Dark Star (Film, 1974)

Watching it from time to time over the years I've noticed all the little 2001 A Space Odyssey references. The Dark Star universe is some sort of "low budget" version of the 2001 universe. By low budget I mean janky. Many things in Dark Star are janky versions of what you see 2001.

For example, the Dark Star central computer is really just a janky version of HAL. In 2001 HAL wishes happy birthday to a sunbathing Frank Pool. In Dark Star, you have Pinback on a lawnchair using a jerry-rigged sunbathing lamp, later complaining that no one remembered it was his birthday. Both have scenes that feature explosive bolts. Also both have scenes with the astronauts getting sandwiches (chicken or ham?). Both have a mission control guy, with the one in Dark Star being completely useless. There are probably more references but these come to mind.

Love that movie.

A prime example how German dubbing tried to make films more comedic. Like the Bud Spencer/Terence Hill films that were a huge success in Germany because of the slapstick dialogue not present in the Italian original.

In Dark Star they renamed Alien to Hüpfgemüse, which roughly translates to hopping vegetable. It‘s a hoot!

Not sure why this is showing up here, but happy it is. I remember seeing it at a conference in '79 or '80 and it retaining an oversized footprint in my "mental floorspace" for at least a decade.

You can definitely see how DarkStar led to Alien. And now that I think about it... Maybe the Project Hail Mary film owes something to DarkStar as well.

I'm surprised to not have heard of someone trying to do a reboot, but happy that some things are good enough to be remembered fondly, but bad enough that no sane studio head would greenlight a remake.