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..."

Comments

Ripoff?

[g00bd0g]

I liked that movie!

Re:Troy!

[Rallion]

R.I.P. Phil Hartman.

On HBO This month!

[Lord Kano]

A truely classic movie.

Even by today's standards the CGI isn't too bad.

LK

Re:On HBO This month!

[xstonedogx]

Shame on you. Ice Pirates is vastly superior ripoff of Star Wars in every aspect than The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones could ever hope to be!

Star Wars ripoff?

[mveloso]

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.

Oh come on.

[multiplexo]

This can't be any dumber of an idea than anything that Andrew Lloyd Webber has done. Look at Cats, a musical starring singing and dancing cats, or Starlight Express, a musical which features a bunch of people rollerskating back and forth pretending that they're all singing railroad trains. Cats has run for about four billion weeks on Broadway, proving that no one ever lost money underestimating the taste of the American theatre-going public.

Re:Oh come on.

[kfg]

Cats at least is inherently lyrical. People have been setting poetry to music since the invention of poetry; and started dressing in costumes imitating animals and spirits while dancing and singing them not long after that.

And T.S Elliot's cat poems really are a bit of alright.

You've got me on Starlight Express though.

KFG

A musical isn't the worst they could do

[humankind]

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.

Re:Come on...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Come on...

[Jason1729]

Star Wars is very much based on Dune.

• 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.

Re:I watched it 5 times in a month! :-P

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

In many ways, it relates more to The Matrix than Star Wars. No, seriously, think about it.

Both stories revolve around a young, male geek/nerd.

In both stories the young man is "trapped" in a going-nowhere existence

In both stories the young man knows there is something bigger and more important out there waiting for him to discover it

In both stories an older man approaches him and tells him that he's more than he thinks he is and that he may be the key to saving the world/universe

Both movies feature (for their time) incredible special effects of a kind never seen before

The young male geek gets a once-in-a-lifetime chance to not only live out his dreams but to save all of humanity
I could probably go on, but that seems like enough for now.