Transcript

Grig (The Last Starfighter)

The armada will break through the frontier here and reach Ryloss in 20 clicks. Squadrons of deck fighters will precede the mothership.

Alex (The Last Starfighter)

Squadrons? How many squadrons?

Grig (The Last Starfighter)

It isn't the number of squadrons that concerns me. It's this communication turret that sends out the commands to the deck fighters, which enables them to act as one during the fight.

Alex (The Last Starfighter)

Wait a second. We knock out the turret to get the fighters, but to get the turret, we gotta get through the fighters. We're dead.

Grig (The Last Starfighter)

I'll have it all figured out by the time we reach the frontier.

Alex (The Last Starfighter)

What's that?

Grig (The Last Starfighter)

The frontier.

Steve

It's two Dads. One Movie. It's the podcast where two middle aged dads sit around and shoot the about the movies of the 80s and 90s. Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana. Hello, everybody. It's another episode of 2Dads. One movie. I am Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we're Talking about the 1984 science fiction film the Last Starfighter, which was a major part of my childhood, but something, Nic, that you hadn't seen till now.

Nic

Not seen it until. Yeah, until I watched it recently. So I'm looking forward to talking about this one.

Steve

This will be interesting. This could be a good, good way to look over at, you know, what is it like to look back at one of these movies that clearly, you know, is dated, is very much a product of its time in many, many different ways. But, you know, had an impact on me and I know other people around our age who saw it when we were little. I probably saw this for the first time when I was 6 years old or so. And then, you know, to be, to look back on it with fresh eyes. Does it hold up? Does it not? We will explore it and we will find out. So yeah, that's pretty much. That's pretty. Usually we take some time to talk about our. How, you know, our history with the film, but that's basically it. Nic had never seen it and it was a major part of my childhood. I probably watched it 20, 30 times, just in elementary school. So let's dive into just the facts about the Last Starfighter. Rated PG. It came out on July 13, 1984. Part of that amazing run of 1984 summer films that really, you should look into it. There's ridiculous number of movies that were amazing that year. Running time of 100 minutes. Directed by Nic Castle and written by Jonathan R. Battwell, starring Lance Guest and Hollywood mainstay for many years, Robert Preston. Most people our age might not remember Robert Preston. Our parents probably more Familiar with Robert Preston scores. Rotten tomatoes 76%. This game, this had a significantly. This was a very well received sci fi movie at the time. I think the world was a bit. On Star Wars Fever. There was kind of a lot of Star Trek movies going on. I think Star Trek 3 came out the same summer. So the, the world was prepped for sci fi. Tron had been just a couple years before that. There was a lot of kind of, you know, this was a good genre for mainstream movies at the time and the critics, critics really enjoyed it. It does not fare so well in IMDb with a 6.7, which isn't terrible, but it's definitely kind of a mediocre score. It did not win any awards, although Robert Preston was nominated for best Supporting Actor at the Saturn Awards in 1985 on a budget of $15 million, which for 19 kind of a lot of money, it pulled in just 28.7 million at the box office. Therefore, you know, was, if not not a flop, but not really a success either. Kind of a disappointing box office take for the Last Starfighter. So let's dive into the movie itself. And I gotta say, so I have not seen this. It's probably been about five years or so since I watched it last. And for some reason I hadn't even really thought about it until watching it this time through. I think in my opinion, and I can't wait to hear your opinion, Nic. The theme song, like the theme of this movie has no business being as good as it is. It sounds like very triumphant and it sounds like a mix between Star wars and Superman. It's a very interesting sort of. Yeah, a lot of horns, a lot of fanfare, a lot of bombast. And it's a really fantastic song and I think sets the tone for the film very well.

Nic

Yeah, I actually, it's funny, I. I did. I normally don't look into who did the score, but it was one that I thought, oh, this is good enough. It's worth seeing if he did anything. And of course it's somebody who's worked a lot as a composer, but not anything that I really recognize, but very effective. And as a kid, I mean, that's the kind of thing that gets you. That's the. Yeah, those are the tones that hit you that let you know there's a hero in action.

Steve

So when you looked into Craig Safen's background, you didn't notice what he's most famous for as a composer.

Nic

I. It might be something I'm not.

Steve

What was it he did he did the score, not the theme song, but the score for every single episode of the sitcom Cheers. Oh. It's actually the majority of his work.

Nic

Interesting. All right, well, hey, I mean, that's. It's steady work, right?

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

I just want to comment. I know the last movie we did, Point Break, had a budget of $24 million, was made seven years later than this. This movie had a budget of $15 million.

Steve

Right.

Nic

I think we need to investigate money laundering because I have no idea how they spent $15 million on this movie.

Steve

There was a lot of, you know, I think, I think any kind of computer animation just cost a ton in the early to mid-80s. So, yeah, it was very much the. It's funny, I actually have an opinion about the special effects we'll get into that probably does not match yours, but I have a reasoning behind it. Let's just dive into the concept here. So we open up on a trailer park in California somewhere in sort of, I'm guessing Southern, but kind of rural Southern California. It's got everything looks like tan suede, which. Which if you grew up in almost anywhere in California, you know what the tan suede hills of summer look like. And that's where we're at, a trailer park. We see all these kind of people, a lot of, lot of older folks and, you know, there's this manner of sort of passing information from one person where they just yell to the next person next to her, hey, Edna, do this. Hey, you know, Otis, do that. Like, whatever. So we're introduced to a few characters and they're all looking for Alex. They keep calling, oh, Alex, I need Alex's help with this and Alex help with that. Who is Alex? Alex is our hero. Where is he? He's playing a video game and it's, you know, it's a stand up arcade cabinet, like was common, you know, back in the 80s. This was before the NES came out. So this wasn't something, you know, that would have been the home. You know, the Atari existed, but the home video games hadn't really. Weren't really a huge thing. Video games generally in this time in the 80s were arcade games. And so there's this machine called Starfighter and he's, he's there playing it. And the first thing I noticed was the voice coming from the game was better than any voice I've heard from any arcade game. Oh, sure. It was very clear.

Nic

The digitized.

Steve

Oh my God. It's not like, you know, welcome to Drone. Like, you know, it's, it's video Games back then sounded like RFK Jr. Like, they didn't sound like, you know, this clear and crisp. So already I'm sort of calling, you know, shenanigans on the. On the filmmakers, on that. But he's basically playing this game and his little brother runs up and is like literally pointing to stuff to shoot at. Yeah, dude, shoot at that over there from below. And it's like.

Nic

So I don't know if you're a video game player, but that's my favorite thing right when I'm playing is for someone to just be putting their finger on the screen and telling me what to do.

Steve

Absolutely. Like, literally he seems like he was like touching the screen and it was just a very. A very appropriate sort of encapsulation of what it's like to have a little brother as you're playing video games. For sure, as two men with little brothers, we know this. But, you know, I think too, this is an. This is a moment I want to stop and go, Louis, the little brother, I think he's supposed to probably be about like 10 or 11. That's out of the ballpark. That I was guessing.

Nic

Probably about right?

Steve

Yeah. And he looks it.

Nic

I hope not younger based on other things.

Steve

Right? That's true. That's a good point. But he looks it. But the actor they have playing Alex, Lance Guest, he's supposed to be like 17 or 18. Dude looks like he's 25, which I feel like was a standard thing that happened in the 80s where all the teenage characters ended up being played by like, adults. Yeah, and really like old looking adults.

Nic

For sure. For sure. The scenery of the trailer park where it's kind of made apparent early on that Alex is kind of the guy that everyone asks when they need something at the trailer park and they're looking for him. And not a bad setup if you're a kid growing up in that trailer park and then there's a sick convenience store right there with a big arcade game outside. I mean, you spend your could be the worst time there, right?

Steve

Yeah, but he's supposed to be this, you know, we get this idea he. So he's got this girl that he's. At least. We're not 100% sure what the relationship is off the bat. Her name is Maggie, but, you know, it seems like they're together in some sense right off the bat. And she is meeting up, you know, some of their friends looks like or people they know. It's hard to say they're friends with Alex, but they roll up in A pickup. And they're going to go to the. To the. The lake. Silver Lake, to go picnic or whatever for the day. And, you know, Alex can't go with them because he has to stay and help maintenance around the trailer park. That's, like, his job. It sounds like he's kind of like.

Nic

The Mr. Miyagi, I guess, in a way.

Steve

Yeah, a little bit. But these people don't like him. Like, I don't know, were these friends of his, because they're just ragging on him, making fun of him. It's very odd. It's an odd relationship that these characters seem to have.

Nic

Well, I think we're. We're still living. College boy was a big insult. So I think he's kind of a college boy to what? You're too good for our. Our town.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Our small town that's 20 minutes from LA.

Steve

He talks about wanting to not go to City College and do whatever, and it's like. Okay, we get that part. But if he's supposed to be this, like, kind of. Yeah. Nerdy college boy thing, and he's playing a video game, which is. God, what a nerdy thing to do. He's far too handsome to be nerdy, and he's too tall and he's too athletic and his girlfriend's too pretty. Like, it's. None of it really works, right.

Nic

Exactly.

Steve

You know when you watch, like, Revenge of the Nerds, like, those guys were made up to look nerdy. Like, they looked. This guy doesn't. This is. This is Rachel Lee Cook, and she's all that. This is like. You know, if you just put him in a tank top and a cowboy hat and all these girls would be fawning over him. Right?

Nic

Yeah. If you're a nerd, you don't have, like, a cool pickup truck full of cool teenagers to hang out with.

Steve

Right? Exactly. They were like, invite, like, waiting for you to come and you can't go.

Nic

Oh, man. Looked like such a fun time. Yeah. So his friends take off. His friends. He's like, I can't go. I gotta stay back here and whatever. And then this was a very relatable part of the movie to me when his girlfriend comes back and saying, like, hey, you just missed this whole day and you said you had stuff to do. It looks like you've just been playing this video game the whole time.

Steve

That is true. I mean, you know, we saw him walk up to it just then. Yeah, but, you know, I could get. But he's kind of a dick to her, like, right? Away like, oh, you got a ride from somebody. Well, she's supposed to walk back. Like, would it have been better? Because he asked where'd everybody else go? Oh, they went to a movie. Oh. But old Jack Blake goes ready to take you home. And it's like, would you rather she was still at the movies? It's a very weird thing. He really is quite rude to her. And I don't.

Nic

Yeah. And none of the surrounding roads that led to the trailer park looked safe for pedestrians or bicycles.

Steve

Sidewalks.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Like a little highways and stuff. Yeah. Not, not good at all. But as they're sitting there talking, he's sort of casually playing the game.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then, and then, you know, Maggie, she looks and she realized, oh, Alex, you're near the high score. Which, like, kudos to Maggie for memorizing the high score table on that game and knowing what the high score is.

Nic

You're finally going to beat ass.

Steve

But it's like so, so, so she calls out and I think it's Otis, this older black gentleman who clearly like runs maybe the coffee shop convenience store thing. And one of the first person people to realize like, like, oh, he's going for the record. He's going for that. And he starts calling these people from the trailer park.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

In to check it out. And Lewis, who's asleep is apparently late enough that Lewis has gone to sleep. He gets up and runs out. And everybody is so excited that this guy might break a high score on this game. These people were all born in the depression like this. These are 60, 70 and 80 year olds in 1984. What the hell do they care about a video game?

Nic

Nothing at all.

Steve

No sense at all.

Nic

Also, video game high score. Maybe it's changed since then. My experience with it is always frustration because whatever establishment was running the arcade games would just power them down at the end of every night so the scores reset the next day. So it's not keeping all your high scores. But it was really funny with the. Everyone gathered around him like, go, go, go. And they all know what's happening. It's as if everyone there spends two hours a week just playing that game.

Steve

They're all talking, the command ship is coming and this like old woman is like, alex, look, the command ship. It's like, like I can't get my dot.

Nic

It's a bunch of dots.

Steve

I mean it's vector graphics.

Nic

Wasn't. This game wasn't representative of what games exactly looked like at the time.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It was a. Definitely a souped up version.

Steve

More advanced. Yes.

Nic

But it was still, you know, basically, you know, shapes and.

Steve

Right. Yeah, it's like Vector gravity. Ever played the old Atari game Tempest? That was a common one in the arcades. It was sort of like these little polygonal figures that moved around a wire framed kind of, you know, level. And it kind of looked like that, but. Yes, but it was much more advanced. Clearly these were just animations that were, you know, created for the film. And that. That way. They look that way. If this had been a game in 1984, this would have been like the most advanced arcade game anywhere. Yeah. Which is maybe kind of the point. Right. As we learn, you know, what the video game actually was, maybe it makes sense if it's alien technology that it would be that advanced. But yeah, these people are just so excited. The whole scene gets super intense about, you know, can you do it? And the amount of screaming, hooting and hollering that occurs. And even the says record breaker as like, you know, a title it gives him after he breaks the record, which is like, did he beat the last level? Like, what did he get the highest score? Like, it's all very kind.

Nic

It looks like he was approaching a million points, but then it never really.

Steve

Showed 1 million points, which seems like that sounds like maybe the point. But. Yeah, anyway, so it's some old lady El's command ship. And then Otis, who's one of my favorite characters from the. The trailer park, as they're walking away, everybody's going home. He goes, that boy is going to go places. It's like, you know, little does Otis.

Nic

Know, like the pride of the trailer park, the record breaker on the arcade machine.

Steve

Yeah, very funny.

Nic

Alex and his girlfriend are kissing, right? And the little brother sees it out the window. And I think the little brother goes up to the venetian blinds and is just so disrespectful to them. He separates them by like a foot and a half, which makes me cringe to see it. But his comment on watching his brother making out with his girlfriend, his very younger brother, he goes, diarrhea.

Steve

Just like. I don't know, I never used that. Like puke, maybe. Would have been like puke. Like, would have been more diarrhea. Sounded so strange. But yeah. So his mom comes home from work and she has mail for him and, you know, so and so brought this to the diner because he knew you'd want to see it right away. It's like, why didn't he deliver it to the trailer park? But whatever. And it is apparently a denial of a student loan that's sort of the thing which it's like, I didn't know they denied anyone for student loans. I got to be honest with you. By the 90s, they were handing out student loans like cookies. I mean, this is why we're in the student loan debt crunch. We're in as a country. But apparently Alex does not qualify for a student loan. And so he is going to be stuck either working at the trailer park or going to City college. Quote from his mom with your friends. Yeah. Slogan.

Nic

These guys do not seem cool.

Steve

No, not at all. So he's. He's feeling. He's feeling like he doesn't have many places to go. He doesn't have a lot of options in his life. So a car rolls up to the trailer park.

Nic

Yeah. The machine, the arcade machine is kind of going nuts.

Steve

Kind of glitches out. Yep.

Nic

And yeah. And then this car rolls up to the trailer park, which is a DeLorean wagon.

Steve

Yeah. It's either. I couldn't tell.

Nic

DeLorean hearse.

Steve

It's either a station wagon from DeLorean or it is just a cor. That's had a bunch of like cardboard stapled to the. Glued to the sides of it. It's very odd looking vehicle. It's not even clear initially whether Alex gets into the front seat or the back seat or what. There seems to be. Maybe there's three rows of seats. It's really quite hard to tell what's going on. But he starts speaking. He meets a man named Centauri. This is Robert Preston's character. The way he enunciates is very old Hollywood. Aha. My boy, you were here. Aha. I knew it. I knew. They told me Centauri. They told Centaur he wouldn't find him, but I found him. Aha. And it's just like very. God, I don't know. It just feels like you were watching an old Bob Hope movie or something. And it's got that feel to it.

Nic

I like the way he's dressed is like kind of classic newsman style. Like he should have a press thing sticking out of his hat. And then. Yeah. Speaking in the third person, I mean, was kind of revolutionary for this movie because we were very early in Ricky Henderson's career at that time.

Steve

That is true.

Nic

And you know, so subtle tribute to Ricky Henderson.

Steve

Must have been. That must have been. The inspiration was 84.

Nic

Was that the year he stole 130 bases or was it before then?

Steve

Later.

Nic

Anyway. Yeah. I like that he's talking in third person. Does not. I Would not peg him as a third person guy. Although if he's an alien, he. I don't know how you humans do this.

Steve

Right. That's true. He's, he's a, a Rylon, I think is how they refer to their, their species and, and, and impersonating a human to, to kind of get what he needs from Alex. And, and so he lets Alex know. Well, he doesn't really tell him a lot. He basically invites Alex into the car and Alex gets in the car, which. Bad Alex. He shakes the hand of someone shrouded in shadow and it kind of shocks him. And that person then gets out of the car, the doors close, and Centauri drives off at 300 miles per hour, we're told, which. I don't care what kind of alien you are, what kind of technology you have, you can't stay on roads that windy at 300 miles an hour. But whatever.

Nic

Yeah, those tires aren't going to hold up.

Steve

It's really. Yeah, maybe if they're under inflated a bit. But. Yeah, but Centauri tells him basically like, you know, that he's got this opportunity. He wants it to be a surprise, but he's going to take him somewhere. And they go through a tunnel and it looks like they're going to crash into a barricade. It's a street blocking barricade. But of course that's when the back bumper opens up very much like Eagle 5 and Spaceballs and the thrusters appear at the back of the car and they shoot off into the sky and suddenly Alex is obviously involved in what would be the most terrifying kidnapping of all time. This is a very scary thing.

Nic

And, and pre. Back to the Future, I think people would be a little more wary of deloreans and not think that it's something cool that they need to walk back to.

Steve

The future would. Yeah. Would take place the next year. So, so it didn't, it didn't actually, it hadn't, hadn't like regained into the cultural zeitgeist the way it does with, with, with that film.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. So alex. So the DeLorean turns into a spaceship and then they're, they're cruising and they end up, you know, chosen by land and going through those cool corridors and everything and parking. And Alex is being spoken to by someone who's seemingly friendly.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It's, it's like a female alien of this race where all their heads kind of look like, like white Klingons, like, right.

Steve

A little bit.

Nic

They all kind of have these bald, like a Little pointed, like.

Steve

Yeah, they're almost like two.

Nic

Like, my brain is too big to.

Steve

Yeah, they're like butts on their heads. It's all like. Everybody on this planet is like, as John Lithgow's hair, basically. Yeah, they're all John Lithgow. I will say, on the. On the trip to. This is Rylos, by the way. We've taken. Alex has gone to the planet Rylos. But, you know, on our way there, I. I made a comment that, like, to myself, wrote a note down. I was like, I don't think these special effects are terrible. I think they're okay because they lean into the cartoonish video game sort of style. And so if you are willing. And this is obviously definitely part of it, where it's like, this hearkens back to this has been in my brain for so long. But it's like, if I just accept that this movie's half a video game, it works out fine. It's not. Trying to look real is kind of my take now. Maybe it was trying to look real, in which case they do a terrible job of that. But if they're trying to look kind of video game ish, kind of cartoonish kind of thing, they actually look pretty cool. It's kind of like Tron in that way, where it's like, I feel like they look pretty decent. But I would love to hear your take on, because this is the first scene where we get real special effects. This travel from Earth to Ryos. We get a bunch of the special effects of the style that this film will give us over and over again. Again.

Nic

Yeah, I mean, like, the animated stuff, it doesn't look really, like, pixelated or anything. It looks pretty clean. I think they kept the designs simple so that they don't run into issues with the, you know, having to render these detailed things. But, yeah, I mean, it looked like the video game. I. The special effects, it's from 1984. I'm not going to hold special effects against it. I do love the models and the practical effects and things. And I feel like, like, a lot of what made Star wars so cool was the way they did that kind of stuff. I don't know, you know, dollar for dollar, what do you get doing computer graphics versus what you get doing practical effects at this time? Because it was probably very expensive to do what they were doing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But, yeah, I mean, it looked fine to me. I wasn't like, whoa, I'm in a video game. I was just kind of like, yeah, 1984.

Steve

I feel like it must have been a thing where this was probably just as expensive as doing models and practical effects, but far faster. Right. Because you're not actually having to build the models or set them up on sound stages or do whatever. Right. You're able to do it all in. In. You know, I'm sure it was computers, the size of rooms at that point. But like, you know, it probably was about the same price, but it probably didn't take as long. And that's, that's maybe where they, you know, to kind of put their money was like, let's just make. We can do this faster. Yeah, you know, we can get this. Because it's like this was a year after Return of the Jedi came out. Like I said, Star Trek 3 came out the same year. There's a lot. You know, Ghostbusters came out the same year. Obviously has much better special effects. In this movie. Those special effects hold up much better. But we're intentionally more based around, you know, there were some projections and stuff of that, but there were a lot of practical effects in Ghostbusters. This movie had very few. There were a couple. Most of the like really special effects part were like computer generated though.

Nic

Yeah, it's like they, they had really good makeup effects. So I think one thing this movie does a good job of is there's a good variety of different types of kind of alien heads and faces that are, that are shown around and the makeup effects are, are pretty good. But yeah, there aren't a lot of model type things. Stop motion, none of that.

Steve

No, everything that's like. Yeah. Machinery, you know, that isn't stationary. Obviously, if it's something that is built on a soundstage on a set, that's one thing. But anything that has to move around that is like a starship or even like the base being approached or missiles or any of that. So that is all purely computer generated. It all looks very clean, which is like not. You know, that's one of the reasons Star wars works so well is that everything looks aged, you know, and dirty and used. Right. That looks like a lived in universe. Whereas here we fall into the more Star Trek trap of everything looks way too clean and modern and sort of whatever. But yeah, so this was the first kind of part where we really see that. So Alex is now on this base. He's being spoken to in languages he doesn't understand. Centauri is the only one who speaks English. And so every once in a while he bumps into Centauri as he's being like led through these you know, different quarters he's being given. He, Alex is given a uniform and a helmet. And he kind of has to go all through this whatever. And Centauri's only when he can talk to shows up and kind of leaves over and over again. All these people are just barking totally nonsensical alien language at him until he gets to a point where I think the same woman that sort of beckoned him to come out of the star car, that is a term they use for it, by the way. It is a star car pins a little thing under his lapel and suddenly everything sounds like it's in English. And so he even says, oh, you can speak English. No, no, no. Like you're just hearing it. You're hearing it in whatever language you need to because of this little translator that's important. We're going to come back to that later in the film. But yeah, but that, that is what we're told. So now everybody's speaking English. There's no, there's literally like no more alien language. I think throughout the entire movie. We get, we get like a hand. There's no Jabba the Hutt shows up a couple times and we hear him speak Hatiz a couple times. But no, this is like, this is it. Like there's no more alien speaking. Because now everything's being translated for Alex and in proxy, therefore for the audience.

Nic

It's an interesting thing that a filmmaker has to do in this situation where you need to show the audience why you can now understand all these non understandable characters. One of my favorites examples being in, I think it's the Hunt for Red October and there's one of the sub commanders and he's speaking in Russian and the camera kind of zooms close in on his face while he's speaking right on his mouth. And then as it zooms away, he's speaking in English. Just to show you. Okay, we switched over. Yeah, my all time favorite one. And they do it multiple times in this movie. In Inglourious Basterds, there's always a reference of the character as to why they're switching to speaking English. I think at the beginning the Nazi guy who shows up at the farm says something about my English is much better than my French. Would you mind if I spoke to you in English? And they address it directly, which I think is so clever because it's something that shows up in movies so much over the years. And this way of doing it is actually a pretty decent way of just like not disruptive. And now we know why he can understand, but we know they're not actually speaking his language.

Steve

Exactly. And so he's able to meet and speak to not only these, these Lithgow headed, you know, Rylons or whatever they are. He's able to speak to all these other alien life forms that around because they're Lithgow headed.

Nic

I think it's so good. I love that.

Steve

So he's able to speak to all these other alien life forms and. And be able to understand them. So that. That way. Just the whole. The communication part, we just can throw that aside now. Yeah, and do that. So. Real quick. So what he finds out is he has been recruited to. The Star League has recruited him to defend the frontier against Zur and the code in Armada. This is the same plot as the game. We learned that the game was actually a recruitment device designed and planted by Centauri on Earth. Apparently multiple. Because he mentions that this one was supposed to go to Vegas and instead ended up at this trailer park in the middle of nowhere where he thought nothing would ever come of it. But Logan, Alex of course shows this the most, the most aptitude ever of a person doing this. And you know, he, like, he wants him to stay and fight. There's an actual war going on. He's being recruited into a military, you know, battle of these Starfighters. He has to join these Starfighters and fight the Codan armada, whatever all that means. And he's like, no, I'm a teenager and I want to go back to Earth and what the. Like, this is not. I don't want to do this. This sounds dangerous. And he's like, oh, of course it's not dangerous at all. At which point we get Zur somehow tele. Not teleporting, like, like holographically projecting his. Himself somehow communicating with everyone by. By a tele. Yeah, holograph of his head floating in the middle of this big room on the base. And he's able to. To we find out that the leader of the Starfighters, it's his. He is Zur's father. And so Zur is. Is a person who has abandoned his. His planet, wants to come back in order to rule it. And so now he's the big bad guy, but he's the former. He's formerly. You know, he grew up the son of the leader of the good guys. Basically it's a standard kind of, you know, sci fi story thing with a father and a son who've. Who've had a split here. And so he. He tells him that you know, I found your. Your master spy. And the first of many scenes in this movie that were basically nightmare fuel for me as a kid is that we see on the, on the, the telescreens there this another lithgow headed freak getting his brain microwaved. Basically. It's like this, like laser beam comes from above. He starts screaming in obvious agony. And actually, if you notice the, the, the makeup and everything on his head, it all starts melting. It's like they're literally melting his head inside. Horrific. But that's Alex's cue to be like, I'm out.

Nic

This sucks. Well, so, so before this and that, that scene I definitely made note of because that was. That visual was pretty disturbing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Back at home. Because it kind of. When Alex is here and he's getting shown around and learning the language back at home, his little brother Lewis. First of all, it shows him pulling the Playboys out from under the mattress.

Steve

Yeah, it was at least if they.

Nic

Were his or if they were Alex's.

Steve

But I think we later hear they were his. But it does seem at the beginning, like, are these looking through Alex's? But. But they are his. They share a room.

Nic

The little brother who's like a little more grown than he. Varsity Blues, how he has the little brother who's always doing those things. It's kind of a funny character. But Alex's clone who was in the DeLorean with him and got out was now kind of in his bed. And I think the girlfriend went into that. Alex, you okay? Are you okay pretending to sleep in.

Steve

The bed, kind of moaning and.

Nic

Yeah, so there's a lump that's generally shaped like Alex, but when they pull it back or just he pulls like.

Steve

Everybody else leaves the room and the little brother does. No, no, no, Nobody. Because none of the humans see this guy. He just sort of pulls it to show a camera what he looks like now. And yeah, he's got this pulsing. He's the see through skin that is pulsing with every breath. It's like he's all lungs, right? Yes, yes, exactly. He's like all lung. It's very, again, nightmare feel. Very terrifying to see that.

Nic

Yeah, that was tough to look at. I mean, kind of a cool, like, conceptually, very cool idea.

Steve

Like you said. Get a good example of sort of the practical makeup type effects and masking type effects they did in this movie. That was a really good effect. That certainly still looks as kind of freaky and, and real as it did back then. Still looked pretty impressive.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah. So Alex, he's among some other recruits, I guess. So there's just every variety of alien head, plus him that are being talked to about their upcoming mission. He ends up getting in kind of a shoving match with like a Zoidberg looking guy. And, and then they start, they're all pumped up and they start this big victory or death, victory or death, victory or death chant. No, thank you, Alex. He doesn't want to do this. Still no.

Steve

And he's come out. But this is when he meets Greg. Right. Is right about this moment. He kind of bumps into somebody who looks like an iguana. He's sort of a brown scaled lizard man person. His name is Greg. He is a star navigator. See, Alex has been recruited to be a star fighter. But the gun star ships also have a star navigator. That way that's how they get around that. The video game was on rails like a lot of games were back then. And your, your controls were more about targeting your guns and less about moving your ship. And this is how that's explained in the quote, real world of this universe is that there is a second pilot that is actually moving the ship around. And then the, the starfighters Alex's recruited position are just controlling all of the weaponry targeting on board. So more of a gunner than anything else. But he meets Greg and Greg is super excited to meet him. And oh, I can't wait to go fight the code in armada. And Alex is like, I don't want to do this. I want to go home now. And they kind of do this thing too where they mention like, hey, Earth's not part of the Star League. Centauri shouldn't have recruited him to begin with.

Nic

Yeah, I thought that was kind of funny and maybe a little prescient for the current moment where it's like, we're not invited into the Star League, dude. We're, we've, we've lost our Star League privileges. Everyone's seen what we do.

Steve

Greg literally says something like, Earth's not scheduled to be joining the Star League until it matures. It's like, yeah, you're still waiting, pal.

Nic

I love, I do like Greg's turtle shell bowl cut that he has on top of his head. That's a good look.

Steve

Very interesting.

Nic

Yeah. So I think that Zor. So he had caught the master spy who tortures and kills kind of on video there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And then it seems like he has another spy in the Star League area who places an explosive right on. I don't know if it's their radar system or what was that.

Steve

Yeah. So basically, Zur and the Kodan, who are another alien race from other planet. They are outside the frontier. This is a shield of energy that surrounds all the systems in the Star League. And they are outside of it. And he apparently knows some special weapon that can cut a hole, basically, in the frontier and allow people through. So they get to the point where they're trying to cut this hole. It's taken them a long time. And they haven't done it big enough to actually send their ship through their big control ship. But they can fire what they call the meteor gun, which is literally like shooting these, like, massive asteroids. Meteors, whatever. And they know the coordinates of the Starfighter base. That's something else Zoor knows is like, I know the exact coordinates. I can aim this meteor gun directly at Starfighter base, basically. So they do that and they shoot five or six of these meteors. And if they. I don't know how many light years they have to travel or whatever. But, you know, they get to. They're approaching the base, at which point they turn on the automatic repulsor guns, I think they say they call them. So it's like an automated turret to start shooting down. You know, like a game. Asteroids.

Nic

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve

Right. And it's working fine until. Yes. This mole inside the system, who we've seen a couple times, ended up paying Centauri for recruiting Alex. That was apparently their actual job. They place what literally just looks like a plain old block of C4.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Kind of attached to. It's the gunnery control. So it's these automated repulsor guns. That's what controls them. So when that blows up. Up, they stop firing. And the last two or three asteroids actually hit the Starfighter base and just frankly, clean it. Like really a clean split. Really destroy completely all the bunch of.

Nic

Technology that they have. And they're basically flinging rocks in their direction. That's what works, baby.

Steve

Hey, if it worked viable. If it worked for the bugs and starship troopers.

Nic

Yeah, it works for these guys. Yeah, that's right.

Steve

But yeah. So basically, yeah, there's Zur. We meet him briefly on the deck of his command ship, which is a code in Commander. We meet the Codans. The. This other race. They're a very wrinkly looking, scary group of like alligator people or the hell they are.

Nic

Cool makeup as well. They look pretty cool.

Steve

And the captain of the ship there is pretty cool dude. But Zur is handed this. I forgot about this scepter that he has that he's given. That really is a neat Looking like. I don't know if anybody listening has played the video game Skyrim, but there is a weapon in it called the Mace of Molog Bal. And it looks very much like this mace with the spikes and then it's got a blade out the top and so very neat looking weapon. And that's sort of his like, personal weapon. And also I think like, you know, the, the mark of office, right, that he is going to be the emperor when he comes back to take over Rylos. So he has this cool scepter. I'd forgotten about it. It's very neat. But that's when they shoot the, the meteors as they are continuing to cut into the frontier. The actual shield.

Nic

The scepter is funny because I think maybe one of the codan was, was a little unimpressed by the scepter and his big boom moment was, oh yeah, there's like a five inch blade that comes out of the end of it.

Steve

It does not move.

Nic

It doesn't do magic. I can't, I can't shoot. You know, this is not the force like you or anything like that. It's just. Yeah, well, there's a spiky part of. There's a big spiky, pretty spiky.

Steve

It is a very spiky mace. And then it has a little extra blade at the end, but it's neat. This is not as cool as the Glaive from Kroll, but it's still a pretty cool weapon of the era. I'll. I'm guessing from lack of reaction from you, you haven't seen Crawl or haven't seen Crawl. We'll get to that.

Nic

Get that one on there.

Steve

Holy smokes. Anyway, so Alex has convinced Centauri to take him home. He doesn't want to do this. He's going to go back. They land and apparently there's car trouble. Like this shows Centauri having to do some work on his star car. So Alex like, ah, it's only a couple more miles. I'll walk. He starts heading off and Centauri says, here's a little, little communicator if you, if you, if you change your mind, just tap the little crystals and I'll come get you. And he's like, no, I don't want it. Keep it, please. Just, you know, you're walking away from history here. Like just, just hold on to it. He's like, okay. He does. At which point Centauri gets in the car and drives off. So he could have absolutely driven. Alex walks home. He gets to his room and he sees Lewis is asleep and he goes to sit down on his bed because they have bunk beds. He's got the lower one and of course the, the beta unit, the, the, the you know, person that is been grown to look like him I guess. Right. Our all lung breathing fellow. Yeah, he's there. And so they start chatting a bit and in, in the meantime I think at this point this is when we've seen another sort of gross looking alien has landed on the planet. And very strange looking hammerhead shark, piranha looking thing. It looks like a piranha with eyes kind of low on its skull. Like it's very strange looking guy. We learned later they're called a Zando Zan because nothing can have cool names in this movie. This is all like trying to be stolen names of things.

Nic

Cs and X's make things sound futuristic for sure. Stick with that.

Steve

Very, very, very much the case. But anyway, Alex and the other unit both start talking to each other about you know, Maggie like slapped Alex because the beta unit did something that she didn't like or whatever. Anyway, it's, it's sort of a strange conversation. This is. We've learned that they're out that they're Lewis's Playboys. By the way, he says Lewis, go back to sleep or I'll tell mom about your Playboys.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, right.

Steve

But yeah, so they're kind of go back forth and this is as Alex is going to leave, he starts tapping the crys of context. Centauri is like come get your buddy. Come get your beta unit. Get him out of here. I don't want him here because I need to be here. Well, that's when the assassin attacks. Yeah. And apparently they're very stinky. They make a lot of comments bad.

Nic

They smell that. You can smell them coming. I think this Xando Xan looked a little bit like one of the pit monsters from army of Darkness. It kind of had that vibe a little bit.

Steve

Also a human now I think about a human sized rancor actually kind of similar in the head.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

Which again that movie had just come out one year before so maybe have very well influenced it.

Nic

You only have so much in nature to draw from. Okay. This guy already looks like a nautilus. This one already looks like a squid. So.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

So yeah. So Centauri arrives and is able to, to dispatch this Xandoan.

Steve

Right, the assassin. Yeah, but he takes a shot. Doing.

Nic

He takes a shot and but. And he also lets him know like this isn't the last one. There's not one of these guys like, this is. This is your life down here.

Steve

I believe he referred to them as an intergalactic hit beast. Not a hitman. Not a hitman, a hit beast.

Nic

See, they were, they were. They were not misgendering the Xander back then. I like it. Very progressive, this movie.

Steve

So basically, Centauri and the Beta unit convince Alex, you got to go back. Like, you're not safe here. If you go defeat Zur or whatever, then this will all end. But until then, they're going to keep coming and, you know, I'll be down, basically, I'll be down here as bait and you'll be up there trying to, to fix this, right?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And so, yeah, so they head back and when they arrive, course Centauri's been gone, right. Since the attack, the meteor gun attack on, on Starf fighter base or whatever. He had already been taking Alex home. So the two of them have no idea what has happened. So as they approach the base and Centauri is, you know, bleeding out, basically, or whatever the alien version of that is. He's. He's hurt, you know, from the shot he took in the assassin and he's trying to call in. And now apparently part of the hangar still exists because he is able to land his star car there. And, and, and he is met by Grig, who again, kind of inexplicably, he survived. It seemed like he was with all the other pilots who were told are all dead now. All the other Gunstar ships are dead or, you know, destroyed. So there's no other group of people to help fight, basically. But Grig is there to, to, you know, greet Centauri and Alex as they show up up. And it really looks like Centauri dies. Like he. He closes his eyes and sort of slumps forward and it's like, oh, man, that's such a bummer. He's gone now.

Nic

Yeah. It's funny that when they arrive back at the kind of bombed out space base and it looks like any normal Earth structure that had been taken a heavy shelling and was still trying to operate where there's like a hole in the wall and a pile of rubble, we're. We're ignoring the fact that we need like 100%, like, like whole integrity. Yeah. Like, you can't, you can't around be like, oh, there's a little leak there. We got a breeze coming in from outside.

Steve

I don't think they're in outer space, though. I feel like they're on the planet. That was just the. Okay, yeah, like, I feel like they're on the planet. It's just Zor knew exactly where on Rylos that base existed and so how to shoot the rocks or whatever to get them. So. But I think they are on the planet. Whatever. Whatever the atmosphere of Rylos is made of. Apparently it's something humans can. Can. Can breathe. Yeah, but. Yeah. So there's a funny little moment in here, too. Somewhere in here, we flash back down to Earth to where the Beta unit is starting to hear some funny things. And he's like, you know, poking at his ear, whatever, and he goes to. To take his own head off. We're not. No explanation as to why or how this works, but he's able to take off his, like, unscrew it. Basically. He puts it down on the desk, at which point it becomes Lance Guest's head again. He's able to turn his head and talk. And Lewis wakes up to see it and he's like, you know, Lewis, you're having a terrible nightmare. Go back to sleep. Yeah, if he's having a nightmare, pal, like, he would be asleep. Like, this is weird. That's a weird thing to say, but that's. He looks out the window, his. His own hand turns his head around to look out the window. He sees another ship land. Basically, there's like a. Looks like a shooting star, but then it stops, right, and goes 90 degrees down. He's like. So he knows Anders and has come. And there's this very funny moment after he turns his own head back around where he, with his hand, grabs the bridge of his nose down on the desk and like, shakes his head back and forth the way you would. Oh, this is just not another day like this. Like, that's funny.

Nic

When Alex, now back in space, is kind of being shown what his starfighter situation will be by Greg, which is he's kind of sitting in like, this gyroscope type chair which, you know, can turn in any direction, which the guns turn along with it, while Greg, like you mentioned, is actually navigating and he's.

Steve

Like the pilot and Alex is there to be the gunner, basically.

Nic

Yeah. And I. And I think Greg is. Is established at this point as just being a good ally, a good buddy, and he's. I mean, he's kind of one of the only guys left.

Steve

There's that.

Nic

Yeah, not a lot of options Greg makes. He does the Don DeLuise laugh a lot in this movie where he's like.

Steve

Yeah, that's his standard.

Nic

So a Little. A little Spaceballs crossover. We get some deluise and happening in this movie.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

I just wrote down terrible looking explosions, so I'm not sure which of the explosions that was.

Steve

So they do some like, target practice with these little like drone type things that shoot out from the ship itself to do targets. Oh, okay.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And then they're heading to the frontier as Greg is explaining the situation to Alex. Finally, it's like, yep, there's nobody left. We're it. You know, we got to do this ourselves. And. And Alex's like, how are we gonna do that? He's like, well, you know, we're just gonna do our best. You know, there's gonna be waves of fighters and then we're gonna need to get to the capital ship, you know, the command ship, and take it down. And he's like, well, how many fighters are there? It doesn't even matter how many. The thing is, if they can all. There's this turret. They keep calling it a turret, but it's more like an antenna because it's a communications thing on the command ship. That's what worries me. If we don't take that out, all of the fighter ships can work in unison. They can all kind of work together. And that makes them that much harder to defeat. Right. They'll be able to like, you know, really easily surround us. So we need to take that out and knocks like, well, how do we go through the ships to get to the turret without. We got to take the turret down to get through the ships. Like, this is a, you know, we're lost here. And Craig goes, ah, that's right. I'll figure it out. By the time we get to the frontier and immediately an alarm starts sounding and Alex like, what's that? That's the frontier. So they're there already. And there is a single ship that he refers to as a Zurian ship, which I think means this is a Rylon. So again, the John Lithgow headed freaks, but who follow Zur.

Nic

Okay, right.

Steve

I think that's it is these are like the separatists or whatever. Like these are like, you know, the rebels or whatever. We're following the bad guy because they're not the Codan ships, which do look different.

Nic

They're the John Walker Lynns of the zur.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. This is. This is the Ryloan Taliban. I can't do it anyway, so they have to like, you know, basically they have to destroy it before it can report back, you know, and tell everybody where they are. They chase it into like an asteroid, you know, some caves or whatever. And Alex is pissed. He ends up shooting it and destroying it. But he's mad. He didn't like want to kill anybody. Like, I don't know that he cares about the life of this alien, but he didn't like being put in the situation where now he's, he's. He could die or he has to kill someone or whatever and it sucks. And Greg is like, okay, well let's just go home. And basically he's like saying, I'll fly you back to Earth in this thing and whatever, we'll give up up. And it's sort of just a peek into sort of the, the dilemma Alex has to deal with, I guess in a lot of ways.

Nic

But back home his friends are having a gay old time with Beta. With Beta, his clone. And he's sitting in the back of the truck just with a weird ass look on his face, just staring into nothing. And. And then I think, I don't know if somebody implores him or asks like, are you having a good time?

Steve

Yeah, Maggie. Maggie's like, you know, what's going on? Are you not having a good time? It's like, what should I be doing?

Nic

And in a very like, you know, Mitt Romney hot dog is my favorite meat meat type moment, he's just like, ahaha.

Steve

Just the most unhinged laugh. Oh. Because she says, oh, you know, you should be kicking back, having a good time, maybe laughing. And it's like that, you know, clicks from. He goes, oh. Laughing like, yeah. As if, like I've studied this much, like I understand this much about humans. So I'm gonna go ahead and just be like.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And it's just the most ridiculous thing.

Nic

I know now why you laugh?

Steve

It's like, oh my God, so crazy. It's very third rock from the sun.

Nic

Speaking of lithgow.

Steve

That's right. There you go. Yeah.

Nic

And then and. And Griggs and Alex are kind of. There's like a kind of a tender moment between the two of them talking about like, why. Oh yeah, why we're doing this.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And they're explaining about their families back home. And Griggs is kind of funny. Pulls out, you know, the first ever digital picture frame to show the photos, which is just basically his face like superimposed on like a woman dressed like a human Earth woman's body swear like.

Steve

A fur coat or something.

Nic

And his kid, and I think he mentioned some absurd amount of 6,000, 6,000 offspring or something, so times $5,000 each. That's a good. So, yeah, I thought that was kind of funny. Just to show, like, this is. This is what I'm doing instead of the guy taking out the wallet.

Steve

Yeah, right down. Plus, we got to humanize the iguana, man. You know, we got to make this matter, you know, to Alex or whatever. So, basically, so now I think. I think this one, we jump back to. To Alex in the. In. In space. And he's agreed, yeah, let's stick it out. Let's do this. Because then what has happened is the. The Codan have gotten a big enough hole in the frontier. They're now able to take their command ship through, and they're actually able to enter Star League space. And they say they tell the fighter squadrons, you move forward with. With, I think, energy probes on, is what they say. And so Greg realizes that this is what's happening, goes, we got to power everything down. Power everything down. Very, very, very submarine sort of style, right? You shut everything down, you kind of become invisible because they're still hidden in this cave in this asteroid. And so we see the. The Codan ships going over, and then the command ships are going over, and Alex goes, you know, if. If we let them pass over us, we could attack that turret from behind and take them by surprise. And Greg is like, oh, that's. That would be a great idea, too, but there's no Starfighters left, you know, to do that. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, think, pal. So he agrees to, like, stick around. Okay, let's do this. And sure enough, it actually seems like the easiest battle maybe ever in the history of science fiction. Like, they fly out of the asteroid. They fly past a bunch of, like, you know, turrets shooting at them. They blow up this one, they call it again, a turret, but more like a communications array of some kind. And they fire a couple more shots at the command ship, and it's done. There is a great line where the two codan sort of guys running the ship, the captain, whatever, you know, is like, give me a status update. Oh, you know, like this down that town. Oh, no. Like, there's. Oh, sir, it's all destroyed. What do we do? And his little. Like, he's got this little visor over one eye, like a little monocle, and it clips down. He goes, we die. It's just like. I don't know if that was trying to be a Tears in the Rain Blade Runner kind of moment. Like that. Serious. But Rutger Hauer pulled it off much better, so.

Nic

And back home, at the same time, the alien assassin. The second one now the second alien assassin. So I think the truck full of fun having teenagers drives by the speed trap.

Steve

Oh, that's right, right.

Nic

And then the alien basically T2 style takes the identity of this police officer. Not a Power we knew, I and I. And I don't know if the alien has kind of a human face and then just put the cops clothes on or if they can just shapeshift into the exact question. So then, you know, they're going after. They're going after Beta. Beta ends up getting shot.

Steve

Well, he ends up like admitting to Mags that he's not really.

Nic

Oh, right, right, right.

Steve

And it's. And it's. So then the alien hears this and has ended when shoots of them, but like starts running away because he's going to go. He has to report back to Zur that like, hey, like, like the. The last star fighter is up there fighting with you. But the Beta and Mags get into their buddy Blake's red pickup and chase off after, you know, the alien assassin, the Xand. Basically he gets to his little Moonlander ship and starts sending a message back. And they are driving towards him and he can. Beta convinces Maggie to jump out of the truck and he drives it and rams into it. And so the message that gets sent back to Zur and the codan are the last Starfighter is. And that's it. And so now the code in guys who are actual, you know, appear to be actual, like military type folks are going like, oh boy, this is not good. What. What could he have been sending us that then got cut off? This seems like a bad thing. To which Zur is like, no, no, he literally was obviously going to tell us that he's dead. Obviously the last Starfighter is dead. Let's keep going. It's like that's a pretty confident, incorrect assessment of the situation.

Nic

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

But that ends the life of Beta. Now the Beta person on Alex's doppelganger, right? He's dead. He's died in this heroic moment of trying to keep the Xander Zan from reporting back to Zor. Can't believe I'm saying all these words, by the way.

Nic

There's a lot, a lot of X sounds here. And Zor is arrested by the. The codan. Like they. Yeah, they are done with his right.

Steve

Because once, Once the last. Once Alex and Greg start attacking the guns are. Starts attacking. They destroy the communications array and clearly the code and know they're under attack. They realize Zor was like, he was wrong. About it. He's not helping them. He's screwing it up. Like, he just needs to go. So they rip the scepter away from him, take him to jail, and then as the ship gets attacked, it's like the classic thing where, oh, we're leading this prisoner down a hallway, but now they're. The whole place gets rocked and we fall down, but the prisoner is able to, like, escape. And he gets into. Basically jumps into an escape pod and flies off. We don't see from him again. I'm sure they were trying to set up a sequel that. That was never coming based on the box office, but they were trying to set that up. So Zur has escaped the Codan command ship before it gets destroyed.

Nic

And the move. They kind of preview it. They say this ability of the Starf fighter ship that they have is the Death Blossom.

Steve

Yeah, it's like a unique thing which.

Nic

You have to be at a close range for it to work. And it's kind of. It uses up all your power. I don't know if they say that up front, but afterwards they're like that. That.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Depleted all of our.

Steve

Yeah. So basically they. So basically what happened? They destroy the communications array. They're attacking the ship, but they go and they want to attack the fighters, and that's when they're going to use Death Blossom, which basically allows for the whole ship to like, spin, you know, like a gyroscope in like every direction, shooting these missiles basically everywhere. And it does. It works. They destroy all the ships, but then, yeah, they're out of power and they're basically floating in space, whatever. And the code in command ship, which is still, you know, extant, it's still there. They decided to go ramming speed. And we're going to ram into the gunsar, which, like. Like, if you know much about inertia and space or I'm not really sure how good. What. What good ramming would necessarily do at that point, but, you know, whatever. They're going to try it. And I love this part too, because they're looking at. Greg is trying to get the power back on, and he's got a little tiny, like, circuit board that he appears to have, like, pulled out of the unit in front of him. And he says something about needing a ram boost. And like, I thought it was funny because, like, you know, ram is a thing and like computers, but also they're about to be rammed by the bigger ship. I'm not sure what were trying to reference here, but it basically something. But he ends up plugging something in the little circuit board lights up and they get their power back and they're able to, to fly away. And that's actually when, when the command ship is destroyed. Is that it? It, it gets sucked into this nearby moon, right. And the gravity pole and it go. And that's what, that's the whole, you know, like what do we do? We die because they crash into this moon. And so, yeah, that's, that's the end of the Codan command ship, as far as we can tell.

Nic

And, and it looks like, yeah, so Alex has, has saved the day and of course they want him to stick around. The remaining, you know, Starfighter type allies.

Steve

Up there, they wanted to rebuild the Starfighter Legion. Basically, like you're going to be the new, you know, General Patton. Basically you're going to help us build this all back up and again, Zor escape. So there's, there's likely to be additional fighting to happen.

Nic

You know, we need you. And then at this point, I think the filmmaker said we need to add like 10 minutes to this movie.

Steve

For what?

Nic

For no reason.

Steve

Yeah, it really is a long sequence. But so what happens then is, right. Alex and Grig return to the trailer park in the Gunstar. They land the ship. At first it looks like they land on the ceiling on the roof of that coffee shop. Like the way the angles were, I'm like, well that's going to just destroy that. But no, they're just next to it. They're, they're landed on the ground. But the whole, you know, trailer park community is coming to see what's going on because there's this spaceship that's landed and the one I love is Granny Mags. Maggie's grandmother, who we just know is Granny, has got a double barrel shotgun. She's just ready to blow away some, you know, reminds me of the in Back to the Future, you know, my pie. And you know, the guy who like goes after, he thinks Marty McFly is an alien. But yeah, so she's got this Looney Tunes double barrel shotgun that she's walking around with. And, and you know, Alex is there to try to convince Maggie to come with him.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, what do you have to live for here? You live at a trailer park with your grandmother. Yeah.

Nic

I mean, this movie is very anti community.

Steve

Right.

Nic

It's trying to get people to be like, hey, I know where you live is not perfectly ideal right now, other than being, you know, full of all the people that you love and have known your whole life. So why don't you come up to the space where everything looks shitty and spend your life with me.

Steve

A couple things about the scene. One, does Greg speak English? Because not everybody else is wearing that little lapel pin. And that was the thing. I was like, we got to come back to that. Because nobody else is wearing the lapel pin, but they're all speaking to Greg and he's speaking to them now. It did seem maybe at times it was slightly broken English, so maybe he was like learning it on the way to Earth or something. I don't know. It was very strange that everybody could communicate with this iguana man alien.

Nic

But he's a different race than the lithgow headed people.

Steve

That's true.

Nic

So maybe he's just one of those like international space travelers who knows 17 different languages because he has to.

Steve

But I mean, I suppose, but even though the fact that, I mean, you think about it, even though he knew where, he knew about Earth because he's the one who told us, oh, Earth's not scheduled to join the Star League public. So he like, is aware of Earth. He would then also be aware of the number of languages spoken on Earth.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

If he had to pick one, it wouldn't be English. Right. It would be Spanish or Mandarin speaking Earthling. Yeah, exactly right. Like, and then, and then what's Maggie gonna do? Is she gonna go get a job on Rylos? Like, what, is she just gonna be Alex's wife?

Nic

Life? There's no seat for her.

Steve

Well, apparently there is. They say there's. They say there's room for Greg and Alex. And one more, they do say specifically. I don't know where it is, but they specifically call out that there is room for her on the ship. But it's like, what do you, what life is that? That you're gonna go live on this alien planet?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Just because you like this boy. Like, this is like the worst version of like, I followed a guy here.

Nic

Right, Right.

Steve

Oh, man.

Nic

And you know, Alex ultimately is able to convince Maggie to join him.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Knowing that he's never gonna see her ever again. When he goes up to his mom, he says, bye, take it easy.

Steve

Which killed me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The mom character does seem to get a little short shrift there quite a bit. She's like, how Alex, what is going on? Barely explains anything to her. But you know, is, is, is just, she's just gotta trust that he's gonna be okay. Heading off to, to space.

Nic

Again, accurate teenager does not wanna give details to his mom.

Steve

That is true. That is True, but. But willing to do literally anything for the girl that. That, you know, she lets him touch her boobs or whatever. Right.

Nic

Yeah, exactly. The girl, early in the movie, it did not seem like that serious of a relationship.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Which is why he was like, yeah, okay, I guess I'll go in the space DeLorean.

Steve

It is a little funky to understand. And, yeah. Him and Maggie's relationship. And, And. And because the way when, you know, when she thinks the beta unit obviously is Alex and they're at the lake together and they're sort of snuggling and they're, you know, they're even covered up completely in these sleeping bags. It's like. Are they banging? Like what? Like, this is obviously. They're obviously very close. But then it was kind of tough to. To really pinpoint just how Maggie and Alex felt for each other until the end, where they're clearly making it clear they are obviously in love or she wouldn't considering going with him, you know, but it. I don't know that that was necessarily set up appropriately through the whole film.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, Maggie goes with Alex and now they're in space awaiting the sequel.

Steve

That will never come.

Nic

That will never come. And that was the end. You know, we didn't get the wedding sequence epilogue. We just dragged this ending out for 20 minutes. And really they did.

Steve

They took too long back at the trailer park. There really should have been a much faster thing if they needed to end it that way.

Nic

And it would be one thing if the movie was 92 minutes. Minutes long. But I think the movie ended up being like 100 minutes. 102.

Steve

About 100.

Nic

Okay. You could have cut. I think you could trim to 90 for something like that. I understand the incentive to push it over 90, but. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So that. That is the.

Steve

That is the Last Starfighter.

Nic

Last Starfighter.

Steve

And. Yeah. So time for some final thoughts on the Last Starfighter. And I think it only fitting, as the person who saw it for the first time yesterday, I believe. Yeah, go ahead. And Nic, what'd you think?

Nic

Yeah, so. So about this era of movies. I just want to give a little background because I think it might help the listeners as well. When I was a kid, we did not have a vcr. We did not have any movie channels until probably until I was, I don't know, 15 to like mid-90s, early 90s. And what we would do is if we were going to rent a movie, we'd have to rent a vcr and the movie. So we did it very rare because it was expensive to do that. And really the only things I ever watched were Three Amigos, Strange Brew and the Blues Brothers. Those are the only movies that my dad choices. So I missed out a lot of this stuff, which I might have loved this, like a lot of sci fi stuff, especially because I only ever saw the original three Star Wars. I never saw like any Star Trek. I know a lot of things that have come up in conversation I've never seen. I'm not against it, but it just was not a part of my childhood. Right. So for me, coming in as a mid-40s person in 2025, watching this for the first time, this was rough. This was a very, very rough watch for me. This was a fun conversation and I think, you know, the plot points and everything, it makes sense. But I didn't. I. The way I put it is I don't think this movie had anything for me. I'm not nostalgic about it. So that's out. Yeah, the characters, none of the characters really did it for me. We didn't have the fun of recognizing the actors from this movie. In other movies, which we talked about a little off the pod, which is always great with some of these other ones to be like, oh, that's the guy from this. That's the guy from this. This one. They were like, you're all fucking fired.

Steve

This is.

Nic

You're the 1918 Chicago White Sox. You're not allowed to make a movie.

Steve

It's a career ender.

Nic

The effects, it was tough. I see what they were doing. But there also was not a lot of action per se. It was a lot of shots of the guy sitting in his seat. So I don't know. This movie just did not do it for me. I like the makeup effects. I think that's a positive of it. Didn't have enough really funny dialogue. It was serious, but then not good enough to justify that in my mind. And this is my lowest score so far. I'm giving this a one and a half.

Steve

Okay, that's. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. So for. For me, like, I don't think you made any, you know, comments or accusations, whatever against film that aren't warranted. I really think that that's all makes a lot of sense. But I'll tell you, like in a purely like nostalgia fueled haze, like, this is still one of my favorite movies. I watched it yesterday and it had been at least five, maybe even closer to 10 years since I'd seen it all the way through. And if it weren't for the totally terrifying aliens in many of the scenes, this is something I'd be showing my son right about now. But I'm gonna wait a few more years because there are some really quite kind of scary, probably three or four.

Nic

Visuals that are very, like, legitimately upsetting.

Steve

It wasn't until the guy was getting the. The microwaved brain screaming, whatever that went. I really can't. That this is too far. That's the part where I was like, I'm not gonna show this to my son just yet, but I will at some point and. And we'll see, you know, how. How he takes it. But yeah, for me, this is such a nostalgia fest. I loved this movie as a kid. I still really enjoyed it. It's a four out of five for me, but I totally. Massive asterisk on that that if you don't have nostalgia for this movie, you're going to need to listen to Nic's version of this because it really is more probably accurate for the average person, but. But again, for me, for the nostalgia factor, I'm giving it a four. That makes our collective score five and a half, which is definitely one of the lowest we've done. And maybe Pacific Heights was about there, but it's like right around there and it's probably accurate. You know, that would make it rotten if we were Rotten Tomatoes. And that's. And that's appropriate, but, you know, so, yeah, five and a half overall for the Last Starfighter. So that was my pick. And Nic, it's your turn to tell us what we're going to watch next.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. So I was looking back at the movies I picked, and I picked a lot of kind of thriller action type movies, so I want to get out of that genre a bit. And I've also been way 90s and not 80s enough, you know, which we've talked about kind of mixing it up a little bit. So from my pick, I think it's one that you would be familiar with, I think our listeners would be familiar with and really like something I definitely consider to be a classic and I could watch multiple times. Very great concept, good acting, you know, good settings and everything. 1988, we're gonna hang out with Eddie Murphy, Arsenio hall and James Earl Jones and we're gonna watch a little Coming to America.

Steve

Oh, that's awesome. Such a wonderful movie. Cannot wait to watch that and talk about that with you. Yeah, that's a movie. That's one I've seen numerous times. It's an absolute classic. You too. Like, I mean this is absolutely. That movie is so great. Cool. Love it. Yeah. Coming to America. Wonderful. And of course we're talking about coming to America, not coming to the number two America, not the sequel, the original.

Nic

Once again, this podcast does not recognize certain sequels. That never happens.

Steve

Right? Exactly. Okay. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening. If you, you know, want to go on Spotify, you want to go on Apple podcasts, give us a rating, a five star rating, that'd be fantastic. It helps people find the show. You can also send us an email at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number one. This has been the last starfighter. Next week will be back. Back to talk about coming to America. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you all so much for listening.

Nic

Thanks everyone. Take care.