SPOILERS BELOW
I received my copy of John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon’s
space story Dark Star (1974) from Amazon
today, so it was movie night. John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon worked together
on this satirical science fiction film that originated from a student short
film at USC. Producer of The Blob, Jack H. Harris, had seen the project and
obtained the theatrical rights and he added additional footage in order to
bring Dark Star to feature
length.
The film begins with an epistolary entry from Earth to the
crew of Dark Star. We learn that the crew has been in space for 20 years, their
commander has been killed from an on-board accident during hyperdrive and the
crew’s request for additional equipment is denied due to budgetary constraints.
The crew’s directive is to destroy unstable planets by releasing bombs and then
using warp drive to get away from the planet as quickly as possible.
When the crew is not cooped up in their control room, which
does have a vague similarity to one of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space
Odyssey sets, they are sitting around in
their makeshift bunkroom, bored to tears. Each tries to find some way to pass
the time: Boiler (Cal Kuniholm) pulls out a switchblade and I kid you not, he
clears space on the table in front of him and he sprays out his hand against
the surface and then stabs down at the space between his fingers. Hmmm, where
did that get replicated? Doolittle (Brian Narelle) plays a bottle organ that he
has constructed while Pinback (O’Bannan) plays sight gags with props, records a
video diary, and has an alien (a huge beach ball with claw feet). Talby (Dre
Pahich) remains for the majority of the film, in the observation bubble located
on top of the ship. And, Commander Powell (Joe Saunders) is held in a cryogenic
tank, but can still dole out expert advice when pressed.
Through a chain reaction of events, Bomb #20 receives some
damage. When pressed to engage its release mechanism, it refuses and instead is
planning to detonate still attached to the ship. Bomb #20 refuses to listen to
Pinback, but Powell advises Doolittle to teach the bomb phenomenology. Teaching
the bomb to become sentient works and Bomb #20 returns to the holding bay of
the ship. However, Doolittle has taught the bomb to be skeptical of its own
beliefs. As a consequence, when Pinback tries to get Bomb #20 to respond, it
begins making biblical references and ultimately, comes full circle and brings
light into the darkness by exploding. Pinback and Boiler are instantly killed;
Doolittle and Talby are sent adrift in opposite directions, each headed to
their own destinies.
Although Dark Star is
not a space horror in the traditional sense, it is important to consider the
film in understanding the career of filmmaker John Carpenter, who went on to
make three space horror films and writer Dan O’Bannon who went on to do Alien. There are a couple of other points of interest in
this film. For example, although a small aspect at the climatic moments of the
film, the idea of a sentient artificial life is intriguing and has been
explored previously in 2001: A Space Odyssey and many after it. While satirical, the film does
touch on the impact of space exploration and isolation on astronauts. This
point has been made in Europa Report
for example.
My Blu-ray version also had a supplemental interview with
author Alan Dean Foster regarding Dark Star, he mentioned he had to add so much
material to the novelization of the film. He padded his story by focusing on
character development. When asked about the beach ball alien, he said that he
finally had to accept that it was a beach ball. He decided to let readers to
fill in the details. He felt it was already funny, so he did not want to add to
it.
Other supplements included an interview with actor Brian
Narelle and documentary on John Carpenter. Sadly, Carpenter himself did not
appear in the documentary, but rather a pre-recorded interview that was spliced
interviews with other stars and crew from Dark Star.
If you want to be a completionist of Carpenter, O’Bannon and/or
watch a space film that touches on space horror concepts, then watch this film.
