Dark Star has a lot to answer for. Not only did it prefigure the worn, realistic space vessels and environments of Alien and Blade Runner but it served as debuts for both master filmmaker
John Carpenter and screenwriter
Dan O'Bannon, anticipated and gave birth to Alien, coined several sci-fi film terms like 'hyper drive' and 'mother', introduced the 'five finger fillet' game seen in Aliens and even inspired the name and concept of TV space sitcom Red Dwarf. It's premise: four burnt-out astronauts tasked with the pointless mission of destroying 'unstable planets', pass the time by listening to country music, glazing at the stars, playing music with water filled bottles and taking amateur target practice, is used as the basis to take intergalactic digs at the pretensions of 2001: A Space Odyssey with a hippy counter-culture mindset. From this the film evokes laughs, pathos and even suspense from within its confined claustrophobic space. That it actually works so well demonstrates the power of creative thought within budgetary limitations. As a result the cheap, tatty sets, laughable computer generated sound effects and SFX, rather misplaced country music (the main theme is 'Benson Arizona' sung by Bill Taylor) and heightened acting style work for rather than against the film. It is the crew, however that gives Dark Star its heart and surprising melancholy. We have the star gazing hippy Talby, the easily distracted Boiler, the disgruntled space cowboy Pinback (played by the film's scriptwriter Dan O' Bannon) and surfer dude Doolittle. Accompanying them is a female computer pegged 'Mother' (a clear influence on Alien's Nostromo moniker), a bomb developing a mind of its own along with God like pretences (HAL from 2001 anyone?) and a mascot alien that looks like a cross between a Tango orange and a beach ball. The ship is a speedboat shaped space vessel that appears, Tardis like, far more spacious inside than its minor exterior bulk suggests. The beauty is how limited resources help to focus on the character's monumental space tedium. Even their pet mascot gets bored and takes to teasing one of the crew by playing hide and seek round the confides of the ship - culminating in a hilarious comedy sketch where Pinback is tickle attacked by the bouncing ball.
Luck was on the side of Dark Star when The Blob producer
Jack H Harris saw its potential and decided to finance the student film as a feature release. Unfortunately it wasn't all plain space sailing. The fact that the film was marketed as a straight sci-fi drama rather than a comedy meant that it didn't reach the right audience - an audience who soon grew bored and wrongly interpreted the hammy space events as serious (though quite how anyone could take a beach ball for an alien or a rubber turkey being thrust into a crew member's face seriously is beyond imagination). Disappointed by his failure to make people laugh, O'Bannon decided that he would consequently redo Dark Star as a horror movie - "If I can't make 'em laugh I can try and make 'em scream". And thus all the essential elements (astronauts within a confined locale thwarted by an extra terrestrial prowling the ship) were in place for the story to evolve into Ridley Scott's Alien. Taken with a pinch of salt Dark Star is probably one of the best sci-fi comedies ever made and if for nothing else stands as a textbook example of how limited resources, a small group of friends and a little imagination can go a long way.
Extras
This two disc set has alternative versions of the film: the original 70 min cut (with an amusing Dan O'Bannon text scroll intro) and the longer theatrical 83 min verison, with additional highlights including Doolittle playing with the water-bottle instrument and a cheesy asteroid attack. On the extras scene we have a 34 minute interview with sci-fi film novalisation king Alan Dean Foster, a 40 minute interview with original crew member Brian Narelle (aka Lt.Doolittle) and a nice little exterior 3D Guided Tour of the Dark Star ship. But the real bonus for fans is the highly comprehensive (1hr 52 mins!) '
Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star' documentary which includes interviews with principal cast and crew and extracted archival dialogue from John Carpenter. Then there's the geeky feature length commentary by self-proclaimed 'super fan' Andrew Gilchrist, who provides such arcane tip bits like informing us that the sound of the ship going into hyper drive was taken from a Boeing 747 taking off - but with the sound slowed down to 20%. Original trailer, a written introduction by O'Bannon and text screen trivia pad out the disc's remaining bonus features. Dark Star: Hyperdrive Edition
is available on DVD.