The Last Starfighter
by Nick Castle
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Catherine Mary Stewart, Dan Mason (III), Dan O'Herlihy, Kay E. Kuter, Lance GuestDirector: Nick Castle
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-08
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of The Last Starfighter
Movie Review: Just like old times
Summary: 3 Stars
Growing up in the 80s my dad had a copy of this movie on vhs, and my brother and I watched this movie all the time. The plot was straight out of every boys dreams, flying a space ship against an entire army of bad guys.
The movie was awesome, at feeding my hunger to one day fly a space ship.
So when I saw the movie available on DVD I had to grab it, and all the old memories came back in a moment. But to my surprise it wasn't as good as I remembered it being. The story that I cherished as a child, seemed over played and unbelievable even by sci-fi standards.
The acting in it is pretty good, I've seen better, but you can't expect much more than what I saw in a movie like this. The one shining spot in the movie for me was Robert Preston, You know the guy who was the Music Man, He was great in the movie and played the part to perfection. I read somewhere that this was the last movie he acted in before his death.
The Computer graphics on the movie wouldn't hold up against even the video game systems from 5 years ago, but to see them in the context of the time in which they were created it is pretty remarkable.
For me the move is a solid 2 stars, meaning it is somewhere between fair and good, your kids will like it, but for the older viewer you should find something a little better.
I gave the movie the extra third star for nostaglia reasons only. I am a sucker for the movies of my youth no matter how bad they are.
Summary of The Last Starfighter
At the time of its original release in 1984, this modestly budgeted sci-fi excursion had the distinction of offering some of the first examples of purely computer-generated animation, an apt (and frugal) special-effects solution for a movie with a plot line rooted in computer games. Both the computer-generated visuals and the arcade game now look quaint, but writer-director Nick Castle's affable, good- hearted adventure holds up nicely, thanks to a clever premise--the title game is actually a test for prospective starship pilots, planted by embattled aliens under siege from an evil invader. When a restless teenager (Lance Guest) racks up an impressive score, he finds himself spirited away to the besieged planet and thrust into the midst of an intergalactic war. Apart from Castle's skill at contrasting his extraterrestrial settings with the mundane details of his hero's earthbound life, the movie gets lift-off from two thorough pros, Robert Preston, who makes the alien recruiter, Centauri, a planet-hopping cousin to The Music Man's Harold Hill, and Dan O'Herlihy, the alien copilot, who suggests a scaly Walter Brennan. Older fans will snicker, but kids and young teens will find this rite of passage absorbing, while their folks will savor Preston's brash charm. --Sam SutherlandScience Fiction & Fantasy DVD Video
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