* * *
A teenager is so good at videogaming that aliens snap him up to fight in an interstellar war for reals.
Starring Lance Guest, Dan O'Herlihy, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart
Written by Jonathan R Betuel
Produced by Gary Adelson, Edward O Denault
Duration 101 minutes
INT. LORIMAR PRODUCTIONS, HOLLYWOOD, CA. - MID
‘80S
FADE IN on a HUGE MOUNTAIN, not unlike the
Paramount logo.
PULL OUT to reveal that it is actually a HUGE
PILE OF COCAINE, stacked up on a LONG DESK in a CORPORATE BOARDROOM.
We take in more of the boardroom and the
several MOVIE EXECUTIVES who are buzzing around in an animated state of BRAINSTORMING. The walls are covered in POST-IT NOTES and the EXECUTIVES are GESTICULATING
WILDLY at each other.
One of them, clearly the BOSS, CRASHES DOWN
face-first into the coke and begins SNORTING IT LIKE AN OPEN DOOR ON A SPACE SHIP, while we tune into a nearby conversation.
EXECUTIVE #1
(excitedly)
I’ve got it! I’ve got it!
EXECUTIVE #2
What? What?
The BOSS looks up from his SCARFACE-STYLE MOUNTAIN OF POWDER to take in their exchange. The white mask on his face makes it look like he is participating in a DRUG-FUELLED REVERSE MINSTRAL SHOW.
EXECUTIVE #1
Okay, so you’ve got Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? He’s big, right?
EXECUTIVE #2
Big. Yeah?
EXECUTIVE #1
Right, okay, and so then you’ve got Danny Devito. He’s, he’s--
BOSS
(getting it)
Small...
EXECUTIVE #1
Yes! Small! They couldn’t be any different, but what if, what if-- guys, you’ve gotta hear this-- what if--
EXECUTIVE #3
(interrupting)
No good.
EXECUTIVE #1
What?
EXECUTIVE #3
My buddy is Ivan Reitman’s assistant. His people are already working on a treatment, I think it’s called 'Condom Full of Walnuts Meets Testicle with Arms'. Arnold and Danny as brothers.
(beat)
I said they’re gonna need to work on that title.
SILENCE. Apart from the sound of ENORMOUS LINES OF COCAINE being snorted.
BOSS
(getting an idea)
Guys...
His colleagues all TURN TO HIM IN TWITCHY ANTICIPATION.
BOSS (CONT'D)
I’ve got it. Kids like video games, right?
EXECUTIVE #2
Yeah...
BOSS
What’s better than just playing a video game?
No one knows. Many stand around RUBBING THEIR GUMS, as if expecting to find the answer there.
BOSS
Being a real hero in your own video game!
GASPS around the room. Everyone starts to rack up an EXTRA CHUNKY LINE. Everyone except EXECUTIVE #1.
EXECUTIVE #1
(timidly)
But, but boss ... didn’t Disney already do that? TROM or something--
BOSS
You’re fired!
(pushes an intercom)
Marlene, get me Universal.
(thinks a beat)
And Pablo Escabar!
FADE TO BLACK
Allow me to
indulge in some nostalgia for a moment.
No, not for THE LAST STARFIGHTER. I’m certain I watched it as an adolescent but couldn’t remember much – just something about an arcade machine in a motorway service-station (actually turns out it was a trailer park), some kind of proto-X-WING game that our lead was so good at, he somehow got recruited to fight actual aliens. Other than that, I wasn't sure which memories were of this film and which were of everyone’s favourite Fred Savage-starring Super Mario Bros. 3 commercial, THE WIZARD.
My nostalgia is instead for a time when arcade machines were everywhere. If you popped out with your Dad to get fish and chips on a Friday night, there would be a Streetfighter 2 or Final Fight cabinet you could have a go on while the bloke behind the counter was still scooping out the chunky chips to join your battered saveloy. Cinema foyers had them, too; I have vivid memories of darting out of the queue for ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES at the ABC Catford to give the 3D Pac-Mania a go.
But as the ’90s
wore on, bit by bit the coin-operated game in the corner disappeared. Some suffered the indignity of being replaced by a fruit machine, which was no worthy substitute, let me tell you.
THE LAST STARFIGHTER takes us back to that glorious time when the arcade machine was still king.
The film booms into life with a space backdrop and a musical score that is the exact median between STAR WARS and SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, over credits that come at you like FLASH GORDON. You certainly can’t accuse this thing of not setting its stall out early or failing to indicate what’s coming.
Our hero is Alex Rogan, who pines for an escape from his small town existence, where his reliability as a handyman around the trailer park means that he can't get away to spend Saturday with his pickup-driving pals and love interest – old Mrs Elvira’s dodgy pipework isn’t going to fix itself!
Now, Lance Guest was 24 at the time of filming, playing a character who is supposed to be a teenager. As with every time this happens, the most the filmmakers can do to sustain the illusion of youth is to keep poor Lance completely clean-shaven at all times. They must have had to put a razor to him between every take to prevent even one tell-tale hair poking through, sending trash bags of empty shaving foam cans away from the set in dump trucks. It’s surely only a matter of time before we see a class action lawsuit filed by Guest, Richard Grieco (TEEN AGENT), Alan Ruck (FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF), Billy Warlock (SOCIETY) and the rest against movie studios for historic abuse, claiming debilitating skin conditions caused by years of stubble rash.
Anyway, Alex saunters off to relieve his frustrations by yanking furiously on his joystick. But today won't be like any of the other times he's stood prone in front of a screen with his brow furrowed and sweat seeping out of his pores. "Nine-hundred thousand – you're gonna bust the record!" exclaims the toothless old cleaner who likes to watch Alex when he's playing with himself.
This prompts the entire community to evacuate their trailers and gather around one man (I mean, boy) and his Starfighter arcade cabinet. The bleeps and blips are joined by whoops and cheers until the entire spectacle climaxes with the machine announcing that Alex is indeed a "record breaker".
But the trailer park folk aren’t the only ones to witness Alex be the best of the best at aiming long pixilated lines at moving pixilated shapes on a black background. Later that night, a humanoid alien in a flying DeLorean (five years before BACK TO THE FUTURE PART 2!) turns up and tells Alex that the game was really a recruitment tool and that Alex is "the best we’ve ever seen".
From then on, it’s basically what A NEW HOPE would have been like if the third act had taken up 80% of the movie. Back in 1984, with no new STAR WARS on the horizon after RETURN OF THE JEDI closed off the trilogy the previous summer, this would have been catnip for those desperately jonesing for more battles in space.
Viewed today, it's a palatable slice of cheese-on-toast from an era when a kid could still dream of immortality being just a 20p coin away.
Three stars out of five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? It’s kind of unclear as to how Alex is the
last of those who fight among the stars, since he meets a shitload of others from a bunch of different planets in a space station.
What would a movie called THE
FIRST STARFIGHTER be about? Arguably, it's STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE –
since that whole saga is set ‘a long time ago’, they presumably made it into space
before any of the rest of us.
Previously: THE LAST SEVEN
Next time: THE LAST THING HE WANTED
Check out my books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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