The Last Starfighter (1984)

You have been recruited by The Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.

The Last Starfighter is directed by Nick Castle and written by Jonathan R. Betuel. It stars Lance Guest, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart, Dan O'Herlihy and Norman Snow. Music is by Craig Safan and cinematography by King Baggot. Story sees Guest as Alex Rogan, an everyday teenage boy who upon breaking the high-score record on a trailer park arcade game, suddenly finds himself recruited by an alien defence unit to fight an evil army out in space.

The advancements of computers and all their devilish electronic off shoots have rendered many of the pioneering effects films of yesteryear as rudimentary antiques. Where once films like "Tron" and "The Last Starfighter" blazed the trail that many would follow over the years, now they seem, if you believe the multitude of new era reviews for them, to hold only nostalgia value to video game players who were still at school in the early 1980's. That's something of a disservice, for although they do indeed rely in the main on effects work and razz dazzle 80's credibility, the stories are enjoyably fantastical and not without thought and merit.

The Last Starfighter is one of the better ones because it manages to be both an exciting and sweet picture, one that is completely disarming. Certainly it marries Spielberg homespun values with George Lucas operatics, but in the form of its teen protagonist it also dots the fantasy canvas with angsty worth. So much so that now when one revisits the film with older eyes, we can appreciate more fully that young Alex is in a rut, the crossroads of his life, a life he's struggling to make sense of. Also more appreciation can now be made of the relationship Alex has with Grig (O'Herlihy), his flight navigator up in the galaxy, someone whom he calls a Gung-Ho iguana! This relationship is nicely drawn, here is where Alex finds not only his friend, but also his father figure, something he doesn't have the privilege of down on Earth.

Whilst up there fighting an intergalactic battle, Alex on Earth has been replaced by a Replicant Beta Model to ensure he is not missed. Here is where much of the film's fun is gleaned from. Interesting to note that originally this arc in the film wasn't to be that huge, but test screenings encouraged director Castle into a rethink. And the film is the better for it as the Beta tries to keep the flame going with the girlfriend (Stewart adorable girl next door type) and ensure he's not found out by any Ko-Dan spies! Here Guest earns his corn, it's a very good duel performance from the youngster and it's a shame his career never really took off post the film's release.

However, none of this means the film is full of depth, it still remains a very simple story full of fantastical incredulity. But the underlying message of improving oneself, not settling for second best, is rich and puts some potency in the narrative. Still, it's safe to say that most tuning into The Last Starfighter want whizz bang space adventure frolics, which thankfully we do get. The effects are of course variable, though not as cheap looking in High Definition as one expected, while the action is nicely constructed by Castle and his team. The villains led by a Po-faced Norman Snow make their mark, while Robert Preston, a legend to Western and film noir fans in the 40's and 50's, gives a wonderfully sweet and affecting turn as Centauri, the game inventor who whisks Alex away to the planet Rylos for his life changing challenge.

More than just a film for nostalgists and gamer types, Last Starfighter is pretty solid entertainment from its core to the outer layers. 7/10

Didn't grow up watching this, though sort of heard of it over the years, but gave it a watch and immensely liked it, even with the cheesy game-like graphics/effects. Lots of fun and liked the lead actor, Lance Guest. Definitely has some replay value down the road. **3.75/5**

**Overall, it's a decent movie, if not a very good one.**

There is no doubt that, if there is something that marked sci-fi in the 80s, it was arcade games and the popularization of information technology and the personal computer, with the potential that this allowed in everyone's life. However, I have some doubts about the quality of the films it spawned.

In this case, the film begins by showing us a young teenager addicted to a gaming machine who, after beating the last levels of the game, is taken in a futuristic car by a stranger to discover that everything the machine showed was real, and it was in reality true training to find and recruit space pilots for a war in a faraway galaxy, in the best “Star Wars” style. Of course, the movie also has a hormone-filled romance in the middle.

Upon seeing the film, I was a little skeptical about the script and its verisimilitude, but after a bit of reading, I came to discover that, nowadays, there are a lot of digital military systems, and even weaponry, that are made in such a way that be more easily controlled by soldiers who have already had some contact with computer games, and have some dexterity with this type of entertainment. This is something quite ingenious, and also perverse, on equal measures: ingenious because of their pragmaticism, perverse because it puts "innocent" video games on an equal footing with real weapons, which destroy and kill real people. Philosophies aside, the film seems to me more accessible and more interesting than others of the same genre and from the same era. The script isn't particularly clever, and it's not difficult to predict the course of events, but it does things reasonably effectively.

The cast is not the strong point of the film. We don't have any major actors involved here, and the whole movie looks like it was made with fairly amateur actors. Lance Guest was credible in the role of the hero, and he does what he needs to, but without great competence and in a relatively weak way. Robert Preston is a little better, but he doesn't have much to do other than be the movie's Yoda. Catherine Mary Stewart appears simply because someone thought the hero had to have a minimally attractive girlfriend.

Technically, the film bets heavily on cinematography, which is reasonably well done, and on good visual and sound effects, which do their job well and look realistic, even if they are a huge distance from what we can do today, which makes the film quite dated but still nice.

Just think back to when you spent hours on your Atari games console playing space invaders, without realising that one day you might save the world? Well "Alex" (Lance Guest), a bored teenager living in a trailer park doing odd jobs might just prove to be just such a man. Well, at least this is what "Centauri" (Robert Preston) thinks and leaving a perfectly plausible android doppelgänger in his place, recruits our young man to prevent the evil "Kril" (Dan Mason) and "Enduran" (Kay Kuter) and their overwhelmingly superior force of spacecraft from conquering us all. Can he do it? Can he thwart the cunning plan? It's quite a fun fantasy adventure this, Guest joins in wholeheartedly as does Preston and there are plenty of special effects to drown out the occasionally boo-hiss romantic elements with "Maggie" (Catherine Mary Stewart). There is plenty of humour, too - mostly from Preston and Guest makes for an easy on the eye hero for all to get behind. It's actually stood the test of time quite well, as many simple ideas do, and I really quite enjoyed it.