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Dark Star Customer Reviews (19 - 21 of 38 Reviews)

Side splitting space romp
My husband, his siblings, and a few friends and I all trooped down to the local theater to see this on opening day (which, as it turned out, was about the ONLY day it was shown in release). We laughed till we made ourselves sick.

OK, it was 1974. Star Wars had not even been made yet. And yes, the movie is now dated. But the entire concept is still funny. Seriously, how would you feel if you lost your ENTIRE supply of TP, had a crazed beach ball alien loose on your ship and one of your smart bombs decides to go into existential mode???

See. Over 30 years and I still remember the plot. :-) And hey, I'm buyin' the dvd to add to my collection. It's worth the bucks, STILL.

Pointless!
This title was "recommended" to me by Amazon, and I'm going to get to the bottom of why it was!!! It's a good thing it said "comedy" on the box cover, otherwise I would have never known! "Just plain weird" is a more accurate description! Carpenter must have been strung out on drugs when he filmed this 'Thing'! I'm just glad the running time was only 63 minutes! At the end of the video, they throw in the "filler" scenes they used to get it to feature presentation length. I feel sorry for the people who actually paid to see this dog in a theater! Poor bastards!!!

Thow Out Your Mold Covered VCR Copy & go DVD
Dan Obannion is Sgt. Pinback, fuel technician, or is he? Interesting to see Dan Obannion in front of the camera instead of behind it as a producer/director for a change. This is a funny film, as other reviewers have said, and it makes much of absurdity, but make no mistakes about it, -- its bleak absurdity.
This is dark humor, for the most part. We are never really sure if Obannion is Pinback because a radiation accident onboard ship
has damaged the ship's sleeping quarters, toilet paper supply, and, most significantly for the course of the film, -- the radiation shielding. As you may or may not know, relatively small amounts of radiation can damage the human nervous system (witness the average 15 point drop in IQ suffered by those who go through radiation therapy for cancer). Hence, Pinback/Obannion and other crew members become increasingly confused, irritable, petulant, and socially withdrawn (all classic psychological signs of brain damage/radiation poisoning) just at the time when they need each other the most to survive. The crew's behavior becomes so disjointed and bizare that many viewers automatically assume some kind of drug influence never intimated in any way anywhere in the film. The ultimate bitter absurdity is that earth refuses to send them any new radiation shielding due to budget constraints. Result: impending disaster, with each of the crew escaping "reality" in his own way as the radiation damage to their nervouse systems mounts. Doolittle lives more and more in the past (as a response to the grim present on the ship) as a for instance. While Pinback/Obannion either concocts a fantasy about not belonging on the ship as a joke to break the incredible monotony of their voyage, or is becoming increasingly delusional due to radiation induced brain damage, - and possibly both. Last thing, that old country tune that plays during the end credits, "Bingston Arizona" really is "in the style of" classic country tunes from the era in which the film was shot. It was written by Obannion/Carpenter, I believe. Strange way to end a Sci-Fi film, but it kinda works because it really is a great old country tune, . . . and I wish I had it on CD.

Just thought I'd fill in the gaps some of the other reviewers left in their discriptions of this truly great (albiet low budget) sci-fi film.
Respectfully,
S.M. Sloan

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