urban@trwspp.UUCP (07/11/84)
The best thing about the preview of "Last Starfighter" was that they let you in for the regular showing of "Conan the Destroyer" and allowed you to stay for "Last Starfighter". Meant I got to see two mindless movies for the price of one. (I'm from the "mindless is OK if you don't fool yourself into thinking that you're getting Something Important" school. 'sides, this is Summer.) "Conan" was written by Conway and Thomas, comic-book writers, and it shows. Eventful, colorful, fast-paced, but you really gotta leave your brains in the lobby. Rather like a Dungeons and Dragon adventure where there's only one effective character in the party. This was the main problem: Conan surrounds himself with a thief, a sorceror, a tough-willed fighter or two, and a Plucky Young Heroine, but Conan is the only character who really gets to do anything effective for the Quest. In fact, he recruits the wizard because "you need a wizard to fight wizardry", and then the wizard does nothing effective the entire time they're in the evil wiz's nifty ice palace. Just not enough going on when Arnold isn't flexing his biceps. So as an "action-adventure" film, I'd only give Conan a 5.5. I liked "Last Starfighter" quite a bit more, even though the only really heroic character in the film is the Beta unit. The oft-mentioned Cray-crunched graphics are impressive as hell, but there's a long way to go before computer graphics can look as convincing as models. Two reasons: no motion blur (the stop-motion/go-motion business) and the preponderance of flat-grey glare-free surfaces. Still, there were some pretty convincing sequences, and it WAS real pretty to watch. As for the story, the movie that it most resembles ISN'T "Star Wars" (aside from the Young Hero Who Saves the World). It's "This Island Earth". The alien humanoids even LOOK a little like the Metaluna folks. I really don't understand why every space-opera film is accused of being a "star wars imitation" after all this time. The arrival of Our Hero at the Good Guy base and his confusion, and discovery of what's going on, is one of the high points. The set-up for the battle was pretty reasonable, as the Bad Guys destroy the Good Guy base and spaceforce except for Our Hero. But the Decisive Space Battle is singularly unexciting. When the climax finally occurred, my reaction was "oh. Was that it?" Lay this problem firmly at the feet of the director and editor, who evidently didn't watch SOME parts of "Star Wars" well enough to learn about pacing and how to build to a climax. On the other hand, the "meanwhile, back on Earth" stuff is quite enjoyable, with some weird humor, and some nicely menacing villains in the picture too. The performances are generally good, with Robert Preston stealing the show, and Daniel O'Herlihy managing to somehow use his eyes to convey a surprising amount of character through a face full of latex. Finally, whether you like the film or not will really depend on how you respond to its basic good-hearted, innocent, romantic, and even unashamedly corny approach to the story. Me, I'm a sucker for that sort of stuff, so it's about a 7.9 on my scale of 10. And it's probably a 9.0 or 10.0 if you're about that age (or are kids too cynical nowadays?)