Dark Star

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.

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 The movie takes place in a small, cramped out of date spacecraft.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.

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.

I didn't realize what I was watching 3 A.M. one day until someone told me.

This looked like a cheesy rip off of something, but at 3 A.M., all I could do was enjoy.

The low production really shows, but I didn't care. This movie is funny, and as a comedy, that's hard to do these days. The acting, well... ok, but I had the sense that these guys were trying to do it as best they can.

All I can say about this is, this is the type of movie you can watch at 3 A.M. and still enjoy.

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".