# Dark Star? More like Derp Star, miright!? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 16, 2016, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523 "2016-06-16T14:09:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/21 "2016-06-16T23:36:02Z")
Saying that’s a satire goes a little far; there’s not really much there to mock the space opera-type stories or anything. There are real script problems and the overall plot in place just isn’t long enough to fill its running time. If it were edited down, there’d probably be a smart film abut half as long. That said, the first thing people produce is often not very good, and this movie had some very interesting impacts on the genre. We shouldn’t ignore the real flaws, but there’s no need to dismiss the good ideas that simply needed more time and work to mature. Dark Star has many intriguing concepts and these did turn into some very fine films. ---
**Author:** ![Battle\_Pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/22 "2016-06-17T00:49:44Z")
I saw it about 15 years ago after encountering references to it for years. The bombs were far and away the best bit but the rest was just a bit limp. It’s interesting to see Carpenter’s work in his early days but I found it a bit like _Easy Rider_ in that, I get why it’s popular with it’s audience, but that it’s so much a product of it’s time that I didn’t feel that same kind of connection or resonance that a lot of people obviously had it on release. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/23 "2016-06-17T01:05:01Z")
> [@Not\_Carlson](#): > > Casablanca is a timeless classic precisely because it has all the things Dark Star lacks: an intriguing plot, well-written dialogue, and great acting. It looks like a movie made by people who cared about what they were doing. > Dark Star looks, to me, like its creators just didn’t care much about their project. No, it’s primarily because they only had $60K to make a movie. Just as a comparison, _The Front Page_ of the same year – which was basically a one-set movie – cost $4 million to make. _Benji_ cost half a million. Of course it’s going to look cheap. And my point about _Casablanca_ is that people dismiss it because it’s in B&W. You’re doing the same thing because it was low budget – reviewing the look and not the film. > [@](#): > > Well, that’s a valid point. I guess it had a decent idea with the whole anti-romanticism of space travel. If only it had tied to be more than just mood and cynicism. Granted, it was episodic. But there’s nothing wrong with that. Fellini’s _Amacord_ did the same thing. You can argue about the quality, but the fact that it’s episodic does not make it bad. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_Carlson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@Not\_Carlson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_Carlson)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/24 "2016-06-17T16:12:44Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > No, it’s primarily because they only had $60K to make a movie. Just as a comparison, _The Front Page_ of the same year – which was basically a one-set movie – cost $4 million to make. _Benji_ cost half a million. Of course it’s going to look cheap. > > And my point about _Casablanca_ is that people dismiss it because it’s in B&W. You’re doing the same thing because it was low budget – reviewing the look and not the film. To clarify, when I say Dark Star \*looks \*like it was made by people who just didn’t care much about their movie, I’m not just talking about the visual appearance of the film. Really, for a movie made on a shoe-string budget some of the effects are pretty decent (lame-ass alien excepted). Like **Just Asking Question** s said, the biggest problem with this movie is \*not \*the low-budget look. I was mostly disappointed with this movie because the lack of a decent plot meant I had nothing to be intrigued by, and without a decent script or acting there was nothing to engage me. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > It was a _comedy_ - a satire of space operas with their clean-cut, noble, blaster-wielding Captain Cosmos types and their nifty, shiny spaceships, conquering huge, slobbering, teethy alien monsters and saving their equally tight-suited women. Like good satiric comedies, it was more truthful than what it satirized - it was more like what you’d expect from guys in their situation. And it was the first sf satire anything like it. And people who don’t get the satire are disappointed they didn’t get another space opera. In my view, it was a bad comedy. I was disappointed not because I didn’t get another space opera, but because I didn’t get the clever, edgy, dark, satirical movie I was expecting. Still, I guess if I can’t appreciate what it’s got, that’s my loss. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/25 "2016-06-18T21:00:30Z")
> [@Not\_Carlson](#): > > Like **Just Asking Question** s said, the biggest problem with this movie is \*not \*the low-budget look. I was mostly disappointed with this movie because the lack of a decent plot meant I had nothing to be intrigued by, and without a decent script or acting there was nothing to engage me. Well, it was a movie of its time. The ‘plot’ is simply that it’s a stoner road trip in space. And each character is a stereotype. The frozen Capt is that way (mostly absent) because otherwise there’d be a real authority figure present. Pinback is the self-important, incompetent, loudmouth loser that nobody likes. His ‘buddy’ is the good looking, sunglasses-wearing, unashamed, total slacker who just likes getting to blow up planets. The Lt. is basically one of them, but since he’s in charge he has to at least pretend to try some of the time. And the guy down in the observatory is the trippy, obsessed loner. Consequently the film is not really ‘plot-based’ at all, but rather based on the (rather slow-paced) interactions of these arch-stereotypes, and their very different reactions to the things that happen. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/26 "2016-06-18T21:37:02Z")
Not gonna lie, I was bored while watching it a few years back. It’s clearly a stoner comedy and watching it sober is rough. But I’ll give this to the movie: I still remember every scene quite vividly. I may forget what most movies are about five minutes after the credits are done, but every choice made by Carpenter, every weird twist and turn O’Bannon put, were so weird and off the wall even by today’s- hell, particularly by today’s standards, that it gives it staying power. And that’s not high praise, but it’s something. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/27 "2016-06-18T22:29:42Z")
Dude, the beach ball alien **rocked**!! I love that movie. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2016, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/28 "2016-06-18T23:27:20Z")
“Teach it Phenomenology”. That has to be one of the greatest lines in Sci-Fi movies. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/29 "2016-06-19T05:39:40Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > It’s clearly a stoner comedy and watching it sober is rough. You want something trippy, try watching _ **Time Bandits** _ while bombed out of your mind. It’s **awesome**! :o ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/30 "2016-06-19T05:45:40Z")
I saw it on its first release (on a double bill with the long-forgotten SF flick _Clones_) I liked it then and still like it now. The SFX are actually pretty good, considering they were mostly made with an optical printer by Bob Greenberg, The ship model, made by Greg Jein (who would go on to work on CE3K) is also pretty good and a nice design. I was involved in a lot of Super 8 and 16mm amateur films, so it was great fun to see what a bunch of guys from USC (or UCLA? Can’t remember) film school did with a little more money and some inventiveness. (They weren’t supposed to sell a student film project to a studio, and the university was pissed off they did. After that, students had to sign a contract that the films they produced, and all the profits they generated, were the property of the university. The great country western theme song is one of my favorites (especially after living in Benson, Arizona.) It was done as an answer to all the SF movies after _2001: A Space Odyssey_ that used an austere classical music score. It was composed by Nick Castle, who would go on to play Michael Myers in _Halloween._ This wasn’t the only student film that Jack Harris bought and then padded - he also did the same with _Equinox._ ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/31 "2016-06-19T05:50:20Z")
It’s a long time since I saw it, but I loved the talking bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_Carlson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@Not\_Carlson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_Carlson)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/32 "2016-06-19T10:54:44Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > But I’ll give this to the movie: I still remember every scene quite vividly. I may forget what most movies are about five minutes after the credits are done, but every choice made by Carpenter, every weird twist and turn O’Bannon put, were so weird and off the wall even by today’s- hell, particularly by today’s standards, that it gives it staying power. That’s an interesting angle that I didn’t consider. However, given the shortness of the film and it’s lack of complexity, it shouldn’t be surprising. > [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > The great country western theme song is one of my favorites (especially after living in Benson, Arizona.) It was done as an answer to all the SF movies after _2001: A Space Odyssey_ that used an austere classical music score. It was composed by Nick Castle, who would go on to play Michael Myers in _Halloween._ I must admit that the country music theme song works well. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/33 "2016-06-19T12:40:05Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > I saw the film in 1983 on mushrooms when I was 19 and I loved it. Take that for what it’s worth. It’s definitely stoner humor. You either get it or you don’t! :o ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/34 "2016-06-19T15:08:59Z")
This: > [@terentii](#): > > The cheapness and absurdity (and yes, even the bad acting) are all part of the movie’s charm… I liked the increasingly frazzled bathroom mirror confessionals, reminding me of a very similar thing in THX 1138. (And also a possible “homage” to HAL?) ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/35 "2016-06-21T02:06:50Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > It’s a long time since I saw it, but I loved the talking bomb. The persnickety, fussy bomb’s voice was, I believe, also done by Dan O’Bannon… ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2016, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523/36 "2016-06-21T02:09:19Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > The persnickety, fussy bomb’s voice was, I believe, also done by Dan O’Bannon… It doesn’t really sound like O’Bannon. O’Bannon was a bit more nasal. According to IMDb, Bomb #20 was voiced by Adam Beckenbaugh; his sole entry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dark-star-more-like-derp-star-miright/757523.md?page=1)