Starman (1984)

 

100 best Science Fiction films

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#85. Starman (1984)

 

A remarkable thing about Director John Carpenter is that he is so enthusiastically derivative, yet so highly original, in the same gesture. Almost all his films are about the films he loves, and this was especially notable in his first three features: “Dark Star” (1974), which maybe the only film ever to successfully pokes holes in the pomposities of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). “Assault on Precinct Thirteen” (1976) which moved Harold Hawks’ “Rio Bravo” (1959) from Old West to contemporary Los Angeles. His break-through film, “Halloween” (1978), in no way hides the fact that it was an uncredited remake of “Black Christmas” (1974), yet somehow proved to be one of the most distinctive, and itself imitated, Horror movies ever made.

 

Then comes this one.

 

“Starman” came on the heels of Director Steven Spielberg’s, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982), and is Carpenter’s only attempt to pursue Spielberg’s brand of sentimentality. Like “Black Christmas” vs “Halloween,” has a shockingly similar story to its cousin: A friendly Alien who comes to Earth, befriends a lonely Human, feels threatened by the US Military, and ultimately needs to rendezvous with a Space Ship to get rescued, it even shares the not-so-very-muted theme that the Alien is a Christ-figure. Yet, just as few would accuse “Halloween” being a rip-off of “Black Christmas” while “Friday the 13^th” (1980) was a shameless rip-off of them both, and “Starman” wasn’t a rip-off of “E.T…” while “Mac and Me” (1988) was.

 

Of course, this shouldn’t actually that surprising; as Writer/Director Jonathan Demme once said, “There are no new stories, only new characters.” Carpenter infuses his best films with new Characters and also new settings. That, plus having talent to burn, is why almost everything he’s ever done, even his one foray into the land of the real-and-credited-remake, “The Thing” (1982), based on another Hawks’ “The Thing from Another World” (1951), but closer to the original novella by John W. Campbell, Jr., “Who Goes There?” (1938), are so distinct from all others’ attempts to do the same.

 

“Starman” is a special example of this, because it was so weirdly a film of its moment, part of a wave of similar and simultaneously percolating projects that were realized in a short three-year time frame. In its early development (before Carpenter was involved) it was actually tied to “E.T…” which then called “Night Skies,” and both were properties of the same studio, Columbia.

 

(This was actually way more complicated than that, “Night Skies” was being developed as a distinct SF/Horror/Action script but through a convoluted process I don’t understand, it and “E.T…” were a bundled package, as either follow-up or sequel to Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977); somehow, at one point “Night Skies/E.T…/Starman” were a larger bundled package, or something, and Columbia eventually sold “Night Skies/E.T…” to Universal, but kept “Starman.” In the end, “Night Skies” never happened; “E.T…” become one of the highest-grossing pictures of all time; and “Starman” barely broke-even in the box-office, though it eventually became respectfully profitable far-later.)

 

At the same time, in England, legendary Comic-Book Writer Alan Moore was simultaneously working on his much-beloved limited-series, “Skizz” (1983), whose story was about, well, a friendly Alien who comes to Earth, befriends a lonely Human, feels threatened by the British Military, and ultimately needs to rendezvous with a Space Ship to get rescued, it even shares the so-very-muted theme that the Alien is a Christ-figure.

 

The same goes for at least one more over-lapping film Production “Wavelength” (1983), but I must admit, I haven’t seen that.

 

Then there’s “Brother from Another Planet” (1984) which was near-simultaneous “Starman,” and shared not all, but a fair number, of the above-listed plot-points.

 

Here’s the thing: “E.T…” was mostly about, and marketed to, the “Tween” crowd (that moniker hadn’t been coined yet) and its setting was an exceptionally vividly evoked, affluent, Suburban California. “Skizz” was mostly about, and marketed to, slightly older teens, and set in the working-class, urban, slum of Birmingham, England (maybe the only SF ever set in that particular place). “Brother from Another …” was mostly about, and marketed to, urban-based, economically marginalized, communities in the USA and its setting was an exceptionally vividly evoked, pretty poor, Harlem in NYC. And finally, “Starman” was mostly about, and marketed to, the grown-up, “Date-Night” crowd, and was a road-movie traversing the American Mid-West. So, the very different concerns of the very different Human Characters were played against very different landscapes was why the similar conflicts and emotional arcs of all four projects allow them stand so distinct from one another.

 

Unlike most of his previous projects, Carpenter and his frequent collaborators didn’t hammer-out the first version of this script, that was Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, though many more Writers would succeed those them on the project. Carpenter wasn’t the first, second, or even third, Director chosen, but in the end, this film was (almost) more Carpenter’s than anyone else’s.

 

So, to go back to the beginning.

 

The script that Columbia fell in love with was obviously too similar to “E.T…” which it was why it sold “ET…” Universal. This led to a long string of revisions of “Starman,” or as Screenwriter Dean Riesner, complained, he was order to given them something, ''Different from `E.T.,’ but keep it the same.'' Riesner gave Columbia no less than seven rewrites, each responding to a different Director’s wishes, but ultimately got no on-screen credit, (Writer Edward Zwick and Diane Thomas suffered the same fate). Riesner was brought in right after the first-slated Director, Mark Rydell, left the project to go on to win an Oscar for “On Golden Pond” (1981). During Reisner’s time with the project, Director Adrian Lyne came, but then left to make “Flashdance.” Director John Badham came, but then left to make “War Games.” Director Tony Scott came, but then left to make “The Hunger.” Director Peter Hymans came, but then left to make “The Star Chamber.” All of these films were released in 1983, and interestingly, all but “The Star Chamber” constituted those different Directors greatest, or near-greatest, successes, and “The Star Chamber” certainly wasn’t terrible. In the end, it was Carpenter who went the distance.

 

All these Directors had radically different ideas of how to tell/reinvent the tale: Scott wanted to play to style more than the over-familiar narrative, Hymans wanted a more explicit SF approach, but Carpenter, already pigeon-holed in the Horror genre, was the one who chose to look back in film history to find a way for the story to get out of its hole. His idea was to evoke an old-school cross-country courtship, so a Rom-Com, specifically influenced by “It Happened one Night” (1934). That won over Executive Producer Michael Douglas, who was the force behind choosing this script over “Night Skies/E.T…” in the first place.

 

Another selling point for Carpenter was his reputation for bringing things in on-time, and on-budget. Carpenter was certain he could complete the film for under $20 million, but it didn’t work out that way.

 

There was probably a lot of reasons why the project went over-budget (it eventually hit $23 million) but a key one was though Carpenter’s vison was dead-on, he was unlucky. For Carpenter, Director Hawks was his guiding-light, though this may not be not evident in all his films because Thrillers generally require the most claustrophobic of spaces while Hawks had a love of longish-takes, long-shots, and wide-screen compositions (with Carpenter we can most see this in “Assault on Precinct 13,” “The Fog” (1980), “Escape from New York” (1981), etc). Here, Carpenter went whole-hog on the location footage and I suspect that he never ran into the wrath of mother-nature this badly before. (There’s a reason why Alfred Hitchcock, another Director that Carpenter is often compared to, largely abandoned location work after 1943, even though he’d earned his early Hollywood reputation by exploiting it more than most others).

 

The early part of the film was set in Wisconsin, but filmed in Tennessee. That state was suffering under an unusually wet Spring. This was a problem because there was the need to stage a forest-fire. Frequent Carpenter collaborator Larry Franco stated ''We couldn`t sustain the explosion. Nothing would burn. We had people and equipment waiting around for weeks. Finally, we had to build up tires and cardboard, drench them with fuel and create our own fire.''

 

Another issue is that Carpenter wasn’t a low-budget, Indie Filmmaker anymore. He was now with a big studio, but still preferred to work with the Professionals he knew best; these people had been rising along with him, and like him, rightfully demanded better salaries this time around (fair labor practices always ruin everything, don’t they?). FX Make-up Specialist Stan Winston and Production Designer Joe Alves had both done great things for Carpenter in the past, and did great things here, but they didn’t come cheap anymore.

 

On this project, Winston was working with equally big-names Dick Smith and Rick Baker, and Winston provided his main contribution early. The Alien’s first form was a glowing ball of light, but the Alien needed a Human form so he had to build himself right before our eyes. That became the film’s best FX sequence, but it appeared so early on in the movie that Carpenter, conscious of the narrative rhythms he was trying to create, didn’t want it to be it to be a “show-stopper.” Carpenter had made his reputation with the near-gore-less Slasher movie “Halloween” which was a landmark in its profitability, but only two-years prior to this, he released the FX-heavy and insanely gory, “The Thing,” which initially bombed. Here, probably wisely, Carpenter’s choose not to overwhelm his Rom-Com with FX and trimmed down Winston, Smith, and Baker’s contribution before release, but those three still got the big pay checks they’d earned.

 

Smith said later, “Yeah, you see the three biggest [makeup effects] names in the business and you say, `What`s all this about?’ A lot of people are going to be anticipating too much.''

 

Added Baker: ''They went out and got the best and most expensive people in the business … People who know our work are going to expect the most outrageous transformation scene ever.''

 

And then there’s Alves, who didn’t like the film’s title. ''It`s very misleading. By calling it `Starman,’ they`re going to disappoint a lot of people who are looking for a heavy science-fiction effects film.''

 

Alves fingerprints are almost as all-over this picture as much as Carpenter’s. He was given the amorphous title of Visual Consultant, because he was doing a little bit of everything, but most notably managing the extensive, multi-state, location work. (I do not want to trivialize the work of the credited Production Designer, Daniel A. Lomino, he had worked with Alves before, and would work with Carpenter again). Carpenter and Alves’ vision of rural USA is as beautiful as it is unforced-seeming, with vistas gigantically empty like an old-school Western. It’s a landscape of mostly Truck-Stops and Diners popping up now-and-again, though there is a short a bit in Las Vegas. Nodding towards Spielberg again, but this time to “Close Encounters …” the rendezvous with the Alien Space Ship was at a great American landmark, but not imposingly vertical Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, instead the more horizontal Meteor Crater, Arizona.

 

As the film was derivative and entering a crowded field, so there were concerns of it being TOO-derivative. Carpenter was especially concerned about the above-mentioned “Brother from Another …” and had a copy sent to him, but decided those concerns were ill-founded. A more serious potential problem was the above-listed movie that neither Carpenter or Alves had seen, ''Wavelength.'' The Space Ship in the climax of “Starman” is identical the one in the climax of “Wavelength” and the staging of the two scenes is more than a little similar; so, after being so careful, Carpenter and Alves were accused of plagiarizing a film they didn’t know existed. Well … Oops.

 

Now on to the story, which had a great hook.

 

Remember back in 1977 when we launched the Voyager Space Probe? It was aimed towards Interstellar Space and it carried a golden record that invited Aliens to visit. Well, in this film, Aliens found it, accepted the invite, but when they arrived, we shot them out of the sky.

 

(Not to be persnickety, but in the Real-World Voyage didn’t actually enter Interstellar Space until 2012)

 

Our stranded Alien, as mentioned above, is a ball of glowing light. He needs to mimic the form of this Planet’s most advanced species so it enters the home of a traumatized widow, Jenny Hayden (Karen Allen), it finds a lock of Jenny’s dead husband Scott’s hair in a photo album. From that, in the above-mentioned and deliberately-underplayed, FX sequence, it grows from an infant to a perfect replica of Scott (Jeff Bridges) right before Jenny’s terrified eyes.

 

Though I’m not withdrawing any of my above praise towards those behind-the-camera, but it must be said that, just like this film belongs to the Director more than the Scriptwriters, it also belongs to the two Lead Actors more than the Director, and not-for-nothing, Carpenter does have a fine reputation for how well he works with his asts.

 

Actor Bridges is wholly charming. His Alien is very smart, but painfully a fish-out-of-water. Bridges infuses his performances with delightful physical awkwardnesses that gradually, but not completely, disappears as he quickly learns what it is to be Human, and then a loving man. The Alien learns about making out with a woman by watching “From Here to Eternity” (1953) on TV. Wrote Critic Roger Ebert, “Actors sometimes try to change their appearance; Bridges does something trickier, and tries to convince us that Jeff Bridges is not inhabited by himself.” Critic Mark Harrison seemed even more captivated, “Looking like a Ken doll and acting like an especially impressionable child, Bridges has to balance cold, detached bafflement with a warming sincerity and comic timing, and he carries it off magnificently.” Bridges got an Oscar Nomination for his work here; long-before Director Carpenter shared an Oscar for a short-film produced while he was in film school, but after that, this was his only Academy-recognized project.

 

But Actress Allen is even better, her complex arch involves a traumatized woman, who becomes a terrified woman, then a fascinated and protective woman, and finally evolves into a woman who learns to love this Alien, not because she sees her beloved dead-husband anymore, but sees this Alien as an individual worthy of that love. The final scenes are heart-breaking and uplifting in the same gesture, because she has to say goodbye; it’s the completion of the processes of grief and the acceptance of new heart-break, all at the same time. Wrote Critic John Larsen, “Allen has always had a unique combination of feistiness and vulnerability. Her characters aren’t afraid to speak their mind, even when they know the cost of doing so. Here, as Jenny, she’s not only funny—tossing off asides that allow the movie to acknowledge the preposterousness of its premise—but also full of sorrow and yearning. If ‘Starman’ works at all, it’s because of the way Allen gazes at Bridges, as if his mystery is her answer.” Several other critics called it her career-best performance.

 

They make a great couple that anyone can identify with. I especially like a bit where the two argue over the Alien’s driving. He learned to drive by watching Jenny and because of that, he nearly gets them both killed because, well, Jenny isn’t as good a driver as she thinks she is. (Thank God this movie is from grown-ups, if you brought your kids, they’d come-away with powerful arguments to use against you.)

 

The other important Characters are the main Villain, Government Heavy George Fox (Richard Jaeckel) who’s pretty one-note, but you can’t blame the Actor for that, and Scientist Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith) who’s much more fun as George’s initial ally, but predictably breaks with George because George is a frigging Nazi. At one-point Mark loses his temper with George, “What the hell ever happened to good manners? We invited him here!”

 

Though not all Carpenter’s films are bleak, this is the only film that can be called optimistic. There’s a wonderful moment when the Alien finally meets Mark and says of Earth, "I will miss the cooks, the singing and the dancing ... You are a strange species. Unlike any other, you are at your best when things are worst." Carpenter has since said he doesn’t really believe that, but he wishes he did, and that wish shows.

 

Another distinctive feature of this was Carpenter’s first score that was not at least partially composed by him. As this was a Rom Com, the music needed to be swoony, far removed from Carpenter music. Here, Composer Jack Nitzsche gave us something richly romantic.

 

The film opened sixth in the box-office, wholly trounced by the other SF completion, Director Hymans’, “2010: The Year We Make Contact” (which did so much better than “The Star Chamber,” the movie he quit “Starman” for) and David Lynch’s “Dune.” Despite the initial disappointment, it delivered enough in the long-run to justify a short-lived TV series (first aired in 1986). There’s little impressive in the series, like too much of SF on TV from the 1970s & 80s, it was little more than a cheesy attempt to convert the classic Crime show, “The Fugitive” (first aired 1963) to a SF format, but it should be said that Actor Robert Hays was quite good given the in-enviable task of trying to take-over Bridges’ role.

 

There’s also talk of a remake. I say, we don’t need it.

 

Trailer:

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