mwm@ea.UUCP (07/08/84)
#N:ea:11700015:000:1906
ea!mwm Jul 8 02:47:00 1984
Micro Review: Oooh. Aaah.
Mini Review: A Star Wars clone, except they did a better job. See it.
Review: ****** Begin Spoiler ********* (unless you've seen the commercial!)
_The Last Starfighter_ is yet another of the space opera stories to follow
in the (very large) footsteps of SW. However, they have a couple of extra
years of fx experience and a CRAY XMP (listed in the credits, btw) to work
with. The animation is - well, the bad parts are excellent. The stargun
liftoff scenes alone are worth the price of admission. Atari will be
marketing an arcade game under the title "Starfighter", presumably the game
seen in the movie, and presumably using graphics sequences from the movie.
Making sure they get the most from their computing dollar, I guess.
Like SW & Tron, this movie is more light show than movie. The plot line
& character development may have a little more than SW; meaning none
to speak of. Like those two movies, it's fun. They stole everybodies
favorite plot line: "Young unknown comes from someplace in the boonies
to save the Universe/World/Country/Empire" (I assume that it's everybodies
favorite based on the number of times it's been used! :-) and made it
a vehicle to carry their effects, along with lots of high-speed action.
They played the movie light, with some good (and unexpected!) humor. The
result works well.
One nice additional touch were the "in joke" references to sf classics. I
caught scenes either stolen from or referring to: _Star Wars_ (of course)
both IV & V, and probably VI; _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_ ("We're going
to throw *what* at them, Mike?"); _Dr. Strangelove_; The Lensman series;
The Skylark series, and the Arthur legend. There are probably more.
Summary: If you liked SW and Tron, you'll like this. If you like computer
animation, you'll like it. If you like heavy plots with good, solid 3d
characters, you'll be disappointed.
<mike