The Last Starfighter (1984)

Oh man, have you ever sat down to watch a movie you had not seen in probably over 20 years and then realised you mixed up memories with another movie but still had a good time anyways?  Probably not, what’s the average age of the Internet user anyways, like 17 or something stupid like that?  I know I’m getting old when I make “Simpsons” references that no one gets.  GET OFF MY LAWN /rant.

It’s hard to explain this movie to someone young, as it is very much rooted in its own time period.  Having said that though, I would not be adverse to this movie getting a gritty sequel some 30 years later, where a bearded Lance Guest comes back to Earth to recruit some dipshit little kid who unlocked all the Achievements in some spaceship shooter Xbox Live game.  Now that I’ve typed it, it belongs to the Internet and you’ll see some studio greenlight this tremendous idea.  SO LONG SUCKERS.

If you don’t know anything about the movie, that’s pretty much the modern equivalent of the decidedly ’80s premise of it.  Alex (Guest) is living in a trailer park, and one night he breaks the record score on The Starfighter arcade game (remember those?).  It is the highlight of his humdrum life, since he’d just been rejected for a loan and his life sucked in general.  THEN some dude named Centari (Robert Preston) drives up in a low-rent spacecar and whisks him off to fight a war.  In spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

After the initial scenes and the introduction of the alien races, I realised that I had confused my memories of this movie with whatever memories I had of Enemy Mine and then was reduced to “hahahah what lol” for the rest of the movie.  It’s not terrible, but it’s not very good either.  The CGI animation is impressive for 1984 standards, but well, everything else feels very dated.  Hell, Return of the Jedi came out the previous year and looked more modern.  It’s remarkably cheesy, but I still have a love for it.

3 / 5