Dark Star

Great humour throughout the movie. Must be the best low-budget sci-fi I've ever seen. At some points it goes "deep" with the philosophical dialogues, and afterall you'll think about this movie in all-philosophical way.
I didn't expect much (as Carpenter's first movie), but after the first 5-10 minutes it started to work well.

This movie is a bit goofy due to the extreme low budget but they stretch that money and do some really cool practical effects. Also, it's a lot funnier than I expected. Like genuine laughs, not laughing at it, but with it. And almost every single laugh came compliments of my boy Dan O'Bannon. Not only did he write Alien and direct one of my fave of all time, Return of the Living Dead, turns out he's a pretty good comedic actor. The scene with him and the alien was pure bugs bunny style genius. And the scene where he does his personal diary entry is laugh out loud funny. So good!

Philosopher hippies in space with severe pacing problems...

Yet...I always end up being charmed somewhat by the end. Which, I suppose, is why I end up rewatching this from time to time...Even though I always end up wondering why ten minutes in, but then... etc. etc.

Weird film, weird that I somewhat like it, and very weird that I have seen it as many times as I have.

Carpenters music is really the only stand out in this film.

I guess I just don't get it. Also I hate the 70s look on those dudes.

3 inflatable ball aliens out of All of Benson, Arizona

Proof that vacuums don't exist only in space.

what a snooze fest! Carpenter's not always good at what he does, so you can imagine what he was like wsa a greenhorn

I don’t have much to say about this one, I didn’t get it and it wasn’t for me.

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 a success.

Dark Star's influences and offspring are much more interesting than the film itself. Inspired by, if not directly pulling from, classic short stories by the likes of Bradbury, Asimov and Dick, 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 shit 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 Dick 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?