The Last Starfighter (1984) [w/Commentary]

After finally achieving the high score on Starfighter, his favorite arcade game, everyday teenager Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) meets the game's designer, Centauri (Robert Preston) – who reveals that he created Starfighter as a training ground for developing and recruiting actual pilots to help fight a war in space. Whisked away from the banality of his trailer park life to a distant alien planet, Alex struggles to use his video game-playing skills to pilot a real ship, with real lives at stake.

This is a lost gem of a movie from the generation of "E.T.", Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc…

When a friend showed it to me on VHS in 1984 I loved it for its originality, warmth & humor, as well as being impressed with the first-time computer-generated special effects for this kind of sci-fi film.

When I saw the 'special edition' DVD in Widescreen I snatched it right up and found that I enjoyed it as much as I did 20 years ago! The movie's special effects still looked good to me, especially the "Star Car" (my personal favorite).

But the special effects are not the centerpiece of this film. It has plenty of charm of its own to offer in plot, story, warmth, humor & good performances. Craig Safan's music score for this film is one of my all-time favorites. It almost outsizes this movie but it fits just the same.

"Starfighter" is a real gem from the 80's I will treasure in my movie collection.

Audio Commentary with director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb. An interesting and well-spoken track, the duo discusses how the film was influenced by the video game craze of the mid-1980s, the easily identifiable nature of the characters and story, shooting locations and the trailer park in particular, the cast, the design of the game and the starfighter, making use of three-dimensional rather than two-dimensional space, the film's groundbreaking effects, and much more. Both fans of the film and anyone interested in learning more about an important slice of motion picture history should definitely give this one a listen from beginning to end.