Dark Star

Well OK this may not the most enjoyable film I've seen but it is certainly one of the most unique and cynical films ever. I find myself pulling out the tape and watching it again every couple of years just to give myself a reality check with all the Hollywood tripe you get these days. To make the most of it you need to watch a couple of Star Trek episodes first and then watch this. Instead of the clean-cut, politically correct, join-the-dots films that are so common now, you get a feeling that this might just be the way life on a space ship would really be.

It was really way ahead of its time. People now comment that films like Star Wars and Alien were the first to make sci-fi more 'realistic' but Dark Star pre-dates both of them by several years. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is where Scott Ridley and George Lucas got some of their ideas.

It all started out as a short film made at film school made by the now legendary John Carpetenter, but then they wanted to make a longer version, however they couldn't get money to remake it, so they simply added extra scenes in the middle (example, the beach ball alien).

The story is this, on a ship where the captain is dead (but you can unfreeze to ask him questions) and the rest crew are going basically crazy they have problem. One of their bombs has become sentient and is busy contemplating the nature of existence.

The effects are OK, and who would have thought the beach ball would become the inspriration for the movie Alien.

Over all one of the great classics of science fiction and of low budget film making.

I heard of this movie a long time ago and it took me over 10 years before I finally found it in my local video shop. Great and amazing movie.

What will bomb number 20 do, now it is intelligent...watch the film and find out.

I first saw Dark Star about 25 years ago and have enthused about it ever since. It's definitely a movie that you've got to be in the mind for but it is funny, the music has the characteristic Carpenter style, is very hippyish in a lot of ways and the low-budget style works very well. The alien is great - apparently its feet are the ones used in "The Creature From The Black Lagoon"

It's a shame the DVD doesn't have any extras. I suppose there isn't much left lying around for them to use!

It's also incredible to think that it was only 5 years between the release of this and the release of Alien. Pinback is one of the characters in Dark Star, played by Dan O'Bannon and he is also the co-writer. Then he went on to write Alien!

Do see this film - but be in a laid-back mood when you do.

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.

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.