Dark Star
by John Carpenter
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DVD details
Actor: Adam Beckenbaugh, Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm, Dan O'Bannon, Dre PahichDirector: John Carpenter
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 83 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-03-23
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: VCI Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Dark Star
DVD Review: Cheepnis
Summary: 5 Stars
Four seventies style burn outs roam the galaxy in what seems like a weaponized version of a Volkswagen bus searching for unstable planets. Their government mission to destroy these planets with the help of a HAL style computer (undoubtedly running MS) and artificially intelligent bombs.
Anyone remembering the cartoon Colonel Bleep might appreciate Dark Star for the same reason Frank Zappa might have enjoyed it... cheepnis. Dark Star drips cheepnis from the special effects to the choice of monster (pet actually).
The attitude taken by every facet of artificial intelligence (you can't have self realization without attitude) is similar to that of bureaucrats throughout the centuries and typical of today's corpopath. It's very difficult to argue with artificial intelligence as anyone ever having dealt with a government employee can tell you. When you're in space no one can hear you scream... or curse. Easily as disorganized and unaccountable (even to itself) as any 'official' operation Dark Star's mission should be a belly laugh for anyone ever having to argue with an automatic banking machine for their money or otherwise discuss reality with an electronic entity.
The biological intelligences consist of:
Boder - disinterested, self obsessed Texan style narcissist
Pinback - insecure and friendless, overweight, neurotic, arrested adolescent
Doolittle - lieutenant leader who spends time reminiscing his surfing day in Malibu
Talby - reclusive, philosophical observations/navigational officer
pet alien - mischievous beach ball with claws
The discussion with the smart bomb regarding Phenomenology is priceless.
"What is the one purpose in life?"
"To explode of course!"
If computers and artificial intelligence ever discover religion and decide to become born again we're in very serious trouble.
DVD Review: Dark Star Shines A Bright Light
Summary: 5 Stars
Who says you have to have a big budget to make a very funny 70's Sci-Fi movie spoof. The instrument panel on the spacecraft was egg cartons with lighting underneath. I have not seen many films before or since where the space alien is an oversized beach ball. And, as a surfer, I loved the ending. But I'm not telling. If you want to know how it ends, buy the DVD.
This would be a cult classic even if it had not been done by John Carpenter. Brian Narelle is now an Emmy award winning television writer and an illustrator/cartoonist.
DVD Review: Hippie-era humor at its finest
Summary: 5 Stars
I first saw "Dark Star" at a mid-1970s sci-fi convention, not long after it had come out. I was a kid back then, but I was instantly hooked, and 30+ years later I still appreciate the intelligence and mordant, dark humor of the script. The film is decidedly anti-establishment, with a crew of shaggy, longhaired astronauts working as science grunts for an expanding galactic empire, blowing up "unstable" planets to clear a path for colonization.
Although people often compare it to "Star Wars" (which came out a few years later), "Dark Star" is much more a precursor of the "Aliens" series, in which everyday people work for and chafe against vast, anonymous, amoral bureaucracies. As in the "Aliens" films, the crew of the Dark Star live in a cramped, sweaty, claustrophobic environs, where the vacuum of space is filled with frustration and paranoia. The confrontation with the damaged, sentient thermonuclear explosive recalls, of course, HAL in Stanley Kubrick's "2001," but whereas "2001" was a very serious film, with Kubrick seeking to blow people's minds with his kaleidoscopic filmmaking, "Dark Star" is a satire, tempered by dark comedy and outright farce. It's a very funny, very intelligent film, definitely worth picking up! (Joe Sixpack, Slipcue film reviews)
DVD Review: Dark Star- The Other One
Summary: 5 Stars
"Dark Star" isn't a movie version of the beloved Grateful Dead song (just as "The Passenger" isn't a Phil Lesh biopic). It's John Carpenter's directorial debut, a darkly hilarious comedy about boredom in space. It was made on a shoestring budget, and rightly shines as a low-budget classic. A crew of planet destroyers have gotten incredibly bored. One longs for surfing. Another is in the deep freeze. Yet another contends with an alien that looks like a giant inflatable beach ball. There's an angsty bomb.
"Dark Star" doesn't idealize life in deep space. It's a look at boredom, existential and otherwise. It's funny as well. Let it shine!
DVD Review: Dark star
Summary: 3 Stars
I liked it more 35 years ago, but it is still amazing how well it describes the engineering problem of maintenance under time pressure by ignorant management
Description of Dark Star
DARK STAR was originally intended to be a 68 minute film. Jack Harris, the Hollywood producer, convinced the filmmakers to shoot 15 minutes of extra footage and he released the expanded version theatrically in 1975 through Bryanston Pictures. In 1983, DARK STAR was re- issued to home video as a "Special Edition," created under the supervision and authorization of the filmmakers. This special version, featuring a new technically superior video transfer, had been edited by the filmmakers though, virtually removing all the extra footage. Now, once again for all DARK STAR purest, here is the full length theatrical release version, painstakingly restored, and sporting a new Dolby Digital Hi-Fi stereo sound track. Enjoy! In the mid twenty-first century, mankind has reached a point in its technological advances to enable colonization of the far reaches of the universe. DARK STAR is a futuristic scout ship traveling far in advance of colony ships. Armed with Exponential Thermosteller Bombs, it prowls the unstable planets. But there is one obstacle that its crew members did not count on -- one of the ship's thinking and talking bombs is lodged in the bay, threatening to destroy the entire ship and crew! Bonus Features: Contains 2 Versions: Longer Theatrical & Original Shorter Version| Trailer| Scene Selection| Actor Bios| Remixed 5.1 Track. Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital 5.1; 83 minutes; Color; 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - G; Year - 1974; SRP - $9.99.The Dark Star's crew is on a 20-year mission to destroy unstable planets and make way for future colonization. The smart bombs they use to effect this zoom off cheerfully to do their duty. But unlike Star Trek, in which order prevails, the nerves of this crew are becoming increasingly frayed to the point of psychosis. Their captain has been killed by a radiation leak that also destroyed their toilet paper. "Don't give me any of that 'Intelligent Life' stuff," says Commander Doolittle when presented with the possibility of alien life. "Find me something I can blow up." When an asteroid storm causes a malfunction, Bomb Number 20 (the most cheerful character in the film) has to be repeatedly talked out of exploding prematurely, each time becoming more and more peevish, until they have to teach him phenomenology to make him doubt his existence. And the film's apocalyptic ending, lifted almost wholly from Ray Bradbury's story "Kaleidoscope," has the remaining crew drifting away from each other in space, each to a suitably absurd end. Absurd, surreal, and very funny. John Carpenter once described Dark Star as "Waiting for Godot in space." Made at a cost of practically nothing, the film's effects are nevertheless impressive and, along with the number of ideas crammed into its 83 minutes, ought to shame makers of science fiction films costing hundreds of times more. The DVD contains both the original 68-minute release and the director's full version. --Jim Gay
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