May 29 2010
The Last Starfighter Movie Streaming
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Has it really been 25 years since this movie was released?
That was my first concept when I heard this movie was being released on Blu-ray. My second idea was that my ever burgeoning Blu-ray collection would be increasing by at least one more movie in August.
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I will discuss the status later in this review but I am suspecting that most customers checking this Blu-ray catalog item out on Amazon are perhaps more alive to in the Portray and Audio and the special features.
I have never seen the HD-DVD but have read that the HD-DVD transfer was simply ghastly and was bracing myself to be disappointed with the quality of the Blu-ray release.
While the transfer is a far yowl from anything that anyone would cite as reference quality with a lot of the scenes suffering a smoky study at times, the colors are OK with some determined gloomy and white levels, but on other occasions muted too grand. Unruffled it is an improvment over the previous DVD release, though it”’s questionable if this should be enough to double-dip.
The audio has some nice surround and gigantic bass but again is also somewhat average, so if you are expecting an audio track to rival more original movies you will likely be disappointed.
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The highlight of rhe special features is the audio commentary between director Carve Castle and production designer Ron Cobb. This is evidently an frail audio track but the two seem to have an delectable time. There is also a Making of featurette called “Crossing the Frontier” and, as one would demand with a movie touring itself as a 25th Anniversary Edition, a fresh featurette that includes cast and crew looking encourage on the movie and their roles as mentors.
The movie follows the adventures of Alex Rogan (played by Lance Guest) . Living in a trailer park and with a gorgeous girlfriend Alex spends his time mastering a video arcade game in between doing oddjobs for his neighbors. However, after a particularly successful game at the controls, he is visited by a mysterious character. It turns out that the video game is customary as a recruiting tool of sorts to locate those who would be huge intergalactic fighter pilots.
Before Alex knows what has hit him the bewildered teen is whisked off across the galaxy and discovers that what was once unprejudiced a video game is now all too right.
Yes, it’s noble passe 1980s cheese and the early CGI effects are powerful less impressive now than they were 25 years ago, but for a pure fun movie that does not buy itself too seriously you can do considerable worse 
The Last Starfighter is essentially a state opera hinged on the fantasy that video game skills will set aside the day. Obviously this movie was made for the young teen crowd (essentially 13 yr primitive boys with Ataris/ Intelivisions/ColecoVisions/etc) and has its piece of action and comedy that, like most set operas in the 80’s, has more than one similarity to Star Wars (but then again Star Wars was a homage to the classic place operas of the golden age of television) . So it’s not high caliber sci-fi, but it’s not B-movie fodder either.
The tale is aesthetic simple: Detestable leader of defective aliens wants to attack beneficial aliens, so in walks a single hero who is the last hope for freedom. That’s about it. The movie doesn’t deviate too far from this premise other than to further flesh out the fish-out-of-water scenario of an 80’s Earthling thrust into place (as well as a slight fun with an alien in 80’s Earth) as well as the inner battle of said Earthling to halt and fight for a Star League he doesn’t know or conclude home and go to community college. A serviceable chronicle, if not deep.
The acting does do the simple epic delicious to behold. Lance Guest seems to have fun with the role, which works for the character. Biggest props go to esteemed Robert Preston’s Centauri, who plays the role with the style of a magician and the charisma P.T. Barnum. Another esteemed actor, Dan O’Herlihy, does a surprisingly generous performance. Especially when you mediate he is wearing corpulent prosthetics with less facial mobility than the costumes from the modern Planet of the Apes. Yeah there is a bit of theatrical “drama”, but that works with the whole status opera motif.
Special effects are a benchmark here because this is the first film to incorporate live action elements to computer generated animation. The CGA is handsome barbaric by today’s standards and even succor then was noticeable. The biggest glare in this are the scenes flying in around asteroids, which examine dazzling “plastic” CG-wise. However the CG ships looked awesome and you can’t beat the camera angles and fly-byes that computer animation affords. Plus befriend then this was stunning space of the art.
The fresh DVD was released years ago and not too long ago an HD-DVD release was done. Both were attractive sterling in their format, but this Blu-Ray is a accurate remastering of the movie. It’s a MPEG-4 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It looks like a lot of the grain was taken out too, and for some that could be annoying if you are really into the accurate theater inspect. Collected the images are a fine deal sharper and survey better than any previous release (including the HD-DVD release) . The CG effects really stand out, and while I liked it that aspect also separated those scenes more from the live action shots as far as differences in detail, color and lighting. All in all it’s a grand transfer/remaster in spite of it not being perfect (then again how many 15 year extinct movies can really stand up to original digital transfers? ) .
The Blu-Ray comes with the same features as the DVD release only the unique documentary is in high definition and you earn a few Blu-Ray centric features like BDLive and D-Box compatibility (that’s a motion control chair that responds to queues from the movie) . Extras are as follows:
Commentary with director Chop Castle and production designer Ron Cobb - It’s informative and inviting hearing the two banter between each other. You can deliver they enjoyed making this movie.
Crossing the Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter - This was in the unique DVD release. Lance Guest hosts this half hour documentary going unhurried the scenes on the technical and other aspects of the movie.
Heroes of the Cover (in HD) - Essentially interviews with cast and crew talking about how the movie was made and how they felt about the production.
DTS-HD 5.1 in English and subtitled in English (SDH), Spanish and French - Can’t shriek for the accuracy of the subtitles, but the English audio sounds mountainous. Not a whole lot of surround sound stuff going on, but then again this is an older movie.
Theatrical and teaser trailer - Standard definition. Not worthy to say here.
Image gallery - Includes rare production photos, promotional stuff and swear from an alternate ending.
This movie is definitely a time capsule for 80’s science fiction and is very distinguished a product of that time. If you like that sort of charm then by all means retract this one up. If you already have the recent DVD you were definitely indulge in the updated visuals and sound as well as the recent interviews. It’s worth the double dip.
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