SummaryIn the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.
Directed By:John Carpenter
Written By:John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon
Dark Star
Metascore
Generally Favorable
66
User score
Mixed or Average
5.7
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
70% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
30% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
In essence, Dark Star has what all great comedy has: a sense of desperation and pathos allied to an abiding humanity which elevates it high above the realm of mere spoof.
80
It's a smart, cynical look at space travel, treating it as a blue-collar job and not a divine calling as Kubrick and others would have you believe.
User score
Mixed or Average
32% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
50% Mixed
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
18% Negative
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
Jul 6, 2022
6
Dark Star is John Carpenter's debut film. This is a comedy Sci-Fi film from the 70s made on a very tight budget. This film can only be recommended to fans of John Carpenter. Dark Star is such a cheap parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But a hilarious parody. I liked the film, such films are now lacking in modern cinema
Sep 21, 2024
3
The dense, confused tale of four exhausted, fatally stir-crazy astronauts in the midst of a twenty-plus-year mission to clear the universe of unfriendly alien planets. Long and windy, I couldn't decide if this was intended to be a dark comedy (as many of the promotional materials imply) or a more serious effort. In either case, I can’t say it’s successful. Dark Star's influences and offspring are much more interesting than the film itself. Inspired by, if not directly adapting, classic short stories by the likes of Bradbury, Asimov and ****, it also led to several creative hallmarks of the genre. Director/producer/writer/soundtrack musician(!) John Carpenter, of course, should need no introduction. His co-writer, not to mention one of the film's stars, Dan O'Bannon, would go on to pen the sci-fi classics Alien and Total Recall. At this point in both men's careers, however, they were still throwing **** at the wall and standing back to see how much stuck. Experimental and cheeky, Dark Star is tonally inconsistent and poorly edited, running for about thirty minutes longer than was really necessary. The effects work is painfully dated, somehow worse than the old Star Trek TV episodes of half a decade prior, and is not helped by the camera's tendency to adoringly linger well past the point of good reason. The resident alien (literally a spray-painted beach ball with chicken feet) and absurdly contrived parting shot (think Dr. Strangelove meets **** Dale) are particularly bad, yet also somehow more memorable for their ineptitude. I can't say I'm glad I watched this, but it keeps bubbling to the surface of my consciousness. Maybe there's something telling about that?
75
The special effects vacillate between defiantly shitty and endearingly resourceful, and Carpenter and O’Bannon's sense of humor covers a similarly narrow ground between Loony Tunes goofiness and dorm-room stoned.
70
Carpenter creates a vision of the technological future that is both disillusioned and oddly affirmative in its insistence on the unscientific survival of emotional frailty.
70
Dark Star has a stoner sardonicism: The movie feels like the product of long nights at the dorm passing around The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics and Arthur C. Clarke paperbacks.
50
There are some funny routines here, though Mr. Carpenter doesn't seem to have cared much about integrating or sustaining them. Mr. Carpenter makes his amateurishness unmistakable, especially when it comes to the film's four actors. Only one of them can act even crudely (fortunately, his is the largest role). The other three, neither photogenic nor particularly extroverted, look like well-meaning fraternity brothers helping out a pal with his class project.
40
Dark Star is a limp parody of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that warrants attention only for some remarkably believable special effects achieved with very little money. The dim comedy consists of sophomoric notations and mistimed one-liners.
Mar 21, 2022
0
Une bien étrange « curiosité » que cette « étoile noire » dans la carrière de John Carpenter, faiseur émérite bien connu de nanars plus ou moins frais ou faisandés (ou bien parfois brillants !). C’est une sorte de comédie spatiale bricolée avec les moyens du bord qui nous fait suivre les avanies de trois clampins dans un vaisseau sous Prozac (qui parle) ainsi que de bombes capricieuses (qui parlent aussi)… Le film date de 1974, alors il convient d’être indulgent avec les « effets spéciaux » (entre grosses guillemets de rigueur) mais tout de même, quelle horreur…! Ce n’est pas le pire cependant, car le pire consiste à se fader le film en entier (un exercice de masochiste impossible), lequel demeure un festival d’humour demeuré qui ne fera rire que les plus **** d’entre nous (à savoir Rain Man, Forrest Gump et Vincent Lagaf’). La télécommande nous permet donc de raccourcir sensiblement cette débilité qui s’étire sur plus d’une heure et demi… nous constatons de loin en loin l’étendue des dégâts de cette hystéro-bouffonnerie et a fortiori de cette bouffonnerie hystérique qui s’est prise pour un film de science-fiction… mais ça c’était de la fiction à nette tendance mongolo-golio-mongolienne !
Aug 29, 2019
0
I couldn't get into the sci-fi comedy approach of this student made film by future Horror/Sci-fi filmmaker John carpenter
Production Company:
- Jack H. Harris Enterprises
- University of Southern California (USC)
Release Date:Apr 1, 1974
Duration:1 h 23 m
Rating:G
Tagline:What Do You Say To A Talking Bomb? All Systems Snafu!!!
Awards
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
• 1 Nomination
Hugo Awards
• 1 Nomination
