THE GUNSTAR from ‘The Last Starfighter’ (1984) Directed by Nick Castle

In 1984 the feature film ‘The Last Starfighter’ was made and used computer graphics - still in its infancy - to create all of the spaceships and outer space scenes. These ground breaking images were created by Digital Productions under the direction of John Whitney Jr and Gary Demos.

The story of the film is that a teenager from Earth - Alex Rogan - who scores the record breaking ‘high score’ on the Last Starfighter arcade game is recruited by the alien Centauri and taken to the planet Rylos where he is enlisted to help the very real war that is simulated in the video-game. The Arcarde game is a actually more than an arcade game: it is a test to help find wortrhy starfighter crew members.

The film has a certain down to earth charm, notably from Alex (Lance Guest) and his new alien friend Centauri (Robert Preston) and co-pilot Grig (Dan O’Herlihy). The ambitious digital visual effects although not entirely successful do work in the regard that it is all sort the inspiration for the video game. but the film does not play it that way and the space shots are presented as reality. And they don’t hold up against models and motion control techniques perfected in the likes of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’.

The Gunstar, designed by Ron Cobb, is a real treat. It embraces the idea of zero gravity and outer space and the animation takes every opportunity to put the ship into barrel rolls and dynamic situations. The cockpit seems to operate much like a B-17 Ball Turrent allowing Alex to shoot at the aliens from multiple angles.

It’s a cool ship and like ‘Tron’ it would have been fun to have a plastic model kit of something that only existed within the computer. A kit in 1/24th would I think be about 10 - 11" long. And would come with figures of Alex and Grig and have moving parts.

I have tried to paint the ship honouring the way it looked it in the film, but with more natural lighting and shadows

You can see more about this kit in ‘What If Fantasy Model Kits #22 on my YouTube channel.