The Starfighters

I've watched this movie several times, and I have yet to detect a hint of a plot or a storyline. What could be better?!? Grab some popcorn and take the time to enjoy this stroll in this mindless wonderland!

Not only do you get to see "B-1 Bob" Dornan, but a whole bunch of other people... Well, this movie isn't the worst movie of all time; that honor would have to go to Manos: The Hands of Fate. At least "The Starfighters" had a few actors that were in other movies. Besides B-1 Bob, there are a couple of actors with 3 movie credits to their honor.

Needless to say, most of the cast didn't really go anywhere in Hollyweird. If you watch this movie and you detect a hint of a plot or storyline, please drop me a line and let me know about it.

What a great way to waste an evening!

I can't figure out who this film was meant for. It can't be a training film. You learn that the F-104 needs frequent refueling and that it can make mincemeat out of large, white rectangles, but that's as much technical information as you'll get. It isn't a gripping family drama, though there are a lot of scenes where Bob Dornan's father, Congressman Liberace, rings up his son and his commander to diss their fighter jets (it could have used a sort of, kind of Jazz Singer moment where the Congressman hears his son is flying jets instead of bombers, rips his clothes, and proclaims he has no son. That would have been something anyway). As for the romance...well, lets just say that the midair refueling scenes deliver more raw eroticism than any of these drunk, speed freaked pilots who troll the bars to pick up vapid Iowa chicks for nights of wild snuggling. My current theory is that this movie was some kind of commercial for the F-104 and the Tactical Air Command, though I'm still not sure who they're trying to sell it to (Congressmen? Pilots? The General Public?). With ads like this one, I'm surprised the Air Force doesn't have to hold bake sales to buy its bombers.

Honestly, that's a line in the movie, if you can call this a movie. It's mostly stock footage of jets flying, landing, bombing, and roughly ten hours of refueling footage. The "plot" revolves around some leather-faced Air Force pilots training in new jets. That's it. Tedious doesn't come close to describing this film. Literally NOTHING happens. Nothing.Oh, and everyone in this movie has third degree sunburns and disturbingly lumpy faces. "Top Gun" it isn't. This is just a really bad movie. Be sure to look out for the Poopy Suit, a suit that somehow keeps you from drowning if you crash a jet into the ocean (not that that happens, because THAT would be interesting). The only way this is watchable is the Mystery Science Theater version, it's hilarious.

Though it does kind of play out like Top Gun in certain ways, I am guessing this one did not inspire the more successful and known film in the least. This film was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and is essentially almost a commercial for the Starfighter jet. I almost think this was supposed to simply be a short explaining the virtues of said jet, but the director got out of hand and it ended up being a movie. Well, something that sort of resembles a movie in a minimalist sort of way. I mean, there are scenes featuring more than stock footage of these jets flying and doing things. There is some dialog in there and a romantic subplot! In the end though it all seems to be pointing towards the virtue of this particular jet and of small jet fighters in general. It's almost as if the military were going to mass market these bad boys to the public or something. Though I guess in the end this film was also trying to get more young men into the air force by saying, "Look here! We've got awesome jets to fly and you can get a nice girl who was raised on a corn farm, now listen to some more easy listening music and watch us refuel!"

The story, well, hard to pinpoint it. Let's just say, the Coleman Francis film, "Skydivers" had more of a plot going on than this thing. In the end, we watch a refueling scene and then three new pilots come to the base to train on the jet of the title. We watch them train by flying around, dropping bombs, shooting missiles and blasting their machine gun. Then they give us more refueling as it seems like their fall back or something. They try to generate excitement and peril with a lame wheels may have malfunctioned and then have an off screen storm and crash, but the film is rather tame and ends in very anticlimactic fashion as the pilots try their poopie suits and then just take off again and fly away.

This made for a very funny episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as this film was just so pointless and riddled with elements to riff. One can be pretty sure that you are not missing much of the movie for the show either as it only clocked in at 1 hour and 19 minutes, meaning that the fact the film is all over the place is not due to editing down for the show. You have your long drawn out training sequences to make fun of with easy listening music, a very tepid romance subplot that is obviously just something to give one a break from those plane sequences and you have the poopie suit!

So, yeah, this film is not going to be a favorite of many people. I know people like other films that the gang have riffed, but I just do not see adult, kid or anybody sitting down to this film and going, "Wow, this is amazing! I sure want to fly those jets!" So I do not think anyone's feelings will be hurt when I say this one is bad, even Manos Hands of Fate had more semblance of a plot than this thing! Just a long look into how the air force trains their guys on jets with a totally weak finish. I wonder how many of those Starfighter jets they managed to sell to the public?

This film probably gathered every piece of stock footage the US Air Force had to offer at the time. I think the producers thought "we have lots of cool stock footage. We don't need things like plot, character development, and the like." Sadly, this film will never amount to anything, just like the hero of the film, a son of a Congressman.