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The Last Starfighter--The Musical!
nomadic writes "Yes, seriously. Some people have decided to remake everyone's favorite obscure 1980's Star Wars ripoff into musical form. Definitely sounds like a Troy McClure role..."
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I liked that movie!
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such other nature films as "Earwigs, Ew." and "Man Vs Nature... The Road To Victory".
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such other medical films as "Mommy, What's On That Man's Face?" and "Alice Doesn't Live Anymore".
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such self-help videos as "Smoke Yourself Thin", and "Get Confident, Stupid.".
Welcome to the Knowledgeum, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such automated information kiosks as "Welcome to Springfield Airport" and "Where's Nordstrom?" While you're enjoying our Hall of Wonders, your car unfortunately will be subject to repeated break-ins and... [Fades]
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such educational films as "Two Minus Three Equals Negative Fun" and "Firecrackers: The Silent Killer".
I'm actor Troy McClure. You might remember me from such TV series as "Buck Henderson, Union Buster" and "Troy and Company's Summertime Smile Factory". Today I'm here to tell you about "Spiffy.", the 21st century stain remover. Let's meet the inventor, Dr. Nick Riviera.
etc...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This play won't go anywhere either.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
...just have my beta unit go watch it, and tell me about it later.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
And here I was worried about "Bravehart 2"!
It's a great film (well... it was when I was a kid), but as a stageplay? I seriously doubt it'll get off the ground...
imdb link - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/
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-- INSERT --
Let Phil Hartman live in peace, Jesus Christ. We can only ressurect him from the dead every so-often for obscure roles!!! He's still recovering from News Radio.
You'd think they have enough lousy remakes to keep themselves busy, but no...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
...but what is the point. This isn't /. quality news.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go up in my space ship and hope DB doesn't kill me while I spin and throw up.
A truely classic movie.
Even by today's standards the CGI isn't too bad.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Hopefully they won't follow it up with The Holiday Special on Ice...I can just see Wookies skating now...
...that there is no God.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
or here
or google
Oh and I need more characters per line
who did "The Poseidon Adventure: The Musical!" and "The Towering Inferno: the Musical!"
http://www.poseidonmusical.com/
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
I almost want to see that just to see how in the world they play out space battles, particularly the last one...
I smell a Tony...
I thought the Simpsons episode that had the Musical Planet of the Apes was just hyperbolic satire.
I guess I was wrong...
Yes, both movies are Scifi (space, aliens, etc)... but where exactly does The Last Starfight qualify as a ripoff of Star Wars?
I thought the Last Starfighter was a pretty groundbreaking film -- IIRC, it was the first film to have totally computer-generated space sequences.
I can't help but think it would make a pretty kickass space sim, now that we have the GPU power to render in real-time even higher quality than they had originally. The one arcade game I remember didn't compare well to the classic Star Wars 3D polygon arcade game in terms of sheer fun (damn that game was fun).
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Since Rocky Horror Picture Show has "The Timewarp", would this maybe have The Cylon Sidestep", or a country-western style tune about losing your planet?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
everyone's favorite obscure 1980's Star Wars ripoff
Can anybody explain to me how The Last Starfighter was remotely like Star Wars?
It's no star wars ripoff. WTF is the OP talking about? It had a decent plotline and was fun to watch, which is a lot more than you can say about star wars 1,2, and 6, and probably 3.
It has acting and writing at a level that George Lucas can only dream about.
Yeah, it's a genre film, but so was battlestar galactica.
Storm theatre serious artist #1: Damage report!
Storm theatre serious artist #2: Our credibility is shot! Our theatre is a laughing stock! What do we do now?
[dramatic pause]
Storm theatre serious artist #1: We die.
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
Kinda makes you wonder how the "Death Rose" scene will play out in a musical. I'd like to see someone vomit on stage. It would mirror what everyone in the audience would likely be doing during the show. Hospitals could even use "The Last Starfighter: The Musical" as a documented method to induce vomiting. The posibilities are endless.
spaceballs, the musical!
i can see it now, opening night, the helmets glistening under the lights. ahhh...
i predict it will come out the same year as history of the world, part II
Who knows; maybe it sounds like a Wil Wheaton role :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Let's not forget that The Last Starfighter used some pretty cool CGI for the space scenes.
And cut it out with the Star Wars #(#*@! The only Star Wars ripoff that didn't have better writing and dialogue was the entire Battlestar Galactica series.
The Holiday Special should have been enough to bury the franchise forever. 50 years from now, people will still be watching "Casablanca" but the various "Star Wars" films are going to be about as unwatchable as the Smurfs.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
It was awesome.
Me: "Oh no, we can't get tickets! What do we do?"
***Eye piece swings over friend's eye***
My Friend: "We die."
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
[see subject]
At least they didn't beat the Last Starfighter into a bloody, over-merchandized pulp with ever-increasingly mediocre sequels. As a result, the Last Starfighter is singularly better than all the Star Wars movies combined.
I want to see it, but I'm kind of afraid of a set malfunction when Alex initiates the Death Blossom, causing the entire audience to be vaporized. I'm also wondering how the hell they're going to simulate things like the Frontier and, well, flying through space!
Seriously, wasn't Death Blossom just the coolest thing ever when you first saw The Last Starfighter? All I know is, every single Lego spaceship that me and my friends built from that point on had a Death Blossom device somewhere on it. Some had several, because you can apparently never have too much firepower.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Death Blossom!
...Catherine Mary Stewart.
The Last Starfighter was the first move with CG special effects. The plot is that an arcade video game is a training simulator for starfighter pilots, and one was accidentally sent to earth. Very geeky ;)
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
is how they're gonna recreate the 'Death Blossom' scene... are the actors just going to spin around really fast and throw stuff at the audience?
Crap. It's not in english. =(
Interstellar!
It doesn't bother me they're making a musical. A musical is more a homage to the original film than it is a ripoff or sequel or anything derivative. Unlike Star Wars, which has been driven into the ground and is now a mere shadow of the greatness it once was.
If you think about it, taking a sci-fi movie such as TLS to the stage will probably test the cutting edge in theatrical and lighting effects. This would be very challenging. I would love to see this just to see if they're capable of pulling it off convincingly.
As for TLS being a rip-off of Star Wars, that's BS. Star Wars is as derivative of dozens of other films that came before it. The two movies may have shared some plot similarities, but they both had their cheesy moments.
However, IMO, the cinematography in many scenes in The Last Starfighter is far better than Star Wars. The trailer park scenes were brilliantly shot. The acting and character development was superlative and nowhere near as pressured as Star Wars.
I think the two movies are really dramatically different in their approach. Star Wars whisked you off to a far-away place where you vicariously watched someone else save the world. Whereas The Last Starfighter brought the battle to Earth and make the viewer feel like it could really happen to him - it was much more realistic.
If you haven't seen The Last Starfighter in awhile, rent it and watch it again. It holds up better than the original Star Wars now.
And how was Star Wars original in any way?
The page has gone now, but....
From : http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://theonion.com/o nion3917/bush_cites.html
Bush Cites The Last Starfighter As Inspiration For Entering Politics
"My whole life, I'd grown up around politics, but it wasn't until that fateful day in 1984, at a matinee screening of The Last Starfighter at the old Orpheum Theater in Midland, TX, that I finally realized that my destiny lay in public service," said Bush, speaking at a Republican National Committee fundraiser at the Washington Hilton. "The movie showed me that no matter who you are and where you come from, you can make a big difference."
The comments surprised the estimated 600 RNC members in attendance, as well as Bush's aides, who expected the president to discuss his proposed tax cut and plan for governing post-war Iraq. Not even his closest advisors knew of Bush's passion for the Reagan-era space epic.
Straying from his scripted remarks, Bush described at length his "lost" years of the early 1980s in Midland.
"I was holding down two jobs, one at an oil well, the other for a third-rate professional baseball team," Bush said. "I had gotten a local girl pregnant, and I spent my weekends watching golf on TV and drinking with my buddies. My dad was vice-president then, and occasionally he'd offer me some vice-presidential stuff to do, you know, just to get a taste for politics. But I was too distracted by other things. Basically, I was your typical unfocused kid."
One idle Saturday, Bush said he purchased a ticket to a matinee showing of The Last Starfighter. The seemingly inconsequential act would have profound repercussions on the young man?nd, ultimately, on the entire nation.
"Just minutes into the film, I found myself relating deeply to Alex, the lead character played by Lance Guest," Bush said. "He lived in a trailer park and had little opportunity to advance himself. His only escape was playing video games."
After achieving a record score on a video game called "Starfighter," Alex is contacted by a mysterious man who invented the game. The man, named Centauri, proves to be a space alien whose home planet, Rylos, is under impending attack by a sinister invasion force known as the Ko-Dan Armada. Centauri had invented the game as a means to recruit standout video gamers who could pilot the real-life versions of the Gunstar spaceships featured in the game.
Bush was enthralled.
"Here's this kid, with nothing going on in his life, and it turns out that his only talent, one that seemed so trivial and ridiculous, could alter the fate of the galaxy forever," Bush said. "That really inspired me."
Bush said he could also identify with Alex's initial reluctance to becoming a Starfighter.
"At first, Alex didn't want to do it," Bush said. "He figured, why should he fight for the Star League and risk his life battling an enemy he knew nothing about? But then, when the other Starfighters were killed in an attack on their base and [evil emperor] Zur sent his vicious Zan-Do-Zan assassins to Earth to kill him, Alex began to realize that the only thing standing between the Ko-Dan and universal conquest was himself."
Continued Bush: "I realized that if Alex turned down the chance to be a Starfighter, he would have been assassinated, and Earth would have been destroyed. It made me think long and hard about my own place in the world: Was I making the right decisions? Was I helping people as much as I could? Was I missing out on a chance to save mankind?"
Bush added that he loved the film's breakthrough computer-generated special effects, as well as the fact that Alex had a robot double?omething he had dreamed of having in his youth.
Transfixed by the film, Bush would go on to see it seven times that summer, memorizing its dialogue and buying a VHS copy on the day of its release. But The Last Starfighter's most profound impact on Bush was the way it motivated him to leave the private sector and enter politics.
When I read this "Springtime for Hitler" started running through my head.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Mostly I'm pissed the submitter pointed out it was a Star Wars ripoff, because I never caught on to that when I was a little kid, and now that he mentions it it's really blatant. :)
But I still think this is a fun movie to catch on TV. I mean, yeah, it's really cheesy, but does this deserve the Road House treatment? It probably has the best "lizard guy in human mask gives stirring speech to guy from trailer park that's secretly a great space pilot" scene I've seen, although the one in The Wedding Planner comes pretty close.
Oh, man. Now that I think about it... the second-in-command lizard guy whose eyepiece thing closes after every line he has? The scene with all the Gunstar pilots that's a direct, totally unapologetic ripoff of the Death Star briefing in Star Wars? That half-bald badguy leader that practically breaks a tooth chewing so much scenery? Aaaaugh! You're killing my childhood, Slashdot!
(As a sidenote, I always thought somebody should make a Last Starfighter videogame today, on the latest 3d hardware, that exactly mimcs the really stylized CGI from the movie. Say what you will, those scenes still look cool.)
Buffer overflow? Looks like TinyURL.com is down to me, so parent won't even get his stupid referrals. Pyramid schemes are bad enough, no need to go crying about buffer overflows when you get a "page not found" error. Christ.
Don't forget the twice-revised public releases (SE & DVD), and the increasing contradictions with the allegedly canon novels.
Engrish is only a few strokes away.
Virtually defined "deus ex machina"--sudden, arbitrary end of a movie-- for me. The aliens spent all this time and effort trying to get the best possible individual in all the universe to fly their starfighter. In the end, Centauri could have flow the silly thing and pressed the DB button. Cool effect, but lame ending.
But I still like the "Ramming Speed!" line right after that. Despite the fact that I doubt that there is such a setting on a spaceship.
"What do we do now?!?" "We die."
The Last Starfighter today is nothing without his rich voice and animated acting. The CG is only amusing to see what they had back then.
I, for one, welcome our new musical space alien overlords...
That's right! Everyone's favorite: "The Last Starfighter" is scheduled to be re-re-released on DVD special edition. In addition to polished visuals and THX sound re-engineering, TLS:DVD:SE will include 5 minutes of digitally re-created footage!
Oh wait... I'm thinking of that "other" DVD... uhhh, what about SW:epIII Springtime for Sithboys. [cue music] Springtime... for Sithboys... in Mos Eisley
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
Somebody made a musical based on that:
http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/musical/
I don't know how well it went though.
I drink to make other people interesting!
George Lucas took an archetypical storyline and added "in space". It's original like "on the Internet" patents are original.
I agree with the other guy. It's not a Star-Wars ripoff.
I don't know why EVERYTHING with a well-armed
space hotrod in it has to be considered a Star-Wars ripoff.
Geezus Christ.. Is STAR WARS all the SF you people know?
Get a life.. wait.. on second thought, maybe you HAVE a life
and that's why you don't know anything about SF.
Ok. GET RID of your life.. Cancel those party plans and
stay home reading E.E. "Doc" Smith "Lensman" novels. Then
play some "SpaceWar" and rethink the StarWars ripoff question.
smurfs was the basis for a killer drinking game Saturday mornings when I was in college.
1.) After passing out Friday night, wake up and make your buddy turn the TV on to Smurfs channel. Fill glass with whatever is left over and DRINK every time "Smurf" or "Smurfy" or "Smurf You " or "Smurfette" or the like is heard.
2.) ???
3.) WASTED!! at 11am Saturday.
Say it right: "Nuc-le-ah Powah".
Shop smart, shop S-Mart.
Only if there would be a run on off-Broadway. That would be worth my $40 in bus fare.
It wasn't a ripoff of Star Wars, any more than Star Wars is a ripoff of every mythic story that came before it. That's silly.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Don't feed the yakface..
Why didn't I think of that?! Oh yeah, internet translation tools are SOOO USEFUL with audio files. *SMACK*
If you think thats wierd, how about this:a llas.php3
http://www.offoffoff.com/theater/2001/debbiedoesd
go back to bed or I'm telling mom about your Playboys
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
I'm really glad I missed seeing it :)
Maybe they'll go on tour with Cobra The Musical?
"Oh, Conrad, what wonderful tickets. Opening night, and in the balcony nearest the stage no less. How very exciting."
"Yes, Buffy [Conrad hands her theater glasses] -- The Last StarFighter. Sounds like a rollicking good time, don't you think?"
"I do indeed [hush falls over the crowd] -- OOOH! It's beginning."
[a few minutes pass]
"Conrad?"
"Uh, yes, my dear?"
"Well, dear -- I know we're all about going to see the latest and most IN musicals on Broadway, but..."
"Yes, Buffy?"
"Well, why is that man dragging that child around in that horrible ripoff of that vintage Maserati -- like the one you almost purchased at the Pebble Beach auction last year? I do say -- Maseratis don't fly, and they certainly aren't driven by -- did he say he was an alien?"
"I honestly don't know, dear -- just watch."
[more time passes]
"Is this Tommy? Did we go to the wrong production, Conrad? I mean -- the child IS playing a video game -- is this that horrible rock opera?"
"Shhh...Buffy...look at this new character -- the co-pilot."
"My god, it's Tommy meets Phantom of the Opera, Conrad. Except that poor deformed man has no mask over his face -- he's just reptilian. They did horrible makeup -- I wonder if it will be in the Times review tomorrow."
[more time passes]
"Conrad...?"
"Shhh -- dear -- I don't know what's going on, but I do think that the young boy and his twin brother -- one of them is going to die."
"But, Conrad? Isn't that twin brother really some sort of alien? He arrived with the fellow in the Maserati, right?"
"Shhh, Buffy -- please. We're going to get thrown...MY GOD! Look at the special effects -- what is that? A flowering blossom, did he say?"
"Conrad -- where did the pinball machine go?"
"SHHH!"
As Harrison Ford said to Mark Hammell right after they climbed out of the trash compactor "This ain't that kind of a movie, kid".
Who is John Cabal?
What mystical powers were there in Last Starfighter?
The only mystical powers I remember was getting the ecu in the spaceship chipped, so to speak. The Starfighter was just a ricer with a switch to flip to void the safety margins.
I thought I would take this moment to mention a play that was here in Toronto last year called Evil Dead: The Musical.
I am not one for musicals. But this was godamn funny. With such musical numbers as What The Fuck Was That? and (All Of The Men In My Life Keep Getting Killed By) Candarian Demons, you really can't go wrong.
I hope to see it again.
There have been these six guys on horses outside my house for a while now. Now I know where the last one is.
I don't recall in star wars any video games or a con artist who recrutes earthlings to be soldiers.....in fact i don't recall anything remotely similar to star wars....and wasn't star wars a rip off if star trek anyway??
belive it or not there was plenty of space opera before star wars....and nearly all of it is better.
(Ok empire strikes back was a good movie...the rest was shear crap)
stendec@gmail.com
Just because you don't like rap, country, theatre, opera, or galleries doesn't mean the people that do fit into whatever typecast you want them to be in. I personally love to go to the theatre here in town, especially the small ones. Some of the best gut splitting humor is in plays, and it's a great way to support your local economy, and meet interesting people in other walks of life.
Typecasting people that enjoy certain arts is the same bs as people that typecast me as antisocial because I like technology. I assure you that most folks at plays aren't snooty, and like a raunchy bit of humor as much or more than the next. Most of the folks I've met at plays are pretty open minded, educated, and highly interested in freedom of speech issues.
Oh, wait. That spoiler is on the DVD cover as well. Never mind.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
"Greeting Starfighter, you have been recruited by Star League against the forces of Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada."
Another piece of old data I can't delete out of my head.
How about Evil Dead 1&2, The Musical. It's not currently in production, but it'll be back, I'm sure of it.
what the hell is a 'junk character', anyway?
When Darth sensed the force in Luke, it was AFTER
Luke had learned to fight a wuffleball with his eyes closed,
and he could talk to the discorporate Ben.
Leia didn't have any such 'awakening' when Darth
encountered her.. If she had some Force juice in her
blood, it was dormant and undetectable (as per the plan).
oh...you mean Dune didn't have the "in space" part.
Jason
ProfQuotes
Still, the story differs a lot from Starwars. In starwars, Luke is the descendant of a race of supernatural warriors.
:-P )
In Last Starfighter, the guy is simply a good space pilot because he trained (read: videogame addict
Some elements were kinda unrealistic, but I still liked the movie. Maybe because it portrays the fantasy of every teenager: You play videogames, and now you have the chance to save the universe.
(somehow reminds me of typical teen fantasies in anime shows like Love Hina, Tenchi, Chobits etc - is that why these shows are favorites? fulfilling a secret fantasy?)
Cobra: The Musical.
No, really.
.... was nothing more than a ripoff of Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", Lucas and his fanboys have no business in the world complaining about "The Last Starfighter", or anything else, ripping off Star Wars.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Tron: the Musical
Table-ized A.I.
...and gist of the plot/title:
Alex: There's no fleet, no Starfighters, no plan. One ship, you me, and that's it?
Grig: Exactly. Xur thinks you're still on Earth. Classic military strategy: surprise attack.
Alex: It'll be a slaughter!
Grig: That's the spirit!
Alex: No, my slaughter!
Grig: (makes some weezing sound thats supposed to be a laugh)
HBO just HAD to run that one over and over during summer vacation. Now I can't get it out of my brain, that and some Conversation Alex was having with Grig about "Caves above ground"
God, I hated the 80's
Totally regardless, despite some brilliant successes like 15 minutes of that movie and a bunch of commercials showing running statues with athletes feet, the inside of automobile engines, and minivans driving around on the rings of Saturn, the venture somehow proved unwise capitalwise, and the financiers wound up with a Cray boat anchor. After a few years, it became clear that computer graphics for entertainment should be done on smaller machines.
But the software, hardware, and you-name-it-ware geniuses (staff of Digital Productions, IIRC) who made all that happen were rewarded with lifetime achievement Academy Awards about 10 years ago. I wonder if they'll make any bread on the remake.
Actually I didn't feel it was in any way related to Star Wars. Luke is well aware of spaceships and interplanet stuggle, he just has troubles with his family tree.
When it comes to a story of a geek suddenly plunged into a video game world, Tron is a much closer match than Star Wars. Watch Space Balls some time if you are into ripoffs/parodies of the later.
George Lucas took an archetypical storyline and added "in space".
He didn't even do that, though he'd like you to think it was "inspired" by Campbell's hero theories. It was based on 1900s-40s sword-and-spaceship pulp sf, (like Burrough's Barsoom stories, EE Smiths' Lensmaan et al)and also owes much to the cinema serials like Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and of course Dune. Not that there's anythong wrong with that, but the intellectual pretentiousness of claiming some deep significance for it is a bit off-putting.
Sorry, but I didn't think of Star Wars even once when watching Starfighter. Any movie that involves ships dueling in space is a Star Wars ripoff? Is your last name Lucas by any chance?
the original movie starred the Music Man didn't it?
The requested URL
were the best. Especially the inside of a digital watch which was used as a universal translator. Strange, but when I ripped apart my watch I couldn't get it to translate anything.
(The watch PCB was placed beneath the starfighter's collar just before or after he stepped on the alien's tenticles)
PS. It was a good movie and my spelling sucks.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Khaaan!!!!
Well, the Dune mostly took place on two planets, not in space. Beyond that, the producer makes people question his IQ/EQ by trying to make things exciting just by stating that they are in one sentence. Especially when it comes to love stories, the Dune is about as boring/unimaginative as Harry Potter (which, unlike Dune, has books 1 and 3 which are exciting to read in other aspects).
On the other hand, Star Wars is kind of exciting to watch. Since then, a lot of good science fiction stories were made, but if it was the first of a kind, of course it left quite a jolt.
For a genre film, it had a pretty clever script. I'll never forget this bit:
Alex: One gunstar against the whole armada? It'll be a slaughter!
Grig: That's the spirit!
Alex: No, my slaughter!
I write in my journal
The Last Startfighter was closer to a Blake's 7 ripoff. Of course, most of you in the US have never heard of Blake's 7...
But when this movie first came out, it as the pinnacle of geekdom. CGI generated on a Cray. Just remember, that the fastest supercomputer of that era is easily out performed by a current desktop. A machine that executed several million instructions per second was considered to be mind numbingly fast.
Scary how fast it has become woefully outdated. Sadly, it was one of the last films that Robert Preston performed in.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
He woulda been perfect in a musical production of The Last Starfighter. Ah well, hopefully he's watching from somewhere up in the stars.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Who here can still hum/whistle the theme tune from the Atari game? :) :) :) True classic.
It was the first computer game I won (with positive game over) ever
Ehh, shooting the mother ship at the border, bombing the XAN bases, tactics to take out whole wing of enemy fighters in one shot, refuelling on the star surface
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
i've watched it at least 3 times since its been on HBO this month
death blossom = fucking awesome
anyone know what kind of hardware they used to render those scenes?
is there soem reason we can't play 3d arcade games using them now 15 years later with bad ass nvidia and ati cards?
It says on imdb that The Last Starfighter was... "The first movie to do all special effects (except makeup) on a computer. All shots of spacecraft, space, etc were generated on a Cray computer." so more original than star wars.
- Tattoine is a clone of Arrakis
- The Moisture Farm the Lars' run is right out of Dune.
- Luke is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to be a leader in the rebellion and overthrows the evil emperor; Paul is a dumb whiny kid at the beginning who grows up to lead the Fremen and overthrow the evil emperor.
- Luke finds Obi-Wan in the desert and learns the ways of the Jedi from him; Paul finds Stilgar in the desert and learns the ways of the Fremen from him.
- Paul's Voice; Luke's Jedi Mind tricks. Paul's mental Sight; Luke's Jedi Vision. Paul's weirding ways, Luke's jedi fighting. Crysknife - a knife from a worm's tooth; Light Saber - like a saber-toothed tiger
- Do you really think the sandworm in RoJ isn't from Dune?
There is almost nothing in SW that isn't taken right out of Dune.Say what you like about the film, but the Ron Cobb-designed Gun Star was a kick-ass fictional spaceship!
You must think in Russian.
I agree that much in Star Wars is similar to Dune, but don't look too hard for similarities. The creature in RotJ is only similar to a sandworm in that it is large and has a tentacled mouth; it isn't even motile.
Also, how is Tatooine similar to Arrakis, except that it is a desert planet? Is Arizona a clone of Egypt just because they both contain desert regions? Arrakis has the spice, but Tatooine is entirely worthless.
Light sabers are entirely technological and have nothing to do with any animal. A saber is a sword, not a tooth.
% Later, the cast of the show perform a musical number, singing "Guys And Dolls" to the tune of "Hooray for Hollywood".
...
...
Singers: Guys and dolls! We're just a bunch of crazy guys and dolls! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, guys and dolls
% Meanwhile, Mark Hamill, dressed as Luke Skywalker, talks with one of the show's "producers", wearing a cook's outfit.
Hamill: This is a conceptual nightmare! I mean, Nathan Detroit would never wear this! And this song isn't even in the show!
Producer: I don't have time for this. I got seventy-five shortcakes to strawberry. Now get out there, Luke.
% Mark sighs, then walks out on stage to sing the "Guys and Dolls" song, swinging his lightsabre leisurely about, the other singers joining in.
% Mark, wearing his Skywalker costume with a top hat, does another song.
Hamill: Luke, be a Jedi tonight!
Just be a Jedi tonight!
Hamill & Chorus: Do it for Yoda, while we serve our guests a soda.
Hamill: Uh, and do it for Chewie and the Ewoks, and all the other puppets
Hamill & Chorus: Luke, be a Jedi tonight!
-- "Mayored to the Mob"
Shameless butchered from snpp.com
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Im so going to have to go see this, it will be interesting to compare to the movie. Musicals, that take after movies, tend to be decent... but I'm curious how they will do this one!
"But i loveded you PIGGY I LOVEDED YOU!!!!!" *Gir*
"The creature in RotJ is only similar to a sandworm in that it is large and has a tentacled mouth; it isn't even motile."
It is in the Special Editions.
I have heard that The Last Starfighter was the first film to use CGI for extensive portions of the movie. That would be the space sequences. Some people in the thread have already had issues with this idea, so I won't argue their far superior knowledge of movie trivia.
Much more importantly however, The Last Starfighter included a walk-on part (well roll-on anyway) by a Heathkit Hero 1 robot with arm attached. A true technological marvel. I would bet this is the first and last instance of a Hero 1 playing the roll of an alien robot in a major motion picture.
what about "Battle Beyond the Stars"?
Speaking of obscure 80's movies turned musicals, has anyone managed to see 'Evil Dead I&II the Musical'? Ohhhh yes, this musical is not only hilarious and cleverly written according to the original story, but the audience gets covered with buckets of fake blood and slapped with thousands of those wonderful one-liners that we all hold dear to our hearts... which tend to borrow from everyone's favorite threequel. 'Good. Bad. I'm just the guy with the gun.' The music & choreography is incredible, particularly for 'What the F*@! Was That?'. I've seen it, not once, not twice, but thrice =D Apologies tho, because it was only local to Toronto & Montreal as i remember. Road trip anyone?
Alex is gonna break the record!
Alex: You smell something?
Otis: Like what?
Alex: Like a Xa--never mind.
Louis: What the shit?
Alex: Back to sleep Louis, or I'm telling mom about the 'Playboy's
Green means go. Red means stop. Yellow means run like hell.
Hardly an archetypical storyline. Look up "Lord Tedric and the Black Knight of the Iron Sphere".
Episode IV is an almost DIRECT copy.
I'll wait for the movie.
What rhymes with "Ko-Dan Armada"?
Read my blog.
Star Wars isn't a fantasy, it's a western.
... except the book "Lord Tedric III: Black Knight of the Iron Sphere" was first published in 1981.
Major Problem, Paul -isn't- a dumb whiney kid at the begining of Dune, he's a thirteen year ol adult who's been trained by the best teachers in the galxay to near superhuman levels, before his paranormal powers come in, Paul doesn't learn from the Fremen, he -teaches- them...
... With Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds the Musical.
"The creature in RotJ is only similar to a sandworm in that it is large and has a tentacled mouth; it isn't even motile."
;-)
OK, I always thought the creature in ROTJ looked a lot like the Audrey II (the planet) in Little Shop of Horrors, just a deffrent color and a little bigger. If I remember right, it was a lucasfilm production.
ALso robotech had this idea:
Play video games hard, get good at them, and eventually lead to a higher purpose in life.
I'm a world player in Starcraft/Warcraft3, so I've succeeded in this.
When I was searching for world peace and good living, God spoke to me
Now I don't say for everyone to go extreme on things, because I don't want to be a teacher, just read the bible, its 100% true, I know for a fact!
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me.
I kid you not... My friend, who (two weeks ago) saw the movie for the first time since he was a child, already planned to do this. He was going to write a musical for his electro-rock band to perform on stage. I thought that the idea was brilliant... Of course, I had to be the first to crush his hopes and dreams by telling him that someone else is going to beat him to this.
You just listed the history of Indutrial Light and Magic's use of CG not the industry as a whole. Another fun fact is that to run the CAD software that was repurposed to do the scenes in Last Star Fighter, architects were hired. Word on the satreet is they complained all the way to the bank about working on fantasy pictures.
Now the Lensmen novels would make great movies (mind you the mysoginism (sic?) wouldn't play very well today).
Wasn't there some such line in ANH?
From the makers of "The Last Starfighter: The Musical"
"Ice Pirates: The Musical"
"Escape From New York: The Musical"
"Krull: The Musical" and
"Spaceballs: The Musical"
Actually, the last would be damn funny.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
What is this "Star Wars" thing you speak of and who is George Lucas?
TT
I was going to point that out too. He's hardly a whiney little kid. And while he learns a little bit from the Freman, you're right he mostly teaches them. Another difference, Luke comes from humble origins, Paul is nobility.
There are a lot of interesting similarities here but... I think the main reason the stories seems so similar is they're both the archetypical hero's journey.
The main computer used for TLS was a Cray XMP... one of the first (double headed) Cray machines outside a govt installation. There was a DEC VAX 782, a double headed VAX, that fed the Cray - there wasnt a really good way to work on the Cray directly. Digital Productions, the animation company,also used a farm of Evans and Southerland PS300s for digitizing/modeling and IMI 500s for motion. A couple RasterTech boxes were also used as frame buffers for test images. A specialized film printer was also used - one originally developed for Tron.
The same hardware was used on a number of other films from that era (2010, Ice Pirates, Labyrinth, etc) and numerous commercials.
The IMI 500 was a UNIX box and the VAX ran Interactive's Unix On VMS. The Cray had a small permanent on-site support staff to keep it alive.... along with some BIG AC units.
DP was bought by Omnibus Computer Graphics in 1986. Shortly afterwards Omnibus bought Robert Able Associates, thus merging 3 of the top 5 computer animation houses of the time.... and promptly went bankrupt. BofA had a 11mil loan on the Cray, and discovered that Cray had one in storage they couldnt unload for $3mil. They found out the landlords had taken the keys and the security company stopped sending guards 'cause of non-payment. This being the neighborhood where the LA Riots were several years later, BofA immeadiately sent a truck and crew to yank out the Cray.... Some of the animators pleaded with the workers to let it run just an hour more so they could complete some pieces...
Btw, Omnibus was the first commercial company not doing network development to have an Internet connection. Of course back then it wasnt called the Internet.
its a bit odd to have lots of 20-somethings tell me how much they loved that movie... i still remember creating the short proof-of-concept animation that got DP the job.
Lucas actually does say he was trying to make his own "space opera" based on those serials. Or at least he has. He also talks about the "hero's journey" but most hero stories follow that basic plot in a general way, including the serials and such. At least the good ones do.
I love it. I can see it in my mind, and it is beautiful.
The musical opens with the soul-wrenching duet, "Elvira Can't See Her Soaps".
Alex plays Starfighter, humming the main leitmotif and singing about how he's been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada.
Centauri shows up after Alex beats the Starfighter game and does a vaudeville-style dance routine, eventually convincing Alex to get into the Starcar.
Once on Rylos, Alex receives his uniform:
Rylan: Geeta!
Alex: Geeta?
Rylan: Geeta! Geeta!
Alex: Yeah, right--geeta.
Both: Geeta! Geeta! Geeta, geeta, geetaaaaaaaaaaa!! (break into song)
In the main briefing room, the leitmotif is explored in full orchestral splendor, with all the assembled starfighters and the president of the STar League singing the words, and eventually culminating in a stirring "VICTORY OR DEATH!" finale, complete with crashing cymbols and tympani, before they're interrupted by You-Know-Who:
Grigg: Xur!
Centauri: Xur!
Alex: Xur?
All: It's Xuuuuuuuuuuur!!!!!!!!! (break into song)
Xur's massive holographic visage appears and sings a taunting, stinging song of rebuke, "I've Caught Your Master Spy! I've Caught Your Master Spy!"
Alex, realizing what he's up against, wants to get the hell out of there and head back to earth. The Rylans aren't happy with Centauri!
Rylan: Return the money, Centauri!
Centauri: Return the money? Return the money?! Do you know how long it takes to design the games, to build the things, to get them into the stores by Christmas? And he has THE GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFT... (breaks into song)
Of course, the base is attacked and destroyed, but not before Alex and Grigg escape in the prototype Gunstar.
Grigg: Target lights, Alex.
Alex: Target lights?
Grigg: Taaaaaaaaaaarget Liiiiiiiiiiiiights!! (breaks into song)
Xur, on the bridge of his Ko-Dan Command Ship, sits alone and soulfully sings a mournful dirge, titled "It Takes More Than a Scepter To Rule (Even On Rylos)". He is interrupted with the news that one of the starfighters escaped the destruction of the Star League base, and sends an assassin to earth:
Centauri: Meanwhile, down here, they'll be going after Beta.
Beta Unit: Beta?
Alex: Beta!!
All: BETAAAAAAA!! (break into song)
Other highlights include Centauri, Beta, and Alex's "Smells Like Zan-Do-Zan", Maggie's tear-jerking "I Love You, Alex Rogan!", and Grigg's musical highlight, "A Mobile Cave That Never Went Anywhere".
Fun for the whole family!!
umm, it wasn't that obscure.
And it predated "the simpsons" by a decade.
Of course you might know that if you were actually a glint on your dads eye by the time it came out, which obviously your weren't.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
...not just the Dune novels. Some even say that the story of the original is very close to "The Hidden Fortress". This site explains things very well.
The computer graphics in the navigation and landing computers in 2001: A Space Odessey seemed to be computer graphics. There were Tektronix line-graphics terminals at the time, or some oscilliscopes did line drawings. However, they were as good as those in 2001. So the computer screens in 2001 were implemented by cartoon cels.
Star wars is based on Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, but a lot of things were stolen from various sources.
The guy who was the elderly mentor that tricked the kid into becoming the Last Starfighter was the famous musical actor Robert Preston. He "owned" the "76 Trombones" lead on stage and in the movie. I think this was his last role before croaking.
WHY did I get rid of my Lensman books??
I could have passed them to my (Junior Geek) son...
May the Seven Pillars of Bulu be with the production team at all times.
And Jabba The Hut was a ripoff of Sumo The Fat from the Dominic Flandry series.
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/atari/misc/Last-S tarfighter.html
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
The 47th Sign of the Apocalypse...
"And lo, upon the way of broad, musicals shall be heard to cull up. And these shall be loosely based upon 1980s Star Wars Ripoff movies. There will arise in the audiance a great nashing of teeth as all their spinal colums collectivly reach forth and throttle their brains to prevent the see of it.
From the gates of Heaven the Angel of the Lord will be heard to utter "Dude, WTF?" and later "Oh thats fucking it they're done!". And so begins the end times of man.
Brother Mathius - Prophet of Doom and the fore see-er of thing in front of him.
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
According to IMDB (http://imdb.com/name/nm0696481/) it was his last film, but not his last role; he had a couple of TV parts after that.
And he wasn't strictly speaking a "musical actor." He played on both the big and small screens as leading man and in supporting roles, in musicals, dramas and comedies, and won a couple of Tony awards for his stage work as well.
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
Sure, there are some similarities to Dune, but as we all know _everything_ in Star Wars was ripped off from Spaceballs.
Streetcar, the Musical:
r .html
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/previn/streetca
Really.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
I thought Star Wars was ripped off from The Wizard of Oz. C3PO is the Tin Man, the Ewoks are Munchkins, the Emperor is the Wizard, the TIE Fighters are the Flying Monkeys, Chewbacca is Toto, and the Wicked Witch is the Death Star. Pretty sure that's what I heard.
Catherine Mary Stewart. Yum!
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
IIRC, wasn't the movie VERY similar to a story featured in the old DC comic Wierd Wars?
In the comic, an inner-city youth plays a particular video game. He is 'the best' and the game offers him a chance to play a special level that no one has ever seen before. He beats the level and the next day, all the machines are gone. That particular coin-op game is nowhere to be found. The kid goes home, and there in his room are the aliens from the game. They present him a medal for defeating the 'bad guys.' The story narrative makes references to accomplishment and excellence, or something like that.
I don't remember the issue, I guess I'll have to open the foot locker.......
depends on which original you're talking about.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
I'd like the ability to be able to mod the poster of the article as troll, flame bait, or interesting, etc.
/. should get a rating based on the quality of his approvals.
that way, readers can filter the MAIN PAGE according how fucking stupid they are.
and we can rate the fuckwits who give their moronic opinions in the articles instead of just giving us facts.
and while we're at it, the slashdot "staff" member who authorises this sort of shit for
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
By Star Wars ripoff I meant that it seemed intentionally produced and marketed to capitalize on Star Wars' success, and the small-town boy makes good as space ace was the most obvious aspect of that. Or do you seriously think that movie would have been made if Star Wars hadn't hit it big?
Well it did have a lot more depth than the 1940's serials. And actually I think that while Lucas intended it (and the Indiana Jones series) as an homage they both were a lot better than anything he was emulating. For example, converting rather than killing the evil overlord, the pseudo-Zen aspects of the jedi, Han Solo shooting first (damn you Lucas), a competent female, and the political complexity.
There are some things that man was not meant to adapt to musical theatre. And you can get the album, too!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes; I'm not disputing that it was brilliantly executed. Just the idea some have that Lucas created the genre (as in the article summary).
Maybe they'll put a CG character in the musical!
Karma Clown
And Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is based on Wagner's ring cycle and the Norse myths before it.
That doesn't change the fact that execution of the idea was more important than the degree of originality. Some of the most original ideas are also the least accessible to mainstream audiences.
In the case of Star Wars, the execution was very well done indeed, at least for Ep. IV and V. IV is very rough around the edges technically, but in a very endearing homebrew way that has been lost in modern CGI filmmaking.
Sure, there's some similarity of plot. But LST gives it it's own twist, enough that IMHO it's not merely a ripoff. (The whole beta unit/alien assassin subplot has no parallel in Star Wars, for example, and it's not just tacked on either, because it helps Alex to realise that he has something worth fighting for - initially he did not want to fight at all.) And as many have noted, it's not like Star Wars itself is the most original story out there.
(Oh, I've just noticed you also think ST:TMP is a "clone" of 2001 - you obviously have a low tolerance for any similarities at all. Somewhat similar != clone.)
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
God I might qualify for a head geek badge. I'm going to be in Boston during that time, and am now checking into how much it would be to change my flight :)
Posting Anonymously to prevent receiving said head geek badge.
It's close enough that it's obvious that it was heavily inspired by Star Wars, and coupled with the fact that it's not really that good a film, plus the close release date to the Star Wars movies means that one can easily make the argument that it's a ripoff.
I find your comment about 2001 and ST:TMP a little bizarre. First of all, you shouldn't enclose "clone" in quotation marks, because it gives the impression that I used that word, which I didn't. Secondly, have you actually seen both of them? The cinematography, the mood, even the sound design is incredibly similar to 2001, except it's not quite as good because Kubrick didn't direct it. It's still a good movie, I think, but you're definitely taking the minority view if you can't see the heavy borrowing from 2001. Go to rottentomatoes and look up the movie's reviews; the first three that come up compare it to 2001, and most of the others I quickly glanced at did the same. Hell I just found a review (after I wrote the previous few lines) that uses "heavily borrowed" too.
And yes ... I have seen both 2001 and ST:TMP, many times, thanks very much: the first time was around 20 years ago, and I have them both on DVD now. I don't need anybody else's review to form my own opinion. (And if film makers are influenced by other films, don't think film reviewers can be influenced by other reviews?) When I think of cinematography in 2001, I think of the view from HAL's lens, the camera following Frank Poole around the carousel, the famous fade from bone to satellite, trademark Kubrick touches. What is similar in ST:TMP? Stars? Spaceships? You need more than that, or else every movie set in space is a "clone" of 2001. The mood in ST:TMP is indeed similar to 2001's insofar as there is a grand sense of mystery and exploration. Thats's one of the things I like about it - not a lot of films try to do that. Wasn't aware Kubrick trademarked that, though. Otherwise the emotional sterility of 2001 is utterly unlike TMP, where you've got the Kirk:Spock:McCoy triangle riffing off each other as usual, and then there's the Decker:Ilia relationship, such as it is ... (And let's not mention the impressive feeling of technical accuracy in 2001, compared with the fantasy technobabble of ST:TMP.) The sound design? The spaceships in 2001 make no sounds in space, enough said. No, I'll say more - think of Bowman chasing down Poole's body in the pod, there's no music or speech, just the clicking and beeping of the instruments as he draws closer. Can you imagine anything like that happening in a Trek movie? There'd be a dramatic Jerry Goldsmith overture before Kirk could say "Mr Chekhov, beam that body aboard". The two movies are different beasts, which happen to explore some of the same themes using some of the same tropes. That does not make one a "clone" of the other. "Incredibly similar"? What's with the hyperbole? Can't you just be satsified with "reminiscent"?
I'm not saying there are no similarities, and of course previous films influence later ones. But for you it appears that honest attempts at different takes on old stories are "ripoffs" or "clones". What's wrong with judging movies on their own terms instead of always having to interpret them with respect to previous movies?
Oh, and I put "clone" in quote marks because you did use that word: "In fact, look at the movie you brought up, 2001. It had it's own clone following a few years later--it was called Star Trek: The Motion Picture." I'm a history student; I do try to get quotes accurate!
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
... finally see production? (KLOV page) I doubt it, considering how stingy Infogra-- I mean Atari, Inc. has traditionally been, but hope springs eternal.
Great to see someone else has read the Lensman series. So many good science predictions were made in his stories, such as matter to energy conversion and super conductors. At his time Astronomers thought our Galaxy was the whole universe so he thought two galaxies was plenty.
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt,as far as possible