Did you know that sci-fi as a genre existed before Star Wars? I’m as shocked as you are. Or I would be if I wasn’t being facetious and also had previously seen Dark Star years ago. It’s a strange little film that’s really only noteworthy because of who made it; it’s certainly not remembered for it’s plot, and maybe only I half-remembered its soundtrack.
Twenty years into their mission to blow up planets that could destabilize and threaten potentially habitable worlds, a cadre of astronauts are bumbling about and slowly losing their minds. I mean, that’s basically all you need to know, but let’s do the specifics anyway. Pinback isn’t actually Pinback but a guy who put on Pinback’s uniform and was mistaken for the actual astronaut, Talby spends all his time staring out into space, Doolittle misses surfing in California, and Boiler exists. Their commander, Powell, died in a freak accident but he’s kept on literal ice so the team can communicate with him via radio waves, a reference to “What the Dead Men Say” by Philip K Dick. Pinback has an extended sequence where he’s trying to wrangle an alien that’s very clearly a spray painted beach ball, ending with him accidentally killing the thing. A malfunction in the ship causes one of the semi-sentient bombs to believe it’s being constantly activated, so when it’s actually activated it takes Doolittle making it question whether it can trust its senses to keep it from blowing up the ship. Phenomenology! But what the bomb takes from all this is that it’s the only thing that actually exists and blows itself up. Pinback and Boiler die, Talby is shot out into space and joins the Phoenix Asteroids, and Doolittle grabs some wreckage and surfs into the atmosphere of a nearby planet while “Benson, Arizona” plays, which for years I’ve half-remembered as “Lonesome Alabama.” Approximate knowledge indeed. Anyway, the ending is directly taken from Ray Bradbury’s “Kaleidoscope,” so there’s your suggested reading for the film. I mean, beyond my sharp wit and all that.
So the filmmakers. Dark Star was written and directed by John Carpenter 2 years before Assault on Precinct 13 and 4 before Halloween, and was co-written by Dan O’Bannon–who also played Pinback–5 years before Alien and 11 before The Return of the Living Dead. So yeah, this is a weird little student film of some big names before they were big. And it’s… fine? It’s basically designed to be a cult classic, but I’m not a member of that cult. The movie was fine, more weird than funny, and honestly feels more like The Return of the Living Dead than Alien. It’s just fine.
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