Have you ever heard of Dark Star? I hadn't, though it seems like I should have.I was reading through some list of the 100 greatest science fiction films, and came across Dark Star somewhere in the 90s. It was written by Dan O'Bannon (writer of Alien) and John Carpenter (writer of Halloween and The Thing). John Carpenter also directed. It was the first feature film for both, and evolved out of a student film project that managed to scrounge up a tiny bit more money to go quasi-professional.
On paper, that all sounded really promising to me. But the problem is, I think I focused too much on "the people behind Alien and The Thing" and not enough on "glorified student film from the early 1970s." Because folks, I am telling you this movie is terrible. Not "good terrible" like The Room -- no, that happens when you think you're making a serious movie and it comes out funny. With Dark Star, they were indeed trying to make a satire, and it just isn't funny. Oh sure, there are a couple of clever ideas in there, but they aren'texecuted in a way that makes you even smile, much less laugh.
The acting is bad, the production values are horrible (though that's no surprise, given the budget), the pace is languid. It's the Waiting for Godot of scifi films, but unlike that famous existential play, it has no apparent commentary to make. In fact, even though the movie is only a scant 80 minutes long, I could not make myself finish it. I switched it off before I reached the halfway point.
Which I suppose automatically means I have to rate this movie an F. ("F" for "Finished It? Hell no!") I cannot fathom what it's doing on a list of the 100 greatest scifi films. 100 Most Influential scifi films, I might grant, because this was the starting point for two great talents -- and one of the plot points even seems to be the direct inspiration for Alien.
But it isn't actually watchable. Ugh.
3 comments:
Doesthis mean that you will be revising your grade on Watchmen. You made it all the way through that film with a talker nearby no less.
This is a truly awful movie. It's amazing with hindsight that it could even be described as "the guy that did that good thing" and so on. Isn't there a jumpy talking basketball as an alien? This was a larf when it was new.
Oh, yeah, the evil giant beachball. And the space-surfing - don't forget the space surfing. (Wasn't that how it ended?) I saw the movie ages ago while in college and thought it was okay as an artifact ("Hey! That's a bit he used later in Alien! And that's a total John Carpenter bit right there!").
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