Dark Star (1974) User Reviews

Astronauts on a senseless mission through Space, Philosophic Bombs, a lot of subtle humor, and those bearts oh my, oh my..

[cgibin · 7/10 · 27 March 2005]

A Great Movie, i think it was made in Film School and is the first Movie available by John Carpenter.. The great thing besides the Humor, are those little typical low-budget Mistakes like the actor in the "lift" scene who is pretty clearly just lying on a common Floor.. The "mOnster" is amazing too its funny to see how a Ball with gloves can actually act, and a little music makes it scary..

The Last Scene is clearly inspired by Ray Bradburys (Fahrenheit 451) Short Story "Kaleidoscope"..

Sorry for my poor English, but i just had to write something to this incredible piece of film..

A silly little film

[tomimt · 7/10 · 2 August 2005]

John Carpenter's first film. Must be horror you say, but you'd be wrong in that account. Dark Star is a parodied view of future, in where a group of astronauts travel in space, destroying unstable planets in danger of hitting in to the sun, thus making them in to novas.

One would think there's lots of special effects in a movie like this, and one would be right. Those special effects just aren't extremely good in any standard, but they do have lots of charm. And I actually do believe, that if this movie would have any better specials it wouldn't be as funny as it's now.

I won't spoil the movie for you, but if you like sci-fi this just might suit for you then. It gave me couple of laughs.

Many Flaws, But Still a Watchable Space Flick

[gavin6942 · 5/10 · 20 May 2010]

After being in space for twenty years (but only aging three) the crew of the Dark Star are starting to be at wits' end. The ship is falling apart, the computer is a little bit quirky, and a pet alien is getting restless. How much more of this madness can the men take? This film is known for one good reason: it was the film debut of John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. How much of Carpenter can be seen in here, I don't know. I'm not a huge Carpenter fan or scholar, and I can't pinpoint the similarities. The connection between this an O'Bannon's "Alien" I will leave to your imagination.

This was a student film, and it shows. I've seen better, I've seen worse. It's not a great science fiction film (the alien is so fake it's crazy) and the comedy is a bit sparse (the bombs are funny, but most of it just sort of drags). I, for one, loved the phenomenology bit, but then I was forced to study that bunkum for three semesters, so I'm glad to see it made light of.

John Carpenter completists need to see this film. It has some charm. I will maybe take it off the shelf and watch it a second time soon to rethink my position, but this just didn't really strike me as the signs of a budding genius. Oddly, the other Carpenter film I don't much like is "Ghosts of Mars", so many it's his treatment of space that I don't care for. Who knows?

The Bizarro 2001

[sciencefaction3d · 25 October 2004]

I saw this film as a kid, dismissed it as boring, and moved on. Luckily, fate forced me to see it again about 2 years ago and (some are going to hate me for this) now i consider it second only to Kubrick's 2001:A Space Odyssey. The scope is gigantic, even though we're trapped inside the goofy little ship with these rejects (and they ARE rejects). It is a spoof of man's uninformed view of his place in the universe. It is filled to capacity with malfunctioning technology, illogical solutions to self-inflicted conflicts and a very genuine feeling of the isolation of deep space.

The music (John Carpenter is an innovator in film scoring) is strange and often indistinguishable from the zany noises of the ship's equipment and displays (who would ever create such tortuous bleeps and sirens for EVERY function of a spacecraft designed to house a couple of guys in the outermost regions of the galaxy?). The ship's computer is a perfect contast of Hal9000 (2001) in that SHE seems to understand her crew's dimwitted plight and ,after speaking to them in her programmed monotone, recognizes the need to go back and dumb herself down so that they can function accordingly. It is never explained whether she has assumed a mother-figure role or is simply acting out of self-preservation ,but ,like most of the more thought-provoking elements of this absurdist's fantasy, the viewer is merely given the bare-bones information and allowed to decide for itself.

Maybe all of this implied data caused me to make the movie better in my head than it actually is ,but how many films have you seen lately that can give you that freedom?

Interesting low budget sci-fi

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 11 January 2014]

This low budget sci-fi features four men far from Earth aboard less than reliable spaceship. Their mission is to find planets in unstable orbits and destroy them with the sentient bombs they are carrying. The crew have grown bored on their long mission and do what they can to keep entertained but with little success. An accident has already lead to the death of the commander and substantial damage to the ship and an encounter with an asteroid storm causes further damage to various systems; most notably one of the bombs which now wants to starts its mission.

The films low budget shows in the special effects that make those on the original 'Star Trek' look hi-tech and an alien creature, looking like a large beach ball with claws that make early 'Doctor Who' monsters look believable… surprisingly this turns out to be part of the films charm. There aren't as many laughs as I'd expected from a film billed as a comedy but there were some decent chuckles and more tense moments than I'd expected. The acting isn't the most dynamic but that helps emphasise how bored the crew are meant to be.

This film is mainly of interest because it was director John Carpenter's first film and was co-written by Dan O'Bannon who would later go on to write 'Alien'. Also it is one of the earliest films to depict space travel as something far from glamorous in the way the ship isn't large and gleaming; instead it is claustrophobic and malfunctioning. If you are a fan of sci-fi I'd certainly recommend this; it may be far from perfect but I suspect if it weren't for this little film some of the best known modern sci-fi classics would be quite different or not exist.

What do you say to a talking bomb?

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 6 April 2017]

"Dark Star" is filmmaker John Carpenters' theatrical debut, expanded from a college short he wrote with his fellow student, Dan O'Bannon. Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm, Dre Pahich, and O'Bannon himself play a quartet of astronauts, 20 years into an incredibly dreary mission where they occasionally get to have some fun destroying "unstable" planets. Some trouble arises when one of their talking, sentient bombs malfunctions, and has to be reasoned with.

Although not nearly as slick as many of Carpenters' subsequent efforts, the director and his crew do the absolute best that they can with a shoestring budget (supposedly, around $55,000 all told.) Executive produced by Jack H. Harris of "The Blob" fame, it benefits from a wonderfully wacky approach. It was always intended to be a comedy, and to lovingly spoof vintage science fiction while also paying tribute to it. Nicely performed by its no name cast (with O'Bannon a comic standout as the frustrated Sgt. Pinback), it does have some genuine tension as well. There's a big elongated sequence with Pinback being forced to deal with an alien "mascot", played by a beach ball with claws. O'Bannon chases the beach ball into a series of shafts, and this material works as a forerunner to some of the stuff that O'Bannon wrote for "Alien" several years later. Best of all is the way that Lt. Doolittle (Narelle) must engage in that philosophical debate with Bomb # 20. "How do you know you exist?"

Longtime Carpenter associates Nick Castle and Tommy Lee Wallace also worked on this show. Carpenter, as was most often the case with his work, composed the music himself, and it's quite enjoyable. Carpenter also wrote the catchy country song "Benson, Arizona" (lyrics by effects expert Bill Taylor) that is heard twice, once over the opening credits and once at the end.

Good fun overall, especially for science fiction lovers and surfers. O'Bannon always vehemently insisted that he co-directed, leading to a rift between him and Carpenter when the latter took sole directing credit.

"Let there be light."

Seven out of 10.

In space, no one can see you be weird

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 7/10 · 29 April 2008]

Being that this is one of the first of Carpenter's works, and that it had O'Bannon's involvement(more the former than the latter), I made it a point to get to watch it. I noticed that, for being listed a comedy, there aren't that many laughs in it... which is not at all to say that it isn't funny, portions of it certainly are, with several kinds of humor blended together well... some is clever, there's a remarkably well-done absurdity bit(and more than one thing herein is bizarre), and there are black parts, as well. Not every gag or joke works, and with how far there can be between them, I should think that someone just going into this expecting only that will leave disappointed. Meanwhile, if you dig John and the other two genres, you're likely to have a great time. There is genuine tension(he managed to do that skillfully even then), and among the technology and such are interesting aspects to be found(according to the Trivia, a little of it was even inspired by two marvelous writers in the field). Music, as usual on one of his films, is done by John Carpenter himself, and also to be expected, is really good(if not necessarily his best or most memorable). Cinematography, editing and effects all show promise of things to come, from both men. Acting could be better. Writing varies, but there is the occasional nugget of pure gold. I recommend this to any fan of Mr. Carpenter and/or Dan, as well as those who are into sci-fi. 7/10

Craftily Unfunny

[kidwltm · 2/10 · 12 August 2003]

Comedy is as subjective as anything gets. It all depends on the persons preference of humor. Personally, I never laughed once during this movie. I get the fact they were playing off of cheap effects and sci-fi cliches, but humor is just really thin and bland. It came to the point were the film became bothersome and ultimately boring, as I was waiting for something amusing to slip through. It wasn't completely terrible, being because John Carpenter, even in 1974, possessed an good eye for camera work and visual shots. The f/x isn't bad for it's time, and Carpenter at least makes the film nice to look at.

Some may find it funny, but I found it dreadfully repetitive, boring, and void of anything funny. Stay away unless your interested in seeing how Carpenter got his start.

2/10

0 / * * * *

A demented outer space comedy from John Carpenter.

[Captain_Couth · 9/10 · 12 November 2003]

Dark Star (1974) was a student film that John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon worked on while they were in college. They later found a film distributor who asked them to expand it to feature film length. The movie takes place in a small, cramped out of date spacecraft. Several astronauts are on board (who have been around each other to long) trying to complete their mission of destroying unstable planets. I found this film to be very entertaining and bizarre. I enjoyed it very much. The highlight of this film is when a computerized bomb decides that he doesn't want to take orders from the astronauts anymore and ponders the meaning of life. Highly recommended, but it's not your average Sci-Fi film.

A.

A turning point in Science Fiction

[rlcsljo · 7/10 · 28 December 2000]

Up until "Dark Star", crews of rocket ships were usually "spit and polish", highly disciplined members of a crew all working towards a common goal in harmony. This was the image of the astronauts as promulgated by NASA. Dark Star introduced the negative dynamic to spaceship crews: space travel was ho-hum, they had little contact with earth, and everyone had gotten sick of each other.

Dan O'Bannon used this to good effect in "Alien".

Also, the use of contemporary music was highly original and helped move the movie along.

The scene where they talk to the bomb was just a rip-off from Star Trek and the episode "The Ultimate Computer".

Don't bother - gave it a 2nd try - disliked it even more...

[Figgiedan · 3/10 · 16 February 1999]

Very tedious, I still don't get why people enjoy this annoying piece of garbage. There really isn't anything too funny in it. Saw it for a second time at the Boston Sci-Fest this year, for the first time in 1989 - still don't see what's so special about it - got bored, and I don't get bored easy when it comes to a movie. 3 out of 10.

One of my favourite films!

[NiceGuyTommy · 10/10 · 6 December 2004]

John Carpenter's feature debut 'Dark Star' is an absolutely brilliant little curio, that'll make you laugh and laugh. I first saw the film on England's Channel 4 a few years back, and remember wondering what the hell I was watching. I quickly tracked down a copy and rewatched it to see if it was really THAT good...

The story involves a bunch of astronauts who have been in space for many years: they spend their time blowing up unstable planets and rocking out to surf music. During this time, an alien (that looks suspiciously like a beach ball) runs riot, and an unruly bomb threatens to blow everyone to smithereens.

'Alien' screenwriter Dan O'Bannon wrote 'Dark Star', and clearly borrowed from it for the 1979 Ridley Scott film - taking the hilarious beach-ball sequence and playing it out for tension rather than laughs. Also a big influence on the TV series 'Red Dwarf'.

Check it out if you're a fan of science fiction or a fan of John Carpenter. 10/10. An underrated classic.

what is reality dude?

[jonathan-577 · 7/10 · 2 January 2008]

John Carpenter - what a weirdo. Here he is in film school, with a bunch of hairy freaks shlepping around the cheapest space sets imaginable, enacting Dan O'Bannon's proto-'Alien' screenplay as a stoner 2001. Padding was added afterwards, but it's a tribute to the singularity of vision that I'm not entirely sure what stuff was in the original - although I am sure that ingenious-if-transparent elevator scene was a late add. I wish the third act had something as left-field as that beach ball, and the pacing could put you to sleep, but it's totally charming, and gives one some perspective on Carpenter's later goofball genre work.

I'm sure I watched the same movie, but...

[Stu-42 · 4/10 · 9 May 2005]

I think the first potential mistake to make about this film is to call it a comedy. It isn't. It's a first attempt for an awesome director that is mostly a failure, but shows some of the creativity that would appear in force later on. It's not that there were jokes that weren't funny, it's that there weren't jokes. At least not any more than in any of Carpenter's other films. Would you call Assault on Precinct 13 a comedy? Despite a couple amusing things like using an ice cream man I would have to say no. What's amazing is I seem to be in the complete minority about this being kind of a suspense thriller mixed with 2001 ideas. The beach ball alien was frightening because of it's cheap and silly appearance just like the doll in Trilogy of Terror and the weirdo creatures in Don't be Afraid of the Dark. Also JC's music is eerie and shows his talent in that area although of course a basic effort. The rest of the film is just a strange incomprehensible take on A Space Odyssey with not a single funny moment. I'm so glad Carpenter learned as he went and blossomed into arguably the best scary movie maker in history. Interesting only to see where he started. Deserves praise for being mercifully short which saves it from the disaster category.

I never realized Pinback wrote Alien!

[alan-potter-1 · 13 December 2004]

I first saw Dark Star about 25 years ago and have enthused about it ever since. It's definitely a movie that you've got to be in the mind for but it is funny, the music has the characteristic Carpenter style, is very hippyish in a lot of ways and the low-budget style works very well. The alien is great - apparently its feet are the ones used in "The Creature From The Black Lagoon"

It's a shame the DVD doesn't have any extras. I suppose there isn't much left lying around for them to use!

It's also incredible to think that it was only 5 years between the release of this and the release of Alien. Pinback is one of the characters in Dark Star, played by Dan O'Bannon and he is also the co-writer. Then he went on to write Alien!

Do see this film - but be in a laid-back mood when you do.

Good Laughs

[CHall2K3 · 6/10 · 2 January 2004]

I didn't realize what I was watching 3 A.M. one day until someone told me.

This looked like a cheesy rip off of something, but at 3 A.M., all I could do was enjoy.

The low production really shows, but I didn't care. This movie is funny, and as a comedy, that's hard to do these days. The acting, well... ok, but I had the sense that these guys were trying to do it as best they can.

All I can say about this is, this is the type of movie you can watch at 3 A.M. and still enjoy.

Still Unique

[Tweetienator · 7/10 · 5 July 2021]

Not a masterpiece (low budget etc.) but every lover of Carpenter's work should watch this one at least once, and compared to most what is sold to us as sci-fi these days, Dark Star is a very creative and entertaining piece. Anyway, if you like such classic sci-fi B-movies like Silent Running, Zardoz and the like, put this one on your watchlist. Thumbs up.

Fantastic film

[jomorri2 · 7/10 · 17 June 2011]

You have got to put aside the quality of the set and special effects and judge this on the dialogue and the overall ideas.

The absurdity of the colossal scope of destroying whole worlds to allow Humanity to colonise Star systems against the banality of the people doing it is just brilliant.

Balancing the human frailties of a bunch of idiots with such a quest is genuinely funny and also pokes fun at how important we think we are and avoids the well worn clichés of the super capable Star ship crew believing in the greatness and weightiness of their mission.

I think if we ever get out there it will be more like this! This is not perfect but as a character dialogue driven piece, as long as you have no expectations of anything approaching CGI its well worth a look.

Wildly Uneven But A Few Moments of Transcendance

[secragt · 5/10 · 27 June 2003]

Opinions vary widely on this one and I can see why. In the movie's favor is its bizarre energy and atmosphere which makes its melange of scifi horror and comedy intermittently hypnotic. On the downside are the truly amateurish production values and pathetic acting. Most of this movie has the look of some longhaired grad film school students with no life shooting a quasi-homage to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY guerilla style in their college dorm in the middle of the night. Aspects are intriguing, though, including the alternatively exasperating yet also humorous renegade beach ball monster attacks, which are clearly Dan O'Bannon's fledgling version of his later far scarier and cleverer ALIEN screenplay. The dialogue between the astronauts and the Hal 9000-esque bomb is definitely the funniest sequence; the movie probably should have been a 20 minute short focusing on this portion rather than a full blown feature length effort with all the other boring subplots, which feel tacked-on like they decided to extend the movie at some point but couldn't come up with anything resembling an organic structuring to justify it.

Carpenter does come up with interesting solutions to budget problems, like creating a fake futuristic elevator by using forced perspective on their dorm room floor and turning the camera on its side. The effect very nearly works!

In all, this is probably best viewed as an early failed effort by two talents who went on to bigger and brighter things. Carpenter's techno music is at its disharmonically buzzy worst here; amazing that a mere four years later he would craft the masterful music, script and direction for the truly harrowing HALLOWEEN. That movie bears almost no resemblance to this one and is a testament to how far someone can come in such a short span. It has to give the worst hack considerable hope (along the lines of James Cameron going from PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING to TERMINATOR.) If you rent this for $0.99 and go in with no expectations, you'll probably still be disappointed, but there are a few inexplicably charming moments amidst the mostly boring and monotonously dated peek into the "future world" of the 1990s by minds of the 1970s. 1.5 / 4 stars (but I still pause on it whenever I stumble onto it on late night cable.)

Spaced out in outer space

[Woodyanders · 8/10 · 30 December 2010]

John Carpenter's delightfully droll, dry, and deadpan debut theatrical feature relates the bleakly amusing story of a hapless spaceship crew -- mellow surfing enthusiast Lt. Doolittle (amiable Brian Narelle), gruff, belligerent Boiler (Dre Pahich), the remote and detached Talby (Cal Kuniholm), and the dim-witted Sgt. Pinback (an especially inspired performance by co-writer Dan O' Bannon) -- whose thankless mission is to float around the universe destroying unstable planets. The only problem is that after twenty years in the last great frontier these guys have become exceedingly coarse, hostile, and emotionally blank to the point where they are barely even human any more.

This often wickedly hilarious pitch-black comedy's key impressive achievement is the way it totally deromantizes the concept of space travel and reveals the drab mundane reality of drifting through various galaxies on a regular basis as basically just another soul-sucking and dehumanizing job that's just like working in the same dreary office for far too long. The amusing offbeat humor offers a wealth of genuinely clever and frequently sidesplitting moments: Pinback attempting to feed the cute, but crafty and aggressive alien mascot (said alien mascot is obviously nothing more than a beach-ball with claws!), Doolittle having a ridiculous philosophical debate with a neurotic talking bomb that's eager to blow up real good, Pinback's priceless bitter video diary, a sultry-voiced "female" computer who cheerfully warns the crew about assorted impending dangers, the deceased frozen captain dishing out advice in a whiny tone, and Doolittle using a piece of spaceship debris as a makeshift surfboard in the gloriously trippy closing shot. This grimly absurdist sensibility in turn gives the picture a feeling of remarkable peculiarity that comes across as quite natural, unforced, and ultimately endearing. The irreverence at work throughout acquires additional kooky charm and substantial impact for being presented in an admirably low-key and subtle manner. Moreover, Carpenter manages to create sequences of exceptional nerve-wracking tension amid all the rampant tomfoolery; the set piece with Pinback trapped in the elevator shaft is really harrowing at times. Douglas Knapp's cinematography makes the most out of the cramped, confined, and claustrophobic sets. Carpenter's shivery synthesizer score likewise does the trick. The twangy country song "Benson Arizona" is extremely catchy and used perfectly at the very end. The special effects are surprisingly good considering the paltry budget. Granted, the acting is pretty rough around the edges, but it works in the context of the film. A pleasingly different and distinctive one-of-a-kind treat.

if 2001 bored you, you should skip this

[siderite · 7/10 · 15 November 2009]

I must force myself to imagine 1974 and the state of movies back then so I can rate this average. Something that is done with a small budget and 4 guys can't possibly be awesome, so I am also lowering my expectations on that ground. However, it's still lacking.

If you thought 2001 A Space Odyssey was boring, then this one will make you fall asleep. The humour is there, the satire strong, but it feels like a gag movie with no real purpose.

Bottom line: very low budget, kind of slow, weird, might be fun but then it might not. It saddens me to see that people thought that space will be conquered by a mindless military, sending people ill and under equipped to fend for themselves... only to have the other side win: the endlessly stalling bureaucrats who can't risk anything unless their butts are safe. Seen in this light, this movie is terribly optimistic.

Comedy without humor

[Signa815 · 1/10 · 2 April 2009]

I really seldom give either one or ten stars to any movie, but this was so awful, I had to make an exception.

I am a SciFi fan and have seen a few comedic takes on SciFi that I genuinely like. There just wasn't anything here to like.

I realize this was started with an extremely small budget by a film student. But even considering that, the sets and effect are bad. The cinematography is mediocre, but may be the best part of the movie.

The acting is bad. A sad state when the female voice-over for the computer is the best actor. The dialogue is bad. The script is very weak and the plot is incoherent and almost nonexistent.

The humor is not just subtle and sublime; it's nowhere to be found. As an example, a whole 20 minutes, of the 80 minute film, is spent on a lame 2 punch combo joke with the alien mascot and the elevator.

This was supposed to be a parody of everything from bad 50's SciFi to 2001. What we end up with though, is just a slightly updated version of an old 50's SciFi C-movie. At least those movies were funny because they took themselves seriously.

REAL astronauts have long hair and beards.

[gingerpete · 10/10 · 25 October 2005]

"Don't give me any of that intelligent life stuff, give me something I can blow up!" Doolittle.

Lieutenant Doolittle is in charge of 'Dark Star', a ship on a lonely mission to destroy unstable planets in systems targeted for colonisation. The ship has been on it's mission for twenty years, but the crew have only aged three years. Doolittle has been in charge since an explosion killed Commander Powell, rendered the sleeping quarters uninhabitable and destroyed the ship's entire supply of toilet paper. In order to deal with the excruciating boredom of the mission and the frustration at having only three other astronauts for company the ship's computer, which has an alluringly soothing and sexy female voice, pipes in muzak and easy listening jazz. Doolittle misses surfing. Boiler has taken to shooting holes in things. Talby lives in isolation in the the observation dome. Pinback isn't really Pinback, not that anyone even cares. Excitement arrives when an asteroid inflicts damage on the ship's systems, prematurely activating one of the highly intelligent, eager and earnest planet killer bombs. To complicate things the alien needs feeding, and Bomb 20 just wants to do its job and is getting increasingly frustrated and belligerent.

"Bomb, are you willing to entertain a few concepts?" Doolittle

"I am always receptive to suggestions!" Bomb 20

'Dark Star' was made in 1974, initially as a college project, and launched the careers of John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon, amongst others (Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle, long term Carpenter collaborators both, worked on 'Dark Star' and the ship's interior and exterior were designed by the great Ron Cobb). From the very start Carpenter's style is evident, the widescreen image is utilised to absolute maximum effect without a bit of wasted space on screen, the signature electronic music is present throughout (with the exception of the cheerfully optimistic trucker song 'Benson, Arizona' which serves as title song), and the pacing and editing are perfect. The film is not boring for a minute despite the lack of resources. The special effects, while cheap and cheerful, serve the film perfectly (I've always managed to suspend disbelief more easily in the face of cheap practical effects than I have when faced with unconvincing computer generated effects), particularly the psychedelic hyperspace sequences. The film as a whole is a tour de force of tricks and gags, a veritable 'How To' of practical effects that, once staples of cinema, are now being superseded by CGI. 'Dark Star' has influenced science fiction film-making ever since and just as 'Dark Star' tips it's hat to it's inspirations (for example 'THX1138'), it in turn will be referenced for many years to come.

I can't tell you how much I love this film. It's funny and moving (Pinback's video diary is burned in my memory), and, a groundbreaking movie in 1974, it still feels fresh 31 years later. The product of post-Vietnam and Watergate era America it still resonates today because in an age of ever smarter bombs and increasingly advanced technology we remain at the mercy of chance and human frailty.

It's also the only film in history to feature a man discussing phenomenology with a bomb. Priceless!

A perfect ten out of ten.

Way-out and agreeable Sci-Fi , being John Carpenter's fondly remembered first feature

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 19 August 2020]

One of the stranger sci-fi movies you are likely run across . Here a motley crew formed by 4 bombed-out astronauts journey endlessly through the galaxy , whiling away the time antics , jokes , sunlamp treatment , personal diaries on videotape and games with their own pet alien , a beach ball-alike . They have been in space entirely too long (a 20 year mission) as they seek and destroy unstable planets that are in the way of navigation routes. Things go wrong when after a series of mishaps Mother, the ship's computer , can no longer persuade Bomb not to explode . Along the way an astronaut at the outer space arguing with Bomb about to detonate and that is bound to do his duty.

John Carpenter's first and lowest-budgeted film is very funny and fun in spurts and always crazy enough to hold spectator's attention , and it also anticipated the fictin of the seventies . Enjoyable, likeable and sheer delight Science Fiction film along Alien lines but much more jokey , with the cracks just about pasted over in the sets Carpenter and his team had built at their homes . Arguably the last and weirdest hippy movie with jokey references drugs , absurd phylosophical conversations , being rated PG because of language and adding California surfing , in fact one crew member makes it back to Earth on an improvised board . Stars Dan O'Bannon who gives a sympathetic acting as Pinback, but he also carries out efficiently the Editing , Production Design , as well as the amusing and entertaining script . Dan O'Bannon got his start when he and John Carpenter collaborated on this cult sci-fi film Dark Star (1974). After a failed attempt to make "Dune" with bizarre surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky in Europe, O'Bannon went back to the US and began work on "Star Beast" later retitled ¨Alien¨with Ronald Shusett with whom he later worked again on ¨Dead and buried¨(1981). He continued working in the Sci-fi/Horror genre mostly as a script doctor, but his directorial debut , The return of the living dead (1985) is known as one of the best zombie movies ever made .

Director John Carpenter is in familiar ground with this well-done tale about a group of unfortunate astronauts . Filmmaker himself described as: ¨One big optical-waiting for Godot in space¨. The film was made during his first period in the 70s and 8os , subsequently to direct classics as ¨Assault on Precint 13¨, ¨Halloween¨, ¨The Fog¨, ¨Christine¨, ¨Big trouble in little China¨, ¨They live¨, ¨1997 escape from N.Y .¨ , ¨Starman¨, Prince of darkness¨and ¨The thing¨.

Unbelievably Dull and Annoying

[wbarnu19 · 1/10 · 15 September 2002]

This is probably the only movie I have ever not been able to make it all the way through. Not only was it annoying and boring, but the low production values made it hard to make out the action and in some cases the dialogue. Avoid this one like the plague.