Dir. John Carpenter, US, 1974, 83 mins
Cast: Brian Narelle, Dan O’Bannon, Cal Kuniholm, Dre Pahich
Review by Dave Smith
Not lost in space, they’re loose…
Dark Star follows the misadventures of four bored astronauts, Doolittle (Narelle), Pinback (O’Bannon), Boiler (Kuniholm) and Talby (Pahich) in deep space, the frozen body of the commander (still able to give advice), an alien mascot, and a rubber chicken, their job to clear rogue planets, which may cause problems for future human colonization.
After 20 years in space and a million light years from Earth, life onboard Dark Star is boring as hell, but runs as smoothly as it can with a malfunctioning computer and a ship with faulty wiring.
The bulk of the film follow the day to day existence of the crew, their various attempts at recreation, Pinback’s video diary and the general loathing of each other.
The only member of the crew to avoid this is Talby, who has virtually become a hermit living in the observation bubble on top of the ship, his only visitor being Doolittle, who reminisces about surfing back on Earth, the relevance of this conversation becoming clearer towards the end of the film.
One of the highlights of the film is Pinback chasing the alien mascot around the ship. O’Bannon is responsible for one the most wonderfully absurd low budget aliens committed to film! The alien mascot section of the film was later resurrected as the basis for Alien.
Things go from bad to worse when, after passing through an asteroid storm, Bomb 20 (a smart bomb with an attitude problem) is given the order to deploy. The bomb refuses to listen to the crews orders to return to the bomb bay. In a fit of desperation, Doolittle consults Commander Powell, who advises him to teach the bomb phenomenology, thus buying the crew some time as the bomb returns to the bomb bay to reflect on what it has learnt. Unfortunately the bomb decides that the only conclusion is that it must be God, and it’s next action brings about the end of the ship.
The final scenes of the film with the astronauts floating away from each other were heavily inspired by the Ray Bradbury short story ‘Kaleidoscope’, with sections of dialogue adapted directly from the book.
Co-written by John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon, Dark Star started life in 1970 as a short film for a USC Film School short film project. Filming was spasmodic for the next couple of years, until Jack H Harris (The Blob, 1958) was brought on board as Executive Producer to provide the finances to complete the film. This relationship, however, didn’t always run smoothly due to personality clashes, so much so, in fact, that a computer screen carrying an abusive message about Harris can be seen in the background of one shot!
Due to the low budget, multi-tasking was called for and John Carpenter, as well as co-writing, also directed, edited, co-produced and composed the music. He also voiced the character of Talby as Dre Pahich’s accent was too difficult for people to understand.
Similarly, Dan O’Bannon as well as co-writing and taking a lead role, also assisted with the editing, set design, and was also responsible for the visual effects which, due to the low budget, are a tribute to improvisation and creativity.
For all its low production values and less than special effects, Dark Star stands out as one of the cult classic Sci-fi films, and one that should be seen by all fans of the genre.
