Weirdhouse Cinema: The Last Starfighter

you do the double VCR methods. Somebody, somebody must have had a double VCR in my parents neighborhood because we had a number of those that I think had originally been rentals from turtles video and somebody did what they were not supposed to and made a copy. But anyway, so,

wherever it came from, I had this vhs tape. So I watched this movie uh, several times when I was a kid and I had not seen it since I was probably ten years old and I just recently started thinking about it for some reason, looking at all of the great monsters in it. It's got some very gross and slimy alien designs, including one species of alien that I realized I had always thought of its head looking

like a VW beetle. Do you know that the hit beasts that I'm talking about Rob yes, oh goodness, what are they called? Um Zan Zan's, UH ZAN DOS as have San Dosans, San Do Zans, that's it right. Yeah, Zano Zans. It sounds like a a fun European Candy, you know, that you wouldn't find out about until you you'd go on a school trip or something. or it's like a local restaurant that has that has like low hanging lights over the tables with like fringe around them. Yeah, Um, but, yeah,

I know the one you're talking about. Very very weird, very very very cool, practical alien makeup in that. But the head is shaped like a VW beetle. It's like the Dome on top, and then the eyes are down on the sides where the headlights are on the car. Yeah, a bunch of great aliens in this, this one, and I think that's that's the main thing I remembered from

this film. Um, I don't remember where or how I saw this film as a child, but I probably hadn't seen it since I was around ten either, and I remember digging the video Gamer gets alien abducted in a good way plot. I remember liking that. You know, this's just sort of your basic magical it's call to adventure, uh sort of vibe, and I remember liking that and I remember digging the creatures, digging some of the creatures

in a few dramatic moments. Yeah, so this movie has its ups and downs, but overall, I'd say, on rewatching, I think it holds up pretty well. It is clearly derivative, as many critics pointed out it. There are like you can see the pre existing elements from other movies that fed into this. It's kind of like, okay, what if you had star wars? But Luke Skywalker wasn't on tattooing, he was on earth and he wasn't on a moisture

farm in the desert. He was in a trailer park, in fact a cozy Spielbergie in trailer park full of down home spielbergie and whimsy and and and and cute, funny characters and like kind of mischievous kids with an attitude. But much like Luke Skywalker, he still gazed off into the distance, yearning for so much more in life, yearning to get away and see the world. And what if, instead of Obi Wan Kenobi, he met up with Harold Hill, from the music man, but from space, literally, a lovable

con artist alien with a rocket car? And what if, instead of the force, there was a sentient video game? And what if, instead of the other companions, you know, the droids and Han Solo and Princess Lea and all that, you had Dan o'herla hey in a lizard costume? I can imagine it going down just like that, and then producers saying yeah, yeah, Harold Hill is great. Do you think we could get him for this? And they're like yeah,

we can totally get him. I know a guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know what, I think it actually makes for a really fun Movieh I think you and I might differ on this next point. I would say, actually, if I had to make up one major criticism of this movie that stands out more than any other, I don't really love a lot of the special effects used in

the space battles. This is. This was one of those movies in the class of Tron and other films that were experimenting with what you could do with computer generated effects in the early mid eighties, when you know this

stuff was very new. It was very primitive by modern standards. Uh, and unfortunately, I think for me, I don't think the computer animated space battles are super compelling and I imagine how much better they could have been with, you know, some of the Star Wars original trilogy style model work and and little, you know, practical effects and space backgrounds

and all that. But of course, at the same time I have to really respect that, despite the limitations of what computer generated effects could do at the time, these were the cutting edge. Like they look great for what you could do with that. I think I agree with all that I've I found this to be the weakest aspect of the film. rewatching it today. Certainly you look back on this and I think most of the space some of the earlier space sequences where spaceships aren't doing much,

maybe they're just flying like those, those aren't as bothers them. Uh. The effects are clean, they're you know, they're crisp. They don't completely throw me out of the movie viewing experience, but I kept finding myself thinking that, okay, these effects are clearly, you know, pushing the boundaries of what's possible. They're better than bad practical space effects, but they're nowhere near as good as good practical space effects, you know.

So I would agree with all of that. I was reading about this one and in one of Michael Weldon's sycatronic books, which this one wouldn't have this wouldn't have come out more than, I think, a few years after after this movie, and like he mentions the computer for animated effects, but does so without any judgment, which he does a lot in these very short reviews. But I

wonder if that was telling. It's kind of like at the time, if you're viewing these effects, maybe you're more inclined to just lean into just how amazing they are. It's like if you were to go to the old world's fair and See Walt Disney's robot Abraham Lincoln up there on the stage, it's like wow, this is amazing, I've never seen anything like this before, whereas today we're like, oh, that's that's kind of a creepy uh, you know, semi robotic a Lincoln up there. That's actually I think that's

a very good comparison. I've noticed that when you read reviews, older reviews from critics of movies that use a lot of C G I. I'd say before like the you know, mid two thousands or so, critics very often seem to rave about the quality of C G I. That is abysmal by modern standards. Like you look at it today and it is the ugliest thing you've ever seen. But if you go back and read what people were saying at the time, it's almost universal praise for those kind

of things. And then I think something changed in the two thousands where critics started kind of souring on on a lot of computer generated effects, and now it's just now it's just everywhere. So you don't even like really say anything about it anymore. It's just what effects are. But there's a long period where, for some reason it seemed like people were, yeah, they were just impressed with them, even though, like in retrospect, I think they don't look

very good. Yeah, I mean that the the individuals who tended to do the best with those effects where those who were really pushing the boundaries and trying to do things that weren't weren't even completely possible at the time,

and had two resources to pursue that. That ideal. You know, you're thinking about people like like like the camerons, and the Lucas is and even then, sometimes, even then, sometimes, you know they're going to be moments in those films even where, like clearly they were, they were, they were chasing after something, some detail that was just a little

too difficult to grasp. Yeah, yeah, but from everything I read, the last fighter was genuinely boundary pushing in a technological sense, like the apparently the amount of supercomputer power that went into the polygons that make up these spaceships was tremendous

for the time. Yeah, yeah, and that at the same time. Yeah, looking at it today as a modern viewer, it's weird because you have these primitive computer effects side by side with breathtaking, practical, Um, you know, monster costumes that that looked terrific today, like you'd you'd be so lucky to

have a movie with monsters like this in it today. Agree, Um and, and it's interesting, I think, to think beyond just the fact that they were both early uh uses of extensive C G I in movies, to compare this movie with Tron. Yeah, yeah, there, there, this is a film is very tron like in many respects. I think I would, I would loosely uh rope this one in

to a category of, I guess, Arcade Exploit and cinema. Uh, you know, I'm thinking of films like Tron from a d two nightmares from I'm not sure if you've seen

this one. They used to show it on on a any on cable like in the middle of a Sunday back in the day, but it's a horror anthology series, or more like just sort of a weird stories kind of anthology series, and there's one segment called the Bishop of battle and it has a Melia west of Z in it and basically it's some sort of strange arcade machine sucks him into a world of a supernatural intrigue. I like the title. I might have to look that up.

There's also a Charles Band picture of the Dungeon Master which which which has a from a d four that also has a bit of this vibe to it. So it's something that was very much in the public mindset of the day. You know, arcades were big, video games were big and there were people coming up with new stories about them, like what if we were actually everybody's being sucked in by a video game? What if you were actually sucked in by that video game? What have

you got Rond? What if you got last starfighters? What would that be like? And of course we we continue to find video games interesting and speculative fiction we have. You know, I'm thinking about the likes of ready player one, Cronenberg's existence band or snatch Um. And then, of course I can't help but think of the novel and Subsequent Film Adaptation of Enders Game, which has a bit of this in it as well, like what is simulation, what is real? I was making exactly the same connection to

enders game. In fact, I was like, wait, which came first, last starfighter or enders game, because there are some parallels and I think they came out. came out like within a year of each other. Yeah, based on just some some quick research I was doing, it looks like eighty five was the publication of enders game, but the the original story was published in the late Seventies. I don't know enough about like the original short story. Upon that

it was expanded into enders game. So I don't know how much of inders game as we know it was present in the late seventies, but I guess I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the dot on this. Oh Yeah, yeah, and I would say that while they share a kind of central premise or mechanic, the everything around is very different. Um, okay, so maybe I should do the basic elevator pitch on the plot. It goes something like this. You've got Alex Rogan. He's just a

regular teenager with big dreams. He lives in a dusty trailer park by a lake with his mom, his little brother, a large cast of Zany neighbors and his girlfriend, Maggie, where the only real excitement in life comes from the local video arcade cabinet outside the general store, which is a space based shoot him up game called starfighter, and Alex plays this game obsessively. He really wants to get out of dodge. He wants to go to go to some college somewhere. They don't they don't say where, but

it's assumed to be far away. He wants to see the world, but his application for a student loan is denied. Is He ever going to escape and see the world, and will that escape involve a covert pilot recruitment plan for an ongoing interstellar war? That's what we're gonna find out now. Actually, I thought this movie is mostly you know, it's it's a it's kind of it's a space adventure. It's it's kind of simple in a lot of ways

in terms of plot. It's it relies a lot on kind of that spirit and the heart and all that, which comes through pretty well. But the actual central premise of the movie, I thought was extremely clever, so clever in fact, that I wondered if it was lifted from somewhere else like this, was inspired by a pre existing movie or piece of Sci Fi literature. So the idea is that this video game that Alex plays all the time is actually, unbeknownst to him, a secret training and

recruitment module for Star pilots. So there's an alien who, uh, he's like an alien space force recruiter who seeds the galaxy with these video games and once a player who just is playing it for fun happens to reach certain performance benchmarks, the alien shows up to take him away for duty, and I think that that is a fantastic hook. Did that come from somewhere else, I wonder? Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Um, of course. The interesting thing about this is you could, you could apply this to any

kind of game in general. You could have some sort of like you could you could have a version of this in the ancient world, where some sort of new board game is introduced, something like chess. Uh, and Oh, it turns out it's aliens trying to see which of which of these humans as the best strategic minds so they may be taken up and placed in an in

the midst of an interplanetary war. Yeah, and it's exactly this mechanic we were talking about that is in I mean in a somewhat different way, but in many ways replicated in an Inter's game. Yeah, like there's some blurring of the like what's a game? What's the simulation and what's the real thing? All right, well, let's go ahead in here. The trailer audio for this one. This is a pretty good, pretty good trailer. The narration is by John Leader. I believe Alex Rogan lives in a small

trailer park in the California Mountains. He has a dream to go to college. I think I'M gonna hang out here. Why don't you shine your pickup? Forget it, man, I'm doing something with my life, start a career. You really are leaving here, aren't you? Of course I'm going away. We're both going away, both of us. Alex and most of all, to get out chains. The auton thing is, when it comes, you gotta grab it with both hands. Then, one night, a mysterious stranger offers Alex an opportunity he

never dreamed of. Who Are you? I'm Centauri, and you may know you must trust me implicitly. Get nothing Alex Rogan has ever imagined could prepare him for what he is about to experience. Hey, why was Alex chosen? And really ever return? Are we going to trust me? God, the last starfighter. His adventure in space is about to begin.

Pretty solid. I have to say I did not remember the trailer, so I wasn't sure if this was going to be a trailer where you had the goofy narrator or the serious narrator, because this is the sort of film that could go either way depending on how the studio was maybe feeling about promoting it. Right, right. Alex never thought this would happen to him. Yeah, Oh, before we forget, I wanted to mention another reason that I ended up thinking we should do the last starfighter on

this show. It has a surprising number of Halloween franchise connections. It has connections to all three of the first three Halloween movies. So this movie was directed by Nick Castle, who plays Michael Myers, who plays the shape in the first Halloween. It's stars Lance guest, who is a one of the main actors in Halloween two, and it also stars Dan o'hurley, he who is the villain in Halloween three, season of the witch. Yeah, yeah, that's it's pretty impressive.

UH So. Yeah, let's go through some of these individuals. Yeah, starting with Nick Castle, the director, born seven, American director who directed an array of kids movies and miscellaneous films, including Dennis the menace, major pain in the nineteen eighty nine, Gregory Hinds dance movie tap. But when it comes to weird, psychotronic and SCI FI films, he's probably best known for the last starfighter and his work with John Carpenter on the screenplay for ones escape from New York. I just

had an idea recently. Hey, nobody who's listening, but don't steal this. Uh. My idea was somebody should create escape from New York the musical. Doesn't that just seem it seemed like that would work. We already have a musical number in the picture, right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a huge musical guy, but I think I would watch that one. Oh, I totally would. I would, I would star in that one if they would have let me in. All right, let's

talk about the screenwriter. Here's Jonathan R Batool, born nine. This was the tool's first screenplay to make it to the screen, which he followed up with another keenes break Sci fi movie, my science project, which I don't remember every seeing, but I remember the VHS box art for it. Um that that one had a cast that featured Fisher Stevens, Richard Maser, who was of course, in John Carpenter is

the thing, and Dennis Hopper. Um, yeah, he also wrote and directed, Um, some episodes of the anthology series Freddie's nightmare, and he also wrote and directed Theodore Rex Mat sure we talked about recently on the show, but he is also the CO founder of the Visual Effects Studio looma pictures, which has been involved in a ton of especially twenty first century films, ranging from no country for old men to underworld three and a ton of the M C U films. Huh, okay, if you could only keep one

no country for old men or underworld three? Which one? Oh, don't make me choose these. These are two films I I legitimately enjoy. Um, I mean no, I guess you have to keep no country for old men. But but underworld three is the best of the underworld movie. So I don't know. I remember your advice one time was to skip the first one, skip the second one and go straight for three. Yeah, three is the prequel film. It has all the best actors from the first film

in it. Uh, and I thought did a pretty good job. Like it. When it comes to doing a prequel movie where, okay, well, we can't kill the main villain. There are certain things we have to do and certain things we can't do, I felt like that movie did a pretty good job of navigating those limitations. I suppose it will have to be my entree to the underworld series. All right, let's get into the cast. So we've we've mentioned Alex Rogan, our our our hero, our our teenage dreamer turned starfighter.

He's played by the actor Lance guest. Born in nineteen sixty, he was Michael Brody in seven's jaws the revenge. He was Jimmy in nineteen eight ones, Halloween two who, as you mentioned already, remains active today. He starred on Broadway as Johnny cash in the musical million dollar quartet in two thousand and ten. He I think he's a good casting choice for this role. He has a natural kind

of sweetness to him. He just seems like a like even when he's not, you know, when his character is not at his best, he's you know he's being kind of petulant or something, you sense a good natured core to him always. Yeah, he's really saw it in this. He's a solid lead. He's he's a he's able to do like the serious teenager dreamer stuff as well as the funny stuff. And Uh, he kind of has a dual role in this as well. All right. Well, you know, if you have a teenage dreamer he's got to have

a love interest. Uh. The love interest is Maggie Gordon, played by Katherine Mary Stewart, born Nineteen fifty nine, American actor, probably best known for this picture, but she was also in eighty nine weekend at Bernie's, she was the night of the comment and she was in the stupendous nineteen eighty eighty Adam and eve musical spectacular. The apple so she's still got to see that stuff. Oh, it's it's tremendous. No, I know, but she's also she's great in this too. Yeah,

she's really good. I mean this is exactly the sort of actor you want playing this role. Um, she's she's still active today and she's been in a load of other cool stuff. She was in the Weird Nineteen eighties seven adaptation of George rr Martin's night flyers, and she was on two different episodes of the nineties outer limits, family values and unnatural selection. But I'm not sure that

I've seen either of those. One of those has Tom Arnold in it, which is not the reason I haven't seen I just I looked him up and it's like, have I seen this one? No, I don't think I've seen one with Tom Arnold night yet. I would say in general, the human cast of this movie, like the earthlings, are they're well selected for having a kind of down home good nature to them. They really make you care

about earth. When later on that you find out that, when you later on find out that Earth itself will eventually be in the crosshairs of Zoor and the code in Armada. Yeah, that's true. Um, that now Jane, who is Alex's mom, is played by Barbara Boson. I just gonna mention her real quick because she she is an actor who started off as an uncredited nurse in bullet and she was a TV cop in both Hill Street Blues and Cop Rocks Rock. Yeah, so I guess she's

a singer and an actor. I don't know. I haven't seen COP ROCK BUT UM, I'm familiar with it by reputation. Now there is an actor in this movie who is not only great in the movie it I feel like he must have somehow been part of the pitch for the movie, because the role, it's not just like he's good for the role, it feels clearly like it was written specifically for him, and that is Robert Preston as

the space con artist Centauri. Yeah, it really does feel like a situation where they wrote it for him and they're like do you think we can get him? And they're like yeah, we can actually get him for this and they're like that's perfect. And it is a pretty perfect performance. Like you enjoy him every time he's on the screen. Totally. Robert Preston, N Eighteen through nine, eight, seven, American actor of stage screen and TV, best known for his role as the con man Harold Hill in nineteen

sixty two's the music man. I believe he originated that role on Broadway as well. Other films of note include eight Twos, Victor, Victoria, Sidney Looms, Ninety two film child's play. This is not the one with the killer doll on a different film. Um. Last starfighter was one of his final films, but his credits extend all the way back to the late nineteen thirties. He's marvelous in this and yeah, the role clearly plays off of his music man role

as well. He he talks exactly like the Harold Hill character in the music man, like some of the same sentence structures and metaphors. Uh. You know, Harold Hill, a lot of what his character is is giving out out landish, uh sort of vivid examples of things to conjure fears or evoke emotions in the mind of his marks, and he does the exact same thing in this movie. He's like, you know, uh, he's like you know when when Alex is like Hey, where are you taking me in this space?

Car Uh Centauri says say, are you the kind of kid who reads the last page of a mystery. First, no, that's not you. It's just wonderful. Yeah, he's so good. Alright, and moving on to some of the other actors here. Um, some of these may not be in order of importance. Well, we'll discuss here. But, uh, we have enduring. Is Am I saying that correctly? Enduring, he's the don't he's the King of the Rylands. He's the main Rylands, the right. Okay, the RYLANDS. To back up. The rylands are an alien

species in the Greater Universe of this film. That looks like Alien Larry David's. That all, even the females look like Larry David's. Then all got the heads. Yeah, like imagine Larry David was like a like a slightly swollen outer limitsy Um head. And that's that's the Rylands. They look like a cross between Larry David and a little bit of Exeter from this islander Earth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little bit of Tom Noonan as well, maybe in

there one fourth Tom noon. Anyway, that this this this character, that the king of the Rylands. We meet the bearded Ryland played by K E cooter, two thousand and three TV actor and a later voice actor who is just in tons of stuff. So titles like green acres, Petticoat junction, uh, the x files, Baywatch Nights, a movie called friend or I think this is a movie, Frankenstein, General Hospital, a lot of stuff, a lot of voice acting. Later on he's the Ryland leader, but he's also the father of

our enemy Emperor Zour. So it basically turns out that interplanetary, interstellar politics, it's also one big family drama that Alex is being sucked into here, and there's a lot we never find out about the the alien politics. We just know that, uh, yeah, he's he's the head of the Rylands and his son's Zur, is a Ryland but has betrayed the rylands and is stealing imperial secrets of the Rylands to go work with the code in Armada to destroy the Rylands. Is that right? That's right. And the

code ends in this are. They're essentially like the Klingons of this world. They're the warlike, you know, space arc species, and they look really cool. They have this they're kind of like barky space orcs that have really cool like red and silver and black uniforms, and the main one is this character named Lord Krill and it's played by this character is played by Dan Mason, and this is

the one that has a space monocle. This is the thing that that's stuck in my memory the most, that I remember most from my childhood and watching, watching this, is that he tends to punctuate things that he says by having his monocle like Servo into place over his eye, which, as a child, I thought that was the coolest thing ever. This is like, like this made the film memorable, this one space monocle. Yeah, I know exactly the moment you've got in mind. We can talk about that later. Yeah, oh,

but okay. So we got some aliens with with the skulls. Those are the Rylands. You've got the other aliens. You want to go destroy the Rylands. They look kind of like human trees. And then you've got Grigg, who is griggs kind of the heart and soul of the movie, and he's he's a lovable space lizard who just wants to fight for righteousness in space. Yes, and this is, of course, is Dan o'horley, who lived nineteen anything through two thousand and five. Probably not going to go into

as much detail here about him. We talked about him a good debt in our Halloween three season of the witch episode last year, so I guess go back and listen to that if you want a deeper dive on Dano early. But this is the old man himself. Um, you know he had a robust acting career prior to

the nineteen eighties. But he's he's, I think, best remembered by many of yours today as playing these villainous white haired men, uh in suits, often so connal cochrane and Halloween three season of the witch, the old man in the first two robocop films, Andrew Packard on twin peaks just really great at playing those kind of villainous roles.

So and to a certain extent it feels weird, it feels maybe wrong that in this film we cover him up with turtle makeup, basically put him in a turtle costume and make him a space turtle and Um and and yet he's really good in this role, like he's funny, he's he's Um and the suit does look good on. And one thing I kept noticing is that his eyes are very kind of kind of almost kind of bloodshot looked to them, which kind of adds to the effect,

like it feels. It makes the suit feel more organic somehow. Uh, I'm not not really sure why, but I know, I

know what you're talking about. You can kind of see like the red around his yeah, he's also got a vibe that I recognized from other especially movies aimed at kids from the eighties, where there's a character who's kind of Oh in some sense, kind of almost stuffy, kind of high Falutin like he you know, he's about space and we must fight for the for the Rylands and all that, but then also he will crack a joke and go oh, and I don't know if I'm articulating

this right, but there's like a thing like that. There are characters like that. It's the kind of role that led me to expect a final scene back on earth where, you know, after they've defeated the bad guys, Grig is hanging out with all of Alex's friends by the Ake and he's wearing sunglasses, dancing to Kenny loggins and maybe drinking a miller genuine draft, and then he looks into the camera and says surfs up. It would totally be

in keeping with the film. I mean, because we do get some a scene that implies that he might date some grandma's later on, and and we do. And we also have the scenery shows his family photos to Alex, which is just which is that, which is intentionally hilarious, like there's no other way. Um. So yeah, it's it's

it's a fun role, I think. I think the the the only thing that might, in retrospect, take away from it at all would be the fact that the following year, in the film enemy mine, you have Louis Gossa Jr giving a stellar performance in another sort of reptilian human cost him. I made the same connection. These are two big movies in a row with the human hero acting opposite a great character actor who has been put into

scaly lizard makeup. Ultimately, you know, they're different performances and different, different vibes. But Um yeah, when when you think of great performances and a lizard man costume that has no hair and so forth, uh, yeah, you're gonna think of enemy mine, or I do anyway. I don't know what the public the public is larger public opinion is on this sort of thing, but for my money, Lewis CASS

JR Great Lizard name performance. Okay, so that's our that's our heroic friend, our our sort of, uh buddy cop character. Almost too well, they're not cops. I don't know why. So that just the buddy, you know. He's the sidekick to, uh, to Alex, though I don't know if he's the side kick. Maybe Alex is the sidekick because he's much more experienced than Alex. I don't know. Anyway, they're gonna fight zoor and the code and or motor together. So we got

to meet our bad guys. Who who is zoor? Zoor is just, I would say, not only chewing the scenery, as Zour is like, oh, much like the brundle fly, in Um, in the fly. He is vomiting up digestive enzymes on the scenery and then slurping them up. Yeah, he is like acting Um to to the limits of of the our threshold, to take it U Um. And I mean this is a very intentional choice and I think probably this is the right choice. You have a villain of a space movie like this. Yeah, let them

tear it out light like this. Um So zero is played by Norman snowborn nineteen fifty. Hey Juilliard train, Arkansas born character actor, probably best known for this role, but he's been a ton of other stuff as well. He's actually in Michael Mann's six adaptation of Richard Harris's Red Dragon, man hunter. He plays FBI agent Springfield, who I do not remember, Um, but I included a picture here for you, Joe, in case you've seen man hunter more recently than I have.

I have. I mean I've seen manhunter, it's been a long time. I don't remember who this character is. I remember liking it, as I generally like Michael Mann. Yeah, I mean it also has the the Atlantic connection of the insane asylum being the High Museum of art. So, yeah, that's right, that's where that's where Brian Cox, as Hannibal Lecter, is stored. Yeah, Snow was in some other pictures as well.

He was in the nineteen seventy nine British period piece titled The Europeans, and he appeared as the Klingon touring in Star Trek the next generation, an episode called Rightful Air. From I can imagine he would be typecast as villains. He is just the most sniveling, sneering. Yeah, I will

be evil. Yeah, yeah, and even like the IT looks like even in Manhunter, like he's perfect as just like a suited FBI kind of dude, you know, just kind of coldly standing in the background, like even if he's not turning up the notch on the the acting there now just a few more acting notes because it's just there's also some just people with very small rolls worth noting. Will Wheaton is apparently in this film, though I don't

think I noticed him. He plays Lewis's friend. Lewis is what Alex's brother, a child who is obsessed with with playboy magazines. Oh yeah, he has a whole stash of them. He has his strategic reserve of playboys under his bed. Yep, but that's not will wheaton. That will wheaton is supposed to be his friend, but I don't think I saw him in the movie. I don't like say maybe he's just barely in it. We also have a hit shaker character that shows up. That spoiler turns out to be

a Zando Zan bownty hunter played by Marc Alamo. Uh. This is gold ducket from Star Trek Deep Space Nine. This is Everett from total recall and, of course, Roger from arena, which one. I forget who roguar was. Rogar is the like the main evil dude who's Um, who's running the prize fights between the aliens. I see, okay, yeah, and UH, yeah, he's got he's got kind of a long neck. Thus he has the UH on deep space nine. They really accentuated this well as he is what a Cardassian?

Is it Cardassian or Kardassian? Anyway? And this he's a Zando Zan bownty hunter. He initially shows up with a mustache, right, so he looks human at first, but then he this scene didn't make a lot of sense to me. He looks human. He's, you know, on the hunt for for Alex on earth and he walks past the starfighter video game cabinet and it like blasts energy out into his face that hides his human disguise and uncovers him as a Xando Zan bounty hunter with the with the V

W beatlehead. Yeah, yeah, that feature of the video game cabinet was not covered earlier in the film. Yeah, alright, a few few others. These are both uncredited roles, but Bruce Abbott is in this, I guess, playing one of those teenagers. Bruce Abbott was born Dr Dan Kine from the re animator movies. Oh, he's one of Alex's really mean friends. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. Also, Suzanne Snyder is in she plays it cheerly. No, wait, after I said that, I saw that you included a note about

him and it says he's a Ryland sergeant. So I gotta be totally wrong about that. Oh, you know, I read my own note here and I thought that was his name. Ryland sergeant was clearly one of the teenagers, that he would be one of. He would have the he would be one of the, uh, the aliens with the hair on the sides of their heads. Yeah, okay. We also have Suzanne Snyder in this, playing an uncredited cheerleader role. UH, born nineteen sixty two. She also appeared

in weird science night of the creeps, Remo Williams. The adventure begins return of the living dead to two and much more so, kind of a genre staple of the time period. The music is from Craig Saffen. Other scores include the nineteen eight horror film fate to black, the nineteen eighty three anthology film nightmares, which I referenced earlier, which features an arcade story ELM street, for the dream

master in n seven time stalkers. Uh So, Rob I know this is not your favorite kind of score because it's a traditional orchestral score doesn't have electronic elements, but you know what I actually I thought it was really solid. I found it I found it rousing. It had that heroic character to it. Yeah, I did everything it needed

to do. I have no complaints about it. This is not one of those films where I'm gonna say the electronic score would have elevated it, especially given those Spielbergie in tones like this was exactly the music it needed. Now I know you're gonna love this, Joe, because our production designer is none other than Ron Cobb. No, the other Ron Cobb this time, not Ronald Cobb, but not the the cabaret costume designer that we talked about in

Um a devil girl from Mars. No, this is the legendary American Australian artist Ron Cobb, who lived ninety seven through twenty. Production designer who worked on many iconic films, the the designs and looks of tons of movies you know and love from the seventies and eighties, that's Ron Cobb. Yeah, movies like Dark Star, seventy four, so another John Carpenter connection. Star Wars from seventy seven, alien from seventy nine, raiders

of the lost arc from eight. One, come in, the barbarian from a D two, back to the future, five, the abyss from eight nine. Also Leviathan from eighty nine. So double dipping into the underwater. UH, SCI FI terror, total recall from nineteen ninety. UH, he's credited with having designed the hammerhead alien, which we later call on an authority. And I believe in Star Wars he was a conceptual

designer on robot jocks. He only directed one film in this nine is Um Garbo, which I believe it's just like an Australian drama that I don't think even has any monsters in it. But UH, yeah, he contributed to back to the future and real genius. Basically he just had his hand in the design elements of so many defining films of the late seventies and the nineteen eighties. Yeah, I gotta Love Run cobby and we'll come back to some of the designs that he did for this film

because they're they're pretty great. Yeah, Jim Bessel is was also involved in this. He was the art director, born nineteen fifty one. Uh, maybe not as legendary name as Ron Cob, but still this is the guy that we're going to become a big deal in production design, working on films like Harry and the Henderson's the rocketeer, Jumanji, which is another game based fantasy picture, three hundred, I think,

two different blockbuster mission impossible films, and much more. Now one name that caught my eye when we were looking at the credits was the cinematography by King Baggott. Yeah, that that's that's the name that captivates you, even if you're not familiar with their early days of cinema. This King Baggett, born night, was born ninety three. UH, full name Stephen King Baggett, a k a king bag at the third, the grandson of legendary film director King Baggott,

who lived eighteen seventy nine through Um. This King Baggett, the one who worked on this film, also worked on such films as the hand from one and revenge of the NERDS Odh. The hand from eight one, I believe, is Oliver Stone's remake or I don't know if it's officially a remake, basically adaptation of the same material as

the beast with five fingers, which we covered on the show. Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know how much it's uh, it really has anything to do with the plot of that, but it is very much a detached hand movie and I remember, I remember watching at ages ago, has Michael Caine in and uh, I remember it as being good, but I haven't seen it in a very long time. All right, you ready to talk some plot? Let's do it.

Classic Space Adventure Opening. How many movies have we done now in a row where the opening was was looking at space? We just keep doing looking at space beginnings. Yeah, that this one I rather liked because of course it's a universal picture. So we start with that universal studios Um a logo that has a spinning earth and then we cut two uh to a very similarly Um uh sized world, except it's clearly an alien world because it's got all these brilliant, like pink or purple colors to it,

and I kind of like that. It's like Whoa, here we are. What world is this? I'm not sure. Do we find out? Is this the Ryland homeworld? I would guess it's Rylos. Yeah, but it's a classic space adventure opening either way. So you know, planet suspended in the void and then rushing through a field of stars while the horns are blasting out the opening fanfare. It's a kind of John Williams style open opening theme. Uh, kind

of a rousing traditional score. But then the music turns gentle and Homie as as the credits fade away and we pan down over earth. At first we see some mountains in the desert. Looks like we're in southern California probably, and then we go to our home base, which is the starlight star bright trailer park. This is the home setting of the movie and it's it's very much that there were a lot of eighties movies like this that would start with the the survey of the lived in setting.

You know the habits, the Quirky neighbors. You see a dog snoozing on the front doorstep of a trailer Um. You see the characters walking around. There's a guy saying it's going to be a sparkling day and then a strange old lady pokes her head out of out of her trailer and says my electricity is out. I'm gonna Miss My soaps. And she's got the hair net on and you just kind of zoom around meeting the different characters. We meet Maggie. She's got a towel like she's ready

to go out to the lake. UH, she she says hi to some guy who's going off fishing. Oh, she checks in with her granny who's gardening and uh, this is a rock and grandma this. She's like Vanessa Redgrave and the simpsons, you know, ever do the backseat Mombo craggy? Yeah, everyone is delightful in this place. It has um, it has that kind of like small town California charm that that also reminds me of the town from sons of anarchy, where good for the motorcycle gang space, you know, but

like far less evil. Yeah, yeah, well, less with less evil, but you have I mean the thing about sons of anarchy is that there's it's it's evil but wholesome at the same time. Right, yeah, but but, yeah, there's no biker gangs here. No biker gang could ever come here.

Like this place is basically Arcadia, uh, which I found rather interesting because, you know, a lot of this is the plot initially is going to have to deal with Alex wishing he could escape, wanting to be somewhere else, not wanting to spend the rest of his life here, and kind of trash talking people who might think that staying here is a good idea. And yet everything looks pretty pleasant here, and I don't think that was the

wrong choice. I think that it would have been kind of a bummer if they tried to portray like a depressing trailer park in the opening of this film, but it is it does seem kind of at odds with the way Alex feels about everything. I think you make an excellent point. The trailer park has the feeling of a totally loving and support of community full of Quirky, bighearted characters. It is it's classic Spielberg Movie Home Turf, you know. So you've got a PG rated movie of

the eighties. You're gonna have a kind of like a Dolly shot around the neighborhood where it's a little Zany here and people are Oh, they're all stuck in their ways, but all isn't it cozy and isn't it sweet? And it really is, like, you know, we go around seeing all these characters doing their things we see Alex's girlfriend, Maggie, who's you know, she's smart and funny and takes good care of her granny. You see Alex's mom working hard to take care of her family. You see Alex's little brother,

who's the he's the space of injury. He's like wearing a space helmet, running around with a little ZAP gun. UH, he's he's up to no good, but in a in a cute way. There's a cat that crawls out of a mailbox and then, I think later we get cat

reaction shots. Second movie in a row on Weird House where we have cat reaction shots Um, which I think in general I love pet reaction shots and films because, you know, it implies that the animal is not only reacting to what's happening in the scene but also thinking about what's happening in the scene. Yes, yes, but anyway, I think you're you're exactly right to point this out, and it is a kind of strange tension in the movie.

It sometimes makes Alex seem like an ungrateful jerk for talking so much about how like he has to escape this place because, you know, obviously traveling and seeing the world, that's great, that's a good thing to do. But like his family and his neighbors are so nice, like would it really be so bad to live here with them? But anyway, way, so we're we're going around meeting everybody, and then we finally meet Alex himself. And where is he, they say, where else? He is standing at the arcade

cabinet for the starfighter video game. Uh, and this is the first of many times we will hear the opening narration of this video game. It says, greeting, starfighter, you have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Zuur, and the code and Armada prepare for blast off. And I started thinking, wait a second. Did Video Arcade cabinets in four playback real recorded audio, such as like an extended voice message? I don't remember anything

like that. I just remember bleeps and bloops. Yeah, you may be right, and they certainly talked later, but I don't know about ones from the cabinets from this era. Rob You had a note about this when you pointed out how the trailer park is is so idyllic. It's like Arcadia, but it's uh, surely they weren't doing this on purpose, but it is interesting that Alex is trying

to escape Arcadia, as you said, via an arcade game. Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure if that was their cleverness or or my attempt at cleverness, but at any rate, yeah, here's the cabinet just in the middle of everything, and it's a splendid looking cabinet. Uh, it's, it's it's making sounds like you say that that may be more advanced than other arcade cabinets. At the time we see some gameplay footage and it also looks really slight. But of course all of this will make sense as we progress to

the plot, because this is no normal arcade cabinet. Right. So when we first meet Alex, he and Maggie, they're supposed to go up to the lake hang out with their friends. Alex's friends are all making fun of him. There's the guy driving the red pickup truck. He's like, Oh, here's Alex, on the last leg of his worldwide tour done nowhere, and they all laugh. And then Alex is is gonna. He gives them his like I'm gonna be

somebody's speech, you know. He's uh, he's like you think I'm just gonna hang out with you guys the rest of my life. I'm gonna go do something, I'm gonna go places. Yeah, he kind of tears into him a little bit, like he kind of gives back more than he received in this scene that everyone's kind, everyone's good

natured enough. They're just like, oh well, that's Alex. Oh, but then Alex can't go to the lake with them because he has to stay behind and help fix the old ladies electricity in her trailer so she doesn't miss her soaps. So Maggie and the gang go to the lake without him, while he stays behind to do the grunt work. And you get the feeling this just happens all the time. Alex is, you know, he's always gotta be the handyman around the trailer park instead of going

off to do what he wants to do. But it does score him some extra video game time, and I guess he has quarters to spare, because he ends up spending some more time, uh, playing the arcade cabinet and we end up with a pretty great, great scene here because he's he's progressing enough in the game that he starts making a real run at beating the game like a real boss run here and the community takes notice and they start calling each other over. They gather around

the arcade cabinet to cheer him on and Watch. Even the pets are present. And you know this is of course an exaggeration, but I think it does kind of capture that sent that performative aspect of public arcade machines of old. You know that you would have be at something of the supermarket or at an actual arcade where somebody was doing really well at a game, people might gather around to watch and even cheer them on, like, you know, I might never beat this game, but here's

somebody who can. Hopefully they can. Maybe I'll get to see the ending, I'll get to see what happens. And you want to see them succeed and you want to see what it looks like. Yeah, you want to see what the ending is. I love the scene. Is Really Cute. It's like the old grannies are gathering around, you know, Vanessa Redgrave here the Rock and grandma, uh, they're they're talking.

It's the I think the game says approaching command ship and then they're like, oh, command ship, what's a command ship? But it's very cute. So and and Alex. he like beats the High Score, he beats the game. He uh, he goes for the record and UH. And then later after the starfighter victory, you know, there's kind of a wind down and Alex and Maggie are talking about their future and there's one part I totally like burned into my memory from when I was a kid watching this.

Alex and Maggie are standing outside and they kiss and Alex's little brother Lewis is looking through the window at them as they kiss and when they kiss he says diarrhea like he's using it as a as a curse word or something. I think he means like that's gross. Right, though, I have a very weird memory of not knowing what to make that line when I was a kid, and this is literally where my brain went. I was like, Huh,

why did he say that? Well, maybe it's because diarrhea could potentially be spread by germs and when you kiss you exchange germs, so maybe he's suggesting that by kissing, one of them is catching diarrhea from the other one. I don't know if I would put together that hypothesis but Um, yeah, I don't think that's what it meant. I think he's. or You could just be like, he's just a kid who says stuff like this all the time, like he just learned this word and what it means,

so he's going to say it a lot. Maybe he read about it and one of his mini playboys. Oh, yes, yes, well, anyway, so, uh, Alex comes back to talk to his mom and uh, and he's all, he's all, you know, pumped up because he beat the record on starfighter, and he approaches his mom in the kitchen he says someday they're gonna say this is where it all began. And she's like what is it? And he goes mom, I finally broke the

starfighter record. And Alex, I mean I'm glad you had fun with your video game, but that you're gonna have to accept that people aren't going to care very much. Well, games were really hard back in those days. That's true. Nowadays he beat a video game, it's just like all right, well, that that's a that's a Tuesday. But back in the day these were hard. This was an accomplishment, not in just anyone could do it. That's true. It's like mom might beat battle toads and she's like oh in that case.

But no, she's actually she's got some bad news for him. That's why she's kind of down. A letter came in the mail. It's his application for a student loan and it's been denied. So he's not headed off to wherever it was he wanted to go. They never say exactly. Now this was already in the mail, so it could not possibly be connected. His rejection for financial aid. Could not be connected to the alien conspiracy, could it? I doubt it. Well, I don't know. Maybe the aliens can

intercept the mail. I'm not sure. What is it. What is the alien document archery technique? What? What? What's their level of skill at that? I don't know. They probably have a shape shifting alien who doesn't manulate your mailbox, I guess. Yeah. So, anyway, Alex has really bummed out about this and he goes off wandering by himself in the in the front parking lot of the motor court, and it seems like he's just really dejected. But what's

this there? There's kind of a worrying sound from behind him and then out and then out pops this very strange looking car and somebody starts speaking to him from inside the strange car and it almost sounds like the voice of Harold Hill, the music man, asking can you tell me the name of the person who beat that video game right over there? And Alex says, well, it's me. Who Are you? Who? Who is this guy? This guy is Centauri. Of course it's Centauri. Yes, and the Centauri

Mobile here is awesome. It it looks, I mean, obviously there are notes of delore into it, but it also looks, quite fittingly, like a spaceship car. It looks like it just rolled off of an epcot attraction, and I mean that in the best possible sense. They're they're also sets in this that really strongly made me think of Epcot. I was just at Epcot. That may have something to

do with it. But but it has that kind of like slick design but also seems like kind of functional, but not not in an authentic way, but in a ride attraction way. So, yeah, strong epcot vibes here. I see what you're saying. So, so we find out some things in this conversation. Uh, we find out Centauri invented starfighter, the game. Uh, to find talented people like Alex. Alex kind of he hesitates a little bit, but I don't know, he seems interested, like he does want to get away

from the trailer park. So he gets into the car. He shakes hands with a humanoid figure who is shrouded in shadow and this gives him an electrical shock, and then the humanoid gets out of the Centauri mobile and then Centauri speeds away and we get a lot of flavor of Centauri. He's driving three miles per hour and just adding at at Alex and I don't know what's the Centauri Vibe? It's very Herald Hill. I wonder. I

was just thinking of this. So Centauri obviously a reference to cosmology here in astronomy, but also Centaur makes me think of Chiron, the Centaur tutor to Achilles, the wise uh individual who trains the great warrior. I didn't make that connection. That's interesting. It might be reaching. I might be reaching on that one, but I don't know if Centauri Trains Alex. well, he does via the video game

he created. Yeah, he recruits him, definitely. Yeah. So, yeah, the Centauri is like I've got something in store for you. You know, you've proved yourself on this video game. I'm gonna take you somewhere. So the car is speeding along and it looks like it's going to crash into a wall at three miles an hour and then it starts flying. Yeah, Alex almost says the s word, but luckily this is a PG family film, so so he doesn't actually get the s word out. I think he could have at

it once. They might say it once somewhere else in the movie. Okay, I can't remember if they did it, but I was struck. For the most part this film is very PG, with a couple of moments where you're like, I don't know, Ron Cobb and company, you're kind of pushing the envelope on what the kids would surely have been able to handle. I don't know, the man the kids in the eighties who were exposed to too much worse on the screen. I guess. Yeah, this is at the edge of PG. There are a couple of scenes

that are pretty grizzly. I guess here I'm gonna start getting a little more cursory and describing what happens so we can more talk about the broader like themes and movements. But basically, so Alex is riding with Centauri here with Robert Preston up to the space base on Rilos and uh, rob how would you describe the intake procedure at the

space base? It's straight up feels like an epcot ride, if it feels if you're about to begin an epcot ride, and it's great, like there's a little bit too much space, as if it were designed to accommodate large groups of people that are about to border ride, like it's supposed to be that if it gets crowded there's still enough room for a fire exit. So they're very responsible, very responsible to sign yes exactly. And so when he gets out of Centauri's car in the space base on Rilos,

he meets some Rylands. They are again. They all look like Larry David, just like you say. They've got the horseshoe of white hair and then they're bald on top. They speak to him in an alien language. He doesn't understand them until somebody pins a translator device onto his collar and then he understands everything. But I love all the costumes and everything. The aliens are very weird looking. A lot of this is played for comedy and it

is pretty funny. There's one kind of rylan old lady who looks kind of like, kind of like a cat, and she makes a purring noise at him. Oh, and then meanwhile it was so while he's doing all the intake at the space base, uh, there is some weird stuff going on back on earth. We see, uh, we see some of the earth characters like Maggie and Louis, the little brother, doing stuff and uh, at one point Maggie comes to try to talk to Alex and in fact there is somebody in Alex's bed. That's strange. He's

up in space. So who's in his bed, like totally covered in blankets? And Maggie tries to talk to him but he just sort of lays their moaning and she's like well, okay, and she leaves. And as soon as she leaves we get a moment of absolute horror. This is one of the grossest looking things I can remember seeing on screen as a child. The figure under the blanket folds the blanket back and reveals I guess that.

I guess we're supposed to know at this point that this was the Beta module, the other creature in the car with Centauri when when Alex left. Except, and it's supposed to be turning itself into a perfect copy of Alex, but it's not done yet. So it is just a kind of slimy looking, Pale humanoid figure with these disgusting like shriveled eyes. It's horrifying. Yeah, it's quite grotesque looking. UH,

solid effects, maybe a little too solid for this. Essentially a half baked clone that's still still cooking there under the covers. But Anyway, the point is that this is going to be a robot that makes itself into a copy of Alex so that, you know, so that nobody misses Alex while he's gone. A solid B plot that they spend some good time with. Oh yeah, I agree, this is a very good b plot. But so back in space, Alex is getting brief with some other recruits.

We see the other starfighters and there are various types of aliens. One has tentacles for a mouth, one has a kind of insect face, one just doesn't have a face at all. It's just like its face is kind of like a like a umpire's mask or something. And they're all sitting around getting getting a briefing by induring or induring the the head of the Rylands, who has again. He's got the Larry David Head, but then he's got two big like sort of skull lobes on either side

of his forehead. I don't know if that's like a sign of seniority among them. Yeah, yeah, he that. He he starts giving a speech and this is where he learns. He's like hey, we have an interstellar war going on because basically me and my son can't get along with each other. And and Alex learns, you know what what

he's what he's in for here, right. So he's talking to one of the other recruits there and and Alex has been very confused up to this point, but the other recruit tells him you were recruited by the Star League. And then Alex like completes his sentence because he knows this from the video game, to defend the frontier against Zora and the code in Armada. So this is where everything starts coming together. Everything from the video game was real.

It was actually training him for this war. The ship from the game is the actual ship that he will fly. He is actually on rilos. That was a real place, not one made up for the game. He actually has to defend the frontier against Zora and the code in Armada. So who is zoor and the code in Armada? We we will find out in a few moments. But we also learned that the frontier is basically an invisible energy shield that's in space and it protects the peaceful systems

from conquest by by the code and empire. And we find out that, due to a dark betrayal, the frontier will soon collapse. Oh, why could that be? Anyway, the starfighters are the only hope that rilos has left and they all start chanting victory or death. And this is a little too much for Alex and he's trying to he's trying to find a way to get out of this mess. And here's where he bumps into Dan o'hurley, he as Grig. How would you describe their first meeting here? Um,

I would say, you know, mostly comedic. Again, we give the sort of clash of personalities where I mean essentially a lot of their their interaction is kind of like grig is very much Um, you know, of the warrior mindset and duty and honor and and so forth, but not in a what, not in like a harsh way, but in a very practical and an honor bound way. And Uh, and then meanwhile Alex is like what war? What? This is real, and he's like Oh, yes, it's very

really actually I'm the last starfighter. And he's like well, yeah, yeah, yes, it's actually yeah, uh so, yeah, I think that's right. So Greg is very much greg is kind of disappointed in Alex for wanting to escape the situation. He's like really, you're going to walk away from the chance to be a starfighter? That's that's extraordinary. I can't believe you would

do that. But okay. And then he, especially Grigg, is upset when he finds out that that Centauri got Alex here by trickery and he he knows who Centauri is. So they go chase him down and Griggs like don't you know it's illegal to recruit from worlds outside the Star League, and and Centauri is like, Oh, you know, they'll be in the star League soon. UH So. So I think it's sort of a star trek, like pre

contact by the federation thing. But Centauri is trying to talk Alex into staying here because it's clear Centauri has been paid a bounty for recruiting a starfighter. He's been given a big sum of money and if Alex quits, he's gonna have to give that money back and Centauri doesn't want that. So He's like, oh, it'll be fine, this is not actually dangerous. Uh. And then suddenly, right after he says that, we get a big head incoming, there's a giant Hologram of another Larry David Head, but

this time it's zoor baby. This is zoor he's it's what's his name? John Snow, not John Snow, it's Norman Snow, as Zure in Hologram form, as big as a as big as and I don't know what, an elephant floating in the middle of space in this room arguing with his dad, and he's like, Father, I am here to do even and uh, induring is like, do not call me father, and they argue and you know, he's like

you have betrayed Rylos. And then Zour says there are some Rylands who would welcome me, father, and the father says, Star League, put down your Zurian cult. Your followers are few and scattered. And Zura says, Star League, a refuge for weak world's not worthy to be our equals. Uh, so the yeah, we never get much back backstory about this, like what is the Zurian cult? How did all this break down? Like, why is the son of this guy operating a cult and now trying to attack the planet

he comes from? It's not clear. Yeah, and the only thing is clear that maybe they should have put aside Um rule by monarchy. You know, yeah, exactly. But anyway, so he calls his father, calls him a an evil child, and zoo doesn't like that, he says. And yet it is this child who caught your master spy. And here's, here's where we get another I would say, if this is supposed to be a kid's adventure movie, this is

a kind of age inappropriate scene. We get the master spy on vid screen here and he is killed in a horrible way by this like laser pulse to the head that kind of melts his brain as he screams. Yeah, it's very well done and again a little too well done. It's, it's, it's it's kind of horrific. It melts the top of his head. Yeah, and then fortunately that cuts away before we see anything else. Right, and this is right after Centauri is like, Oh, this is not dangerous. So Alex

is out of here and he he leaves. He wants to go back to Earth. So he's refusing the call now. And UH, meanwhile, we're gonna see what's going on with Zor and his buddies. So we see the frontier. It's kind of like all these green little do dad's floating in space and I guess they're they're marking an invisible barrier. And zoor and the code and Armada are sitting in the command ship right next to the frontier and they're they're going to get ready to attack rilos. So we

see Zoor massaging accepter that he receives from somebody. He goes, you know, he's like looking at the scepter and he goes, just like your code and emperors, isn't it, commander Krill? and Commander Krill standing nearby, says it takes more than a scepter too rules or even on rilos. So you can tell there's some tension between them. Like commander Krill's working for Zoor, but he doesn't necessarily like it. Yeah,

and I thought this is interesting. Instead of just presenting our our evil space emperor or or evil space usurper, which wouldn't really require a lot of leg work there you can just basically say this is what it is. That's what most Uh Star Wars knockoffs did and you

don't you don't really question it. But here were we do have a slightly more nuance situation where, Um, where we have the cast off son who's aligned himself with the enemy and they're not super happy to have him around, like they seem to recognize that he's dangerous and full of himself. But he does have important information that's going to be pivotal for this particular campaign. So He's been given this title, he's been given this authority, uh, within

the code and the military. But it's a tenuous relationship, even if he does not realize that's the case. Right, and you can tell Zure just takes everyone else's submission for granted. You know, he's like he's not gonna he doesn't care. He's entitled to this. But anyway, they're gonna use Zuur's knowledge about how to get through the frontier to launch a meteor attack on the base on rilos. It's a brutal attack. They like shoot space rocks at

the base. Um, they blow it up. This is made extra possible by a double agent who sets off a bomb within the base to disable the like the turrets that are supposed to shoot down the meteors. and WHO's the double agent? Turns out it's the cat. It's the purring lady from before. Oh Man. But at the end of this whole thing, zooer finds out he gets intelligence that one of the starfighters has escaped. Oh No, so

what's he gonna do about that? Well, we check in back on earth and one thing that's funny is when so Centauri Takes Alex back to the trailer park, though it takes him a while to get there because his his Centauri mobile breaks down and he has to fix it. So Alex sort of wanders back to the trailer Park by himself and when he first meets Maggie he's like hey, Maggie, and she's really mad at him and he doesn't understand why.

But it's because he doesn't realize there has been another copy of him here and the other copy of him is not very good at dealing with people. That's right.

It it genetically copied and I guess absorbs certain memories, but it's having to figure out a lot of the other stuff, uh, in real time, with the with some kind of a comedic scenes here and there, I mean they're supposed to be comedic anyway, where he's like trying to figure out, Um, like how romance works by by turning up his robot hearing and trying to hear what other couples are saying in the Makeout Park. I thought that seven was funny. Yeah, yeah, no, it was. It

was fun. It was good, like I said, as far as B plots go, you know, the the earth plot in your space opera. All of this is really, really well done. And this is where we get the double with the double roll, because we end up having interaction between Alex and his Beta copy right exactly. So Alex he he talks to Maggie. She's mad. He doesn't know why, and then it's clear like somehow he's been there doing things that made her mad, even though he wasn't there.

So he goes back to his room and he meets the copy of him, the Beta module, and they argue. You know, Beta module is like Hey, I'm I'm here taking your place. Aren't you supposed to be saving the universe? And Uh, you know, Alex is like, I'm not going to do that. It's a war, you know. It's dangerous. And then, uh, commenting on a poster that Alex has in his bedroom. Uh, the copy says, Oh, save the whales and not the universe. Huh, and I was like good point. I guess the whales are in Act at

risk from zoor in the codin Armada. But Anyway, Alex is like, well, I'm back here now, so you know, you hit the bricks. Hit the bricks right. So, uh. So you think maybe, well, what's is he's just gonna Chill here on Earth. No, because here comes an alien hit beast. UH, there's it's like a hitchhiker who gets out of a car at the at the trailer park

and he's walking around. He walks in front of the video arcade game and it it shines a light on him that like removes his human disguise and reveals him to be this grotesque alien creature. And then the creature tries to kill Alex. there's this big fight. Centauri shows back up and and blasts the alien with a with a laser, but the alien also gets one hit in on Centauri, kind of shoots him in the in the hip or something, and they talk about it and it's

like well, you know these hit beasts. Uh What? What? What are they called? Against Zando Zans or something? Yeah, Zandoz and, yeah, they're gonna keep coming. Right, Alex, he's like, as long as you're a live here, zoor is going to be sending these things after you. Uh So, really, you've got no choice but to go back and fight and leave the Beta module here to absorb the attacks by these hit beasts. And I think this does it. Alex is like well, yeah, and no choice. Basically got

to go back and fight the code in Armada. So he goes back. Uh. There there's a reunion with Grig. We get we get an apparent death of Centauri scene where he's like Oh my wounds and he collapses in his car. He has a great last line before he apparently dies, talking about collecting the money for bringing Alex back. And Oh God, what, what? What is it he says?

He's like, you know, it's great to he gives some kind of lofty thing about like what's really what really matters in life, but then again, it never hurts to be rich. And then he dies. And and Greg. Greg has a nice moment here. He's like like well, he's passed on for this dimension anywhere, or something to that effect. You know, noble and brief, but but very accepting of death and the reality of death. And Alex, though, is just incomplete, UH denial. He's like, he's like Centauri, Centauri.

So it's it's a nice juxtaposition there. Yeah, I think Grigg says death is a primitive concept. Gregg is very vulcan into new respects, I guess. Yes, yes, he is um I mean not in the sense of not having emotions. He does have emotions, but there there's some other kind of vulcany dynamics, that kind of uh, this makes him sound me a kind of friendly, well meaning alien condescension on the human perspective. Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean.

But Anyway, here we sort of transition to the third act right like there there's ongoing conflict with there are some hit beasts that will continue to to plague Beta and Maggie back back on earth, and meanwhile Grig and uh an Alex are off to to fight the code in Armada, and we're gonna get a lot of space battles after this. Yeah, and that's that's that's kind of the downside to the last third of the picture is that you're gonna get a lot of these computer or effects.

You'RE gonna get a lot of opportunities to see all the ways that they fall a little bit short of of of what they attempted to achieve. And again, for for a modern film viewer, if you're coming into this after having watched, I mean really, if you're coming into this having watched even the original star wars, you're going to find this a little bit disappointing. Definitely agree about

the space battles. Actually, though, I thought that the the big showdown on earth is fantastic, where there's like a hit yeah, there's like a hit beast coming after Beta and Maggie, but it happens to overhear Beta revealing the fact that he's not really Alex and that Alex is up in space, and then it's like, oh, okay, I better run off and message zoor with this information. So

they have a big showdown about that. The hit beast almost gets the message off and almost reveals but then the robot sacrifices itself by Ramming into the alien spaceship with a pickup truck. Yes, so I think the only thing can get uh, the only part of the message he gets sent out is Um, like the last star fighter is and then we don't know. But when Zoor hears this, he's like, Oh, the last starfighter is dead. Clearly that's it. Don't worry, Codin's, let's continue on with

the assault. And they're like, okay, do you have the shields down? Oh, this is another critique I have about the space battles. I think the last starfighter's vessel, what is it? What is it called? The Gun Star? A Gun Star? The Gun Star looks pretty cool the but the villain's warship just feels it doesn't feel threatening enough. I don't know it. For me anyway, my personal taste, the Star destroyer of this picture did not have enough of a star destroyer vibe. I think the bosses in

Star Fox look better. Yeah, it's just kind of a big V it's like there's nothing that looks all that villainous or interesting about it. Yeah, it looks more industrial than at least when we compare it to other sci fi spaceship does signs there is a great thing that they build up to, which is they mentioned it several times.

There's one last weapon we have on the gun story is the death blossom and they build it up real big and then when they actually do it, it kind of doesn't look that cool and it's like, okay, it just made me think of blooming onion. That so that can I threw me, threw me out of picture there. But death blossom. But eventually, of course. How's this movie gonna End? You know what's gonna Happen. Alex and Griggs saved the day. They defeat the command ship, they defeat

the code in Armada. UH, they blast up the command ship good and then it is sent like barreling toward a moon. I think, yeah, we have some some fun drama aboard the vessel, though, leading up to this moment and at this moment, because first of all, when the codons realize that the last starfighter is alive, they're like, okay, enough of this Zur nonsense, and they haven't thrown taken away to be thrown in the brig they're like that's it, he's out of here. This is totally a code on

Um Enterprise. At this point, he's he's out at the chain of command. We don't need him anymore. So they so he's dragging they drag him away some or one of the codon guards drags him away, but Zure overpowers the guard and escapes in the escape pod. Okay and UH. And that leaves just the codens on board as their ship begins to crash into the moon, and we get

this last moment between the two code and commanders. Well, you know, they're trying all these different things, defense methods, and then they realized they're going to crash into the moon and one says, what do we do? And then the other one looks up at him, space monocle moves into place and he says we die. And then, sure enough, they crashed into the moon and die. Cool moment. I knew that was the one you were thinking of earlier.

I don't even know why it's so cool, but for some reason when I was a kid, like this was like really cool. Like why aren't all dramatic moments punctuated with a space monocle moving into place? But of course, as as you pointed out, Zor survives. He takes the escape pod. Yeah, it lives on in the no sequel limbo with the likes of Jaredson villains that they were like, well, we gotta save this villain don't. We don't want to get rid of this villain, have them escape so they

can come back in the sequel. And then, of course the film does not end up getting sequel. So who knows? How is it that there are seven transfers movies but there is no sequel to the destruction of Jaredson or the last starfighter? Can you imagine a marvel style universe crossover event in which Zoor and Jaredson team up, just the glorious, sneering wickedness of it? That would be great. I wonder who else you could throw in there, because

I know this. This is not the only case we have a film that that decided to set up as sequel but never got to do it. Um, I guess that you have some like matches the universe, but that's skeletor. I mean obviously skeletor is going to survive, but but films like this and Jaredson are especially noteworthy because they're establishing that villain. They're like no, this is our skeletor. Of course skeletor survives and we'll be back in the

next picture. You probably next year, maybe the year after. Now. Spoiler for the end of the movie after Alex and Grigg Defeat, defeat all the bad guys, they come down to Rilos, they're greeted by injuring. There are just like it appears to be tens of thousands of Rylands, all all cheering for them and ready to make them code dictators of Rilos. And Uh, and spoiler, spoiler coming here. But there's a big twist. What's the twist? What's the twist?

It's Centauri still alive. Here's Robert Preston. He sort of wipes off an alien face and there he is again and he's like, Oh, I wasn't dead, my body just went into hibernation to heal its wounds. It's pretty great. I mean, on one level it feels kind of forced, but it also just feels good to have him back. I mean, he didn't need this character to die. It's great.

It's great that he came back, came back as Centauri, the white exactly, and you can tell he's like he's like getting behind Alex, like kind of whispering in his ear. He's like, let me tell you what to do now, son. Yeah, it's like now he's he's Alex's agent, which I like. Uh,

and there's also a very sweet ending. It kind of goes on a little long, but there's a sweet ending where Alex and Grig go back to the to the trailer park on Earth, and they see all of Alex's friends and all the neighbors there figure out, Oh wow, it's all real, it's from another planet. And and Alex Gets Maggie to come with him on the spaceship back to rilos so they can recruit more starfighters to defend the galaxy. And Uh, and it's very heartwarming. Yeah, Gregg

gets to meet all the grandma's. Though it's it is unfortunate we don't get like the Grig with the sunglasses saying surfs up, but I'll take yeah, in the longer cut of the film, perhaps we could have had that. Now I don't know any of the details, but I think there is some sort of a reboot or return to the last starfighter world in the works. I don't know what it's going to consist of, if we're talking about a film or a series or what Um it's.

That's an interesting idea because there's a lot of depending on where they go with it. I mean they could just kind of throw everything out the window. I guess they could go really hardcore and just pick up and just try and honor everything that's in this film. But even if they end up going for that, somewhere in between there's there are a lot of interesting pieces that are put on the table here but are not completely explored, that are introduced but but could be fleshed out more.

And if you were to do a pretty long like a longer form thing, like, there's a lot of cool shenanigans you could have with the Beta Alex on earth. Yeah, there, there's there's for room to expand this. I'm not completely opposed to the idea of a of a reboot here. I would be I would be open minded about it. who had they cast as Centauri? Now, Jeff Goldbloom. Maybe with Jeff Gold Bloom? UH, Jeff Goldbloom make a good Centari. What about Jeff Bridges? Oh, there you go, get into

some of that tron action. Now, he could do it. Yeah, yeah, he would be good. Now I neglected to say where you can get this movie. Uh, you can. You should be able to rent or buy it digitally, where you get your pictures these days. It's also been you know, it's it was a major release. So it's been available

on various formats at home. I believe there was a anniversary edition that came out on BLU ray a few years back and I'm not sure if they remastered it or what, but I feel like the film quality that I watched it in was very clear, very, very pristine and it looked. Looked really good. Yeah, me too. So yeah, again, aside from the computer effects, everything standing in pretty pretty pretty stands up pretty well to modern viewing here. So

this is a fun one. I'd be interested to hear from other folks out there who fondly remember it or just remember it from their childhood and what it's been like to watch it again all these years later, or what's it like to watch it for the first time? I don't know. I would be interested in that as well, because it's it's a film that for many people it's very much a product of its time. You know, it speaks to that time and you think about having launched

it as a kid. I don't know how it reads necessarily. Uh, if it's consumed fresh today, all right, well, we'll go and close it out here, but we would love to hear from everyone out there. So right in Weird House Cinema, will remind you, is our our Friday episode in the stuff to blow your mind podcast feed. Were primarily a science podcast and we do our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Monday's we do listener mail. So if if you have thoughts about this or other films, well,

that's where we we read them, along with feedback. Regarding our other episodes, we have short form monster fact or artifact episodes on Wednesdays and on the weekends we do vault episodes. Those are reruns of past episodes, uh, from from stuff to blow your mind. Oh and one more thing. Uh. So ME TO MUSIC DOT com. That's a blog where I include blog post about the movies we cover on Weird House and if you use letterboxed, that's L E T T E R B O x d. we're on there.

Our user name is Weird House. You can look us up. We have a list on there that has all the films that we've watched on weird how cinema. So if you want a quick, easy to reference, visual, easy to sort through, a guide to what we've covered on the show before, that's a really great place to go. Huge thanks. As always to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson.

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