The Last Starfighter

The Last Starfighter
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Nick Castle
Written by	Jonathan R. Betuel
Produced by	Gary Adelson Edward O. Denault
Starring	Lance Guest Dan O'Herlihy Catherine Mary Stewart Robert Preston
Cinematography	King Baggot
Edited by	Carroll Timothy O'Meara
Music by	Craig Safan
Production companies	Lorimar Productions Universal Pictures
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	July 13, 1984 (1984-07-13)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15 million
Box office	$28.7 million

The Last Starfighter is a 1984 American space opera film directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), a teenager who, after winning the high score in an arcade game that's secretly a simulation test, is recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also features Dan O'Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Robert Preston in his final role in a theatrical film. The character of Centauri, a "lovable con-man", was written with him in mind and was a nod to his most famous role as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man (1962).

The Last Starfighter was released on July 13, 1984, by Universal Pictures. It received $28.7 million in the worldwide box office, against a budget of $15 million, and positive reviews from critics. The film, along with Walt Disney Pictures' Tron (1982), has the distinction of being one of cinema's earliest films to use extensive "real-life" computer-generated imagery (CGI) to depict its many starships, environments, and battle scenes. There was a subsequent novelization of the film 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.

Plot

Alex Rogan is a teenager living in a trailer park with his mother and younger brother Louis, spending most of his spare time as the park's ad hoc handyman. Aside from his girlfriend Maggie, Alex's only diversion from his mundane existence is an arcade game called Starfighter, in which the player is "recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in a space battle. On the evening he breaks the game's record as its highest-scoring player, Alex becomes angry and depressed on learning his bank loan for a college tuition has been rejected.

The inventor of Starfighter, Centauri, arrives in a futuristic car with a proposition for Alex. Centauri is in fact a disguised alien and his car a spacecraft. Alex is taken to the planet Rylos while Beta, a doppelgänger android, is used to cover Alex's absence. Alex learns there is actually a real conflict between a Star League of peaceful worlds and the oppressive Ko-Dan Empire; the latter's armada, poised to invade Rylos, is led by Xur, a tyrannical Rylan traitor who has sabotaged the Frontier forcefield shielding Rylos and other worlds from the Ko-Dan. The last line of defense against the armada is a small fleet of Gunstar spacecraft, operated by "Navigators" paired with gunners called "Starfighters". Centauri's Starfighter arcade game is a recruiting tool designed to train Starfighters. Alex meets a friendly reptilian Navigator named Grig, and explains his unwillingness to take part in the coming conflict. Grig sympathizes with Alex while Centauri tries to persuade him to stay, touting him as a gifted Starfighter.

Xur contacts Starfighter Command as Alex watches. After publicly executing a Star League spy, Xur threatens Rylos with imminent invasion, and an unnerved Alex asks to be taken home. On Earth, a disappointed Centauri gives Alex a means to contact him should he change his mind. A saboteur eliminates Starfighter Command's defenses and the Ko-Dan attack, killing the Starfighters and destroying their Gunstars. The saboteur warns Xur of Alex's escape.

Alex discovers Beta and contacts Centauri to retrieve him. Centauri arrives just as Alex and Beta are attacked by a Zando-Zan, an alien assassin in Xur's service. Centauri is wounded protecting Alex, and he and Beta explain that more of them will be on their way to Earth; the only way for Alex to protect himself, his family, and his world is to embrace his ability as a Starfighter. Alex agrees, and Centauri flies Alex back to Starfighter Command before succumbing to his injury. Alex and Grig take off in a prototype Gunstar which survived the earlier attack.

While Grig mentors Alex, Beta finds it difficult to maintain his impersonation, particularly with Maggie. When another Zando-Zan shoots Beta in front of Maggie, revealing to both that Beta is an android imposter, Beta reveals everything to Maggie. They steal a pickup truck and chase the Zando-Zan back to its ship as it attempts to warn Xur. Beta has Maggie jump out before sacrificing himself by crashing the truck into the ship, destroying both and leaving the assassin's warning incomplete.

The arrogant Xur assumes Alex has been eliminated and orders the armada to invade, but is quickly proven wrong as Alex and Grig ambush his command ship from behind. Ko-Dan Commander Kril orders Xur's arrest, but Alex's attack severely damages the command ship's weapons and communications with its fighters, and Xur escapes in the confusion. Alex and Grig attack the Ko-Dan fighters but are outnumbered and overwhelmed. Alex desperately activates a secret weapon that quickly destroys the remaining fighters. Kril attempts to ram them, but Alex cripples the command ship further, causing it to crash into Rylos' moon.

Alex is proclaimed the savior of Rylos, and is persuaded to stay and help rebuild the Star League's Starfighter legion by Grig, Rylan Ambassador Enduran, and a recovered Centauri. Alex and Grig briefly return to Earth, landing their Gunstar in the trailer park, where Grig tells its residents of Alex's heroism. Alex bids his family farewell and asks Maggie to come with him, and she agrees. Inspired, Louis begins playing the Starfighter game.

Cast

• Lance Guest as Alex Rogan / Beta Alex Rogan
• Robert Preston as Centauri
• Dan O'Herlihy as Grig
• Catherine Mary Stewart as Maggie Gordon
• Norman Snow as Xur
• Kay E. Kuter as Ambassador Enduran
• Barbara Bosson as Jane Rogan
• Chris Hebert as Louis Rogan
• Dan Mason as Lord Kril
• Vernon Washington as Otis
• John O'Leary as Rylan Bursar
• George McDaniel as Kodan 1st Officer
• Charlene Nelson as Rylan Technician
• John Maio as Friendly Alien
• Al Berry as Rylan Spy
• Scott Dunlop as Tentacle Alien
• Peter Nelson as Jack Blake
• Peggy Pope as Elvira
• Meg Wyllie as Granny Gordon
• Ellen Blake as Clara Potter
• Britt Leach as Mr. Potter
• Bunny Summers as Mrs. Boone
• Owen Bush as Mr. Boone
• Marc Alaimo as Hitchhiker
• Wil Wheaton as Louis' Friend
• Cameron Dye as Andy
• Geoffrey Blake as Gary

Production

Rio Groceries, filming location of The Last Starfighter, in 2014

Shelley Lake at Digital Productions in 1983 choreographing a scene from The Last Starfighter. Pictured at the IMI-500 workstation is a simulation of the Starcar.

The Last Starfighter was shot in 38 days, mostly night shoots in Canyon Country. It was 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 Dark Star, Alien, Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian.

The computer graphics for the film were rendered by Digital Productions (DP) on a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The company created 27 minutes of effects for the film. This was considered an enormous amount of computer generated imagery at the time. 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 between a third to half of the cost of traditional special effects. The result was a cost of $14 million for a film that made close to $29 million at the box office.

DP used Fortran, CFT77 for programming:

Everything was in FORTRAN, because it was the only language with vectorization when we started and remained the only language with good vectorization through the life of DP.

— email from Larry Yaeger (lead software programmer in Digital Productions) (2020.03.30)

Not all special effects in the film were done with computer animation. The depiction of the Beta unit before it had taken Alex's form was a practical effect, created by makeup artist Lance Anderson. The Starcar, created by Gene Winfield and driven by Centauri, was a working vehicle based on Winfield's Spinner designs from Blade Runner.

Because the test audiences responded positively to the Beta Alex character, director Nick Castle added more scenes of Beta Alex interacting with the trailer park community. Because Lance Guest had cut his hair short after initial filming had been completed and he contracted an illness during the re-shoots, his portrayal of Beta Alex in the added scenes has him wearing a wig and heavy makeup. Wil Wheaton had a few lines of dialogue that were ultimately cut from the film, but he still is visible in the background of several scenes.

Music

Main article: The Last Starfighter (soundtrack)

Composer Craig Safan wanted to go "bigger than Star Wars" and therefore utilized a "Mahler-sized" orchestra, resulting in an unusual breadth of instruments, including "quadruple woodwinds" and "eight trumpets, [trombones], and horns!"

Reception

Critical response

At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Last Starfighter received an approval rating of 76%, based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While The Last Starfighter is clearly derivative of other sci-fi franchises, its boundary-pushing visual effects and lovably plucky tone make for an appealing adventure". Metacritic gave the film a score of 67 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Over time it has developed a cult following.

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars. While the actors were good, particularly Preston and O'Herlihy, Ebert wrote The Last Starfighter was "not a terrifically original movie" but it was nonetheless "well-made". Colin Greenland reviewed The Last Starfighter for Imagine magazine, and stated that "apart from a mildly amusing little sub-plot with the android replica left on Earth to conceal his absence, Alex's adventure is strictly the movie of the video game: simple as can be, and pitched at a pre-teen audience who can believe Alex and Grig blasting a hundred alien ships and escaping without a scratch." Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as "a surprisingly pleasant variation on the Star Wars boom, with sharp and witty performances from two reliable character actors and some elegant gadgetry to offset the teenage mooning".

In 2017, Variety described it as having "a simple yet ingenious plot" and continued "the action is suitably fast and furious, but what makes the movie especially enjoyable are the quirky character touches given to Guest and his fellow players." Variety also noted that film critic Gene Siskel described The Last Starfighter as the best of all Star Wars imitators. Alan Jones awarded it three stars out of five for Radio Times, writing that it was a "glossy, space-age fairy tale" and "highly derivative — Star Trek-like aliens have Star Wars-inspired dog-fights against a computer-graphic backdrop — but the sensitive love story between Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart cuts through the cuteness and gives the intergalactic adventures a much-needed boost."

Adaptations

The Last Starfighter's popularity has resulted in several non-film adaptations of the storyline and uses of the name.

Musical

A musical adaptation was first produced at the Storm Theatre Off-Off Broadway in New York City in October 2004 with music and lyrics by Skip Kennon and book by Fred Landau. In November 2005, the original cast recording was released on the Kritzerland label.

Books

Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the film shortly after it was released (ISBN 0-425-07255-X).

Comics

In the same year as the release of the film, Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Bill Mantlo and artists Bret Blevins and Tony Salmons in Marvel Super Special #31. The adaptation was also available as a three issue limited series.

Games

In 1984, FASA, a sci-fi tabletop game maker, created a gaming system The Last Starfighter: Tunnel Chase for The Last Starfighter.

Video games

Arcade

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 Atari's first 3D polygonal arcade game to use a Motorola 68000 as the CPU. Gameplay would have been taken from game scenes and space battle scenes in the film and would have included the same controller that was used on the first Star Wars arcade game. The game was abandoned once Atari representatives saw the film in post-production and decided it was not going to be a financial success.

Home

Home versions of the game for the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 consoles and Atari 8-bit computers were also developed, but never commercially released under the Last Starfighter name. The home computer version was eventually renamed and released (with some minor changes) as Star Raiders II. A prototype exists for the Atari 2600 Last Starfighter game, which was in actuality a game already in development by Atari under the name Universe. This game was eventually 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.

A freeware playable version of the game, based on what is seen in the film, was released for PC in 2007. This is a faithful reproduction of the arcade game from the film and features full sound effects and music from the game. The creators of this game, Rogue Synapse, have also built a working arcade cabinet of the game.

Potential sequel

In February 2008, production company GPA Entertainment added "Starfighter – The sequel to the classic motion picture Last Starfighter" to its list of projects and two months later the project was reported to be "stuck in the pre-production phase". It was still there as of January 2012. Hollywood directors, including Seth Rogen and Steven Spielberg, as well as screenwriter Gary Whitta, have expressed interest in creating a sequel or remake, but Jonathan R. Betuel has allegedly indicated that he does not want another film made.

The rights to the film have not been clearly defined due to conflicting information. Multiple sources say Universal Pictures still owns the theatrical and home media distribution rights while Warner Bros., which absorbed Lorimar-Telepictures (Lorimar's successor) in 1990, has the international distribution rights. Another source states that Universal has the option to remake the film while Betuel has sequel rights. Further complicating the situation is a claim that both Universal and Warner Bros. each have remake and sequel rights.

In July 2015, it was reported that Betuel will write a TV reboot of the film.

On April 4, 2018, Whitta posted concept art for The Last Starfighter sequel on his Twitter account. In the same tweet he also indicated that Betuel will be collaborating with him on the project. In a follow-up interview with Gizmodo, Whitta referred to the project as "a combination of reboot and sequel that we both think honors the legacy of the original film while passing the torch to a new generation."

On October 20, 2020, Betuel stated that, with Whitta, a script for a sequel is being written and the rights to the film were recaptured.

On March 25, 2021, Whitta posted a sequel concept reel on YouTube called The Last Starfighters with concept art by Matt Allsopp and music by Chris Tilton and Craig Safan and featuring an audio clip from the original movie by Robert Preston.

See also

• Ender's Game — a 1977 short story/novelette by Orson Scott Card
• Armada — A 2015 novel by Ernest Cline with a similar premise

External links

• The Last Starfighter at IMDb
• The Last Starfighter at the TCM Movie Database
• The Last Starfighter at Letterboxd
• Animation Timeline from Brown University
• The Last Starfighter video game
• Arcade game specifications by Atari Archived September 23, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
• Podcast about The Last Starfighter by the Retroist