Details

Release year: 1974

Storyline

In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.

Top credits

Directors

John Carpenter

Writers

Cast

Dan O'Bannon — Pinback
Dre Pahich — Talby
Brian Narelle — Lt. Doolittle
Cal Kuniholm — Boiler

See all 16 credits →

Did you know

• The double rows of large buttons on the bridge consoles are ice cube trays illuminated from beneath.

• The idea to deep-freeze the dead (Commander Powell) and be able to speak to their half-living souls through an electronic device is inspired by sci-fi short stories and novels by Philip K. Dick, in such works as "What the Dead Men Say" (1963) or "Ubik" (1969). The frost, the radio tuning and the clouded, feeble and fainting thoughts are exactly as described by Dick. Co-writer Dan O'Bannon would later adapt Dick's stories "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" and "Second Variety" as Total Recall (1990) and Screamers (1995) respectively.

• Co-writer Dan O'Bannon later reused the "alien mascot" section of the film as the basis of a script he called 'Star Beast'. Due to the low budget of "Dark Star," the 'alien' was clearly a beach ball that could only be played for comedy, but O'Bannon felt that with a proper budget, the premise of an alien creature stalking the crew of a spaceship could work as a genuinely tense movie. As luck would have it, directors Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ridley Scott had both seen and liked "Dark Star," and employed O'Bannon and designer Ron Cobb in projects that would finally lead to O'Bannon's screenplay being filmed as Alien (1979).