The Last Starfighter BD [Blu-ray]

It looks like movie studios are trying various different permutations of their film releases. One way of looking at it is they are trying to provide more options for their customers. Another way of seeing it is they are double dipping. Trying to get you to buy something you already got by offering something never before offered. The new thing that seems to be offered lately is the full combo with a disk that has a digital copy of the movie for easier uploading into your portable devices. There are no other bonus features being offered here. Just the digital copy.

Now that we have that out of the way maybe you don't know what The Last Starfighter is. It is a space opera hinged on the fantasy that video game skills will save the day. This movie was made in the 80's and was designed to cater to the 13 yr old boy with Ataris/ Intelivisions/ColecoVisions/etc demographic. It has its share of action and comedy that, like most space operas in the 80's, has more than one similarity to Star Wars (but then again Star Wars was a homage to the classic space operas of the golden age of television). So it's not high caliber sci-fi, but it's not B-movie fodder either.

The story is pretty simple: Evil leader of evil aliens wants to attack good aliens, so in walks a single hero who is the last hope for freedom. That's about it. The movie doesn't deviate too far from this premise other than to further flesh out the fish-out-of-water scenario of an 80's Earthling thrust into space (as well as a little fun with an alien in 80's Earth) as well as the inner battle of said Earthling to stay and fight for a Star League he doesn't know or stay home and go to community college. A serviceable story, if not deep.

The acting does make the simple story enjoyable to watch. Lance Guest seems to have fun with the role, which works for the character. Biggest props go to esteemed Robert Preston's Centauri, who plays the role with the style of a magician and the charisma P.T. Barnum. Another esteemed actor, Dan O'Herlihy, does a surprisingly good performance. Especially when you consider he is wearing full prosthetics with less facial mobility than the costumes from the original Planet of the Apes. Yeah there is a bit of theatrical "drama", but that works with the whole space opera motif.

The Last Starfighter is a CGI hallmark as it's the first movie to blend computer animated elements with live action. The CGI is pretty barbaric by today's standards and even back then it was obvious which is live action and which is computer animation. In spite of that the spaceship designs were really cool and in CG they looked awesome. You can't beat the camera angles and fly-byes that computer animation affords. Plus back then this was pretty state of the art.

This release is identical to the 25th Anniversary remasters. It's an MPEG-4 codec on a BD-25 (25 gigabyte single layer Blu-ray Disc) in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio. It looks like a lot of the original film grain was taken out in the remastering, and for some that could be annoying if you are really into the true theater look. Still the images are sharp and are the best available. The CGI really does stand out, and while I liked it that aspect also separated those scenes more from the live action shots as far as differences in detail, color and lighting. All in all it's a great transfer/remaster in spite of it not being perfect (then again how many 15 year old movies can really stand up to current digitally filmed movies?).

The Blu-Ray comes with a host of features and Heroes of the Screen is the only one high definition. You get a few Blu-Ray centric features like BDLive and D-Box compatibility (that's a motion control chair that responds to queues from the movie). Extras are as follows:

Commentary with director Nick Castle and production designer Ron Cobb - It's informative and entertaining hearing the two banter between each other. You can tell they enjoyed making this movie.

Crossing the Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter - This is also on the DVD. Lance Guest hosts this half hour documentary going behind the scenes on the technical and other aspects of the movie.

Heroes of the Screen (in HD) - Essentially interviews with cast and crew talking about how the movie was made and how they felt about the production.

DTS-HD 5.1 in English and subtitled in English (SDH), Spanish and French - Can't speak for the accuracy of the subtitles, but the English audio sounds great. Not a whole lot of surround sound stuff going on, but then again this is an older movie.

Theatrical and teaser trailer - Standard definition. Not much to say here.

Image gallery - Includes rare production photos, promotional stuff and content from an alternate ending.

This movie is definitely a time capsule for 80's science fiction and is very much a product of that time. If you like that sort of charm then by all means pick this one up. It's only worth the double dip (or triple if you traded up from the first DVD or HD-DVD to the 25th Anniversary) if you really want that digital copy. This is best for new buyers or DVD only owners who want to upgrade to the most formats available.

Got this for my birthday. It was like watching it in the theater all over again. Love the blue ray version.

The Last Starfighter is a fun movie with decent action and video effects. It's your basic good guy, albeit reluctant, to save the galaxy against the evil, power-hungry villain. The villain is the son of the leader of the Star League...similar to Star Wars. This movie is styled like the video games of the 1980's era...in fact, the plot starts off with Alex (Lance Guest) reaching the final level of the Starfighter video game which is really a test of "Starfighter" abilities. Alex is then (unknowingly) recruited by Centauri (Robert Preston) to join the Star League and fight as a Starfighter to save the Galaxy, Earth included. Without giving away too much more of the plot, it's a "do the right thing" story with humor, aliens and, of course, a love story.

For the price, it's nice to have the Blu-ray CD version to watch on my big screen TV and have the standard DVD version to watch elsewhere or give away...I haven't decided yet. Plus, you get a (downloadable) digital version to watch on your computer or other digital media player.

You'll probably like this movie if you like movies like Star Wars, Men in Black and such.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars