In John’s recent post about how How Nostalgia affects Memory one of the commenters mentioned The Last Starfighter, and it made me a little nostalgic myself. So I took a look around. And that is when I discovered The Last Starfighter: The Musical.
Yes. Musical.
Even to its ardent defenders, the movie version of The Last Starfighter has always played like a low-rent version of Star Wars, with a thinner, more maudlin story, inferior special effects and a production design no more convincing than the original Star Trek’s. The genius of this new adaptation lies in its recognition that these apparent weaknesses are really strengths when translated to the musical stage. It’s easier, for instance, to accept that all the trailer park’s residents will show up to cheer a kid playing an arcade game when they’re singing a musical number.
There are plenty of things you base musicals on. Heart wrenching war stories, 50s rock defying racial seperation, Operatic love affairs, Monty Python skits and even biopics revolving around the musical library of legendary pop and rock stars.
But that was apparently done to death. Guess it’s time for something new.
In a world where we now see musicals based on Spiderman, Evil Dead, and now Last Starfighter, should I even be surprised??
