In the middle of the 22nd century, mankind has reached a point in its technological advancement to enable colonization of the far reaches of the universe. Armed with artificially intelligent “Thermostellar Triggering Devices”, the scout ship Dark Star and its crew have been in space alone for twenty years on a mission to destroy “unstable planets” which might threaten future colonization.
The ship’s crew consists of Lt. Doolittle, Sgt. Pinback, Boiler, and Talby. Commander Powell, their superior officer, was killed by a faulty rear seat panel, but remains on board the ship in a state of cryogenic suspension. The crew perform their jobs in a state of abject boredom as the tedium of their task has driven them around the bend, with only each other, an increasing number of (sometimes comical) systems malfunctions (for example, an explosion in a storage bay has destroyed the ship’s entire supply of toilet paper) and the soft-spoken ship’s computer for company. They have attempted to create distractions for themselves – Doolittle, formerly an enthusiastic surfer, has constructed a musical bottle organ, Talby spends all his time in the ship’s observation dome watching the universe go by, Pinback enjoys playing practical jokes on the other crew members and maintains a video diary of his time on board ship, and Boiler enjoys smoking cigars and target practice with the ship’s laser rifle.
In his video diary, Pinback claims to be liquid fuel specialist Bill Frugge, who accidentally takes Pinback’s place on the mission after failing to rescue Pinback from committing suicide by wading into a fuel tank before the mission. Pinback has also adopted a ship’s mascot in the form of a mischievous alien “beachball” that refuses to stay put in the food locker and forces Pinback to chase it all over the ship.
While navigating a magnetically-bound asteroid field, en route to their next target (the Veil Nebula[1]), the Dark Star suffers damage, resulting in a malfunction with the bomb drop mechanism. To the utter disinterest of his crewmates, Talby decides to investigate the fault. Discovering a damaged communications laser in the airlock, Talby dons a spacesuit to investigate. While attempting to repair the laser, Talby is blinded and inadvertently triggers a more serious problem, causing extensive damage to the ship’s main computer and a major malfunction with Thermostellar Bomb #20, which, on arrival at their target planet, becomes belligerent and refuses to obey orders and drop from the bomb bay.
While stuck in the bomb bay, Bomb #20 refuses to disarm itself – its detonation countdown is in progress and it refuses to abort the countdown sequence. The other crew members attempt to talk the bomb out of blowing up. Doolittle revives Commander Powell, who advises them to teach the bomb the rudiments of phenomenology, resulting in a memorable philosophical conversation between Doolittle and the bomb. Bomb #20 aborts its countdown and retreats to the bomb bay for contemplation, and disaster appears to have been averted. Pinback addresses the bomb over the intercom in an attempt to finally disarm it.
Doolittle has mistakenly taught the bomb Cartesian doubt, the bomb determines itself to be God, states “Let there be light,” and promptly detonates. Pinback and Boiler are killed instantly. Commander Powell is jettisoned into space encased in a large block of ice, and Talby is taken away by the Phoenix Asteroids (a cluster of glowing asteroids he had a fascination with) to circumnavigate the universe. Doolittle, who previously expressed his love of surfing and how much he misses it, finds an appropriately-shaped piece of debris and “surfs” down into the atmosphere of the planet, burning into an incandescent speck
Director John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon wrote the screenplay. Six years later, the basic “Beachball with Claws” subplot of the film was reworked from comedy to horror, and became the basis (along with an unpublished story about gremlins aboard a B-17) for the O’Bannon-scripted science fiction horror classic, Alien.
Working on an estimated $60,000 budget,Carpenter and O’Bannon had to make production design from scratch. In the “elevator” sequence the bottom of the elevator is actually rolling on the floor. The device used to roll the elevator base was actually a Moviola camera dolly normally used on the small sound stage in the old USC Cinema building (itself once a horse stable). The steering end of the dolly can be seen as part of the “elevator” underside. Talby’s starsuit backpack is made from Styrofoam packing material – probably from a TV set – and his spacesuit chestplate is made from a muffin tray. The double rows of large buttons on the bridge consoles are ice cube trays illuminated from beneath. Sergeant Pinback’s video diary is an 8-track tape and the machine he uses to read it and record it is a microfiche reader. O’Bannon also starred in the film in the role of Sgt. Pinback.
Much of the special effects seen in the movie were done by Dan O’Bannon, ship design by Ron Cobb, model work by O’Bannon and Greg Jein, and animation was by Bob Greenberg.The bombs are made from an HO scale piggyback trailer kit and parts of 1/25th scale model car kits; “Matra”, the name of the car brand, can be seen on some parts in some shots. The space suits are made to resemble the space suit of the Mattel action figure “Major Matt Mason”, which was used in slightly modified form as a miniature for effects shots. Cobb drew the original design for the “Dark Star” ship on a napkin while they were eating at the International House of Pancakes.
Although destined for eventual cinematic release in 1974, this was only possible as a consequence of a successful series of showings at a number of film festivals in 1973. Originally the film was a 45 minute student short filmed on 16mm film. The movie was seen by producer Jack H. Harris, who gained the theatrical distribution rights to the film, and arranged for it to be transferred to 35mm, and paid for the addition of 38 minutes which brought the movie up to feature film length.
For theatrical release, parts of the film were re-edited to make it feel more like a 3-part story and extra footage was filmed to bring it up to a more substantial running time. This included the bottle-playing scene, the alien-chase / elevator scenes and more.
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