黑星球

DARK STAR is John Carpenter's debut feature morphed from his student project and cobbled together with a flyweight budget of $60,000.

The time-line is the mid-22nd century, a scout-ship named “Dark Star” has been carrying its mission of obliterating “unstable" planets in the galaxy for over 20 years, a preliminary step for mankind’s space colonization (a hobbyhorse persists against time), whereas the remaining four crew members have aged only 3 years (their captain died of a seat panel malfunction during hyperdrive, his body is preserved in a cryogenic state with his mind still alive and kicking to spread wisdom when the crunch comes) and inured to the journey’s built-in boredom and incessant, pesky mechanical hiccups.

Shot in conspicuously iridescent back-projections and matte technique with shoddy props to trump up proto-analogue space environs, the film strides ebulliently in its tongue-in-cheek mockery of the loneliness and nihilism bred out of a monotonous space odyssey, a hearty episode of Sg. Pinback (O’Bannon, a jack-of-all-trade who would get his fa me as a co-creator of ALIEN franchise) trying to lay his hands on thebeachball-like alien pet within the ship's two-by-four interior comes off as a sidebar lark playing with optical illusions, but also manifests his crashing tedium and angst of being under-appreciated by his fellows, not to mention he is not even the real Sg. Pinback, his name is Bill Froug, a fuel specialist mistakenly takes Pinback’s place, meanwhile, Lt. Doolittle (Narelle) and Astronaut Talby (Pahich) engage a melancholic convo redolent of bland nostalgia and self-absorption which doesn’t go anywhere.

This version of director’s cut runs a concise 71 minutes, and what leavens this psychotronic incipient work to something of a cult classic is Carpenter and co-writer O’Bannon’s innovative idea holds sway the latter part of their project, sending up an existential crisis of a talking bomb in a time-ticking fashion, only jocosely but fatally boomerangs on the entire crew’s undoing, with no recourse to money-aided visual grandeur, it is the hippie ethos of its time charms us and makes us giggling, slack-jawed and adequately thrilled by its cockamamie payoff. Overall, it is a commendable labor-of-love from a semi-professional teamwork, quirky, spacey and not without coruscating brainwaves.

referential points: Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968, 9.8/10);Fred M. Wilcox’s FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956, 7.2/10); George Lucas’ THX 1138 (1971, 5.4/10).

1974年上映的《黑星球》，是好莱坞恐怖片名导、B级片大师约翰·卡朋特的处女作，这是一部另类的太空科幻片。这部东拼西凑（对许多科幻作品进行借鉴和恶搞）、粗制滥造（低成本制作）的荒诞喜剧，可能是最容易被忽略的好莱坞科幻名作之一。毕竟，在上世纪六七十年代，优秀的科幻片多如牛毛：在《黑星球》之前，《人猿星球》、《2001太空漫游》、《宇宙静悄悄》等风格和题材各异的科幻片的推出为日后科幻片的流行奠定了基础；在《黑星球》之后，《星球大战》、《异形》等作品的推出使科幻片加入了主流电影类型的行列。

本片的编剧兼主演之一的丹·欧班农后来这样形容这部电影：“我们本该制作出一部世界上最令人印象深刻的学生作品，最终却变成了世界上最不令人印象深刻的专业电影。”

这是一部有关四个太空嬉皮士的疯狂喜剧。影片的主角是四位远离地球的宇航员，他们在执行一项危险的太空任务（摧毁一颗不稳定的行星），然而飞船所搭载的导弹发生故障意外失灵。与此同时，宇航员们正想方设法，在无聊的太空生活中寻找乐趣，音乐、成人杂志和宠物丰富了他们单调乏味的生活。然而更糟的是，炸弹突然失控了......

片中有一段情节很有意思，主角之一的“钉头”（Pinback）被一只身体酷似气球的外星生物追杀，最终他用手枪射中了它的身体，致使外星生物漏气，才得以逃出生天。事后，他将自己的经历告诉同伴，但大家都不感兴趣。在这个桥段中，影片的低成本投资和恶搞精神被完美地展现，不过“钉头”被追杀时被困在电梯井时的编排和氛围还是很严肃的，从中已经可以看出约翰·卡朋特日后不少作品的影子。

饰演“钉头”的丹·欧班农，与约翰·卡朋特共同创作了本片的剧本，后来还参与了《异形》系列等知名度更高的科幻片的剧本创作。《黑星球》中那只形似气球的外星生物，在某种程度上，算是“异形”的前身之一。

影片以一个疯狂的结局收场：炸弹发生爆炸，仅存的两名幸存者开始太空漂流和宇宙冲浪，场面十分滑稽。这个结局，简直可以媲美库布里克《奇爱博士》中的名场面，既浪漫，又无厘头。

《黑星球》（1974）的结局

约翰·卡朋特曾经表示，《黑星球》从头到尾都受到库布里克的《2001太空漫游》影响。尤其是片中失控的智能炸弹，以及片中角色与其对话的情节，明显影射、恶搞了《2001太空漫游》中的人工智能哈尔9000。喜欢恐怖片、动作片和摇滚乐的卡朋特，其处女作居然是一部向英国电影大师库布里克借鉴、偷师的作品，可见库布里克的作品对好莱坞的影响简直是无孔不入。

《奇爱博士》（1964）的经典桥段

《黑星球》在后来的一次重映时，被形容为一部“终极宇宙喜剧”，虽然有些名不副实，但对于约翰·卡朋特而言，这部处女作就是他的“终极宇宙喜剧”，因为在此之后，他就再也没有拍过这样的作品了。