By Joshua Tyler & Jonathan Klotz | Published
Greetings Starfighter! It can feel like everything is being redone these days, with the 80s in particular turning into a gold mine for Hollywood studios. We already got a new one Conan, Footloose, The Karate Kidand even Time bandits.
Few of them worked, but the one that actually would, and be a license to print money, has not happened yet. We talk about, The Last Starfighter. Stay tuned to find out what happens with plans for more.
The Last Starfighter is still relevant
Considering how popular video games are, The Last Starfighter is still the perfect fantasy for a new generation. Who wouldn’t love to find out their video game is real, and now you have to save a whole foreign civilization? I remember the 80s, and I still would love for that storyline to be true. The Last Starfighter is the best example of a simple sci-fi concept well executed.
The film’s title is a reference to both the name of a video game in the story and a ranking given to a particularly gifted individual. A Starfighter is a job, not a ship. In the context of the film, a Starfighter is a creature that mans weapons from a Gunstar.
A Gunstar is basically a spacecraft, like an X-Wing from Star Wars or a Star Fury from Babylon 5. Only it’s cooler than both.
The whole plot of The Last Starfighter is that Alex, an angry teenager who is going nowhere, is really good at playing a game called Starfighter. He’s so good that once he gets the highest score, the game’s creator, the Centauri, meets him and then kidnaps him and replaces him with an android.
The Centauri were tasked with using the Starfighter to find recruits for the Rylan Star League in their conflict with the KohDan Empire. Whipped up into the stars and teamed up with an alien pilot named Grig, played with gusto by Dan O’Herlihy, Alex is now the galaxy’s last hope to save us all from a malevolent invading force.
Small moments make this 80s classic special
It’s the creative little details that make the difference The Last Starfighter special. Beta Alex, our hero’s earthly robot replacement, is funny, terrifying and impressive. The strange background of Grig’s family adds a funny dimension to his character.
Catherine Mary Stewart, as Maggie, is the most perfect teenage girlfriend ever seen on screen, outside of Jennifer i Back to the future. Last Starfighter’s side characters at the trailer park all hit memorable notes, too. Their unwavering support of Alex, a way of returning all the kindness he’s shown them over the years, is a beating heart at the film’s center.
Most of all, there is Robert Preston as the enigmatic Centauri. He’s the closest I’ve seen any film come to matching the mentor magic on screen Back to the future Doc Brown.
The Last Starfighter is so pure and so classic in its narrative style that English professors could use it to teach Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. The film achieves every single beat with all the grace and elegance Babylon 5’s Debris.
How The Last Starfighter was received in the 80s
The Last Starfightermostly just because it was released in 1984, was accused by critics at the time of ripping off Star Wars. But that can be said of almost every sci-fi film released after George Lucas’ box office dominance. In the case of The Last Starfighterit’s not a fair criticism. The Last Starfighter is more of a starry tale, approxcomplete with feel-good: everyone gets a moment of happiness that ends.
Not every sci-fi movie needs to launch a trilogy or have enough meat on its legs to create decades of merchandising opportunities. Often the most satisfying movies come in, tell a fun story, and come out. And few films are more satisfying than that The Last Starfighter.
Like that Star Wars ripoff complaint, most of what the film got from critics was for the wrong reasons. Roger Ebert, in a rare review misstep, called it “pretty lame material.” Meanwhile, Ebert and other critics praised The Last Starfighter for its use of computer graphics, standing alongside Tron as an early pioneer of CGI.
A Cray supercomputer created the film’s special effects, which sounds strange today when a smartphone has more processing power. The result was 300 scenes of spaceship CGI and an eye-watering 1983 budget of $14 million.
Unfortunately, these special effects don’t last at all. It’s not the film’s fault, technology has simply moved on. Conceptually, the film’s effects are still amazing. That Cray supercomputer just wasn’t up to the challenge of meeting modern CGI standards.
Dated special effects are just one of many reasons The Last Starfighter is so ripe for a remake, but it’s big. When The Last Starfighter is finally remade, these space battle scenes will be able to match the quality of the film’s still-relevant story.
Ready Player One proved that audiences love stories about going into their favorite games and the film’s story isn’t half as good The Last Starfighter. However, it’s proof that The Last Starfighter is already as perfect for today’s kids as it was for the kids of the 80s.
Every player dreams of being praised for their skill. I should know I won a Mech Warrior team tournament in 2005, and you better believe I still work it into every conversation. Yes. I still wear the first T-shirt.
In recent years, Hollywood has stayed away from movies about being a gamer, instead bringing games to life. But it resulted in Borderlands. We all agree that the movie was a terrible mistake, so why not go back to basics?
The worst I can say about The Last Starfighter is that a true video game tie-in never happened. The NES game is called The Last Starfighter was a rebranded version of another game. And the Atari game was just a bunch of shapes that had little to do with the movie.
By approaching The Last Starfighter as it was meant to be, namely wish fulfillment and a fairy tale instead of a hard sci-fi epic, it remains as charming today as it was then. The film’s over-the-top 80s acting and cheesy costumes are now a good reminder of how magic can happen when sci-fi doesn’t take itself so seriously. It could be great.
The Return Of The Last Starfighter: Current Plans For Remakes And Sequels
The Last Starfighter was great. It gets even better again. So where is it Last Starfighter remake? Some iteration of one Last Starfighter the sequel has been in development since at least 2005, but if you think that means it’s close to happening, think again.
It looked so good that three years ago we got a concept trailer for it The Last Starfighter 2 from writer and director Gary Whitta. Unfortunately, in 2022, Witta took to Twitter and said: “To be honest, there’s a decent chance it will never happen. But if it doesn’t, it won’t be for lack of effort on Jon’s and mine’s part.”
Whitta mentions Jon Betuel, who wrote the screenplay The Last Starfighter and has been tied to the sequel ever since its originboss Nick Castle hoped to lead a follow-up himself. Whitta, best known as the 2016 author of the year Rogue One: A Star Wars Storywas the latest director hoping to take on the project.
Last year, Whitta sang a very different tune, saying on Twitch: “We’re very, very close. We’re basically on a yard line and I think it’s going to happen.” Since Whitta did not expand on what ended The Last Starfighter the sequel at the infamous one-yard line, there’s no way to know for sure what happened.
More recently, Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt Russell has expressed interest in remaking this classic 80s film. How serious they are about getting something done remains to be seen.
Decades before The Last Starfighter’s sequel was in development, the original film opened in theaters to modest box office returns. It wasn’t a failure, and it’s not a dead franchise. But for now, it seems that it may be a while before the film gets a well-deserved new release.
Things have to change, and it’s up to you. You have been recruited by the Star League to bring back, The Last Starfighter.
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