A few months ago, the Letterboxd community was excited about the arrival of John Carpenter, the latest high-profile filmmaker to get an account after Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann, and Francis Ford Coppola. While the others mostly confined their activity to list-making, Carpenter posted reviews of all of his films, and commented on other user reviews. He wrote about projects he produced, or was offered and didn\u2019t make, and even weighed in on a few current releases. As entertaining as it was to follow along, the nagging feeling it was too good to be true was confirmed when the real Carpenter (who turned 77 yesterday) posted on his own social media, \u201cWhat the hell is a Letterboxd!??\u201d<\/a> In short order, the imposter account was taken down and its reviews vanished, save for the ones enterprising souls had taken screenshots of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One that seemed especially out of character was the half-star dismissal of Dark Star<\/em>, Carpenter\u2019s debut feature, which his impersonator called \u201cEmbarrising\u201d [sic], adding, \u201cI had not a single clue what I was doing.\u201d While Carpenter is on record \u2013 most comprehensively in Gilles Boulenger\u2019s interview book John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness<\/em> \u2013 about what he considers its shortcomings, Dark Star<\/em> got his foot in the door, even if Hollywood wasn\u2019t beating his down when it was released with little fanfare and played to mostly empty theaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dark Star<\/em>\u2019s four-year journey to those screens started at the University of Southern California, where, as an undergrad in the film school, Carpenter helped make the Academy Award-winning short The Resurrection of Broncho Billy<\/em>, which he co-wrote, edited, and composed the music for. Embarking on his own project, which he described as \u201ctruck drivers in space\u201d to fellow student Brian Narelle, who was tapped to play Lt. Doolittle, Carpenter hooked up with Dan O\u2019Bannon, who was a useful sounding board and boundless idea man. In the end, they shared credit for the story and screenplay, with Carpenter taking the reins as director, producer, and composer, and O\u2019Bannon handling the editing, production design, and special effects supervision, in addition to acting. This division of labor eventually caused a rift between them, but a team effort was required to see it through to completion (filming at USC\u2019s makeshift studio lasted from 1970 to 1972) and get it seen by the right person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That person was Jack H. Harris, best known as the producer of The Blob<\/em>, who was interested in a space picture and saw potential in Carpenter and O\u2019Bannon\u2019s 2001<\/em>-inspired saga of four astronauts tasked with nuking unstable planets out of existence. When we meet the shaggy-headed crew, they\u2019re 20 years into their mission, and their grip on reality has deteriorated along with their ship\u2019s functionality. (The death of their captain, who\u2019s kept in cryogenic stasis so he can be consulted in emergency situations, didn\u2019t help matters.) Their bombing runs are also highly reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove<\/em>, especially when the chatty Bomb #20 fails to deploy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Harris had done when he picked up Dennis Muren\u2019s 1967 fantasy The Equinox \u2026 A Journey Into the Supernatural<\/em> (released as Equinox<\/em> in 1970), he insisted on major cuts and financed reshoots to bring Dark Star<\/em> up to feature length. Carpenter and O\u2019Bannon complied, making the latter\u2019s character Sgt. Pinback the focus of many of the new sequences. One of these is Pinback\u2019s attempt to feed an alien he brought on board which turns into a pitched battle that puts his life in danger. In many ways, this sequence \u2013 along with the ship\u2019s female-voiced computer and \u201cused future\u201d aesthetic \u2013 is a dry run for O\u2019Bannon\u2019s script for Alien<\/em>, only here the creature is a beach ball with claws, which doesn\u2019t take anything away from its ability to menace the hapless Pinback. (The physical comedy and low-budget ingenuity on display in this sequence also makes it something of a precursor to Hundreds of Beavers<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another add-on is the asteroid storm that\u2019s the cause of Bomb #20\u2019s malfunction, something left ambiguous in the shorter (and superior) 70-minute cut, which has a sense of inevitability to it to match the crew\u2019s weariness. (When Doolittle petulantly orders a strike on the next planet they find, he seals all their fates.) That version screened at Filmex in 1974 (where it was voted fifth best film), but when Dark Star<\/em> premiered in Los Angeles the following January (by which time the mafia-run Bryanston Pictures had taken over distribution from Harris), the running time had been extended by twelve minutes, resulting in unnecessary repetition and narrative wheel-spinning. Both cuts reach the same destination, but the journey is better when it\u2019s more direct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Summing up the experience, O\u2019Bannon said, \u201cWe had what would have been the world\u2019s most impressive student film, and it became the world\u2019s least impressive professional film.\u201d Even so, it got the notice of another USC alum named George Lucas, who hired O\u2019Bannon to do the computer displays for a little film called Star Wars<\/em>. And much like Lucas\u2019s storied tenure at the school inspired budding filmmakers to go there, the legend of how Carpenter and O\u2019Bannon turned their scrappy student film into a commercial feature and went on to careers in the industry did likewise. That\u2019s the kind of advertising money can\u2019t buy, and it remains Dark Star<\/em>\u2019s most enduring legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDark Star\u201d is streaming on a number of <\/em>platforms<\/em><\/a>. Fortunately, none are so far away that it takes years to receive a transmission from them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/dark-star1-1024x552.png\")
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