The Last Starfighter - Production

Production

The Last Starfighter is one of the earliest films to make extensive use of computer graphics for its special effects. In place of physical models, 3D rendered models were used to depict space ships and many other objects. The Gunstar and other spaceships were the design of artist Ron Cobb, who also worked on Alien, Star Wars and Conan the Barbarian.

The computer graphics for the film were rendered by Digital Productions on a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The company created 27 minutes of effects for the film. This was considered an enormous amount of computer generated imagery at the time. For the 300 scenes containing computer graphics in the film, each frame of the animation contained an average of 250,000 polygons, and had a resolution of 3000 × 5000 36-bit pixels. Digital Productions estimated that using computer animation required only half the time, and one half to one third the cost of traditional special effects. The result was a cost of $14 million for a film that made about $21 million at the box office.

Not all special effects in the film were done with computer animation. The depiction of the Beta unit before it had taken Alex's form was a practical effect, created out of materials and produced on-set. The Starcar created by Gene Winfield and driven by Centauri was also a real prop. It was later reused in the film Back to the Future Part II as a car parked on one of the streets in the 2015 future setting.

The more mundane sequences of the film unexpectedly received more attention. Test audiences enjoyed the comical struggles of Alex's android impostor at the trailer park so much that the producers decided to shoot more of these scenes, which they felt gave this science fiction film a unique flavor.

A new, digitally remastered version presented in anamorphic wide screen is now available. The new transfer has improved color and sharpness, and is shown regularly on television.