• 167.940 movies
  • 10.902 shows
  • 31.280 seasons
  • 626.324 actors
  • 9.159.405 votes
Avatar
 
banner banner

Dark Star (1974)

Scifi | 83 minutes
2,79 176 votes

Genre: Scifi / Comedy

Duration: 83 minuten

Country: United States

Directed by: John Carpenter

Stars: Brian Narelle, Cal Kuniholm and Dan O'Bannon

IMDb score: 6,2 (28.228)

Releasedate: 1 April 1974

Dark Star plot

"What Do You Say To A Talking Bomb? All Systems Snafu!!!"

A team of astronauts goes on a mission to explore, in front of the 'The colonization ship', in their bomber 'The Dark Star'. The mission will also include testing the use of a new self-thinking and talking interstellar bomb. This bomb is used to destroy unstable planets and make way for the settlers. During the mission everything goes wrong: for example, they come into contact with a beach ball-shaped alien that briefly bounces through the ship.

logo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimagelogo tmdbimage
Full Cast & Crew

Actors and actresses

Lt. Doolittle

Sgt. Pinback alias Bill Fruge

Bomb 20 ( voice )

Commander Powell ( voice )

Muttercomputer ( voice )

Bomb 19 ( voice )

All Media

Trailer & other videos

Reviews & comments


Guest

  • messages
  • votes

Let op: In verband met copyright is het op MovieMeter.nl niet toegestaan om de inhoud van externe websites over te nemen, ook niet met bronvermelding. Je mag natuurlijk wel een link naar een externe pagina plaatsen, samen met je eigen beschrijving of eventueel de eerste alinea van de tekst. Je krijgt deze waarschuwing omdat het er op lijkt dat je een lange tekst hebt geplakt in je bericht.

* denotes required fields.

Pay attention! You cannot change your username afterwards.

* denotes required fields.
avatar van Fortune

Fortune

  • 4126 messages
  • 2599 votes

Pretty lame movie and also a real waste of your time. It may be nice to see that other science fiction films are somewhat influenced by this, but that is the only positive aspect. The acting is pretty mediocre and the sound effects are really worthless, although that also has its charm here and there and it's a bit funny.

I think the movie is mostly funny because the movie is made with serious ambitions. Carpenter even left film school because he was making this film and wanted to dedicate all his time to it, and that worked out well given his oeuvre.

The film itself does have some nice scenes, culminating in the existential/philosophical conversation with the bomb. The movie has this kind of standard approach where you hear a country song in the beginning of the movie and it comes back at the end. One of the characters on the ship talks about surfing and how much he misses it and at the end of the movie he actually goes surfing. The circle is complete again. That annoyed me, I must say. It's too flashy.

The most horrible scenes are the ones with the alien; a beach ball with chicken feet and that whole adventure in the shaft of that elevator. That took a very long time and is completely unrealistic and it makes no sense.

Mainly a huge disappointment and maybe nice to see what you can achieve with a small budget.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van Chainsaw

Chainsaw

  • 8580 messages
  • 3516 votes

Quirky, bland and charming. Of course in the music, but also in the over the top cartoonish you can already see the hand of John Carpenter. You can also see Dan O'Bannon well in Dark Star; in the first place because he plays one of the leading roles - and he really enjoys it - but also because the film naturally has interfaces with Alien, the film he made after it. Although in tone and nonsense, the film is much more reminiscent of O'Bannon's Return of the Living Dead. Despite the involvement of Carpenter and O'Bannon, Dark Star doesn't go down in history as high-class cinema, because it's pretty much a mess for the most part. Messing around that's fine for a short film, but clearly stretched into an 80-minute feature here.

Dark Star mostly resembles a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, about three men who seem fed up with each other - and life - during their mission in space. The film is a mix of quite interesting ideas and college nonsense and slapstick, especially around a alien beach ball on legs. The effects are very cheesy, but in such a way that it's funny. As well as the wonderful sound effects and soundtrack. The biggest problem is that this 60-minute student film has been noticeably stretched to a longer running time. I haven't seen the one-hour student version, but I can imagine it works better. As is often the case with interesting directors, it is nice to see such a film debut, but - fortunately - Dark Star is not the best work of Carpenter or O'Bannon.

3 stars.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van Bobbejaantje

Bobbejaantje

  • 2023 messages
  • 1925 votes

I started this movie with wrong expectations. Judging by the intriguing title and the director, I had expected something horror-like. So I wasn't prepared for an alien that looks like a beach ball and sounds like a muppet. Apparently seen as a cult movie but it might help if you smoke something with it? Because to look at this soberly, I found it a tough sit. It is a kind of satire, but the humor was not always good, not to say often lackluster. And also very slow in pace. It only got better towards the end. Save the best for last. The final scenes are a beautiful highlight on a not so beautiful whole. Surf in space: Awesome! All in all, it is a film that has a certain charm thanks to some scenes that stay with me. But it does ask some of my leniency.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original