Written by Jonathan Klotz | Updated
John Carpenter is known today as the Master of Horror, but he got his start with… Dark staran offbeat sci-fi comedy that began as a student film while attending the University of Southern California. He also happened to be friends with Dan O’Bannon, who helped him write the screenplay for the film. While Carpenter will continue making Halloween and The thingO’Bannon was inspired by the reaction to low-budget sci-fi comedies to write a sci-fi horror film that you may know: Alien.
Dark star The film may be a classic today, but when it was upgraded from a student film to a feature film and released in 1974, audiences had no idea what they were watching, and most of the humor was lost. O’Bannon noticed this and shared his thoughts in later interviews, “If I can’t make them laugh, maybe I can make them scream.”
Once available on VHS, the film found an audience, including Quentin Tarantino, creator of the Metal Gear games, Hideo Kojima, and Doug Naylor, creator of the Metal Gear games. Red dwarf. Due to Carpenter’s musical talents, multiple bands have used audio samples or paid tribute to the film in their songs.
Cabin fever in space
links between Dark star and Alien The action is apparent from the beginning, with both films set on ramshackle spaceships that share the same retro-futuristic flair, and the crews are made up of characters who don’t fit the mold of the typical sci-fi hero. Dark staras a parody of 2001: A space journeyraises the crew’s characters to 11, which somehow works. As a result, it feels like the brothers are trapped in space together, not getting along, but having to.
The crew’s mission is to find potentially dangerous planets and blow them up, but the catch is that after a major malfunction, they develop a personal thermal star bomb and attempt to explode ahead of schedule. The captain of the Dark Star, a former surfer, has to talk the bomb out so it doesn’t explode.
It’s a brilliant sci-fi parody that engages in deep philosophy, and was deliberately designed as a parody of HAL. This is the part of the humor that O’Bannon was frustrated with, which went over the audience’s head, but it was the strange beach ball creature that became the primitive Xenomorph.
Comedy routine that got weird
Working under strict budget constraints, Enter the Alien Dark star It is a painted beach ball with flexible tentacles loosely attached to it. Sergeant Pinback, played by O’Bannon, tries to keep the alien contained in a storage room, but it keeps escaping and trying to kill it, and eventually, Pinback accidentally causes it to explode and explode. The entire scene, played here for laughs with some silly physical humour, is what directly inspired us Alien.
Replacing the adorable but slightly deadly trickster beach ball with H.R. Giger’s design of the terrifying and extremely deadly Xenomorph while maintaining the similar setting and claustrophobic feel provided the recipe for a genre-defining hit. Dark starIt should be noted that it is also rated “G”, which gives you an idea of the level of physical humor O’Bannon brought to his role. However, given the way the movie ends, it’s only suitable for children if you want to hurt them Never ending story The level of shock on them.
If you’ve never seen it Dark starit’s worth your time, even today, because it’s a completely crazy sci-fi movie that nails the exact tone they go for. It is streaming for free on Toby, Pluto TV, peacockand Roku channelwhich is also part of Amazon Prime.