Review of Starman (1984) by Soufiane E — 11 Jan 2010

Wow, I forgot John Carpenter directed this. It seems the only good John Carpenter movies came from the '80s - The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, They Live, and of course, Starman.

He must've lost it in the '90s, with - Memoirs of an Invisible Man (with Chevy Chase, anybody remember that?), Body Bags, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., Vampires, and Ghost of Mars. Wow, all of his '90s movies were pieces of shit except maybe In the Mouth of Madness.

Starman was one of my favorite films growing up, and always stayed with me. The opening scene covers one of my favorite subjects, OUTER SPACE, as the Voyager satellite breaches the atmosphere of a planet resembling Saturn.

It has a recorded message of earth greetings in 52 different languages. The aliens hear this, and immediately send a craft towards earth. I really hated when the ship reaches our planet and the Air Force immediately starts shooting missiles at it.

What the fuck, man?! In the next scene we are introduced to Karen Allen's (Raiders of the Lost Ark) character, guzzling wine and crying over home movies of her dead husband (Jeff Bridges). Starman crashes nearby in a big ball of fire (nice landing, Starman) and the orb of light that he is goes nearby to Karen Allen's house, sees the home video, then finds a lock of hair in a photo album and samples the DNA to become her dead husband.

Luckily, the alien has brought his small metal balls with him, and uses his balls to do amazing things throughout the course of the film. He uses them to start a car, open a 3-D map of the United States, turn an attacker's tire-iron red hot, bring a deer back to life, and more.

I don't understand why Karen Allen is so scared of her dead husband at first. Even though he's really an alien, isn't this the best time to fuck him again? Of course, Starman only knows the English language as far as the message from Earth went, so he learns it slowly here and there from Karen Allen, which leads to some pretty funny scenes.

Like when she explains to him what the MENS bathroom is, and he excitedly goes to explore it. He smiles at a guy at the urinal, who says "Every goddamn place you go". Seems Starman would be good at cruising men in bathrooms.

The way Jeff Bridges acts in this is really a spectacle; the weird robotic head movements and forced speech patterns. This is displayed best when Karen Allen explains to him that humans must eat to survive, and he says "Eat, yes, we must do that.

We will stop at food station. You have hungry too?" The villains in this work for SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestial Intelligence) and try to track down Starman. And it's funny how the scientists in this think that cloning is a hundred thousand years ahead of us (this was made in 1984).

The main part of the military I hated in this is that they utilize a special covert "Cobra" unit, who are going to track down and perform an autopsy on Starman. I mean, christ, Cobra is the ruthless terrorist organization hellbent on ruling the world from the G.

I. Joe cartoon. It just makes me sad that the government would employ these fuckers. Starman seems pretty fucking sweet in this (a nice guy). He even uses his balls to bring Karen Allen back to life when she is accidentally killed.

I couldn't help but think how cool it would be to have a Starman land in your backyard, and take care of him, then drive him to Flagstaff and everything to get picked up by his ship. That would be so awesome.

Karen Allen ends up revealing to Starman that she's barren and her and her husband couldn't conceive, which leads to Starman finally fucking her, and with his powers gets her pregnant. This was the basis for the short-lived, late '80s Starman series, which was about their son, who was like, half-human, half-Starman.

I wonder if the sex scene would be classified as xenosexual? I loved what he says after he impregnates her - that it will be a boy, her husband's baby but also his, and that when he grows into adulthood he will be a teacher.

Even when he departs he leaves her one of his balls, saying their son will know what to do with it. When Starman describes his planet it sounds so completely awesome. There is one language, one people, one nation, the strong do not victimize the weak, there's no hunger, there's no war; but also, they've lost something.

Which is kind of sad. The finale takes place in the big crater in Winslow, Arizona. I've wanted to go there ever since I moved to Arizona 23 years ago. It's really just a big, out-of-the-way, hole in the ground, but I've always wanted to go there because of this movie.

All in all, Starman is a very touching love story with a great sci-fi element mixed in to it. When Starman says goodbye he tells Karen Allen to tell their son about him. But wouldn't that fuck him up to know his father is a space alien? Maybe when his powers start developing he'd believe it.

But I don't know, I never watched the series.