In my list of favorite movies, The Last Starfighter is still in the top 10.
As dated as this movie is, would The Last Starfighter be a good contender for a modern day remake?
We’ll be talking more about movies from the ’80s this weekend on the Major Spoilers Podcast.
Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
13 Comments
A great movie. Though I was too young to have seen it in theaters, sitting with my brother while he watched the VHS and annual marathons of Star Wars around the holidays really gave me an appreciation and love for everything that is the sci-fi genre.
Given the right treatment, this would lend itself well to a reboot, even a sequel, what with gaming’s prevalence in current society. At this point in time, movies like this and The Wizard, video games were almost part of underground culture. Now that we’re throwing out summer blockbusters based on games, I don’t see any reason not to.
Then again, even if we don’t see anything else from it, it’s still a great way to sit down and spend an afternoon.
I did see it in the theater and enjoyed it. The special effects were great for the time. It was great idea having a guy from a trailer park rescue the universe only to return to his double-wide in the end.
But remember, he returned only so he could pick up the very hot Catherine Mary Stewart and take her back to the stars so he could train the next generation of Star Fighters. :D
Although I wasn’t born when this came out, I’ve watched it many a time on ye olde cassette tape player, it’s a great movie. And who’s that old guy? He played that role to death, and I don’t know if I’ve seen him in anything else.
If you are talking about the car driver – That’s Robert Preston. Very famous for The Music Man, but in many other movies. IMDB shows Last Starfighter as one of his last roles out of 76 movies.
I need to look up this movie. Not sure I’ve ever seen it.
Well you pretty much just saw the entire thing in 2:47. Wasn’t such thing as a teaser trailer back then I think.
I always got this and ‘enemy mine’ confused as a kid. I should rewatch them both, because bits and pieces of each are meshed together in my mind. Throughout this whole trailer I was looking for Louis Gossett Jr to give birth. To my dismay, I was incorrect.
I love Enemy Mine and I feel that it’s far superior to The Last Starfighter. I do like The Last Starfighter, but I think I used to confuse it with Flight of the Navigator, and then later I thought that it was somehow related to Wing Commander from 1999. Either way, it’s kind of an early version of that trope of the outsider (i.e. white male) coming into a new culture and being it’s only chance of winning/overcoming their obstacles which would be followed by Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai and Avatar, and Beverly Hills Ninja of course. What’s the reference that I’m coming up with that had a cartoon character playing a video game about building pyramids and they beat the high score and get pulled into Egypt to carry huge rocks and build a pyramid for them?
I don’t remember too much about this movie except for this bit dialogue:
Ko-dan Officer: She won’t answer the helm! We’re locked into the moon’s gravitation pull. What do we do?
Lord Kril: We die.
I can’t explain it, but that exchange has stuck with me over the years.
“You have been recruited by the Star League for the fight against Xur and the Kodan Armada..” and “STAR LEAGUE! A refuge for refuse not willing to be our equals!” bit always sticks with me as well. Especially that Xur line, because it’s a funny tongue twister.
They should do a Tron-Legacy-type update for The Last Starfighter. Because Xur escaped during the Command Ship battle. I’m pretty sure the Kodan Emperor didn’t hear about the defeat or anything. It would be cool if Lance Guest came back to reprise his role as Alex Rogan and be the new Starfighter trainer.
While I did actually catch TRON at local Naval base moviehouse(they were usually a month or two behind)I did not get to see Last Sarfighter until it was first released on VHS at middle school one Friday(normally on slow Fridays our teacher would fire up the moblie classroom VHS audio-video setup and have us watch “new” movies). I got the Anniverary Special Edition back in 2000 but havent’ picked up the latest SE yet. I remember reading in Starlog or some other magazine(this was when the Internet was still new to the public back in mid 90s) that there was supposed to a sequel but the lead would have been Mags(Catherine Mary Stewart). I can’t remember if she was supposed to rescue Alex and if they actually had a kid together on Ryloth. Then I heard rumors of Alex’s younger brother taking on the mantle and carry on the legacy or something. But yes, its been way overdue that a sequel be made. If and when Tr2n:Legacy becomes the huge world box office success its touted to be, its only natural to revive the Last Starfighter and hopefully, The Rocketeer(its still a Disney property last I checked). I can’t wait to see the re-envsioned Red Dawn coming out soon!
I’m gonna call it out right now and say that Tron will do way under what they’re expecting. It doesn’t elicit anything at all from me, maybe since I don’t have nostalgic feelings about the first one, but I just can’t see it really grabbing everyone’s attention the way Avatar (another film I just haven’t taken the time to watch yet) or other movies lately have.
When I saw this in college, it blew me away. The CGI was cutting edge (at the time), the plot was great and Robert Preston stole the show. It is still one of my favorites.
I have read some posts about a sequel, but nothing within the last year or so.