Starman the Movie

Romance with well-intentioned alien, evil government scientists, cross-country chase! Great acting by Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith. A pleasure to watch.

Like all great movies, STARMAN combines good writing, good acting, expert direction and several interwoven plots, each of which contributes to the interest and suspense of the film. And like few science fiction films, STARMAN is sprinkled with subtle, often hilarious humor.

WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT THIS MOVIE?

# Great plot -- What happens when a friendly alien visits Earth, encounters very unfriendly government scientists and project directors?

# Affecting love story about growing romance between the lonely widow and the traveling anthropologist, mainly realized by Allen's terrific acting.

The great theme of STARMAN, how humans will treat a friendly, helpful alien, is one worth thinking about. Sure we send up SETI rockets, and broadcast friendly radio messages to outer space, trying to greet and welcome whatever alien beings exist out there.

But we are also a relentlessly aggressive, hostile, cynical, suspicious, violence-prone race of beings, ready to kill on a moment's notice. STARMAN takes notice of these slight flaws in human nature and asks the critical question: despite these flaws, can we establish close, warm relations with civilized alien beings?

STARMAN's conclusion: A few of us might succeed, but the way human society is organized, and because of the flawed core of human nature, friendly aliens don't stand much of a chance.


# Believable suspense -- Will the alien make it to his appointment with the Mother Ship in Winslow, Arizona, before the evil scientists and trigger-happy police can capture and dissect him?

# A rare sense of humor, much of which is expressed in the way the alien adapts to his human body, vernacular speech and the ways of other humans.

# Superb acting, especially by Bridges, Allen, Smith and Jaeckel.

Theme/Plot#1: Bridges plays an alien "anthropologist," from a civilization in a distant star system, part of a team that studies living species all over the universe. Bridge's civilization has developed scientific and technical applications far beyond those in use on Earth, and hence is at a great advantage in dealing with Earthlings.

The alien is shot down by SETI [Search for Extraterriastrial Intelligence], the government institution that invited him to visit via transmissions from 1977's Voyager 2 rocket travelling through space. Charles Martin Smith's character, Mark Shermin, works as SETI's resident alien expert and is called into action. (Shermin is surely one of the models on which Fox Mulder, David Duchovny's `X-Files' character, is based.) The alien is forced into an emergency crash-landing near the home of a young widow, Jenny Hayden [Allen], in northern Wisconsin.

The alien materializes in the human form of Scott Hayden, Jenny's late husband, and recruits Jenny to help him travel to the meeting with his mother ship, three days hence. This means traveling from Wisconsin to Winslow, Arizona, site of a giant meteorite crater.

In the course of their travels together, the relationship of Jenny and the alien is transformed from supposed hostage and her alien kidnapper to a lovely, credible romance.

Theme/Plot #2: Three good guys [the alien, Jenny and Shermin], all trying to get Starman to his meeting with the mother space-ship, against an evil, amoral National Security Agency director/scientist, George Fox (played to the hilt by Richard Jaekel) and the military brass who are determined to capture and dissect this alien life-form for scientific and defense purposes.

It's "we few good people" vs "those evil armies," a theme of many of the best scifi films, e.g. STAR WARS, E.T., THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.

THREE GOOD GUYS VS. ARMIES OF BAD GUYS.
GREAT ROAD-CHASE MOVIE!
Theme/Plot #3: A great "road chase" film, in which the alien and Jenny and later Shermin are being chased from Madison, WI to Winslow, AZ by increasingly large numbers of trigger-happy local police, state police, combat helicopters, Army units, and aforementioned evil scientists from the US government.

The chase takes the fugitives from diner to motel to truckstop to Las Vegas casino to railroad freight car to half-back truck to large semi to custom-made model of 30's sports coupe. It's right out of the Keystone Kops and Harold Lloyd silent movies, and resembles Frank Capra's archetypal road-tripping-on-the-lam film, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and the road-trip to a faraway destination in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS.

This flight -- from the authorities, to freedom (in this case, the Arizona crater) -- is a classic movie vehicle, but Carpenter uses it to every advantage. During the chase the closeness and affection between the alien and Jenny occurs. During the chase the characters of the evil head scientist, Fox, the honorable scientist, Shermin, Jenny and the alien are made clear. The chase gives the film great suspense and pace, and justifies the incredible emotional leaps and turns that occur over a few days' time.

Theme/Plot #4: The romance between the young widow [Jenny Hayden] and the alien who has morphed into the body of Jenny's late husband. Since Jenny sees the alien's sixty-second evolution from writhing newborn to a hunky, handsome man (a startling, creative, somewhat disgusting scene), you may well wonder what feelings other than terror can fill her heart. But hey, this story is set in Northern Wisconsin, and maybe the available guys there aren't such prizes.

The point of the story is not that they fall in love, but that STARMAN presents perhaps the most believable, convincing story of how a human and alien might come to know, understand and like one another. As Karen Allen said in interview,

"It would be wrong to play [Jenny] just frightened. The person sitting next to me in the car is the person I most wish to be sitting next me [her late husband Scott]" -- Newsweek/December 17, 1984.

(Compare ENEMIES, another movie about a believable friendship between alien and human.)

ROMANCE BETWEEN YOUNG WIDOW AND ALIEN.
THE ALIEN ANTHROPOLOGIST (2) This alien takes on human form, in order to study the human species. Although we never see the alien's true form, his experience of adapting -- to a new body, environment, and interpersonal communication -- is beautifully rendered in Bridges' guileless, perceptive portrayal.

It is a very convincing portrayal of a white, male anthropologist, familiar to all who know the breed, as evidenced by two points:

# Faced with all the facts that a super-powerful alien can gather, he comes to incredibly wrong conclusions about the human species [e.g., he believes humans to be essentially good, and at their best when the situation is most difficult]; and

# In the presence of a nubile female of the society he is studying, he can't keep his pants zipped.

Although Starman's extraterrestrial race is, we are told, a highly advanced civilization, their progress has made the alien unprepared for the crude, violent ways of Earthlings. Jenny and Shermin must become not only his guides, but his protectors as well, lest any rednecks on the road take great offense at the alien's curiousity and naive, startling actions. Again this tallies with anthropologists we have known, especially those from Harvard.