The Film: Originally inspired by Forbidden Planet that an eight-year-old Carpenter watched with jaw agape, Dark Star evolved from student films and the shorts that he'd made while trying to break into the movie business.
He and writer Dan O'Bannon scrounged $60,000 to make the story of slacker astronauts and their malevolently malfunctioning bomb.
And yes, he wrote the theme song's music, with lyrics aded by Bill Taylor.
Carpenter Chats: Made for what Carpenter accurately points out is "what it costs a major studio to sneeze," the film wasn't easy.
"We shot with barely adequate, poorly functioning equipment because we could afford nothing better. Our cameras would rattle and purr like cocktail shakers full of glass. The Coke bottles rammed on the front of the camera were posing as lenses. They wouldn't focus," he told Photon magazine in 1975.
Remade? Fortunately, the film's limited exposure means studios haven't touched it. Yet.
Dark Star (1974)
Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)
Halloween (1978)
The Fog (1980)
Escape From New York (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Christine (1983)
Starman (1984)
Big Trouble In Little China (1986)
Prince Of Darkness (1987)
They Live (1988)
Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (1992)
In The Mouth Of Madness (1994)
Village Of The Damned (1995)
Escape From LA (1996)
Vampires (1998)
Ghosts Of Mars (2001)
Comments
FastestMilkman
Nov 4th 2009, 18:29
Big Trouble In Little China is easily my favourite film of all time. It's perfect in it's imperfection, it's got a great script, makes me laugh whenever I watch it and it's got loads of chop socky to boot. Brilliant. JC, if you read this, cheers!
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