It’s pretty clear in today’s movie climate that Hollywood has found a fat, juicy cash cow in the remake/reboot/rebake business. Audiences, young and old, seem to crave seeing the same thing all over but slathered in CG. Over the course of the last ten years, we’ve seen more reboots than in the 30 years prior. Hollywood is high on nostalgia and yet has ignored one reboot that’s a perfect match for today’s cinema — The Last Starfighter. I know Seth Rogan is doing a TV comedy that’s heavily inspired by Starfighter. Original writer Jonathan R. Betuel is also busy re-imagining the show with virtual reality “scenes” (a cool concept that I wait to see). But those are just all wrong. Think bigger. We’re in the age of cinematic universes.
There is only one creative trio who should be allowed to reboot The Last Starfighter — Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, and Edgar Wright.
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If you don’t know, The Last Starfighter then consider yourself a heretic. It’s every fan-boy/girl’s duty to go back in time and look at all the weird, quirky stuff that lead to all the shiny, polished reboots we know and love today. Along that Dr. Who-esque voyage, you will come across this 1984 sci-fi, comedy gem. Starfighter is the story of (old-school arcade machine) gamer Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) who, as it turns out, has been playing a game that’s training him for interstellar war. It’s a little Ender’s Game, a little Star Wars, and a whole lot of fun. Director (and original Michael Myers) Nick Castle (Major Payne, The Seat Filler) also featured some of the earliest CG work in film.
The Last Starfighter offers Hollywood a chance at rebooting something without super-heavy source material. It’s a movie about a video game, making multi-media product tie-ins easy and organic. Sci-fi is hot. Reboots are hot. Cast Frost as the neck-beard gamer, Pegg as Centauri, the mentor, and let Wright go nuts with his kinetic style of filmmaking. Trilogy. Spinoffs. Cinematic AND gaming universe. Boom. Fingers will be cramping from counting all the cash.
You’re welcome, Hollywood. And when you’re done, please stop with all the reboots already.
