Review of Dark Star (1974) by Rj M — 19 Aug 2008
The mother of all low budget movies. While still attending USC Film School, John Carpenter, and classmate (and future "Alien" writer) Dan O'Bannon would film as much footage with the money they had.
They would then show the footage to anyone who was willing to loan them more money to shoot more footage. The movie is parody of intellectual sci-fi movies, most notably 2001: A Space Odyssey. A trio of astronauts has been in space for 20 years blowing up unstable planets with a supply of talking, intellectual bombs.
You gotta love a movie where the acting commander, recording in the ships log, has nothing more interesting to report that there was a mishap in the storage area that destroyed the ship's entire supply of toilet paper.
Ouch. That hurts. The visual effects, while obviously low budget, perfectly invoke the feel of 2001. The cast of three actors are great, showing the utter boredom that has come from so many years in space with NOTHING else to do.
How do you keep busy? How do you stop yourself from going insane? Or have they? The movie is not a knee slapping, laugh riot, but it is an extremely entertaining, one of a kind sci-fi spoof. The first feature film from legendary director John Carpenter.
This review of Dark Star (1974) was written by Rj M on 19 Aug 2008.
Dark Star has generally received positive reviews.
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