Dark Star

Dark Star (1974), directed by John Carpenter, theatrical cut, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including 5.1 remaster, original theatrical mono, and subtitles in English and French.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/

Video encoded in two-pass 10.0 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. Audio encoded separately with Apple AAC for the highest-quality AAC sound available.

Subtitles converted to VobSub and repositioned.

Note : The feature debut of both John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon, who actually acts in this, as well as co-writing the script, editing the film, and doing effects, this was originally a student film that grew into a limited theatrical release. And honestly, it's good, it's pretty hilarious, a goofy early-70s satirical sci-fi film about a mentally unstable crew on a deteriorating space ship who contend with, amongst other things, an AI-equipped nuclear bomb that's having a bad day. It has surprisingly decent practical and visual effects considering the circumstances, although the seams are quite clearly visible. If you're a Carpenter or O'Bannon fan, or just into 70s weirdness, this is probably for you.

The Dark Star is a space ship twenty years into its mission to destroy unstable planets that might threaten future colonization. Even though the crew has only experienced three years of subjective time, they've all gone, shall we say, a bit eccentric, not to mention that the captain was electrocuted by his malfunctioning chair, and is kept in cryogenic storage. A series of mishaps involving, amongst other things, a beach ball like alien pet, lead to the repeated deployment from storage and subsequent deactivation of Thermostellar Bomb #20, which is artificially intelligent, and getting tired of not getting to explode, so the crew has to teach it philosophical concepts to convince it to keep them alive. There's also surfing.

This remaster isn't great, but considering the origins of this film, it's probably as good as we're ever going to get. Mostly, the image is just very soft. Color and contrast, on the other hand, is quite nice. Sound is ok (why this was remastered in 5.1 I have no idea), but I wish there was a commentary track or something.

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