Sci-Fi Classic Review: DARK STAR (1974)

[@tomsenior7405]

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Dark Star is one of my absolute favourite films. I saw it in in the 1970s as a child. The scene in the lift had me laughing so hard, I could not breathe. Seeing Dan O'Bannon stuck, nearly killed me. Pure bloody genius.

[@wardmicko1251]

When the alien pulls the board back after it, trapping Pinback on the other side! It was people's reaction to that sequence that gave O'Bannon the idea for Alien. They were laughing, but they were also clutching each other in fear, so he decided to write an alien hunt straight, as sci-fi horror. 'Cause if cat and mouse against a beach ball with feet could scare people so, just imagine what a real monster could do.

[@only257]

@@wardmicko1251 agreed

[@thrashpondopons8348]

'Dark Star' is one of those movies I saw as a kid which inspired me to become a Filmmaker! (What exactly extinguished this inspiration remains unclear!)

[@mikesilva3868]

Tom: "Hey, 'Outer Limits' is startinJoel: "What is this, 'The Lloyd Thaxton Show'?"Crow: "This is like 'It Happened One Night,' except it makes me want to kill myself." Buck Privates (1941) Joel: "Abbott and Costello in: 'Buck Privates'" 😄

[@shanep5819]

featuring the smash hit: 'Benson, Arizona'!

[@maxheadshot3287]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXS3m2x4l9WSnqM

[@pandemonium274]

A Science Fiction Parody movie to consider reviewing would be "Hardware Wars". You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss $3.00 bucks goodbye!!!!

[@katsuyaki7605]

The original version only, tho'. There is an updated version with CG effects, I think as a spoof of the Star Wars "enhanced editions".

[@mikebasil4832]

@@katsuyaki7605 I didn’t know that. From a spoof perspective I would imagine it to be interesting. Thanks for that info.

[@mikebasil4832]

The 70s were a decade when sci-fi movies and TV could get by most swimmingly (even if Star Wars and Close Encounters were obvious exceptions) without the vast demands that the genre is overwhelming us with today. It makes me all the more grateful for seeing Dark Star at a fittingly early point in my life. As for what an alien creature made out of a beach ball could achieve, I found it entertaining enough for Dan O'Bannon's fun performance as Pinback. Thank you for your review.

[@ajtaylor8750]

Doing my John Carpenter review series next month to recap the film's of his that I love to see if they still hold up, and I know Dark Star will definitely do that. It's a truly great Sci-Fi film.

[@ofaocat]

Always cheers me up to get an unapologetic geek sci-fi review. Great Sunday tradition!

[@larrydavis3645]

Thank you for reviewing this film. I did not see the humor in this film. However, I do not see humor in most so-called comedies. I found the production history very interesting.

[@Thyroid76]

I saw this movie only once while I was an usher at the local theater back in ‘75. I sat there in a virtually empty theater and laughed like the little stoner I was. I haven’t seen it since as I don’t know how to find it. Lil help?!

[@TheUnapologeticGeek]

I got my DVD off Amazon, I think.

[@moopnelly]

Dark Star is one of those movies, like THX 1138, that is undeniably a formative and important piece of SF history, and at the same time excruciating to sit through and almost entirely unwatchable.

[@graemewilson7975]

Don't know if U UK or abroad but BBC 2 and Thames as it was at time showed loads of these type pictures -thx, a boy and his dog, soylent green, omega man , forbin project, all small budget gems some more brilliant than others but all deeply engrained to those of a certain generation

[@caldodge]

I've read very little of Dick's work, so I don't know which plot elements were "borrowed" from him. OTOH, in the 80s I was reading a series of anthologies, on the "Golden Age of Science Fiction". One of these included a short story by Ray Bradbury, and I was shocked to realize the entire ending of "Dark Star" came from that source.

[@MattMcIrvin]

The scenes where they converse with the dead captain preserved in the freezer were heavily inspired either by Dick's short story "What The Dead Men Say" or its expansion into an element of the novel _Ubik_. And the ending is definitely Bradbury's "Kaleidoscope".

[@racookster]

I saw it as a high school student around 1976, but I wouldn't have known it was playing if a couple of friends hadn't been bigger film buffs than I was. They already understood its significance. Personally, I thought it was the cheapest looking, most poorly-acted thing I had ever seen in a theater (I spotted the ice cube trays and muffin tins on first viewing), but I did find it kind of inspiring: it proved that someone could make a funny, halfway-watchable sci-fi film with practically nothing.

[@only257]

Cool😊

[@caldodge]

I love how "Dark Star" led to "Alien". What I've heard is that O'Bannon - reflecting on the low box office returns - decided "if I can't make them laugh, I'll make them scream". And then he wrote "Alien".

[@racookster]

If Dark Star didn't make people laugh, it was because audiences of the 'seventies didn't know what to do without a laugh track. I saw it in '76 and thought it was very funny. The dead captain on ice asking about the Dodgers made me laugh out loud - although I was the only person in the theater who did.

[@MattMcIrvin]

I also recall hearing that O'Bannon was suffering from an agonizing flare-up of Crohn's disease when he wrote "Alien". Yeah, I can see that.

[@thedon-e6514]

Thanks for the Vid! Saw this in the 80s here in Melbourne at our one and only weird theatre ‘The Valhalla’. Feed the alien is a line that has stuck with me forever! My to my M8lings annoyance 😝 I unironically loved this movie! Let there be light!

[@graemewilson7975]

Carpenter and O'Bannon separate career trajectory was almost underground in its entirety. Carpenter movies after Halloween peaked and troughed as did O'Bannon after ALIEN. Dark Star is so offbeat and 70s silly and Gonzo simultaneous humour that bizarrely showed carpenters obsession with men in confined spaces and unknown enemies within and without. True little gem of a movie Great review

[@siarnne]

Having never seen Darkstar, I get struck by how much the scene setups and set dressings and costumes show up in Alien. Cool movie. Definitely have to check it out at Enzian.

[@billhumiston9888]

“Dark Star“ was also the name of a bar in Babylon 5, and was a deliberate recurring homage on the part of J Michael Straczynski to this film.

[@katsuyaki7605]

Easily one of my most favorite films. I've seen a few interviews with O'Bannon discussing the making of "Alien", and it's clear to me that it probably wasn't much of a challenge of him to play the role of Pinback in "Dark Star", since he was basically playing the character as himself. And that makes it easy to understand him not getting along with certain other personality types -- God knows I probably couldn't have stood to go on a long-distance car trip with the guy myself. R.I.P., Mr. O'Bannon.

[@indyspotes3310]

This is what happens when you can't stay away from the Plutonium Nyborg, kids... I've always wanted to like this movie much more than I do. It reminds me of bands that I really like with early albums where they just aren't that good yet. You mentioned things influenced or inspired by this film. I've always put Hitchhiker's Guide in that group as well.

[@gorgin1017]

I've been missing watching your reviews, Eric.

[@java4653]

In the 70's, somebody packaged this movie for local tv with other gems like Phase IV & Silent Running, vastly improving the lives of kids after school with wild tales and ideas. I'd like to thank those heroes. Edit: anyone remember the name their local stations used for the week or two of specials? Might have been summer.

[@indyspotes3310]

Phase IV is one of my favorite "one room" sf films. Limited set, small cast, simple plot. And Lynne Frederick... Hubba hubba

[@mikebasil4832]

@@indyspotes3310 I finally got round to seeing Phase IV in this century. I found it as personally appealing as several pre-Star-Wars sci-fi films of the 70s.

[@MrPhoenixQuill]

My dad always laughs whenever we watch this movie, like it's the funniest thing he'd ever seen. As for me, I like to think that this movie is Cannon to the alien franchise.

[@BartLocanthi]

Saw this at summer cinema in 1976 and loved it. The hyperspace sequence was copied by star wars. "They're not lost in space... they're loose!"

[@wardmicko1251]

I.was luxky enough to catch Dark Star in it's original theatrucal run, all thise years ago. I was thirteen years pld, and completely amazed. I had no idea how little money Carpenter spent to make the movie at that time, all I knews was that it was completely competitive with any science fiction the big stufios were making (granted, only a couplr if titles a year, then) and it was completely unknown! And of course, it was a rare case of a really effective science fiction comedy AND the first appearance of blue collar space. There was genius to this little movie that I coukd see even ss a kid.

[@morgangallowglass8668]

I remember watching this on the campus of my university as and undergrad...I was far less than sober!

[@IngieKerr]

I always really clicked with Pinback as a kid, someone to aspire to... not sure if I'll ever get there, but then I'm in my 50s now, and the sum total of what I've done on this planet is effectively just make a bit of a mess, put on some silly glasses, and get ignored by the complaints department.

[@Thyroid76]

I saw this film once as an usher at my theater when I was 16 back in 1975. I want the 1975 version of this film. Any idea where I’m able to get this?

[@CMDR_Verm]

I absolutely love this movie, I even managed to get the special edition DVD. Others however are just completely turned off in my experience. No accounting for taste I suppose but I know I'm right 🙂

[@unsinnkim3690]

DARK STAR is a great movie about both existential loneliness and the search for hope.

[@mikebasil4832]

@@unsinnkim3690 Indeed. Dark Star had something most specifically to say about the potentially harsh space age for humanity.

[@splifftachyon4420]

Love this movie! One of my all-time favourites.

[@mikebasil4832]

@@splifftachyon4420 For the most personally interesting sci-fi film to end the early 70s on, I wish Dark Star a Happy 50th Anniversary.

[@Malvito]

I very much enjoy this one, especially the existential discussion with the Smart Bomb. The fact that it was made on what might now be considered a $1.98 budget with muffin tins and Whatever Was Lying Around, IMHO, just makes it all the more fun. I note that one of the early projects noted was entitled "The Resurrection of Bronco Billy." Was this expanded into Clint Eastwood's 1980 movie, BRONCO BILLY, or was the title similarity just a coincidence? (I have seen neither the short nor the feature, so this is just curiosity, not finger-pointing.)

[@TheUnapologeticGeek]

I don’t think they’re related, but I honestly don’t know for sure.

[@ragrabau]

The original VHS tapes were from the un-edited version that I saw in the movie theater back in the 70's. They show the porn on the walls clearly, as the DVD's were "edited". Great movie, fun to watch, over and over.....

[@PaulVanced-jl5gk]

Thanks bud. I was looking lazy to read the Wikipedia page myself

[@patcoston]

Lesson to be learned: Never convince a bomb that it is God.

[@mikebasil4832]

@@patcoston Even better to never give a bomb a mind of its own in the first place. Even as a parody it’s another strong sci-fi reminder of how extra-cautious we need to be with our AI.

[@interstellarphred]

@@mikebasil4832 good luck bomb..........THANKS!

[@patrickunderwood5662]

Ha, I badgered my mom into buying that exact same space helmet from a department store in the magnificent metropolis of Abilene, Texas circa 1970. I almost suffocated in the damn thing.

[@rsacchi100]

Yes, Dark Star is a funny ride. Props are obviously tacky, but it works.

[@Keefymonoped]

Dark Star was a great film, yes the props were a bit iffy, but having been brought up on Dr Who it just didn't seem to be an issue for me. This bunch of losers going around blowing up planets and being bored stiff in the in between bits was just hilarious. Sci Fi needed this to send things off into a different direction, because prior to Dark Star it was either deadly serious fare or childish juvenile stuff. As a fan of the genre it was all absorbed either way, but something like Dark Star at the time was just so ironic and anarchic to what had gone before, it was a game changer for some. Which is not a bad thing, and back in the VHS days it was a great rental from the shop.

[@KonElKent]

I like to think that, back on Earth, Bill Frug's wife has been implicated in his disappearance; probably for the insurance. Also, is there anything worse than too loose underwear?!

[@MorlokKurak777]

You want to know something weird? I tried to watch this movie many times, but could never get through it. Something about it made me really depressed.

[@mikesilva3868]

Fun movie starcrash is way more fun though⚽️

[@JohnWilliamNowak]

The helmets are from the 1960s toy line "STAR Team." Not the 1970s Star Wars ripoff revival. There are commercials on KZbin. I don't quite know what to make of the film. The DVD release has a title screen which assures the audience it is, in fact, a comedy and grumbles how the audiences didn't find it funny. That doesn't seem to bode well. Honestly, I don't find it funny either, although I'm able to find humor in most things. There's a PG Wodehouse story that opens with a scene where a young man stands on a street corner waiting for his girlfriend; it is hilarious. Wodehouse could just "write funny", and I don't think the film manages it. The toilet paper joke isn't nearly as funny as reading about a similar problem on the WWII submarine USS Skipjack. I can't help but wonder if the film would have been funnier if it were played more straight. Imagine The Lighthouse in space; it could be genuinely horrifying. That said, I have a lot of respect for the film. It looks amazing for the budget and there has to be some room out there for an SF comedy. But why are the bombs sapient machines?

[@scotpens]

Because an intelligent talking bomb is funny!

[@interstellarphred]

Consider that in our era, things are microprocessor controlled and fully programmable weather they need to be or not; and note the contemporary tout about the potential of A.I.