Dark Star (1974)
83 min - Comedy | Sci-Fi - 9 February 1979
In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.
Director:
John Carpenter
Writers:
John Carpenter (original story and screenplay), Dan O'Bannon (original story and screenplay)
Stars:
Dan O'Bannon, Dre Pahich, Brian Narelle
Cast
Lt. Doolittle - Brian Narelle
Sgt. Pinback - Dan O'Bannon
Boiler - Cal Kuniholm
Talby - Dre Pahich
Commander Powell - Joe Saunders
Computer - Cookie Knapp
Bomb #19 - Alan Sheretz
Bomb #20 - Adam Beckenbaugh
Mission Control - Miles Watkins
Alien - Nick Castle
Director John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay while film students at the University of Southern California. Six years later, the basic "Beachball with Claws" subplot of the film was reworked from comedy to horror,[1] and became the basis (along with an unpublished story about gremlins aboard a B-17) for the O'Bannon-scripted science fiction horror classic, Alien.
Filming
Working on an estimated $60,000 budget, Carpenter and O'Bannon had to make production design from scratch. In the "elevator" sequence the bottom of the elevator is actually rolling on the floor. The device used to roll the elevator base was a Moviola camera dolly normally used on the small sound stage in the old USC Cinema building (a former horse stable). The steering arm of the dolly can be seen in the "elevator's" underside. Talby's starsuit backpack is made from Styrofoam packing material - probably from a TV set - and his spacesuit chestplate is made from a muffin tray. The double rows of large buttons on the bridge consoles are ice cube trays illuminated from beneath. Sergeant Pinback's video diary is an 8-track tape and the machine he uses to read it and record it is a microfiche reader. O'Bannon also starred in the film in the role of Sgt. Pinback.
Special effects
Much of the special effects seen in the movie were done by Dan O'Bannon, ship design by Ron Cobb, model work by O'Bannon and Greg Jein, and animation was by Bob Greenberg.
The bombs are made from an AMT 1/25 scale semi-trailer kit and parts of a 1/12th scale model car kit; "Matra", the name of the car brand, can be seen on some parts in some shots.[4] The space suits are made to resemble the space suit of the Mattel action figure "Major Matt Mason", which was used in slightly modified form as a miniature for effects shots. Cobb drew the original design for the "Dark Star" ship on a napkin while they were eating at the International House of Pancakes.
The film featured the first hyperspace sequence to show the effect of stars rushing past the Dark Star vessel in a tunnel-effect (due to superluminal velocity) which was used in Star Wars three years later.
Although destined for eventual cinematic release in 1974, this was only possible as a consequence of a successful series of showings at a number of film festivals in 1973. Originally the film was a 68-minute student short filmed on 16mm film. The movie was seen by producer Jack H. Harris, who gained the theatrical distribution rights to the film, and arranged for it to be transferred to 35mm, and paid for the addition of 15 minutes which brought the movie up to feature film length.
For theatrical release, parts of the film were re-edited to make it feel more like a 3-part story and extra footage was filmed to bring it up to a more substantial running time. This included the bottle-organ scene, the alien chase and elevator scenes, the sleeping quarters scene, and a reworked ending involving Boiler and Pinback fighting over a gun (originally the fight took place only in the control room of the ship, and involved a search for a misplaced failsafe key).
John Carpenter would later lament that as a result of this padding into a feature length movie, their "great looking student film" became a "terrible looking feature film".
Director's Cut
John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon re-edited the film into a "director's cut",[when?] removing much of the footage shot for the theatrical release and adding new special effects.[citation needed]
Home media
The film was released on DVD March 23, 1999 in a single disc edition. Several years later a special two-disc "Hyperdrive Edition" DVD was released in 2010 by VCI Entertainment and contains both the Director's Cut and a longer Original Theatrical Release, as well as a long featurette explaining the origins of Dark Star and how it was produced. A fan commentary also provides a lot of trivial information about the film.
Reception
Dark Star can be considered a black comedy although it was marketed by Harris as more of a serious science fiction film. As a result, most of the cinema-going audience did not expect the humour and Dark Star's reception suffered from not reaching its intended audience. The home video cassette revolution of the early 1980s saw Dark Star become a cult film among sci-fi fans.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 79% fresh rating, with the following consensus: "A loopy 2001 satire, Dark Star may not be the most consistent sci-fi comedy, but its portrayal of human eccentricity is a welcome addition to the genre." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing: "Dark Star is one of the damnedest science fiction movies I've ever seen, a berserk combination of space opera, intelligent bombs, and beach balls from other worlds." Leonard Maltin awarded the film two and a half stars, describing it as "enjoyable for sci-fi fans and surfers"; he also compliments the effective use of the limited budget.
Carpenter has described Dark Star as "Waiting for Godot in space."
Commentators have noted that the film's ending closely parallels the short story "Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury, from his 1951 short story collection The Illustrated Man.
Influence
The "Beachball with Claws" segment of the film was reworked by Dan O'Bannon into the 1979 science fiction / horror film, Alien. After witnessing audiences failing to laugh at parts of Dark Star which were intentionally funny, O'Bannon lamented "If I can't make them laugh, then maybe I'll scare the hell out of them." Alien was the result.
The Indie rock band Pinback frequently uses sound effects from the movie throughout their discography, and adopted their name from the character, Sgt. Pinback.
Doug Naylor has said in interviews that Dark Star was the inspiration for Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, the radio sketches that evolved into the popular television science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf.
The character Pinback also inspired the character name Pinbacker, the antagonist in Danny Boyle's 2007 film Sunshine.
Dark Star has been cited as a large inspiration for Machinima series Red vs. Blue by the show's creator Burnie Burns.
Soundtrack
The music for Dark Star is mostly of a pure electronic style and was made by John Carpenter using synthesizers.
The theme song played during the opening and closing credits is "Benson, Arizona". The music was written by John Carpenter, and the lyrics by Bill Taylor, concerning a person who travels the galaxy at light speed and misses their beloved back on Earth.The lead vocal was John Yager, a college friend of Carpenter's. Yager was not a professional musician "apart from being in a band in college."
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