Disc Reviews

The Last Starfighter 4K Review

• 2nd Jul 2024

Trailer Park teen, Alex Rogen, plays a local game (on one of those big old game consoles kids used to play on in Arcades!) and wins the highest score. He then gets picked by a talent scout from the farthest regions of space to fight an important war going on as part of an elite Starfighter team.  That’s your main premise. You get the excitement of said kid (who looks 25) going up into the clouds for his big adventure in the stars, but you also get a nice bit of comedy schtick back home where he has been replaced by a clone to stand in for him in his absence. The locals and Alex’s girlfriend find themselves with a version that isn’t quite acting himself.  And so comedy ensues.

The film is, of course, absurdly dated now. To release this film upon a new audience today would be laughable – even if they replaced the old effects with new material.  No, instead The Last Starfighter is that buried time capsule from the 80s that only people of that generation could fully appreciate and it’s that audience that is going to love this release – even if they were not a massive fan of it back in the day.

This is the stuff of 4K collector’s dreams.  A great outside package and a packed-to-the-brim inside package as well.  Commentaries, interviews, retrospectives, and featurettes on the FX work. It’s all here and for fans of the film, it’s all glorious too! The 4K job looks great and even makes the old FX work look, well, watchable.  There is a level of detail going on here that perhaps DVD might not have been able to appreciate

Lead Actor Lance Guests gets to head up the main commentary with his son as a guest. You can tell it’s fairly recent as they refer to the fact that they are stuck indoors due to a certain epidemic at the time.

The interviews are nicely balanced across cast members, the writer, FX artists and the composer so you get a nice flavour of various aspects of the film, the joy that went into it and the deep appreciation for the audience that has carried it down the years.

We can only hope that Arrow has plenty more of this ilk to come our way before the films and the filmmakers get too old!

Steven Hurst

Full Content:

4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• Brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films from the original camera negative
• 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible)
• Uncompressed 2.0 stereo, 5.1 DTS-HD MA and 4.1 audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary with star Lance Guest and his son Jackson Guest
• Audio commentary with Mike White of The Projection Booth podcast
• Maggie’s Memories: Revisiting The Last Starfighter – interview with actor Catherine Mary Stewart
• Into the Starscape: Composing The Last Starfighter – interview with composer Craig Safan
• Incredible Odds: Writing The Last Starfighter – interview with screenwriter Jonathan Betuel
• Interstellar Hit-Beast: Creating the Special Effects – interview with special effects supervisor Kevin Pike
• Excalibur Test: Inside Digital Productions – interview with sci-fi author Greg Bear on Digital Productions, the company responsible for the CGI in The Last Starfighter
• Greetings Starfighter! Inside the Arcade Game – an interview with arcade game collector Estil Vance on reconstructing the Starfighter game
• Theatrical and teaser trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matt Ferguson
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring writing by Amanda Reyes and sci-fi author Greg Bear’s Omni magazine article on Digital Productions, the company responsible for the CGI in The Last Starfighter
• Limited Edition slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Matt Ferguson

The Last Starfighter is out on 15^th July