According to screenwriter Jonathan R. Betuel, the idea for this movie came about because he wandered into a video arcade and saw a young boy playing a video game. At that time, he was reading the book about King Arthur, "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White. He wondered what would happen if a video game were a metaphorical sword in a stone, and a boy racked up an incredible score, which would cause a ripple effect across the universe. During the movie, when Centauri gets into trouble for using the game to recruit starfighters, it's referred to as "The Excalibur Test". Excalibur was, of course, King Arthur's sword.
A great number of the scenes with the Beta Unit were shot after main filming was complete, because the test audience liked the comic relief of the Beta Unit scenes, and director Nick Castle decided they added more originality to the "boy gets to go to outer space" story. This is why in many of the Beta Unit scenes, Lance Guest is wearing a wig -- he had cut his hair by the time those new scenes were shot.
All visual effects (not practical effects like make-up and explosions) were made on a Cray X-MP computer.
The "Star Car" that Centauri drives is based on a DeLorean (the car that one year later turned iconic after Back to the Future (1985)), including its gull wing doors and its stainless steel construction.
The translator given to Alex Rogan on Rylos is the circuit board of a digital watch.