To whomever greenlit this, I have only one thing to say: You go to Hell! You go to Hell and you die!
Nah, can’t be done. Robert Preston is dead. Trying to have a “Last Starfighter” movie without Robert Preston as Centauri would be like…like… oh, I don’t know, like remaking “The Music Man” with somebody like Matthew Broderick playing Harold Hill! No one would be crazy enough to do that.
I watched the original not more than a week ago. I must say, age has not been kind. The effects are literally cartoons.
I do still say “We die” quite frequently. And “Death Blossom” was my online gamer ID for a long time.
I wonder if the sequel will have Zur. He did escape, after all.
Not to be too mean, but Lance Guest isn’t lookin’ too hot nowadays, either…
Interestingly enough, the actor originally picked to play Harold Hill in the film adapation turned the role down because he’d seen the stage version with Robert Preston and felt that the role rightly belonged to Robert Preston.
I find it hard to believe that Morton DeCosta – who directed Preston on Broadway – would have considered anyone else. From the IMDB, it appears that it was Meredith Willson who refused to allow the filming without Preston, not any actor (the IMDB mentions Sinatra) turning it down.
The story you’re probably thinking of was My Fair Lady, where Cary Grant was approached for Henry Higgins and he turned it down and said he wouldn’t even go see the movie unless Rex Harrison was in it.
Getting back to the OP, The Last Starfighter holds up pretty well. A bit slow in the beginning, but once Centauri shows up, it’s a good one. Also props for Dan O’Herlihy, whose Grig gets all the best lines.
Exactly how low is someone’s quality dial turned down to call “The Last Starfighter” a classic movie?
I made up a point-by-point list of plot matches to Star Wars not long after seeing Last Starfighter back in whatever the hell year it was:
[ul][li]Kid feels stuck in dead-end life[/li][li]Wizened stranger tells Kid about mysterious power[/li][li]Wizened stranger dies[/li][li]Kid hits mega-spacecraft in one vulnerable spot[/li][li]Main bad guy escapes[/li][li]Wizened stranger ain’t completely dead after all[/ul][/li]
In the sequel, will Alex and Maggie be revealed as brother and sister?
Interestingly, one of the assassins was played by Marc Alaimo, who would go on to play about eight billion Star Trek characters, edged only slightly by Jeffrey Combs. Wil Wheaton also had a minor role.
Could be. I’m going off of rather decrepid memories here, and I’ve never been a fan of musicals.
Does a movie have to be high art to be classic? Sure, it’s schlocky, but I know I – as a kid of the 80s with an overactive imagination who was able to enjoy video arcades in their prime before the home console market drove them into a niche business gasp, pant – remember Last Starfighter quite fondly, and I don’t think I’m alone in that, either.
You should see what gets put on the Turner Classic Movies channel these days, really. 
This is the first re-make I’ve ever heard of that really truly just made go, “Dude…just no. No.”
I don’t think I’d even want to watch the original since I haven’t seen it since I was a kid.
Classic 80’s Movie. Captured the era’s Zeitgeist, ya know?
And stuff.
Yeah, but it’s not a remake (which would make some sense), but a sequel (which makes no sense).
Tuckerfan, were you aware that they did a The Last Starfighter: The Musical?
ETA: (steps back, to be outside the splatterzone, should this be new information…)
It took me years of hard drinking to erase that from my memory. My insurance company will be billing you for the cost of the liver transplant your remindiung me of it is going to necessitate.
The Kodan Armada Strikes Back?
It’s April 1st, right?
Right?
Xur kills all of the people involved with making the sequel. The grateful citizens of the universe ask him to become King of Everything, ironically giving him the power he had always craved. The reign of Xur the First is marked by a remarkable absence of crappy movies.
Maybe you should compile a long list of such similar tales. Maybe give it an interesting title like “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”.
Returning to the original article Tuckerfan quoted…
Akira? What the hell?
Man, I’m glad I live under a rock when it comes to pop culture… I’m sure there are a ton of other movies in the pipeline that would make me scratch my head.
…Akira?