WhenThe Last Starfighterwas released on July 13 , 1984 , timing was , perhaps , not in its favor . contest was soused — Ghostbusters , elf , Star Trek III , Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , andThe Karate Kidwerestill in theatre — and the video plot industry was in the middle of arecessionspurred in part by a flood of sub - par games . It was n’t the best box - place environment for an original tale with no major stars about a kid whose life hinges on his video - game prowess .
At least , it did for a while . Thanks to a series of home video releases , a film director and cast happy to lionize the movie at bouncy event , and the rise of internet fan culture , The Last Starfighterhas spent the last 40 - plus years quiet becoming a bona fidecult classic . Here are nine things you might not know about the offbeat ’ 80s space adventure .
The Last Starfighterwas directed by the original Michael Myers.
The Last Starfighter ’s director , Nick Castle , studied withHalloweendirector and cowriter John Carpenter at USC motion-picture show school . Later , when Castle heard that Carpenter was fritter away a picture near his house , he adjudicate to pay his former class fellow a visit .
“ I say , ‘ John , I ’m gon na adhere on the exercise set as long as you ’re gon na shoot down here , ’ ” Castle recalled in a 2018 consultation withWhat Culture . Carpenter made the most of Castle ’s bearing , handing him a mask and coveralls and drafting him into service as the log , homicidal Shape , a.k.a . Michael Myers . At leastnine other actorshave since donned the mask , but Castle made history as the original Michael , one of cinema ’s prototypic slashers .
Castle isn’tThe Last Starfighter ’s only connection to theHalloweenfranchise . Lance Guestonly had two big - screen credits before he was cast as gamer - turned - Starfighter Alex Rogan ; one of them was a supporting function inHalloween II , which was bring about by Carpenter . As Guestremembers it , The Last Starfighterwas in preproduction just as Carpenter was supervise edits onHalloween II . When Castle got a face at Guest in footage Carpenter showed him , he knew he ’d observe his star .
The trailer-park setting was a conscious effort to stay out of Steven Spielberg’s territory.
In screenwriter Jonathan R. Betuel ’s first draft ofThe Last Starfighter ’s screenplay , Alex and Maggie ( then namedSkip and Penny ) were the sort of suburban stripling who had taken over movie screens in the 1980s . That did n’t cultivate for film director Nick Castle , who was wary of wandering too far into what had become Steven Spielberg ’s touch territory .
“ Jonathan had coif it in suburbia , kind of a Steven SpielbergPoltergeistand evenE.T.world , which was , I thought , too derivative of those industrial plant , ” Castlesaidin the miniskirt - docCrossing the Frontier : make The Last Starfighter . Castle wanted a setting that was both more parochial and a little down - at - the - heels . ( In the moving picture , Alex is turned down for a bank loan that would have helped him pay for college . ) They settle down on the Starlite Starbrite Trailer Court , which the director described to theThe Orlando Sentinelin 1984 as “ isolated , but charming and wholesome and real Americana . ”
The effects were created on a historically powerful supercomputer.
Tronpioneered the manipulation of reckoner - generated imagery , or CGI , in 1982 , butThe Last Starfighterrepresented a major whole tone forward for the applied science . To create realistic environments and action sequences , the movie maker turn to what was then thefastest computer in the public : the Cray X - MP . Digital Productions , the company that providedThe Last Starfighter ’s figurer effects , was thefirst commercial-grade outfitto evolve the 5.25 - ton giant , which did computer thing at such a furious speed that it required liquid coolant hit through a mesh ofcopper tubingto keep it from overheating . Only six X - MPs were in universe at the time ; the other five wereall being usedby the government and the defense diligence . Digital Productions ’ motorcar , whichLast Starfighterproduction designer Ron Cobb oncecomparedto the alien - build monolith in2001 : A Space Odyssey , would alsogenerate effects shotsfor2010 : The Year We Made ContactandLabyrinth . A 1984 issue ofComputing Todayreported that the price tag forThe Last Starfighter ’s personal effects was about $ 3 million for its 25 minutes of CGI , or some $ 2000 per second of footage .
A young Wil Wheaton was mostly edited out ofThe Last Starfighter.
Three years before he joined the cast ofStar Trek : The Next Generationas future ensign Wesley Crusher , Wil Wheatonearned one of his first large - screenland course credit as “ Louis ’s friend ” inThe Last Starfighter . He filmed a few lines of dialogue , but that footage was ultimatelycut from the movie , leave Wheaton as simply a expression in the background at the Starlite Starbrite Trailer Court . Wheaton would have considerably better luck with his next theatrical film : 1986’sStand by Me , where he ’d lead the cast in his breakout role as the young Gordie Lachance .
It was Robert Preston’s last big-screen role.
Robert Prestonwas a veteran degree and film role player with roles inVictor / VictoriaandHow the West Was Won , but he ’s good remembered for his starring number as con man Harold Hill in 1962’sThe Music Man . It was that use that inspiredThe Last Starfighterscreenwriter Jonathan R. Betuel tosuggestcasting him as the wily alien Centauri , the architect of the video game that draw Alex Rogan into a space warfare . Once Preston was onboard , the office was rewritten to more closely mirror hisMusic Mancharacter . Preston would seem in just two more movies , both made for television , beforedyingof lung cancer in March 1987 at the years of 68 .
The torture scene was toned down to ensure a PG rating.
The Last Starfighteris mostly remembered for its good - natured charm , but it include one notoriously unsettling scene : The villainous Xur orchestrates the torment of a capture Star League undercover agent and broadcasts the mordant spectacle to Starfighter Command — and a grossed - out Alex Rogan .
If 8 - yr - honest-to-goodness you was unnerved by the aspect , imagine how you would have felt if it had made it to the sieve entire . The instrumental role of torture is a optical maser that lento melts the spy ’s head , beginning at the top of his skull . In the last version , the vista only last a few seconds and cuts away just as the spy ’s forehead begins to glow flushed . In the original vista , Alex and company look out the spy ’s death as the laser melts his entire headway .
“ It hurt when you see someone ’s encephalon electrocute , ” Castle observes inaudio commentaryfor a 1999 videodisc release of the film . The last was deemed too grisly and swerve from the movie , pass on looker to draw their own finis about the spy ’s fate . In a 1984 consultation withThe Cincinnati Post , Castle said he never consider pursuing the freshly minted PG-13 rating , which might have let him utilize the scene as it was conceived . The Last Starfighterwent out in July 1984 with a sawn-off distortion scene and a PG military rating ; less than a month subsequently , Red Dawnbecame the first PG-13 film to hit theaters .
The Beta unit was given more scenes after proving to be a hit with test audiences.
One ofThe Last Starfighter ’s most memorable element is the Beta unit of measurement , Alex Rogan ’s android doubly that is give on Earth to supervene upon him once Rogan is whisk off to blank . The Beta , which is basically unprepared for the business organization of pretending to be human , is the source of much of the film ’s humor , and it was such a strike with test audiences that the cast and work party were press back into service to bitch up its role in the movie . Guest had gotten a haircut since filming his scenes , forcing him into a poofy wig for the reshoots . Matters were further complicated when Guest became ill during reshoots and require extravagant make-up to make up his pelt tone .
The Last Starfightersent viewers searching for a video game that didn’t exist.
fit in to 1984 paper report , viewers attending a test screen ofThe Last Starfighterleft the theater and headed directly for their favorite colonnade , hope to test their hand at the game Alex Rogan had played onscreen .
“ They were front for the game as if there really was aStarfighterand they were choke to play it , ” Castle sound out in a 1984 interview withThe Philadelphia Inquirer . That plot was in ontogeny at Atari , but it would never achieve memory .
According toarcade-history.com , Atari’sThe Last Starfighterwas a first - somebody shooter game that employed some of the same shop mechanic as the caller ’s 1983Star Warstie - in . ButThe Last Starfighterfailed to set the box office on fire , and the advanced artwork and gameplay mean the cabinet version would have set an arcade possessor back some $ 10,000 in 1984 — about$31,000 in today ’s currency . Atari decided the movie was n’t democratic enough to rationalise that price tag , so production was scratch before the game was stop . An 8 - piece home version also got the axe , but Atari ’s efforts were n’t all squander — that game would bereworked and releasedasSolarisandStar Raiders IIin 1986 .
you’re able to read former Atari VP Chris Horseman ’s proposal for the originalLast Starfightergamehere .
Not even Steven Spielberg could acquire remake rights.
AsThe Last Starfighter ’s fan groundwork has steadily grown over the ten , one of the most - ask questions is “ Why has n’t there been a continuation ? ” It ’s certainly not for lack of sake . Director Nick Castle wasworking ona sequel sometime around 2005 that would have convey back original headliner Lance Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart as the parents of a new Starfighter , but the project was finally abandoned . A continuation wasreportedlyin development in 2008 , but nothing come of that endeavor either . Even Steven Spielberg tried to secure right toThe Last Starfighter — and got nowhere . In 2014 , Seth Rogentweetedthat , when he let on to the director that he ’d essay and failed to acquire the rights , Spielberg had admit that he ’d also come up empty . The following class , a hybrid TV - VR labor calledThe Starfighter Chronicleswasannounced , but no further news has surfaced .
By 2018,Last Starfighterscreenwriter Jonathan Betuel hadpartneredwith Gary Whitta , screenwriter ofAfter EarthandThe Book of Eli , on a sequel book calledThe Last Starfighters . Whitta posted a concept fine art sizzle lurch to his YouTube channel in 2021 ( above ) , but in 2022 hetweetedthat the projection had stalled . As of January 2025 , the only otherStarfighterproject to make it beyond the page is an off - Broadway musical thatopenedat New York City ’s Storm Theatre in October 2024 .
In a 2024 episode of the1980s Nowpodcast , Betuel described a convoluted rights situation that has played out over the decades sinceThe Last Starfighter ’s spill . He long believed that Universal owned the right field to the film , but when the studio apartment get through him to talk over a possible serial of TV movies , his lawyer reviewed the terms and realized the studio apartment ’s right field to the attribute had croak . It took a dyad yr of legal haggle , but Betuel was eventually able to secure all domestic distribution rightfulness toThe Last Starfighter , set him in the driver ’s seat for any potential sequel or remakes .
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