Heavenly Bodies

By JAY COCKS

DARK STAR Directed by JOHN CARPENTER Screenplay by JOHN CARPENTER and DANO'BANNON

Having been abroad in space for 20 years, the explorers aboard the ship Dark Star are off their respective nuts. They mutter to one another, yell at the talking computer, spend hours--even days--gazing out of the ship's bubble-top lookout post, swacked on the enormousness of the universe.

The mission of the Dark Star, in the middle of the next century, is to blaze the way for space colonists who will follow. The crew accomplishes this mostly by destroying dangerously "unstable" planets. These planets, which could block the way of space pioneers, are blasted by the ship's exponential thermostellar bombs, which are also programmed for speech. As they wait in the bomb bay for their one shot at glory, the bombs chatter brightly with the spacemen. The crew, well bored with one another by this time, talk more with the machines than among themselves. Their life of daily risk is done nearly by rote. They are bleak, melancholy, and running out of toilet paper.

Dark Star was made on the cheap by a couple of former U.S.C. film students. In addition to 2001, it was inspired by Silent Running and Destination Moon, films whose special effects are copied and whose plots are used for an uneasy synthesis. The film tries to be both a satire and a reasonably straightforward fantasy adventure, and does not really succeed at either. The script is too clumsy to be effective at mocking, and the movie's lunges at direct humor--like the dwindling supply of toilet paper--are jejune.

Still, everything is done with respect for the science-fiction genre, and the best action scenes are as confoundedly enthralling as sequences in old Saturday serials. The special effects--including a peppy but menacing space pet, and the incineration of a planet and assorted phenomena among the stars--are lovingly rendered and spectacular within the modest means available. The cast is recruited mostly from the ranks of nonprofessionals, and Co-Writer O'Bannon appears in a rather hefty supporting part. He also functioned as film editor and production designer, while Producer-Director Carpenter took time out to write the music. Dark Star has the clannish, jolly air of a family show even if, like all such undertakings, it needs to have much forgiven in the name of enterprise.

. Jay Cocks

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