Dark Star (film)

Dark Star
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Produced by	John Carpenter
Written by	John Carpenter Dan O'Bannon
Starring	Dan O'Bannon Brian Narelle Cal Kuniholm Dre Pahich
Music by	John Carpenter
Cinematography	Douglas Knapp
Editing by	Dan O'Bannon
Distributed by	Jack H. Harris Enterprises Inc.
Release date(s)	April 1974 (1974-04)
Running time	83 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60,000

Dark Star is a 1974 American comedic science fiction motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon.

Backstory and plot

In the middle of the 22nd century, humankind has reached a point in its technological advancement to enable colonization of the far reaches of the universe. Armed with artificially intelligent "Thermostellar Triggering Devices", the scout ship Dark Star and its crew have been in space alone for twenty years on a mission to destroy "unstable planets" which might threaten future colonization.

The ship's crew consists of Lt. Doolittle, Sgt. Pinback, Boiler, and Talby. Commander Powell, their superior officer, was killed by a faulty rear seat panel, but remains on board the ship in a state of cryogenic suspension. The crew perform their jobs in a state of abject boredom as the tedium of their task has driven them around the bend, with only each other, an increasing number of (sometimes comical) systems malfunctions (for instance the toilet facilities 'blew up' destroying the ship's entire stock of toilet paper) and the soft-spoken ship's computer for company. They have attempted to create distractions for themselves - Doolittle, formerly an enthusiastic surfer, has constructed a musical bottle organ, Talby spends all his time in the ship's observation dome watching the universe go by, Pinback enjoys playing practical jokes on the other crew members and maintains a video diary of his time on board ship, and Boiler enjoys smoking cigars and target practice with the ship's laser rifle.

In his video diary, Pinback claims to be liquid fuel specialist Bill Frugge, who accidentally takes Pinback's place on the mission after failing to rescue Pinback from committing suicide by wading into a fuel tank before the mission. Pinback has also adopted a ship's mascot in the form of a mischievous alien "beachball" that refuses to stay put in the food locker and forces Pinback to chase it all over the ship.

While navigating a magnetically bound asteroid field en route to their next target, the Dark Star suffers damage, resulting in a malfunction with the bomb drop mechanism. To the utter disinterest of his crewmates, Talby decides to investigate the fault. Discovering a damaged communications laser in the airlock, Talby dons a spacesuit to investigate. While attempting to repair the laser, Talby is blinded and inadvertently triggers a more serious problem, causing extensive damage to the ship's main computer and a major malfunction with Thermostellar Bomb #20, which, on arrival at their target planet, becomes belligerent and refuses to obey orders and drop from the bomb bay.

While stuck in the bomb bay, Bomb #20 refuses to disarm itself - its detonation countdown is in progress and it refuses to abort the countdown sequence. The other crew members attempt to talk the bomb out of blowing up. Doolittle revives Commander Powell, who advises them to teach the bomb the rudiments of phenomenology, resulting in a memorable philosophical conversation between Doolittle and the bomb. Bomb #20 aborts its countdown and retreats to the bomb bay for contemplation, and disaster appears to have been averted. Pinback addresses the bomb over the intercom in an attempt to finally disarm it.

The bomb misinterprets Doolittle's phenomenology and believes itself to be God, states "Let there be light," and promptly detonates. Pinback and Boiler are killed instantly. Commander Powell is jettisoned into space encased in a large block of ice, and Talby is taken away by the Phoenix Asteroids (a cluster of glowing asteroids he had a fascination with) to circumnavigate the universe. Doolittle, who previously expressed his love of surfing and how much he misses it, finds an appropriately-shaped piece of debris and "surfs" down into the atmosphere of the planet, burning into an incandescent speck.

Cast

Not all cast members were listed in the credits. A full list can be found here: [1]

• 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

Production

Screenplay

Director John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay. Six years later, the basic "Beachball with Claws" subplot of the film was reworked from comedy to horror, and became the basis (along with an unpublished story about gremlins aboard a B-52) for the O'Bannon-scripted science fiction horror classic, Alien.^[1]

Filming

Working on an estimated $60,000 budget,^[2] 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 actually a Moviola camera dolly normally used on the small sound stage in the old USC Cinema building (itself once a horse stable). The steering end of the dolly can be seen as part of the "elevator" 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.^[3] 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.^{[citation needed]}

The bombs are made from an HO scale piggyback trailer kit and parts of 1/25th scale model car kits; "Matra", the name of the car brand, can be seen on some parts in some shots. 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.^[3]

Distribution, Cinema Release & DVD Releases

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 45 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 38 minutes which brought the movie up to feature film length.^{[citation needed]}

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-playing scene, the alien-chase / elevator scenes and more.

Because Harris annoyed director John Carpenter during filming, Carpenter got revenge by having a computer screen flash "FUCK YOU HARRIS" during the film.^[3]

Reception

Dark Star can be considered a black comedy however 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 suffered in properly reaching its intended audience. The home video cassette revolution of the early 1980s saw Dark Star become a cult film among sci-fi fans.

Director's Cut

John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon re-edited the film into a "director's cut", removing much of the footage shot for the theatrical release and adding new special effects.

DVD

The film was released in special two-disc "Hyperdrive Edition" DVD 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. Dark Star had previously been released on various region DVDs with little or no special features.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 80% 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."^[4] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, 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."^[5]

Legacy

Dark Star was ranked #95 on Rotten Tomatoes' Journey Through Sci-Fi.^[6]

The indie rock band Pinback takes its name from a character in the movie, and use audio clips of the movie itself in their songs.

The track Bomb 20 by UK rock band Alien Stash Tin is inspired by and quotes from the movie.

Synth-pop band Erasure sampled the computer's voice on their track "Sweet sweet baby" ("Ship's computer to bridge...I must disengage your recreational music") featured on the b-side to their 1989 hit "Drama!".

Composer, David Holmes also samples the computer's voice on his track 'Slash the seats' from the 1995 album "This Film's Crap Let's Slash the Seats"^{[citation needed]}

The movie was adapted into a book by Alan Dean Foster.

Analysis

Carpenter has described Dark Star as "Waiting for Godot in space."^[7]

Soundtrack

The music for Dark Star is mostly of a pure electronic style and was done by John Carpenter himself 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.^[8] 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."^[9]

Further reading

• Holdstock, Robert. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Octopus Books, 1978, pp. 80–81. ISBN 0-7064-0756-3
• Cinefex magazine, issue 2, Aug 1980. Article by Brad Munson: "Greg Jein, Miniature Giant". (Discusses Dark Star, among other subjects.)
• Fantastic Films magazine, Oct 1978, vol. 1 no. 4, pages 52–58, 68–69. James Delson interviews Greg Jein, about Dark Star and other projects Jein had worked on.
• Fantastic Films magazine, Sep 1979, issue 10, pages 7–17, 29–30. Dan O'Bannon discusses Dark Star and Alien, other subjects. (Article was later reprinted in "The very best of Fantastic Films", Special Edition #22 as well.)
• Fantastic Films magazine, Collector's Edition #17, Jul 1980, pages 16–24, 73, 76–77, 92. (Article: "John Carpenter Overexposed" by Blake Mitchell and James Ferguson. Discusses Dark Star, among other things.)

• Bradbury, Ray, Kaleidoscope Doubleday & Company 1951

References

1. ^ * Creative Screenwriting magazine, Sep/Oct 2004, Vol. 11 No. 5, pages 70–73. (Article: "Alien, 25 years later: Dan O'Bannon looks back on his scariest creation" by David Konow. Discusses, among other things, how the "Beach Ball Alien" scenes in Dark Star were an inspiration for Alien.)
2. ^ IMDb Box Office/Business of Dark Star; Access Date: December 19th, 2009
3. ^ ^{a b c} IMDb Trivia for Dark Star; Access Date: December 19th, 2009
4. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes - Dark Star". http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dark_star/. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 
5. ^ Ebert, Roger. "Dark Star (***)". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19800311/REVIEWS/3110301/1023. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 
6. ^ "ROTTEN TOMATOES: RT's Journey Through Sci-Fi". Rotten Tomatoes. 2007-05-11. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/scifi/?r=95&mid=1005271. Retrieved 2008-02-17. 
7. ^ "Dark Star movie review – Film – Time Out London". Time Out. http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/64986/Dark_Star.html. Retrieved 2008-02-17. 
8. ^ Muir, John Kenneth (2000). The Films of John Carpenter. McFarland. p. 54. 
9. ^ "Dark Star - Benson, Arizona". benzedrine.cx. http://www.benzedrine.cx/darkstar.html. Retrieved 2010-06-16. 

External links

• Dark Star at the Internet Movie Database
• Dark Star at AllRovi
• Dark Star at the TCM Movie Database
• Dark Star at The Official John Carpenter
• script of the original short version of Dark Star
• AMC.com - B Movies - Dark Star (Full Streaming Movie)