 This week we will be watching The Last Starfighter, a surprisingly good science fiction movie from the 80s. Yes, I just described a non-Star Wars movie from the 80s as "good." Don't be that shocked, just like with 80s fantasy films, good ones pop up here and there. This is one of the good ones, trust me.
Now, I'll admit that the premise does sound a little weird, but it works. The Last Starfighter is about Alex Rogan, a teenage boy from a small town in the middle of nowhere who lives in a trailer park with his mom and little brother. His student loan was denied, so he can't afford to go to college and just spends all his extra time playing an arcade game called "Starfighter." Well, one day he actually beats the game. Apparently this game is so hard he is the first person in the entire world to do so. (gamefaqs.com hadn't been invented yet, so...) Anyway, it turns out that these arcade games were in fact training simulators sent to Earth by an alien race as a way to recruit earthlings into an interstellar war without directly involving the technologically inferior species. So yeah...
Anyway, some guy who's really an alien comes along and convinces Alex to go with him to help fight off the evil Galactic Overlord Xenu... I mean Xur. (Sorry about that.) Well... I don't want to give too much away, but after a couple strange twists of fate, all of the other starfighters who are supposed to be fighting with Alex are killed and he's the last one left. (I'll bet you didn't see that coming.) Hope I didn't spoil the movie for you.
Okay, I'm being facetious. Really, though, the movie is quite good, and if you've never seen it before, this Wednesday is going to be the best time to find out for yourself just how good 80s sci-fi can be when done well.
Same time and place as normal: B094 of the JFSB @ 7:00 p.m.
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Quark
