an alien (that looks suspiciously like a beach ball) runs riot, and an unruly bomb threatens to blow everyone to smithereens.
'Alien' screenwriter Dan O'Bannon wrote 'Dark Star', and clearly borrowed from it for the 1979 Ridley Scott film - taking the hilarious beach-ball sequence and playing it out for tension rather than laughs. Also a big influence on the TV series 'Red Dwarf'.
Check it out if you're a fan of science fiction or a fan of John Carpenter. 10/10. An underrated classic.
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Cult classic
Well OK this may not the most enjoyable film I've seen but it is certainly one of the most unique and cynical films ever. I find myself pulling out the tape and watching it again every couple of years just to give myself a reality check with all the Hollywood tripe you get these days. To make the most of it you need to watch a couple of Star Trek episodes first and then watch this. Instead of the clean-cut, politically correct, join-the-dots films that are so common now, you get a feeling that this might just be the way life on a space ship would really be.
It was really way ahead of its time. People now comment that films like Star Wars and Alien were the first to make sci-fi more 'realistic' but Dark Star pre-dates both of them by several years. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is where Scott Ridley and George Lucas got some of their ideas.
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2001 with a sense of humour.
Warning: Spoilers
Four astronauts—Doolittle (Brian Narelle), Boiler (Cal Kuniholm), Talby (Dre Pahich) and Pinback (Dan O'Bannon)— are on a deep-space mission to destroy unstable planets, but experience technical problems after passing through an asteroid field: one of their bombs keeps deploying itself, threatening to destroy the ship.
Wow! When one thinks that Dark Star started life as a USC student film, it becomes an all the more impressive experience—it's not surprising that its creators, John Carpenter (director of Halloween) and Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien, director of Return of the Living Dead), would go on to become such important names in the realms of horror and sci-fi cinema.
Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, the film brilliantly depicts the mundanity of long-haul deep-space travel, whilst provoking philosophical, phenomenological and existential debate; but unlike Kubrick's interminable, po-faced 'classic', Dark Star also offers up likable characters (including sentient thermo-nuclear bombs) and a wry sense of humour, all of which go to make this the far more entertaining movie in my humble opinion. The effects are, of course, a lot less impressive than Douglas Trumbull's work for 2001, but they work well enough in context, and while Carpenter's brooding synth music might not be as majestic as Kubrick's classical score, it proves just as effective, the perfect accompaniment to this laid-back sci-fi satire.
With such a claustrophobic environment, much of the film's brilliance lies in the witty dialogue, great character development from the amateur cast, and bags of atmosphere (for a movie set in the vacuum of space), although the film's highlight is a tense yet hilarious altercation between a mischievous beach-ball-shaped alien with webbed feet and Pinback, a scene that would later provide O'Bannon with the inspiration for his script for sci- fi/horror Alien. And although things ultimately don't work out well for the crew of the Dark Star, the bomb's logic leading it to fulfil its purpose, one can't help but feel happy for Doolittle and Talby, who end their lives doing what they love best. A downer of an ending, but a crowd-pleaser at the same time.
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wouldn't we all want to be in Benson Arizona?
Dark Star is one of the best student films I've ever seen - and I stress the term "student" here as it is more than anything the inklings of talent, the audacity on display for fellow film-making students and peers and (of course) the filmmaker's own professors to see what they can do. It's rough and crude science fiction film-making, as if a bunch of dudes in a dorm decided to remake 2001 with a beach ball, a frozen commander, and an existential talking bomb. But it's also very, very funny, the kind of humor that is intelligently sophomoric and also acutely satirical to what the genre produces. In fact, to give an idea of what it's like, Douglas Adams might have taken a look or two (if it played in Britain that is) and the inspiration for Hitchhiker's Guide might be seen. It goes without saying, of course, that it's John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon, who have had their own names attributed to various brands (Halloween/Alien), without noticing that they're also excellent at delivering comedy through a filter of awkwardness, the bizarre, and even the bad-ass intent.
On top of the humor, which never calls too much attention to itself...actually, scratch that, any movie with a beach ball as an alien and a rubber chicken used as a distraction during boredom will have to be considered a bit 'broad'. What I mean to say is that there's a fine line that Carpenter and O'Bannon work at with the material; the actors, of course, aren't the greatest at comic timing, and sometimes O'Bannon's Pinback sounds like he has just gotten out of a nerd convention with how he talks, most stilted of all (with the biggest exception being his Diary entry scene, which is howlingly funny). Yet he and the other characters also serve a purpose for the story, however loose it is: there's an attitude of the 70s (long hair, beards, a cluttered bedroom for the men covered in nudie pics) that seeps in through the pores of Dark Star, a counter-cultural f-u to the establishment by proclaiming how preposterous it all is, and then having us laugh with it instead of at it (albeit it's hard not to laugh at it once or twice, particularly with the little space-man models outside the ship in space).
But if a comic sensibility, and a grasp of what it takes to subvert the genre just enough, is in reach, so is the technical aspect, to the degree it's allowed. The budget was a paltry 55 thousand, but given many other of its low-budget contemporaries (i.e. actual B movies and not a student film) it's fairly impressive. I loved seeing the layout of the asteroid field, as if from a doodle pad. Or the ship itself gliding over a planet, only a smidgen below a similar scene from 2001. And how can one not dig the final shot, with an astronaut finding his salvation: a surf-board! Counting in with this is the cinematography, fairly sophisticated for a student work, and the music (from Carpenter, of course) being a sweet mix of weird drum beats, a classical bit during the elevator scene, and a wacky theme that if otherwise used in any film would seem ridiculous. Given how lackadaisical, and nutty, and original the dialog and settings are in this great strange bird of a movie, the song fits right in.
Both of its main creators would go on to greater things, to be certain, but Dark Star is a lot of fun, and surpasses any of its limitations of cost through ingenuity, deranged humor, and that spark of genius from time to time (particularly with the climax) that makes it builds up a cult crowd.
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What do you say to a talking bomb?
"Dark Star" is filmmaker John Carpenters' theatrical debut, expanded from a college short he wrote with his fellow student, Dan O'Bannon. Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm, Dre Pahich, and O'Bannon himself play a quartet of astronauts, 20 years into an incredibly dreary mission where they occasionally get to have some fun destroying "unstable" planets. Some trouble arises when one of their talking, sentient bombs malfunctions, and has to be reasoned with.
Although not nearly as slick as many of Carpenters' subsequent efforts, the director and his crew do the absolute best that they can with a shoestring budget (supposedly, around $55,000 all told.) Executive produced by Jack H. Harris of "The Blob" fame, it benefits from a wonderfully wacky approach. It was always intended to be a comedy, and to lovingly spoof vintage science fiction while also paying tribute to it. Nicely performed by its no name cast (with O'Bannon a comic standout as the frustrated Sgt. Pinback), it does have some genuine tension as well. There's a big elongated sequence with Pinback being forced to deal with an alien "mascot", played by a beach ball with claws. O'Bannon chases the beach ball into a series of shafts, and this material works as a forerunner to some of the stuff that O'Bannon wrote for "Alien" several years later. Best of all is the way that Lt. Doolittle (Narelle) must engage in that philosophical debate with Bomb # 20. "How do you know you exist?"
Longtime Carpenter associates Nick Castle and Tommy Lee Wallace also worked on this show. Carpenter, as was most often the case with his work, composed the music himself, and it's quite enjoyable. Carpenter also wrote the catchy country song "Benson, Arizona" (lyrics by effects expert Bill Taylor) that is heard twice, once over the opening credits and once at the end.
Good fun overall, especially for science fiction lovers and surfers. O'Bannon always vehemently insisted that he co-directed, leading to a rift between him and Carpenter when the latter took sole directing credit.
"Let there be light."
Seven out of 10.
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A silly little film
John Carpenter's first film. Must be horror you say, but you'd be wrong in that account. Dark Star is a parodied view of future, in where a group of astronauts travel in space, destroying unstable planets in danger of hitting in to the sun, thus making them in to novas.
One would think there's lots of special effects in a movie like this, and one would be right. Those special effects just aren't extremely good in any standard, but they do have lots of charm. And I actually do believe, that if this movie would have any better specials it wouldn't be as funny as it's now.
I won't spoil the movie for you, but if you like sci-fi this just might suit for you then. It gave me couple of laughs.
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Many Flaws, But Still a Watchable Space Flick
After being in space for twenty years (but only aging three) the crew of the Dark Star are starting to be at wits' end. The ship is falling apart, the computer is a little bit quirky, and a pet alien is getting restless. How much more of this madness can the men take? This film is known for one good reason: it was the film debut of John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. How much of Carpenter can be seen in here, I don't know. I'm not a huge Carpenter fan or scholar, and I can't pinpoint the similarities. The connection between this an O'Bannon's "Alien" I will leave to your imagination.
This was a student film, and it shows. I've seen better, I've seen worse. It's not a great science fiction film (the alien is so fake it's crazy) and the comedy is a bit sparse (the bombs are funny, but most of it just sort of drags). I, for one, loved the phenomenology bit, but then I was forced to study that bunkum for three semesters, so I'm glad to see it made light of.
John Carpenter completists need to see this film. It has some charm. I will maybe take it off the shelf and watch it a second time soon to rethink my position, but this just didn't really strike me as the signs of a budding genius. Oddly, the other Carpenter film I don't much like is "Ghosts of Mars", so many it's his treatment of space that I don't care for. Who knows?
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Astronauts on a senseless mission through Space, Philosophic Bombs, a lot of subtle humor, and those bearts oh my, oh my..
A Great Movie, i think it was made in Film School and is the first Movie available by John Carpenter.. The great thing besides the Humor, are those little typical low-budget Mistakes like the actor in the "lift" scene who is pretty clearly just lying on a common Floor.. The "mOnster" is amazing too its funny to see how a Ball with gloves can actually act, and a little music makes it scary..
The Last Scene is clearly inspired by Ray Bradburys (Fahrenheit 451) Short Story "Kaleidoscope"..
Sorry for my poor English, but i just had to write something to this incredible piece of film..
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REAL astronauts have long hair and beards.
Warning: Spoilers
"Don't give me any of that intelligent life stuff, give me something I can blow up!" Doolittle.
Lieutenant Doolittle is in charge of 'Dark Star', a ship on a lonely mission to destroy unstable planets in systems targeted for colonisation. The ship has been on it's mission for twenty years, but the crew have only aged three years. Doolittle has been in charge since an explosion killed Commander Powell, rendered the sleeping quarters uninhabitable and destroyed the ship's entire supply of toilet paper. In order to deal with the excruciating boredom of the mission and the frustration at having only three other astronauts for company the ship's computer, which has an alluringly soothing and sexy female voice, pipes in muzak and easy listening jazz. Doolittle misses surfing. Boiler has taken to shooting holes in things. Talby lives in isolation in the the observation dome. Pinback isn't really Pinback, not that anyone even cares. Excitement arrives when an asteroid inflicts damage on the ship's systems, prematurely activating one of the highly intelligent, eager and earnest planet killer bombs. To complicate things the alien needs feeding, and Bomb 20 just wants to do its job and is getting increasingly frustrated and belligerent.
"Bomb, are you willing to entertain a few concepts?" Doolittle
"I am always receptive to suggestions!" Bomb 20
'Dark Star' was made in 1974, initially as a college project, and launched the careers of John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon, amongst others (Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle, long term Carpenter collaborators both, worked on 'Dark Star' and the ship's interior and exterior were designed by the great Ron Cobb). From the very start Carpenter's style is evident, the widescreen image is utilised to absolute maximum effect without a bit of wasted space on screen, the signature electronic music is present throughout (with the exception of the cheerfully optimistic trucker song 'Benson, Arizona' which serves as title song), and the pacing and editing are perfect. The film is not boring for a minute despite the lack of resources. The special effects, while cheap and cheerful, serve the film perfectly (I've always managed to suspend disbelief more easily in the face of cheap practical effects than I have when faced with unconvincing computer generated effects), particularly the psychedelic hyperspace sequences. The film as a whole is a tour de force of tricks and gags, a veritable 'How To' of practical effects that, once staples of cinema, are now being superseded by CGI. 'Dark Star' has influenced science fiction film-making ever since and just as 'Dark Star' tips it's hat to it's inspirations (for example 'THX1138'), it in turn will be referenced for many years to come.
I can't tell you how much I love this film. It's funny and moving (Pinback's video diary is burned in my memory), and, a groundbreaking movie in 1974, it still feels fresh 31 years later. The product of post-Vietnam and Watergate era America it still resonates today because in an age of ever smarter bombs and increasingly advanced technology we remain at the mercy of chance and human frailty.
It's also the only film in history to feature a man discussing phenomenology with a bomb. Priceless!
A perfect ten out of ten.
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Science fiction with a funny bone
I saw this movie for the first time at the USA Film Festival. Held here in Big D every spring, the USAFF showcases films produced here in the USA. (No foreign films)
Each night they would show two new films, plus a retrospective film from the actor or director being honored that year. After the film, the film critic who selected the film would interview one or more of the people involved with the film's production.
Towards the end of the week, I arrived at the Bob Hope Theatre (on the SMU campus) to find a notice on the chalkboard: one of the films had cancelled out, and "Dark Star" a "sci-fi comedy" would be shown in its place.
Bringing science fiction and comedy together is a tricky business: usually either the SF content or the humor suffers. Or both.
I ended up being pleasantly surprised. The special effects were a little cheesy (Carpenter originally shot it as a film student, on a film students "budget"), but the characters were funny, and they got off some nice riffs.
Carpenter and O'Bannon (who also co-wrote the first "Alien" movie) produce a collection of odd characters on an extended mission. For the last 20 years they've been travelling the galaxies in search of "unstable planets" to destroy.
Unfortunately, the crew is falling apart. Boredom, apathy, mechanical malfunctions and a puckish alien mascot ensure that things only get worse and worse.
There's a clever parody of a scene from "2001" occurs when one of the bombs can't be released and has to be talked out of exploding.
And there's a reverse reference to one of O'Bannon's own script for "Alien" when the alien gets free and one of the crew has to track the thing down. (O'Bannon refers to this as "Alien" turned upside-down: instead of the alien chasing the crew, one of the crew chases the alien)
Lots of fun. Eight stars.
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A turning point in Science Fiction
Up until "Dark Star", crews of rocket ships were usually "spit and polish", highly disciplined members of a crew all working towards a common goal in harmony. This was the image of the astronauts as promulgated by NASA. Dark Star introduced the negative dynamic to spaceship crews: space travel was ho-hum, they had little contact with earth, and everyone had gotten sick of each other.
Dan O'Bannon used this to good effect in "Alien".
Also, the use of contemporary music was highly original and helped move the movie along.
The scene where they talk to the bomb was just a rip-off from Star Trek and the episode "The Ultimate Computer".
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Craftily Unfunny
Comedy is as subjective as anything gets. It all depends on the persons preference of humor. Personally, I never laughed once during this movie. I get the fact they were playing off of cheap effects and sci-fi cliches, but humor is just really thin and bland. It came to the point were the film became bothersome and ultimately boring, as I was waiting for something amusing to slip through. It wasn't completely terrible, being because John Carpenter, even in 1974, possessed an good eye for camera work and visual shots. The f/x isn't bad for it's time, and Carpenter at least makes the film nice to look at.
Some may find it funny, but I found it dreadfully repetitive, boring, and void of anything funny. Stay away unless your interested in seeing how Carpenter got his start.
2/10
0 / * * * *
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Wildly Uneven But A Few Moments of Transcendance
Opinions vary widely on this one and I can see why. In the movie's favor is its bizarre energy and atmosphere which makes its melange of scifi horror and comedy intermittently hypnotic. On the downside are the truly amateurish production values and pathetic acting. Most of this movie has the look of some longhaired grad film school students with no life shooting a quasi-homage to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY guerilla style in their college dorm in the middle of the night. Aspects are intriguing, though, including the alternatively exasperating yet also humorous renegade beach ball monster attacks, which are clearly Dan O'Bannon's fledgling version of his later far scarier and cleverer ALIEN screenplay. The dialogue between the astronauts and the Hal 9000-esque bomb is definitely the funniest sequence; the movie probably should have been a 20 minute short focusing on this portion rather than a full blown feature length effort with all the other boring subplots, which feel tacked-on like they decided to extend the movie at some point but couldn't come up with anything resembling an organic structuring to justify it.
Carpenter does come up with interesting solutions to budget problems, like creating a fake futuristic elevator by using forced perspective on their dorm room floor and turning the camera on its side. The effect very nearly works!
In all, this is probably best viewed as an early failed effort by two talents who went on to bigger and brighter things. Carpenter's techno music is at its disharmonically buzzy worst here; amazing that a mere four years later he would craft the masterful music, script and direction for the truly harrowing HALLOWEEN. That movie bears almost no resemblance to this one and is a testament to how far someone can come in such a short span. It has to give the worst hack considerable hope (along the lines of James Cameron going from PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING to TERMINATOR.) If you rent this for $0.99 and go in with no expectations, you'll probably still be disappointed, but there are a few inexplicably charming moments amidst the mostly boring and monotonously dated peek into the "future world" of the 1990s by minds of the 1970s. 1.5 / 4 stars (but I still pause on it whenever I stumble onto it on late night cable.)
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A Surreal Sci-Fi Classic
BStu 20 January 1999
I, too, caught this one on a Late Late Movie airing. What a hidden gem! The production value may be about what you'd expect from low budget early 70's Science Fiction, but it hardly detracts from the great writing and direction. It kept amazing me with the way it could deliver some of the best lines with such a wry subtleness that really impressed me. The metaphysical discussion at the end was classic and Pinback's past was also brilliantly done. The ending was a bit cheesy, but alien beachballs, campy explosions, and an absurdly sized ship model aside, this movie is genius.
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Uneven but fun John Carpenter debut
John Carpenter's debut film began life as a student affair made along with his friend Dan O'Bannon but it progressed to this feature movie. Regardless of the extra money it looks charmingly cheap in every regard. Its essentially hippies in space, with some fun moments sprinkled throughout. It spoofs the likes of 2001 with its sentient bomb and ironically has O'Bannon's character chase the most unconvincing alien of all time around the spaceship (I say ironically, as 5 years later O'Bannon would write the screenplay for Alien, which has the most convincing alien of all time running around a ship). Its not always very funny and it most certainly is an uneven experience but this is very likeable and inventive; while anything that kicked things off for John Carpenter has to have good things about it.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/reviews
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