Dark Star (film)

Dark Star
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Written by	John Carpenter Dan O'Bannon
Produced by	John Carpenter
Starring	Dan O'Bannon Brian Narelle Cal Kuniholm Dre Pahich
Cinematography	Douglas Knapp
Edited by	Dan O'Bannon
Music by	John Carpenter
Production companies	Jack H. Harris Enterprises University of Southern California
Distributed by	Jack H. Harris Enterprises Inc. Bryanston Distributing (1975) (USA) VCI Entertainment (USA, VHS & DVD) Astral Films (1975, Canada)[1]
Release date	April 1974 (1974-04)
Running time	83 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60,000

Dark Star is a 1974 American comic science fiction motion picture directed, co-written, produced and scored by John Carpenter, and co-written by, edited by and starring Dan O'Bannon.

Plot

In the mid-22nd century, mankind has reached a point in its technological advancement that enables colonization of the far reaches of the universe. Armed with artificially intelligent "Thermostellar Triggering Devices", the scout ship "Dark Star" and its crew have been in space alone for twenty years on a mission to destroy "unstable planets" which might threaten future colonization to other planets.

The ship's crew consists of Lt. Doolittle (helmsman, and initially, second-in-command), Sgt. Pinback (bombardier), Cpl. Boiler (navigator), and Talby (target specialist). "Dark Star" Commander Powell was killed during hyperdrive as a result of an electrical short behind his rear seat panel, but remains on board the ship in a state of cryogenic suspension. The crew performs their jobs in a state of abject boredom, as the tedium of their tasks over 20 years has driven them "around the bend." The "Dark Star" ship itself is in a constant state of deterioration and frequent system malfunctions (for example, a radiation leak which is not repairable, their cargo of intelligent talking bombs lowering from their bomb bay without the command to do so, an explosion destroying their sleeping quarters, the food processing computer repeatedly serving them chicken-flavored liquid meals, and a storage bay "self destructing" destroying the ship's entire supply of toilet paper), and only the soft-spoken female voice of the ship's computer for company. They have attempted to create distractions for themselves: Doolittle, formerly a surfer from Malibu, California, has constructed a musical bottle organ; Talby spends all of his time in the ship's observation dome, content to watch the universe go by; Boiler obsessively trims his moustache, enjoys smoking cigars, and shoots targets with the ship's emergency laser rifle in a corridor; while Pinback plays practical jokes on the other crew members, maintains a video diary, and has also adopted a ship's mascot in the form of a mischievous "beachball"-like alien who refuses to stay put in a storage room, forcing Pinback to chase it all over the ship. With regard to Pinback, he may not actually be "Sgt. Pinback" at all: In his video diary, he states he is liquid fuel specialist Bill Froug, who inadvertently took the "real" Sgt. Pinback's place on the mission.

En route to their next target (the Veil Nebula), the "Dark Star" is hit by a bolt of electromagnetic energy during a storm, resulting in yet another on-board malfunction, with "Thermostellar Bomb #20" receiving the order to deploy. With some difficulty, the ship's computer convinces Bomb #20 that the order was in error, and persuades the bomb to disarm itself and return to the bomb bay. Talby notes the malfunction, and decides to investigate the fault (to the complete disinterest of his crew mates), and discovers a damaged communications laser in the emergency airlock while the rest of the crew is engaging their next bombing run. While attempting to repair the laser during the bomb run, the laser malfunctions, blinding Talby and knocking him unconscious, inadvertently triggering a more serious problem, causing extensive damage to the ship's main computer, and damaging the bomb release mechanism on Bomb #20.

Due to the damaged ship's computer, the crew discovers they cannot activate the release mechanism and attempt to abort the drop. To make matters worse, after two prior accidental deployments, and intent on exploding as it was programmed to do, Bomb #20 becomes belligerent and refuses to disarm or abort the countdown sequence. As Pinback and Boiler attempt to talk the bomb out of blowing up underneath the ship, Doolittle revives Commander Powell, who advises him to talk to the bomb, and to teach the bomb the rudiments of phenomenology. After donning a space suit and exiting the ship to approach the bomb directly, Doolittle engages in a philosophical conversation with Bomb #20 until it decides to abort its countdown and retreat to the bomb bay for further contemplation. Disaster appears to have been averted, but upon attempting to re-enter the ship, Doolittle inadvertently jettisons Talby out of the airlock. As Doolittle attempts to rescue the now-conscious Talby as he floats away from the "Dark Star," Pinback addresses the bomb over the intercom in an attempt to finally disarm it.

Unfortunately, Doolittle has mistakenly taught the bomb Cartesian doubt and, as a result, Bomb #20 determines that it can only trust itself and not external input. Convinced that only he exists, and that his sole purpose in life is to explode, Bomb #20 states "Let there be light," and promptly detonates. Pinback and Boiler are killed instantly. Commander Powell is jettisoned into space encased in a large block of ice, and Talby and Doolittle are blown in opposite trajectories, drifting away from each other. Talby drifts into the Phoenix Asteroids (a cluster of glowing asteroids he has long had a fascination with), destined to circumnavigate the universe for eternity. As Doolittle loses contact with Talby, he notices he is falling toward the unstable planet. Realizing he will burn up in the atmosphere, he drifts into some debris from the "Dark Star," finds an appropriately surfboard-shaped piece of debris, and "surfs" down into the atmosphere of the planet, dying as a falling star.

Cast

• Lt. Doolittle - Brian Narelle
• Sgt. Pinback - Dan O'Bannon
• Boiler - Cal Kuniholm
• Talby - Dre Pahich
• Commander Powell - Joe Saunders
• Computer - Cookie Knapp
• Bomb #19 - Alan Sheretz
• Bomb #20 - Adam Beckenbaugh
• Mission Control - Miles Watkins
• Alien - Nick Castle

Production

Screenplay

Director John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay while film students at the University of Southern California. Six years later, the basic "Beachball with Claws" subplot of the film was reworked from comedy to horror, and became the basis (along with an unpublished story about gremlins aboard a B-17) for the O'Bannon-scripted science fiction horror classic, Alien.

Filming

Working on an estimated $60,000 budget, Carpenter and O'Bannon had to make production design from scratch. In the "elevator" sequence the bottom of the elevator is actually rolling on the floor. The device used to roll the elevator base was a Moviola camera dolly normally used on the small sound stage in the old USC Cinema building (a former horse stable). The steering arm of the dolly can be seen in the "elevator's" underside. Talby's starsuit backpack is made from Styrofoam packing material and his spacesuit chestplate is made from a cake pan and muffin tray. The space helmets used were part of Ideal Toys S.T.A.R. Team toy line for young children, resulting in the rather snug fit on the adult actors' heads. The double rows of large buttons on the bridge consoles are ice cube trays illuminated from beneath. Sergeant Pinback's video diary is an 8-track tape and the machine he uses to read it and record it is a microfiche reader. O'Bannon also starred in the film in the role of Sgt. Pinback.

Special effects

Much of the special effects seen in the movie were done by Dan O'Bannon, ship design by Ron Cobb, model work by O'Bannon and Greg Jein, and animation was by Bob Greenberg.

The bombs are made from an AMT 1/25 scale semi-trailer kit and parts of a 1/12th scale model car kit; "Matra", the name of the car brand, can be seen on some parts in some shots. The space suits are made to resemble the space suit of the Mattel action figure "Major Matt Mason", which was used in slightly modified form as a miniature for effects shots. Cobb drew the original design for the "Dark Star" ship on a napkin while they were eating at the International House of Pancakes.

The film featured the first hyperspace sequence to show the effect of stars rushing past the Dark Star vessel in a tunnel-effect (due to superluminal velocity) which was used in Star Wars three years later.

Release

Although destined for eventual cinematic release in 1974, this was only possible as a consequence of a successful series of showings at a number of film festivals in 1973. Originally the film was a 68-minute student short filmed on 16mm film. The movie was seen by producer Jack H. Harris, who gained the theatrical distribution rights to the film, and arranged for it to be transferred to 35mm, and paid for the addition of 15 minutes which brought the movie up to feature film length.

For theatrical release, parts of the film were re-edited to make it feel more like a 3-part story and extra footage was filmed to bring it up to a more substantial running time. This included the bottle-organ scene, the alien chase and elevator scenes, the sleeping quarters scene, and a reworked ending involving Boiler and Pinback fighting over a gun (originally the fight took place only in the control room of the ship, and involved a search for a misplaced failsafe key).

John Carpenter would later lament that as a result of this padding into a feature length movie, their "great looking student film" became a "terrible looking feature film".

Director's cut

John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon re-edited the film into a "director's cut", removing much of the footage shot for the theatrical release and adding new special effects.

Home media

The film was released on DVD March 23, 1999 in a single disc edition. Several years later a special two-disc "Hyperdrive Edition" DVD was released in 2010 by VCI Entertainment and contains both the Director's Cut and a longer Original Theatrical Release, as well as a long featurette explaining the origins of Dark Star and how it was produced. A fan commentary also provides a lot of trivial information about the film.

Reception

Dark Star can be considered a black comedy although it was marketed by Harris as more of a serious science fiction film. As a result, most of the cinema-going audience did not expect the humour and Dark Star's reception suffered from not reaching its intended audience. The home video cassette revolution of the early 1980s saw Dark Star become a cult film among sci-fi fans.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 79% fresh rating, with the following consensus: "A loopy 2001 satire, Dark Star may not be the most consistent sci-fi comedy, but its portrayal of human eccentricity is a welcome addition to the genre." Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing: "Dark Star is one of the damnedest science fiction movies I've ever seen, a berserk combination of space opera, intelligent bombs, and beach balls from other worlds." Leonard Maltin awarded the film two and a half stars, describing it as "enjoyable for sci-fi fans and surfers"; he also compliments the effective use of the limited budget.

Analysis

Carpenter has described Dark Star as "Waiting for Godot in space."

Commentators have noted that the film's ending closely parallels the short story "Kaleidoscope" by Ray Bradbury, from his 1951 short story collection The Illustrated Man.

Influence

The "Beachball with Claws" segment of the film was reworked by Dan O'Bannon into the 1979 science fiction / horror film, Alien. After witnessing audiences failing to laugh at parts of Dark Star which were intentionally funny, O'Bannon lamented "If I can't make them laugh, then maybe I'll scare the hell out of them." Alien was the result.

The indie rock band Pinback frequently uses sound effects from the movie throughout their discography, and adopted their name from the character, Sgt. Pinback.

Doug Naylor has said in interviews that Dark Star was the inspiration for Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, the radio sketches that evolved into the popular television science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf.

The character Pinback also inspired the character name Pinbacker, the antagonist in Danny Boyle's 2007 film Sunshine.

Dark Star has been cited as a large inspiration for Machinima series Red vs. Blue by the show's creator Burnie Burns.

Soundtrack

The music for Dark Star is mostly of a pure electronic style and was made by John Carpenter using synthesizers.

The theme song played during the opening and closing credits is "Benson, Arizona". The music was written by John Carpenter, and the lyrics by Bill Taylor, concerning a person who travels the galaxy at light speed and misses their beloved back on Earth. The lead vocal was John Yager, a college friend of Carpenter's. Yager was not a professional musician "apart from being in a band in college."

Further reading

• Holdstock, Robert. Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Octopus Books, 1978, pp. 80–81. ISBN 0-7064-0756-3
• Cinefex magazine, issue 2, Aug 1980. Article by Brad Munson: "Greg Jein, Miniature Giant". (Discusses Dark Star, among other subjects.)
• Fantastic Films magazine, Oct 1978, vol. 1 no. 4, pages 52–58, 68–69. James Delson interviews Greg Jein, about Dark Star and other projects Jein had worked on.
• Fantastic Films magazine, Sep 1979, issue 10, pages 7–17, 29–30. Dan O'Bannon discusses Dark Star and Alien, other subjects. (Article was later reprinted in "The very best of Fantastic Films", Special Edition #22 as well.)
• Fantastic Films magazine, Collector's Edition #17, Jul 1980, pages 16–24, 73, 76–77, 92. (Article: "John Carpenter Overexposed" by Blake Mitchell and James Ferguson. Discusses Dark Star, among other things.)
• Bradbury, Ray, Kaleidoscope Doubleday & Company 1951
• Foster, Alan Dean. Dark Star, Futura Publications, 1979. ISBN 0-7088-8048-7. (Adapted from a script by Dan O'Bannon and John Carpenter by the author of Alien (film))

External links

• Dark Star at IMDb
• Dark Star at Rotten Tomatoes
• Dark Star at AllMovie
• Dark Star at the TCM Movie Database
• Dark Star at The Official John Carpenter
• Script of the original short version of Dark Star
• AMC.com - B Movies - Dark Star (Full Streaming Movie)