Dark Star

CLASSIC B MOVIE I SAW AS A KID IN THE THEATRES ALONG SIDE ROCKY HORROR AND OTHERS. STILL HOLDS UP. WORTH THE WATCH FOR PSYCH DRAMA AND ABSURD HIGH JINKS.

I'm not a huge fan of movies to be honest. Anything I watch in the theater with friends just bores or disturbs me, and most everything else just doesn't match my taste. I am, however, a HUGE music freak and one of my favorite bands is Pinback. I learned in an interview with Rob Crow and Zach Smith about how their name is taken from the character in this movie and they often have used direct quotes from Dark Star in their songs. So how could I resist? Let me tell you- this movie is incredibly creative, unexpected, and get this: it actually made me LAUGH! Now that's next to impossible! There are so many classic parts in the movie, especially with Pinback's little mishaps and failed attempts at making the crew laugh, the beachball alien, Doolittle's attempts at convincing the bomb not to blow up, and sooo much more! People laugh at how corny old space films are such as making fun of their concepts of cellular phones and other things we have today in a much superior form. Not so with this movie! There's so many cool things going on in here that we still aren't capable of and work out awesome in the movie, particularly the ability to talk to Captain Powell's dead body through a wire hook up to his brain. Now that's just cool, and not just because he's encased in ice! This is a great movie, and the fact that there was a low budget for it with cheap special effects only makes it more charming. These effects are actually integrated insanely well and don't even remotely detract from the film! I can't wait to watch it again! My favorite band may have led me to one of my favorite movies!

Director/writer John Carpenter's short college film project of DARK STAR was, some months later, augmented by him to feature-length. Despite its meager budget look, there's an undeniable realism in this story of a crew of four who've been stuck together for 20 years on a mission to eliminate planets that, if left alone, will cause cosmic chaos (crashing into suns, and so on). Their commander is dead but can still communicate with visitors even though he's cryogenically frozen into a block of ice.The nominal main character, Sgt. Pinback (O'Bannon) isn't even who he's supposed to be; donning another man's uniform at the wrong moment was all it took to launch him into space, maybe forever. The ersatz Pinback laments his bad luck and the crew he's trapped with, also an alien life form that looks like either an underinflated beach ball or an overgrown pumpkin. He's responsible for feeding this mischievous mushy orb, and the chore is a real pain. Pinback particularly hates Lt. Doolittle, the new chief astronaut whose fondest wish is to surf a big wave.Talby, a gentle but somewhat anti-social crew member, spends his days in an observation bubble, just hoping to catch a glimpse of a colorful meteor swarm that circles the universe once every trillion years or so.When Talby stumbles into a laser beam, he causes a system malfunction that prevents a planet-busting bomb from launching. The talking nuke will detonate in just a few minutes. It can't be budged from beneath the ship and refuses to disarm and return to the cargo bay. What will the men of Dark Star do to avert destruction?Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 IMDb viewer poll rating.(6.6) Dark Star (1974) - Dan O'Bannon/Dre Pahich/Brian Narelle/Cal Kuniholm (uncredited: John Carpenter - voice)

Ignore the person who said this movie is "boring." It is wonderful!I'm delighted that I've had the opportunity to watch this absolute treasure of a movie.

Watched to see John Carpenter's first movie. It is doughy and boring in some parts, but overall, it works. It's a good movie. There's some insanely fantastic stuff that a bunch of film students were able to pull off better than some studios at the time and a lot of the humor is timelessly hilarious. Reminds me a lot of Catch-22.

There's not much more I can to add to the reviews posted here. AS a kid, I saw this film when it was released, and was blown away. Remember, this film predates star wars and alien by years. I had seen nothing like it as far as the space special effects, the talking bomb, the excellent ship, etc. The space scenes still hold up, especially for the budget. Sure, there are some cheesy effects and such. But so what? The plot, humor, and intelligence of the film far outweigh that.I have to disagree about the "hippie" comments. I was on a submarine, and I think most other submariners would agree that these guys could have been on the boat. They act a lot like guys I knew after we were underwater for a few months. Lots of quirks and odd humor. It's almost like Carpenter did research on sub guys for his crew.They have hippie-like qualities because they've just given up on shaving and hair cutting. After all, what's the point?But in the sequences where they're doing their job, they act just like a sub crew going to battle stations. No nonsense, everything is like clockwork. The Job is first. I didn't really notice this until I got the DVD and watched it recently.So see the flick with an open mind, and if you can overcome the silly effects in parts of the movie, you might get a few good laughs and think about the film the next day.

This is a review of the classic 1974 Sci-Fi comedy, ‘Dark Star’. We watched it on the 2012 Region B2 Blu-ray from Fabulous Films. This edition, sourced from an original Theatrical print, was digitally remastered and restored, frame by frame. It plays in 1.85:1 Widescreen, and DTS-HD 5.1 audio. Given the travails of this film over the years: shot in 16mm; transferred to 35mm for theatrical release; tweaked; added to; edited back down; this release is very good. It is colourful, bright, pretty sharp, and clean. The sound is fine. You can choose between the original 83 minute Theatrical version or the 73 minute Director’s Cut (we chose the former, which we knew), and there are plenty of quality extras.So, how much should a good Sci-Fi film cost? ‘Star Wars’(1977), cost $11 million; ’Aliens’(1986), $18.5 million; ‘Terminator 2’(1991), around $100 million; ‘Avatar’(2009), $237 million. Other early to mid ‘70s films in the genre, cost from around $5 to $19 million ~ ‘The Andromeda Strain’(1971); ‘Rollerball’(1975); ’Close Encounters...’ (1977), for example.And then there is ‘Dark Star’, which was created as a project between 1970 and 1972, by Cinematic Arts students at the University of Southern California. Originally 45 minutes long, it was shot on 16mm film. It was then both expanded in length, with some new scenes added, and transferred to 35mm film for commercial release. It was directed by one of the screenwriters, John Carpenter, who also wrote the music, and voiced two characters. Dan O’Bannon, Carpenter’s co-writer, starred as one of the five human characters, Sergeant Pinback, and also voiced the two talking bombs. O’Bannon was also responsible for many of the special effects. This was, after all, made as a project, and whilst it was not quite ‘egg boxes, yoghurt pots and sticky-back plastic’, much of the visual effects was done on a shoe string. The overall total cost of bringing the film to the cinema? Around $60,000.Carpenter is a hugely talented film maker. Although this was his first feature film, he had been making amateur films since he was a child. A film he had previously corroborated on quite extensively, whilst at USC, won an OSCAR for ‘Live Action Short Film’, in 1970. He went on of course, to become the doyen of independent, low-budget horror and Sci-fi movies. O’Bannon, meanwhile, went on to write the screenplay for ‘Alien’(1979), based on an original story he co-wrote, and also ‘Total Recall’(1990).‘Dark Star’ went down well on first viewing at an LA Film Festival, but bizarrely, it was not especially popular, when released commercially. It seems that there were aspects of the humour which did not tickle audiences. It won early critical recognition however, and did a great deal better commercially on the small screen, with videos and then discs. Also, the retroactive stardust of ‘Alien’ and Carpenter’s iconic film ‘Halloween’(1978), used cannily in promotional hype by the distributor, helped boost its recognition.The screenplay is a delicious mix of naive campus coffee bar jokes, visual gags, and some very dark and sophisticated satire. It does seem probable that straight-faced, unamused, cinema audiences, missed the clever nuances of Carpenter and O’Bannon’s humour. Tarantino rates ‘Dark Star’ a “masterpiece”, and we tend to agree. Raw and basic visually, albeit also very cleverly made, this eccentric little classic, packs a major payload of inspired entertainment, into its short length. A High-Five explosive Stars!

Una delle prime opere di John Carpenter e di Dan O'Bannon (che poi scrisse la sceneggiatura di Alien).Anche se realizzato con un budget molto basso per il genere, a mio avviso è un film "vintage" che gli appassionati di fantascienza dovrebbero vedere.La qualità del Blue Ray non è eccelsa.

Viel tegen

Call me crazy, but I discovered this film back in the late 70's. I managed to record it when it played on a cable channel way back then. I was pleased to see that the film quality is waaay better than what I had. Love the humour! he picture quality remains a bit grainy, but was a super-low budget production.

Tot perfecte!!