The Last Starfighter (1984)

This was one of the first movies I saw in a theater, 1985, the year after its release. And I tell you, this movie wasn't a big deal then; it was considered a well made but derivative B movie, and the CGI effects were almost never mentioned in reviews or articles. I have checked it now in newspaper archives online, so I know I remember it right.The ironic thing is that "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985) was released this same year; I saw it soon after "The Last Starfighter". The Sherlock Holmes movie was hailed for its alleged groundbreaking CGI effect: a very short sequence where a knight of stained glass attack a priest. This effect lasted perhaps 20 seconds..."The Last Starfighter" is full of CGI sequences, and either me or my friends in the theater recognized them as computer images, and absolutely not as "cheap video game graphics" as some reviewers here describe it. And no journalist or reviewer saw it that way either, back then. But when I watch this movie on DVD today, many sequences really look distinctly artificial with unnatural sharp edges and light, much like computer graphics, which give them a style that cut them out from the rest of the movie. My theory is that the celluloid copies that we were watching in the theaters smothered this down and gave these sequences a much more natural look; and that the movie makers originally counted on this when they incorporated the CGI scenes with the rest of the movie.The movie is well made, with a rather original story and good performances by the actors. Not a very great movie, though, but it is entertaining and without doubt movie history.

Lost in the summer releases and technically very inferior to the "Star Wars" series, but a lot of fun. The film that probably killed Lorimar-Filmways! The digital effects are crude. The spaceship matte is very inferior and fake-looking by today's standards. What does it have in it's favor? Several things: It has a great intentional sense-of-humor. (You will notice this more on the 2nd viewing.) The villain is a spoiled brat that looks like a bald Kryptonian. He bombs the space academy while the spacesuit-tailors are arguing about modifying the uniform for "humans"! Great intentional "miscasting" with a green lizard man (nice rubber suit) and Robert Preston plays himself as a Harold Hill-alien "flim-flam man". Great low budget special effects and some of it takes place on Earth in a boring trailer park! The alien assassin smells like a rotten pork chop and disguises itself as a policeman-shape-shifter! The "Space Blossom" secret weapon is powered by a 9-volt radio battery! Lot's of fun. Our hero, played by Lance Guest, (Alex) is a teenaged college student with a very-hot girl friend (Catherine Mary Stewart). "Alex" plays "the video game" at the trailer court. The game was shipped there by mistake! It was meant to go to another city or planet! By beating the game, he qualifies to become a space cadet and gets recruited by Robert Preston as "Centuri". Other nice touches: Alex (the Starfighter) is "replaced" temporarily by a robot duplicate. It takes off its head to adjust itself after taking a "tongue in the ear" by his girlfriend! The "Star Car" changes into a "Space-Car" just like in "The Men in Black".

As a big fun of the 80's decades, science fiction, and old arcade video games, i give myself a task to watch this movie, and after some time i finally give it a try and i must say it surprise me, it is very solid movie. The movie reminds me on some mix of E.T. Extraterretial, Back To the Future, Starman and even Star Wars, but it is very unique and have own atmosphere. If you love 80's, lighter sci-fi, fantasy and old arcade video games this movie is definitely for you, of course there are some flaws in a movie, but after watching it i felt happy and nostalgic.my grade: 7/10.

Alex lives in a remote trailer court where his mother is manager and everyone is like a big extended family. Alex becomes the top scorer of Starfighter, a stand-up arcade game where the player defends "the Frontier" from "Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in a space battle. After achieving his best score, he is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri. Stepping into Centauri's vehicle, he is seemingly doomed to stay at his trailer park home all in his life, he finds himself recruited as a gunner for an alien defence force when Centauri is a disguised alien who whisks him off to another planet.....Its a sound idea, having a kid get recruited because he is great at a video game, but one cannot help that this was done before in the movie 'Nightmare' an anthology horror movie that featured Emilio Estevez as a gaming wiz who gets sucked into the video game.This was made a year later....But anyhow, that's just nitpicking, its a fun movie, with a hilarious villain, and who couldn't love a movie more when you find out Grig was played by 'The Old Man' in Robocop.And the effects. Even though they are nothing compared to today, or even a few years after this, they still make the movie, and they really compliment the films narrative.Other than that, its a fish out of water tale of your average Joe, becoming something they had never dreamt of.Plus it stars Lance Guest, the only person on earth who made a shark scream with a camera...