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Starman isn't a bad SF film, in spite of its somewhat predictable melodramatic elements, ...

Posted by Audiophilander (A) on March 17, 2005 at 22:54:56

In Reply to: "Starman" posted by rico on March 17, 2005 at 08:07:50:

...but the flick John Carpenter made just two years prior to this is so much better, and truer to the author's original intent, in my estimation.

It's just my opinion, but Starman seems more of a soapy "feel good" mainstream drama with SF elements than a well crafted SF flick. Even though its a fun film to watch and occasionally well acted, the telegraphed romantic developments arising from Jeff Bridges's and Karen Allen's co-dependent interactions coupled with an overreliance on awkward fish-out-of-water situations that Bridges manages to get into and out of with relative ease cause Starman to veer off its designated SF course and down the road to predictable melodrama. In that respect if no other Starman comes dangerously close to Orville Redenbacher territory (i.e., pop-corn).

To sum up my conclusions on Starman, even though it's a well done film, it just plays a little too "safe" for thoughtful SF cinema.

Conversely, John Carpenter's The Thing, based on the novelette "Who Goes There" by Don A. Stuart (aka John W. Campbell) appearing in the Aug. '38 Astounding SF pulp, is much closer to the author's concept than the 1950's filmed version produced by Howard Hawks. Not to take anything away from the popular 50's flick with its Cold War allegory and James Arness's uncredited "Vegitable Man" portrayal of the elusive alien, it just wasn't John W. Campbell's vision.

Carpenter's incredibly chilling SF flick, irrespective of its Antarctic setting, delivers perhaps the most "alien" looking alien (i.e., in both appearance & behavior) ever imagined for the cinema. While John Carpenter may have taken most of the credit for what ended up on the screen, it's very much John W. Campbell's original work which somehow managed to weather the icy indifference of hacked-out Hollywood rewrites.

AuPh

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