After the one-two-punch of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in the late
seventies, science-fiction became fashionable in Hollywood once again. As Stephen Spielberg
began working on his follow-up to Close Encounters--a film about aliens terrorizing
a Kentucky farmhouse called Night Skies--the rising star Michael Douglas, who had already
proven his ability to produce hits with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The China Syndrome,
convinced Columbia Pictures to purchase a script by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon. This script,
like Night Skies, was about an alien visitation, but it took more of a romantic thriller approach.
However, as Spielberg's idea changed form into what would eventually become E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, Columbia was faced with a dilemma: the two projects were becoming too
similar and producing both seemed like a bad idea. Columbia Pictures concluded that E.T.,
as a family film, wouldn't be as big a draw as the more adult-themed project, and so Columbia
bet against Spielberg and chose instead to pursue Douglas' project, which was called Starman.
An alien intelligence has just intercepted the Voyager II spacecraft, heard its message of warm
greetings from Earth, and heeded its invitation to pay humanity a visit. A single being has come
to our planet, but when its craft is destroyed, it finds a secluded lake house and takes on the form
of a recently deceased house painter named Scott Hayden. He then elicits the help of Scott's widow,
Jenny, to introduce him to the human experience and to drive him across America to meet up
with his mothership before he is caught by an overzealous military hell-bent on studying him.
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The road to getting Starman to the silver screen was a long and troubled one.
Michael Douglas, in the role of executive producer, undertook the search for a director
himself. His first choice was Mark Rydell, director of The Cowboys and On Golden Pond,
but Rydell was dismissed over the always nebulous creative differences.
Next came Peter Hyams, director of Capricorn One and Outland, who wanted to turn the movie into a
straight-forward science-fiction tale that toned down the political and romantic angles of the
evolving script. When Hyams didn't work out, the then-relatively unknown Adrian Lyne came aboard.
Lyne worked well with Douglas--the two would later make Fatal Attraction
together--but he decided to abandon the project in favor of Flashdance.
Next came John Badham, director of Saturday Night Fever and Whose Life Is It Anyway?.
Badham walked off the project as soon as he saw Spielberg's E.T., noting that it was so
similar and so successful that any attempt to make Starman would be seen as rank plagiarism.
After leaving to make WarGames, he was replaced by Tony Scott, who was notable back then only
for being the brother of Ridley Scott. Scott focused on making a heavily stylized film in
order to set Starman apart from E.T., leaving considerations of plot and theme to the writers.
When he ultimately left the project as well, Michael Douglas finally settled
on John Carpenter. Despite finding marginal success in his most recent film, Christine,
Carpenter knew his days as a director in Hollywood were numbered if he didn't have a hit soon. The
good will and fame he'd earned for Halloween and Escape from New York had dried up following
the critical and box office disaster of 1982's The Thing, a movie that had been crushed by the
success of E.T. and wouldn't get its well-deserved critical re-evaluation for several more years.
John Carpenter agreed to do Starman because he saw it as a character-driven road movie
that would prove he was capable of being more than an exploitative horror director.
Douglas liked him based on his proven capacity to handle complex characters and action,
which Douglas saw as the two most critical components of Starman.
Carpenter's vision was to make a movie about two seemingly incompatable people finding a bond
through shared experience that must ultimately be broken by a tragic goodbye. As inspirations,
he has cited It Happened One Night, The 39 Steps, Brief Encounter, and The Defiant Ones.
He also wanted to avoid focusing entirely on the dark side of human nature, which the script
initially did. While Starman has every opportunity to judge mankind harshly for how he is treated,
he ultimately concludes that humans, while unquestionably primitive and hostile,
have a beauty and spirit that make them unique and fascinating.
Throughout all of the directorial shake-ups, the child-actor-turned-screenwriter Dean Riesner,
known primarily for his work in television and on the Dirty Harry films,
was constantly retooling the script by Bruce Evans and Ray Gideon. When Carpenter came aboard,
Riesner took out practically all of the political aspects of the story, severely
trimmed down the science-fiction, and then highlighted the dynamic between the two leads.
Despite all of his work, though--reportedly he did a total of seven rewrites--Riesner
was denied credit in the final film due to Writers Guild arbitration.
He wasn't alone, either. Other uncredited writers who worked on Starman include Edward
Zwick and Diane Thomas. Ultimately, despite the myriad changes made to their original script,
only Bruce Evans and Ray Gideon received credit in the final film. Carpenter, who disagreed
with the WGA's decision, did try to give Dean Reisner a special dedication in the credits,
but that would have violated Writers Guild rules as well.
For the main character, the titular Starman, several different actors were considered.
In the very beginning, Michael Douglas had wanted the part for himself, but the studio
thought he was too old. When Tony Scott had still been attached, he wanted Philip Anglim,
and Carpenter--after considering Tom Cruise, who turned it down because of scheduling conflicts
with Ridley Scott's Legend--initially cast Kevin Bacon. However, Carpenter had a change
of heart and decided he didn't want a huge star, so he offered the role to Jeff Bridges.
Bridges certainly wasn't unknown at the time--he'd already been in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and
TRON--but he wasn't as famous as Cruise or Bacon. However, he had met with Carpenter
at least twice before, having been considered for the lead roles of R.J. MacReady and Snake
Plisskin in The Thing and Escape from New York, with both roles ultimately going to Kurt Russell.
For Starman, Jeff Bridges did extensive prep work to portray an alien trying to act like a human.
He did a lot of research into the movements of birds--particularly the way they rapidly move
their heads--and worked with his friend and professional dancer Russell Clarke
to come up with his unusual way of moving. He also videotaped his own young daughters--aged
between one and three at the time--for hints as to how to behave like someone still learning how
to control their physical form. Bridges' performance is an exercize in bravery,
walking a very fine line between goofy and self-serious
that could have been disastrous if pushed even slightly in one direction or the other.
"As the Secretary General of the United Nations,
who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth... I send greetings."
For all his efforts, Jeff Bridges earned an Academy Award nomination,
losing to the admittedly well-deserving F. Murray Abraham in Amadeus.
Whenever he talks about his much-lauded performance in Starman, though, Bridges is
always quick to give credit to his female costar, Karen Allen, who plays Jenny Hayden. Allen,
known at the time for Animal House, Cruising, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, delivers what, for my
money, is the best performance of her career. Her character is still suffering from the loss of her
husband, Scott, the form of whom Starman takes, and her character turn from kidnapping victim
trying to get away to Starman's champion and lover is made so natural by Allen's portrayal that it
feels inevitable. She is a flawed, broken woman at the start, but she finds her inner resolve as
the movie goes on, especially in the pivotal scene where she decides not to escape when she has the
chance. As much as I love Jeff Bridges, Starman is, in my humble opinion, Karen Allen's movie.
Other actors worth mentioning are Charles Martin Smith as the SETI researcher Martin Shermin,
Richard Jaeckel as the cartoonishly evil NSA head George Fox,
Buck Flower as the cook, and M.C. Gainey as one of the cops.
"This is not your island. This is our island."
Filming began in February of 1984. Carpenter was keen to show the physical beauty of the American
landscape, and so he chose to use the backroads of the United States as his "very own back lot."
They filmed on the roads between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, went to Meteor Crater in Arizona,
Monument Valley in Utah, and Cedar Rapids in Iowa, visited various areas of Tennessee, upstate New
York, and Washington, D.C., and then finished with minimal work at Warner Brothers' Burbank Studios.
Though it relies on fewer effects than Carpenter's The Thing and Christine, Starman does have a few
important effects moments. The first involves the alien assuming the form of Scott Hayden,
which was put together by the legendary effects team of Rick Baker, Dick Smith, and Stan Winston,
with visuals overseen by Industrial Light and Magic, who co-produced the film.
The climax of the film at Barringer Crater was particularly tricky, involving sixteen helicopters
on loan from the Northrop Corporation and an alien craft in the form of a highly reflective sphere.
The latter of these was the subject of a federal lawsuit filed by the makers of the
relatively obscure 1983 film Wavelength, which features an eerily similar craft
appearing in a similar climactic moment. The court eventually dismissed the lawsuit,
finding that the similarities weren't enough to justify a charge of copyright infringement
and that "the concept of a spherical spacecraft is not new or unique."
For the music, Starman, alongside The Thing, is one of the few John Carpenter films scored
by someone other than John Carpenter. On Michael Douglas' recommendation, the job was given to Jack
Nitschze, who, in addition to his work with Phil Specter and The Rolling Stones, had done the music
for Performance, The Exorcist, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and An Officer and a Gentlemen.
Nitschze took inspiration from Carpenter's typical electronic style, but infused it with a few florid
love themes that sell the film's romance in a way that Carpenter felt he couldn't do on his own.
Starman released in December of 1984, on the same week as David Lynch's Dune
and a week before Peter Hyams' 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
It had a mediocre domestic box office run of twenty-eight point seven million dollars
against a twenty-four million dollar budget. Despite not turning much of a profit, though,
it was critically lauded and became a regular fixture on the awards circuit, with Jeff Bridges
receiving most of the accolades. John Carpenter found himself back in Hollywood's good graces,
and the movie has stood the test of time far better than many other alien visitation films.
It did get a short-lived television series starring Robert Hays that attempted to tie
up the narrative loose ends of the story's conclusion, and Michael Douglas did announce
in 2016 his intention to produce a remake with Shawn Levy and Arash Amel.
Despite borrowing several tropes from other alien visitation films--including
The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and of course, E.T.--Starman sets
itself apart as being a bit less judgmental and a bit more romantic than most. It's not a perfect
film--the pacing is pretty slow, the plot is full of arbitrary contrivances, and the military
subplot is stereotypically silly--but it is nonetheless more intelligent, more optimistic, and
more thoughtful than the kinds of E.T. cash-ins that were all the rage throughout the eighties.
The optimism works because it doesn't try to deny the reality of human nature:
dramatic confrontations occur organically through the context of events. The story acknowledges the
unfortunate knee-jerk reaction some of us have to attack what we don't understand, but at the same
time, it shows how conflict is a natural side effect of the very things that make us special,
namely our independence, our variety, and our eagerness to do good.
As Starman himself says, "You are at your very best when things are worst."
It's a bit unfair to compare Starman to E.T., though I'm sure there were many
frustrated Columbia execs who did just that when the movie came out,
because though the films do have a lot of similar themes and ideas, they come from different places
and emerge naturally from ideas that had been brewing in society's collective consciousness
ever since someone first looked to the stars and wondered what might happen
if someone from up there came down here. Whether they come as invaders or come in peace,
these aliens are capable of teaching us more about ourselves than about the universe beyond.
And that's all for today, my fellow Earthlings. What do you think? If an alien came knocking,
would they come as invaders or would they be peaceful explorers like Starman?
Let me know in the comments, and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe if you
haven't already. If you want to support what I do even more, consider joining my Patreon,
to get access to bonus content, get your name in the credits, and more. My Patrons vote on one
movie I cover every single month. You can also check out my website at emagill.com,
where you'll find written reviews of plenty more sci-fi classics in both film and literature. Until
next time, when we'll tackle a problem that's only getting smaller, this is The Unapologetic Geek,
telling you to never be afraid of what you love, as long as you're not hurting anybody.
"He yelled 'greetings' and melted his lug wrench?" "Weird you want, weird you get."
"How do you melt somebody's lug wrench?"
This is not a dream.