'The Last Starfighter' (1984) ~ Movie Review
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Premise: Lower-class high schooler Alex Rogan gets brought to space when the arcade cabinet in his trailer park that he beats the record on turns out to be a recruitment test for an actual intergalactic war.
Audience: Teens+
The original Star Wars trilogy caused an uptick in both fantasy movies and space movies in the 1970s and 80s, and while this space movie featuring a resistance banding together to battle a tyrannical intergalactic empire may not have seen nearly the same success as its inspiration, it is a space movie that carries a breakthrough in special effects like its inspiration is.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982 (another space movie) was the first live-action film to feature a fully CG sequence, and Tron from that same year was the first live-action film to use CGI extensively. Given the technology’s primitiveness, though, these two films wisely used CGI to depict virtual simulations in-universe.
The Last Starfighter, however, was the first live-action film to use CGI to depict real objects in-universe, from the exteriors of planets to, more extensively, spaceships.
Of course, CGI was not yet ready to depict such objects photorealistically, and we all know that it wouldn’t be until Terminator 2 and especially Jurassic Park where CGI would become believable enough to become an industry standard. But the effects in The Last Starfighter still have a unique and nostalgic charm to them.
Leading the cast, Lance Guest proves that he should have become an icon with the way he pulls off not one but two reluctant fish-out-of-water roles: one as Alex Rogan being brought to an intergalactic base to become a starpilot against his will, and the other as the sassy android who copies Alex’s likeness and struggles to imitate him so that nobody back on Earth suspects where the real Alex is.
Other charmers in the cast include Robert Preston as Centuri, the eccentric creator of the recruitment game, and Dan O'Herlihy as Grig, Alex’s encouraging co-pilot. Catherine Mary Stewart makes for an appealing romantic interest in Maggie Gordon, even if she isn’t given much agency in the story, and Norman Snow as the villainous Emperor Xur delivers a campily entertaining performace with potentially interesting material that’s not fully delivered on.
Like how this is the closest to an iconic film that Lance Guest has starred in, this is also the closest to an iconic film that Craig Safan has scored. And yet, his score is what makes the primitive spectacle thrilling, with a hummably wondrous centerpiece reminiscent of John Williams, James Horner, and Alan Silvestri.
Although the film doesn’t have as ribald an edge as other 80s family films like The Monster Squad, The Goonies, and Harry and the Hendersons do, it still has an edge that unfortunately throws off what could have been fine family viewing, such as when we see Xur execute a spy in a rather gruesome way, and when we catch a freaky glimpse of the android amid the techno-organic process of forming into Alex that seems to have been a source of childhood trauma for many viewers.
Most icky is an albeit minor subplot involving Alex’s tween brother Louis (Chris Hebert) sneaking glimpses of Playboy magazines, and while we the audience don’t see the pages, the young actor likely saw them, unless they put Playboy covers over harmless magazines for his sake. Still a gratuitous subplot to include regardless.
Alex’s transitioning from ordinary trailer park life to adventurous intergalactic life represents the call to greatness and the fruits of answering it, and yet, I wish the film purported that you can find greatness in ordinary life as much as in adventurous life. When Alex’s plans with his friends are interrupted early on by a neighbor in need, it’s depicted as a reason why Alex needs a higher calling.
On the other hand, this community heartwarmingly comes together to cheer Alex on when he’s surpassing the game’s score, so it’s not a total write off of such a life.
For all of its faults, The Last Starfighter remains an endearing romp, and for much more than just its technical breakthroughs. And if nothing else, it validates every gamer’s seemingly useless skills by making them the key to saving the universe!