Dark Star is probably John Carpenter’s second finest film (after The Thing). It’s the John Carpenter film I’ve always been saying he should make--a funny one. I have seen Dark Star before, probably nine years ago, back when it was somewhat rare (it got picked up, a year after I saw it, by a video distributor who’s kept it in print). The first time I saw it, it struck me how much Dan O’Bannon used again in Alien. In Dark Star, O’Bannon--who makes the film, he should have been an actor, he’s hilarious--hunts a tomato-shaped alien through the bowels of the spaceship. He used that hunt again in his script for Alien. Well, this time, I noticed some of Carpenter’s shot compositions of the spaceship against the planet are identical to Ridley Scott’s set-ups for Alien... Scott just had more money....
The film is pure delight, from O’Bannon’s bickering with his crew mates to the commander rambling about surfing. The humor’s actually a little smarter than I expected, but it’s hard to believe Carpenter and O’Bannon were just students when they made this film. The budget isn’t quite there--it looks about the same as an episode of the original “Star Trek”--but Carpenter always spends his money well. It’s one of his trademarks.
I’m having problems with this post because the film’s only sixty-eight minutes long and it’s a comedy. I’ve already said O’Bannon’s great, I’ve already mentioned some of the funny stuff... but it’s not without some depth too. The film’s present action is short, maybe a few hours, and while the specifics of these characters’ longings are comedic, their existence is not. I just read someone call Dark Star a parody of 2001 but it’s not... The end of Dark Star is touching and more humane--if incredibly short (three minutes at the most)--then the rest of Carpenter’s filmography combined. Seeing Dark Star in 1974, I’m not sure it would connect with the Carpenter who made They Live. I just remembered Starman (as an example of Carpenter’s humaneness, but Dark Star has it beat). It’s a great film.
CREDITS
Directed and produced by John Carpenter; written by Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon; director of photography, Douglas Knapp; edited by O'Bannon; music by Carpenter; production designer, O'Bannon; released by Jack H. Harris Enterprises Inc.
Starring Brian Narelle (Doolittle), Cal Kuniholm (Boiler), Dre Pahich (Talby) and Dan O'Bannon (Pinback).
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