Dark Star began as a student film at the University of Southern California Film School in the early 1970s and eventually evolved into a cult science fiction comedy in 1974, launching the careers of director John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing) and writer Dan O’Bannon (Alien, Blue Thunder). VCI’s new Blu-ray release touts an extensive frame-by-frame digital restoration, sourced from a 35mm theatrical print, and ports over all of the special features from the 2010 Hyperdrive Edition DVD.
Dark Star - Thermostellar Edition
Studio: VCI Entertainment
US BD Release Date: November 6, 2012
Original Release Year: 1974
Rated: G
Running Time: 83 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: English (Uncompressed PCM 2.0 Mono, Uncompressed PCM 5.1 Surround)
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Movie: 3.5 out of 5
Truckers in space. That was the idea behind Dark Star, with influence from Waiting for Godot. Four men (five if you count the dead and cryogenically frozen Commander Powell) are twenty years into their mission of destroying unstable planets throughout the galaxy. But all is not well on the good ship Dark Star. An explosion on the ship caused a radiation leak in the living quarters and destroyed the ship’s supply of toilet paper. Moral is at an all-time low, and the crew is getting bored. Talby (Dre Pahich, voiced by John Carpenter) spends all of his time watching the stars from the dome on top of the ship. Pinback (Dan O’Bannon) is coming more and more unglued with the close quarters and having to tend to a feisty Beach-ball shaped alien. Boiler (Cal Kuniholm) is becoming more and more bent on destroying anything and everything on the ship for fun. And Doolittle (Brian Narelle) is homesick, longing to surf the waves of Malibu and Zuma. After colliding with an asteroid field, the ship’s communication laser becomes damaged, causing one of the smart bombs (used to destroy planets) to malfunction and not follow orders, leading to the film’s conclusion.
Dark Star began life as a 16mm student film at USC by director John Carpenter and screenwriter Dan O’Bannon. After several years of production, Carpenter and O’Bannon somehow managed to take the film with them when they left the film school, convinced producer Jack H. Harris (The Blob) to finance the completion of the film for $60,000. Prinicpal photography was moved from USC to what is now known as Raleigh Studios, and continued in 16mm. Bill Taylor was brought on board to complete the optical effects compositing in 35mm, necessitating the reframing of each shot to accomodate a 1.85:1 hard matted aspect ratio. Dark Star finally appeared in a limited theatrical run in 1974, and would gain cult status among college students when campuses began booking the film, trying to capitalize on the science fiction craze that began with both Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
My first recollection of Dark Star had to have been in Super 8 Filmmaker magazine in the late 1970s, which, after the success of Star Wars, featured many articles on how to create your own visual effects at home. The two ultra-low budget films mentioned in these articles were the cult short Hardware Wars and Dark Star. I was intrigued, and became overly excited when Cinekyd booked Dark Star as part of a weekly movie night fund raiser a few years later. My reaction was that this was a goofy, off-beat science fiction movie with decent effects.
Seeing it again for the first time in over 30 years, the film has not aged well. Dark Star is still a fun film to watch, but not nearly as much fun as it used to be. The additional material feels even more like padding, often interrupting the flow of what was originally a 45 minute student film, expanded to 83 minutes for a theatrical release. That being said, for what it is, Dark Star is an impressive and ambitious student feature.
Video: 3.5 out of 5
Over the years, various incarnations of Dark Star in both 16mm library prints and home video releases have been fairly shoddy, typically many generations removed from the original 35mm interpositive. According to the liner notes, for this Blu-ray release, an existing 35mm release print was found and “lovingly subjected to an extensive manual frame-by-frame digital restoration.” Presented in 1080p and preserving the intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1, compressed using the VC-1 codec, this is likely as good as Dark Star is ever going to look. Colors are muted, detail is soft, and contrast is weak. But these are more likely due to the source material rather than the transfer itself. The print used does contain some minor scratches and hair can be seen briefly at the bottom of the frame (although this may actually be from the the optical compositing process).
Audio: 3 out of 5
The film’s original mono soundtrack is presented in an uncompressed PCM 2.0 track. The audio has been cleaned up somewhat, but there are some occasional pops, hiss, and surface noise during quiet sections. Dialogue is clear and understandable, and is not drowned out by music or sound effects. The enhanced PCM 5.1 soundtrack tries to add some spatial qualities to the soundtrack, but mostly enhances the noted hiss and surface noise, and the track play back just a bit louder. Do yourself a favor and stick with the PCM 2.0 mono track.
Special Features: 4.5 out of 5
The bonus materials from the previous DVD release have been ported over (and apparently upscaled to 1080p).
Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of “Dark Star” (1:56:45): Ballyhoo Motion Pictures produced this exhausting documentary on the making of Dark Star, featuring recent interviews with Tommy Lee Wallace, Brian Narelle, Cookie Knapp, Bill Taylor, Dianne O’Bannon, and Jack H. Harris, plus archival interviews with Dan O’Bannon and John Carpenter. Anything and everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Dark Star will likely be found here.
Interview With Sci-Fi Author Alan Dean Foster (34:44): Foster discusses adapting the Dark Star screenplay into a novelization. The interview appears to have been shot in a non-anamorphic 16:9 in standard definition, but then stretched and upscaled to 1080p.
Interview With Brian Narelle (40:08): The actor who protrayed Lt. Doolittle discusses working on the film in the early 1970s with Dan O’Bannon and John Carpenter.
3D Guide to the Dark Star Ship: The ship has been recreated in a CGI 3D model, and the viewer can choose to take a closer look at the Bomb Bay, Warp Drive, Observation Dome, or a simple flyaround.
Audio Commentary by Super Fan Andrew Gilchrist: As commentaries go, this one is fairly bland. Gilchrist discusses how he discovered the film growing up in Great Britain, then provides trivial tidbits about the film. Gilchrist has a very droll voice, and for being a so-called Super Fan, there are an awful lot of dead spaces in the track.
Written Into by Dan O’Bannon: (1:10): An archival note from Dan O’Bannon scrolls up the screen at a slow pace, but automatically runs when the feature is played, and the feature will start automatically after this text scroll when this special feature is selected.
Trivia: A throwback to the old text screen features of DVD, several screens of text are displayed with trivia, obviously taken, word for word, from the trivia page of the Internet Movie DataBase.
Overall: 4 out of 5
Fans of this cult film will be happy with a somewhat cleaner and clearer audio and video presentation, as wel as a wealth of extras. Dark Star may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is an important film in the careers of both John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008SGMPVU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008SGMPVU&linkCode=as2&tag=htfreviews-20
