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The Last Starfighter--The Musical!

Posted by samzenpus on from the death-blossom-mode dept.

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..."

11 of 345 comments (clear)

  1. The Stellar Acting Career of Troy McClure by F13 · · Score: 2, Informative
    see here

    or here

    or google

    Oh and I need more characters per line

  2. Re:Come on... by Moofie · · Score: 3, Informative

    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!
  3. Re:Star Wars ripoff? by bckrispi · · Score: 2, Informative
    There was also a scene (late in the film when the characters are already established), when Xur reveals that the leader of the Star League is his father. This point was never elaborated upon, so I'm assuming they were setting up for a sequel that never happened. Also, you have the story of a hick farmboy (in this case, white trailer trash) who after being told he can't go to the academy (gets a rejection letter from the college he applied to) meets an eccentric old man (Centauri) that he takes as his mentor. The two leave his going-nowhere life behind to dive face first into an intergalactic conflict.

    Greetings, Starfighter. You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada!

    --
    Xenon, where's my money? -Borno
  4. Re:Obscure? by BTWR · · Score: 5, Informative
    IIRC, it was the first film to have totally computer-generated space sequences

    Star Trek II was the first CGI scene (the genesis project filmette). Young Sherlock Holmes was the first to have cgi in a live action shot (the stained glass window knight)

  5. Re:Star Wars ripoff? by Dirtside · · Score: 2, Informative
    Ah, you've never read Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.
    And I can recommend against ever reading it. Campbell was insightful, but reading his writing style is like trying to strain molasses through a sieve. I can instead recommend The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, which basically distills HWATF into its essence, and is a thousand times more readable.
    --
    "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  6. Re:Leia's force wasn't strong... by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2, Informative

    > If she had some Force juice in her blood, it was dormant and
    > undetectable (as per the plan).

    It's exactly that "force juice" in hre blood that is a BIG part of the problem.

    Leia was in Vader's direct custody for quite some time in ANH. With hardly a doubt, she had to undergo a medical examination at some point during her time in custody; if only to determine just how far they could go in extracting the location of the rebel base from her. (After all, it wouldn't do if she turned out to have an allergy to the truth serum the torture droid uses, and dies from a histamine reaction.)

    Even if Leia wasn't an active force user, it *IS* explicitly stated, in ROTJ, that she has the potential. And THAT means she has a high midichlorian count. And THAT shows up on a simple blood test.

    Remember, Vader is taking a PERSONAL interest in this case. And he KNOWS that he has at least one long-lost child out there. (He expressed no surprise when Palpatine informed him that the "son of Skywalker" was out and about.) The guy's not stupid. Where there's one, there could easily be more. And he's always on the lookout for a new force-user to help him usurp the emperor... no reason a girl wouldn't do as well as a boy.

    cya,
    john

    --
    Imagine all the people...
  7. Considering that Star Wars.... by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2, Informative

    .... 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...
  8. It's a shame Robert Preston couldn't be here by SnappingTurtle · · Score: 2, Informative
    Robert Preston, who played Centauri in the movie, was a veteran musical actor. He's probably best remembered for playing the lead in The Music Man... for me his was the definitive performance in that role. He was also great in Victor/Victoria (albeit in a non-singing role).

    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.
  9. Re:its awesome by grondu · · Score: 2, Informative

    The credits say it was a Cray XMP.

    --

    I'm the urban spaceman babe, but here comes the twist... I don't exist

  10. Hardware used to render The Last Starfighter by isdale · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  11. Re:Come on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Star wars is based on Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, but a lot of things were stolen from various sources.