Stabilizing Space For The Betterment Of Mankind!
Curiously flat and turgid, Dark Star (1974) is director John Carpenter’s student film, a meditation on the consequences of disconnecting from human communities and, therefore, meaningful human relationships. The Dark Star is a spaceship sent out by a United Earth, a scout loaded with planet-busting bombs in search of planets in unstable orbits. Why? Because a planet impacting its sun can trigger a supernova[1], and supernovae are existential threats to Earth[2].
In spastic, erratic style, we learn that mission leader Commander Powell was killed in an accident; Sgt Pinback is an impostor; Lieutenant Doolittle, now mission leader, is disaffected, distant, and longs for his surfboard; Boiler is a malicious non-entity; Talby’s caught up in the beauty of the Universe.
That’s the entire crew, and they’ve not been home in many years, even if the Einstein time dilation effect keeps them young. The occasional message from home doesn’t cut it.
The result of years of stultifying isolation comes out in relationships. They find themselves repeating stories to each other, ignoring the fact they’re being ignored by the others; not following up on incidents and emergencies, even the loss of their living quarters: they’re exhibiting the symptoms of classic depression.
But this extends to external relationships. They have an alien onboard, an apparent refugee from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978), but it’s relegated to the status of ship’s mascot, and the responsibility is Pinback’s for feeding and cleanup duty. When it escapes confinement, his anger escalates until he becomes blind to all danger, and the alien nearly kills him. But when he finally fires on it, it pops and deflates, a symbol of the fragility of the human mind, cut off from community.
But the ultimate symbol of isolation is still to come. The ship suffered damage to its communications system during an “asteroid storm,” but it’s not for messages to Earth. This system is used to talk to the planet-busting bombs they carry. The system twice mistakenly signals bomb #20 that it’s time to deploy, arm, and detonate. And what do you know? These bombs are sentient, artificially intelligent entities, whose sole purpose is to go BOOM!
But when bomb #20 is deployed for a third time, but cannot detach from the ship, it refuses to disarm. Doolittle rouses himself from his depression, consulting with Commander Powell for advice (let it not be said the dead have nothing to contribute!), and then assaulting the intellectual defenses of bomb #20 with Powell’s suggestion: phenomenology. That is, he asks #20 how he knows what he knows, and convinces it that it should meditate on this pivotal philosophical problem.
Unfortunately, the reprieve is short-lived. Bomb #20, itself a victim of a lack of community, follows what appears to be cold logic in an imperfect world and finds a reason to complete its purpose.
And all Doolittle can do now is try to catch a wave.
Full of bad special effects, stilted dialogue, dysfunctional characters in extended psychological crises, and blurry cinematography, I don’t know if it would help to fix all those components. The central theme is a difficult mess as it is; the flaws give the film a comedic element required to help the viewer survive the ghastly central question:
What is our real purpose in the Universe?
This may be a revered science fiction classic, but I don’t think it’s required viewing.
1 No, not really. Supernovae are triggered when enormous stars run out of fuel, collapse, and explode.
2 True, if it’s close enough to Earth. Don’t worry about it, there’s nothing we can do about it and it hasn’t happened yet.
