Going to the mall in the ’80s was really cool if you were a teenager. You’d be able to browse Records Bar or B Dalton’s Books. You could find D&D supplies at Hungate’s Hobby Store. Even more important was hitting the mall’s twin movie theater to see the latest epic starring a teenager just like yourself. Having written ’80s Teen Flick Festival and ’80s Teen Flick Festival Reunion books, it’s astounding at how many films starring teenagers came out during that decade. Every weekend there was a movie about a kid with big dreams that mostly involved getting laid. In the corner of the theater’s lobby was always a video game in an arcade cabinet. There’s be as many “next” quarters piled up on the top as people in line for popcorn coated in “Golden Flavoring.” There was probably one kid who played so long on his single quarter that he missed his movie. They all wanted to leave their mark on the Top Score screen. The Last Starfighter is about such a kid.
Alex Rogan (Jaws The Revenge‘s Lance Guest) aspires to get out of the trailer park in the high desert. His quest to go to major college gets derailed when the mailman delivers bad news on what should be the greatest night of his life. He’s found a girlfriend in Maggie Gordon (Night of the Comet‘s Catherine Mary Stewart) and sets the record on The Starfighter video game that showed up outside the office at the trailer park. And now his mother (Hill Street Blues’ Barbara Bosson) has deflated his future dreams by handing him that letter. When he goes outside to vent, he encounters a mysterious man (The Music Man‘s Robert Preston) in a snazzy car looking for the kid who set the high score. Alex admits it is him. He’s invited by Centuri inside the car to collect his marvelous prize. Very quickly Alex discovers the game is a recruitment tool to find a fighter that can save the planet Rylos from the attacking Ko-Dan Empire. He’s proven to be able to handle weapon system in the spaceship used by Rylos. He knows how to handle the controls. They team him up with pilot Grig (Halloween III: Season of the Witch‘s Dan O’Herlihy) to learn the other operations in the ship. But does he want to put his life on the line? The people back home don’t know that he’s off the planet since a Beta version of Alex has been left. Beta wants to get further with Maggie than Alex which creates a bit of comedy during the tense drums to war scenes. Alex declines the honor to be a starfighter and returns to earth, but the Ko-Dan Empire won’t let Alex quit the game.
The effects of the movie (released in the summer of 1984) look even better in 4K UHD. This was one of the first films that brought together CGI and live action after Tron in 1982. The effects do their best to not overwhelm the characters and their actions. We’re more amazed that Alex can have a girlfriend like Maggie than the spaceship fights. The technology in The Last Starfighter doesn’t overwhelm the human elements. Robert Preston can’t be created inside a Cray computer.
The Last Starfighter is the perfect teenage science fiction movie. This is much more relatable to Star Wars since Alex’s amazing video game skills don’t come from midichlorians. He also doesn’t suck face with his twin sister. We can relate to Alex. How much time did you spend at the arcade with your name on the Top Score screen and find your parents were unimpressed. “What is the value of all those quarters you wasted?” your dad would say. Now you know this was training for the chance to save an alien civilization. The Last Starfighter has gone from science fiction to science fact. Over the years, the military has used video games to see if recruits can handle attack drones. All those hours spent playing Flight Simulator could have you remotely launching rockets in distant countries. The Last Starfighter will make you wish you could see the film at the mall after your burn your quarters in the Space Invaders machine.
The Video is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The brand new restoration is a 4K scan of the original 35mm camera negative. You’ll see a lot of detail in the 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible). The audio is Uncompressed 2.0 stereo, 5.1 DTS-HD MA and 4.1 audio. You’ll hear the action in outer space when the high scorer has to prove he can pull it off in the real world. The movie is subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary with star Lance Guest and his son Jackson Guest. Is interesting with the father and son getting to know each other while watching dad’s old fan. They recorded the track at home during the early days of the Covid pandemic. The best is when the Jackson hums a Star Wars cue during a scene.
Audio commentary with Mike White of The Projection Booth podcast. White digs deep into the background of people associated with the production.
Audio commentary with director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb is taken from a previous release. The duo get into cast, crew and what it took to make the film look so good.
Maggie’s Memories: Revisiting The Last Starfighter (9:28) is an interview with actress Catherine Mary Stewart. She talks about her call back audition with Lance Guest. She remembers him being serious. The duo clicked when the acted out the scenes for the casting agents and others. She discusses working with Lance as his character and his “double.” She admits she mostly played Pac-Man back in the ’80s.
Into the Starscape: Composing The Last Starfighter (12:20) speaks with composer Craig Safan. He talks about how he while he was known for synth scores, he knew this film also required the huge orchestra like John Williams. He goes into how he brought together both elements. He also went into the studio with the musicians without an even close to rough cut of the movie. The special effects weren’t close to done so they just had dots on the screen playing in the scoring stage.
Incredible Odds: Writing The Last Starfighter (9:27) chats with screenwriter Jonathan Betuel. He was in Hollywood working as a cabbie while working on scripts. The core of the film came from a busy videogame at a pizza joint and reading a book on King Arthur. He typed out the script in 4 days. His agent thought it had a chance. The story editio at Lorimar called him at 1 a.m. He talks about Nick Castle as the director. They were friends and worked on the script for months. Nick needed the aliens to be brought in quicker.
Interstellar Hit-Beast: Creating the Special Effects (10:14) has special effects supervisor Kevin Pike discuss what happened on his first big shoot. He explains all the elements that has to do on the set – including the trailer park marquee. He gets into how he worked with the art department and the production designer. He gets to how the incorporated the CGI as well as physical effects.
Excalibur Test: Inside Digital Productions (7:46) interviews sci-fi writer Greg Bear about his time visiting Digital Productions the company responsible for the CGI in The Last Starfighter. He was doing an article for Omni magazine. He brought Ray Bradbury on his site visit in hopes it would get him more secrets revealed. They had Cray XMP mainframes. We get to see a lot of Jurassic technology.
Greetings Starfighter! Inside the Arcade Game (7:24) has arcade game collector Estil Vance explain how he reconstructed the Starfighter game. At the time, the Last Starfighter game graphics were more advanced than what can be put inside an arcade cabinet. Atari never released the game even though they had prototypes including a box for the Atari 5200. He’s a physician, but became obsessed enough to learn how to program and wrote software to make a Starfighter game that looked like the game in the movie.
Heroes of the Screen (24:19) is an archival featurette from an early home video release. They talk about what it took to get the film made between the crew and cast. They changed the suburban setting to the trailer park to keep it from looking like E.T.
Crossing the Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter (32:02) is an archival documentary from an even earlier home video release. Lance Guest hosts this special and is reunited with the video game. A lot of the focus is on the digital effects technology. They have footage of Robert Preston in the alien make up. Lance recalls how during rehearsals, Preston was full of energy and would tell him he was a theater actor so he’d do it as many times as Lance wanted.
Image Galleries includes hundreds of photos of The Cast, Starfighter Arcade Game, Starship Command, The Starcar, The Gunstar, Ko-Dan Armada, Alternate Ending, Anatomy of a Starfighter CGI and Promotion & Merchandise. The alternate ending is just changing up the venue for the Awards ceremony
Theatrical trailer (2:47) and Teaser Trailer (1:33) has a kid who wants to get out of the trailer park who doesn’t know that winning a video game will take him to the far reaches of the universe.
Collector’s booklet featuring writing by Amanda Reyes and sci-fi author Greg Bear’s Omni magazine article on Digital Productions.
Arrow Video presents The Last Starfighter. Directed by Nick Castle. Screenplay by Starring Lance Guest, Robert Preston, Dan O’Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, Norman Snow, Kay E. Kuter, Barbara Bosson and Chris Hebert. Running Time: 100 minutes. Rating: Rated PG. Release Date: May 30, 2023.
