The Last Starfighter: 25th Anniversary - Blu Ray Review

"The Last Starfighter" has always been a stalwart of youth. I remember seeing it at a birthday party celebration back in 1984. It had a magical quality and still has it now. A couple months ago I was able to go to the 25th Anniversary cast and crew screening at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica with many of a principals in attendance. The theater was packed which shows the power still of the picture. It was there that director Nick Castle spoke that they were finishing up a remster of "Starfighter" for Blu Ray and also possibly prepping a possible sequel. This was this past April. Now as August comes to a close, the BR has finally arrived. While the commentary is an older one from 1999 when the DVD first came out, the transfer and sound mix has been completely redone. Universal has done a great job with this as the movie looks better than it ever has before. The key is also being, while they could have gone back and fixed the visual effects, they let it stand as it was (which was a technical achievement in its day). They simply made everything crisper and more rich. This by far is the best transfer on Blu Ray I have seen in a while in terms of a catalog film and shows what it is capable of. From this point you can see its transition to the 3D home format when that comes around.In terms of the film itself, it is one of those B movie classics that has charm, some romance and adventure within a type of Spielbergian world but with a slightly different approach using two fairly unknown actors and a great cast of supporting characters. Catherine Mary Stewart is perfect as Maggie and still today looks great. Lance Guest brought a distinctive American patriotic quality to Alex Rogan with an ability to bring the audience along. for the ride. Dan O'Herlihy as Grig along with Robert Preston as Centauri really ground the film with heart and humor. And Chris Hebert as the young Louis creates those pure moments of just camped-up humor.The commentary from 99 is alright but at many times doesn't go too much into the story structure and casting. It does talk at length about technical framing but doesn't explain it as much as it could have. The Q&A at the Aero was infinitely more in depth and it would have been great to have seen that on this release. Ron Cobb, the production designer, does bring up a point in the commentary that the landscapes were much more detailed in some of the original data but that it could not have been rendered in the time frame needed for release in 1984. It would be interesting to see some of that footage now but who knows in those days if you could even back up that kind of data. A lot of it simply might be lost. The simple themes of the picture are discussed as well as teases at a sequel. However a more current perspective would have been better.The new 2009 documentary "Heroes Of The Screen" is a great new featurette that was made for the Blu Ray. It has exactly what you want in this release which is heart and feeling. The best lines of all come from Catherine Mary Stewart because you get how much she likes this movie as an audience member...and she was in it. The footage of the Cray wire frames and Ron Cobb drawing the actual schematics of the Gunstar is great. This is one of the better BR documentaries which isn't too over the top but perfectly captures the work as well as the joy of making the movie which is what you always want to see."Crossing The Frontier: Making The Last Starfighter" is a documentary from 1999. Lance Guest hosts and looks much different than he does today. The aspects of how the technical is done goes much more in-depth than the new documentary which presupposes this initial material as inclusive which is really smart of the part of the creators of this Blu Ray. The inclusion of ILM people giving their perspective and even showing an X-wing vector test is really exceptional. The aspect of Jeff Okum also actually admitting (which he also did at the Aero) that he was wrong in terms of Digital Productions ompleting the picture on time is a role he has taken which some people of ego would have disclaimed. This point really triangulates the angle with which it took to make this film.The image galleries are quite in depth (more than I have seen before). The cast elements are interlaced with many behind-the-scenes shots while the arcade version of the "Starfighter" game is planned out to the last detail. The Star Car and the GunStar are seen from conceptual drawings to blue prints to digital models and actual parts of the ships. Some of the elements shown on the soundstages at MGM are quite interesting. Starfighter Command shows the aspects of a lot of friends and families coming in to work on the picture. This was a bit of a independent picture at inception and later ended up at Universal once it got going. The Ko-Dan Armada was meant to be seen almost like a devil race that was overtaking the Rylans which the elements shown permeate to. The alternate ending was the original ending first shot which director Nick Castle didn't think was big enough in scope (he was right). It is actually too reminiscent of the ending scene in the first "Star Wars". The eventual ending they put in looking over the planet is much better and, probably in the way they shot it, not much more expensive. "Anatomy Of A Computer Generated Image" is a nice layman's step-by-step construction of how in those days they created a CGI shot with the Cray Supercomputer which was the only device capable of doing this kind of work back then. "Promotion & Merchandise" in terms of images is most interesting when you see some of the action figures from Galoob which were not produced for whatever reason.The teaser and theatrical trailer show the progression from what was done to what became available. The first teaser was very light and almost didn't give a perception of the film while the actual trailer had some of the theme music and some of the visual elements that made the movie a good bet. The trailer today would get people into the theater. The main menus is also very slick and enables Universal's screensaver at times to conserve the player's power.This release of "The Last Starfighter " on Blu Ray is a near perfect disc in terms of its construction both in terms of technical, inclusions, exclusions and extras. Out of 5, I give it a 4.