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The Film
 Dark
Star is perhaps most notable as being the first feature film to showcase
the talents of a group of people who have since achieved great success
with subsequent film projects. Its director, co-author and music composer,
John Carpenter, has become a widely respected director of several
box-office hits including "Halloween"
and "The Fog", for which he composed
the musical scores as well. He is also the author of the screenplay
for "The Eyes of Laura Mars", and
has most recently directed "Escape from New
York".
Co-author,
special effects supervisor and editor Dan O'Bannon, who also plays
a key character in the film, authored the story and the screenplay
for the film "Alien". He is most recently the co-author
of the film "Dead & Buried", and is writing a novel
titled "They Bite". Special effects consultant Ron Cobb,
designed the ship with O'Bannon, and created the schematics of the
ship seen on the computer screens. Cobb went on to become one of the
key designers for both "Close Encounters of
the Third Kind" and "Alien", and is currently production
designer for the forthcoming "Conan". Greg Jein built the
model for the ship during the same time he was working on "Flesh
Gordon", and has since designed ships and models for "Close
Encounters" and "1941". Special effects animation designer,
John Wash, created the computer screen readouts, asteroid storm, and
other animation effects, also created computer screens for "Star
Wars", "Escape from New York",
and a number of T.V. commercials, Station I.D.'s and film titles out
of his Motion Graphics firm. Collaborating with Wash was Bob Greenburg
who created the effects for hyperdrive, various explosions, the surfboard
sequence and 
the Phoenix Asteroids. He is currently designing effects for Mel Brooks'
film "The History of the World, Part 1", and has completed
a screenplay "Bloody Noses", which O'Bannon will direct.
Bill Taylor did all of the optical work, blowing the film up to 35
mm and compositing effects, as well as writing the lyrics for "Benson,
Arizona". He is now Albert Whitlock's cameraman at Universal.
Stop motion animator, Jim Danforth, painted the mattes for the background
shots during the period he was working with Greg Jein on "Flesh
Gordon". Camera operator, Doug Knapp has since been director
of photography on Carpenter's second feature "Assault
on Precinct 13", and camera operator on "Battlestar
Galactica", "Buck Rogers" and second camera on "Escape
From New York".
The filming of "Dark Star"
was begun in 1970 as a 16 mm, 45 minute U.S.C. Film School short-film project between
co-writers John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon. Filming continued spasmodically over the next
two years as finances flowed and ebbed until completion money was provided by Jack H.
Harris, who became the film's executive producer. The film's total budget was $60,000 by
completion in 1974, a miracle by today's inflated budget standards.
The Story
 The plot follows the misadventures of
the four man crew of the Dark Star. The ship has been in space for twenty years on a
mission to destroy "unstable planets" which might threaten future colonization.
Comedic disaster is the order of the day, as the tedium of their task has driven the crew
up the wall. Their Commander, Powell, has died and exists only via cryogenic supports.
Sgt. Pinback has adopted a ship's mascot in the form of a mischievous alien
"beachball with claws" that refuses to stay put. it. Dolittle dreams of surfing
back in Malibu. Ship's Navigator Talby has become reclusive in the ship's dome. The
computer has become dysfunctional due to damage suffered in an asteroid storm, and
subsequently Bomb #20 is threatening to detonate while still in the ship's bay, it.
Dolittle revives Commander Powell who advises them to teach "Phenomenology" to
the Bomb. The Bomb interprets that it is God...and with the line, "Let there be
light!"... explodes, sending the ship and crew into infinity as Talby drifts off into
the Phoenix Asteroids and Dolittle surfs off into the Veil Nebula.
Scot W. Holton
 About this Recording
This
recording was made from elements of the film's three-stripe and the
producer's personal print. An effort has been made to preserve the flow of
the film's narrative by judicious editing of dialogue. Whole music cues,
where they exist, have been allowed to play as they exist in the film,
i.e.: "When Twilight Falls On NGC 891", cuts, without
resolution, to "Ode To A Bell Jar", following the scene cut in
the film.
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