Craig Miller Recounts Working On The Last Starfighter In 1984

The Last Starfighter is a science fiction movie that is sometimes forgotten among fandom, but it’s a fantastic film that really holds up the sense of wonder and heroism of that great era of sci-fi.

Craig Miller worked on a lot of sci-fi and fantasy films in that era, and has been posting a lot of intersting experiences on Facebook. He has a whole book of his experiences compiled in Star Wars Memories: My Time In The (Death Star) Trenches, detailing what he’s done with Star Wars.

This weekend, he posted about The Last Starfighter to Facebook, saying:

Back in 1984, this was a really busy day for me. *Two* movies I worked on were released.

One of them, "The Last Starfighter" was being made by - and I was initially hired by - Lorimar Productions. They were primarily a TV company with a lot of successful shows like "Dallas", "Knots Landing", "Perfect Strangers", etc. and, finding success there, they had decided to expand into the movie business.

The company made a few pictures, some of which were quite good, but a number of them lost money. They were spending more than they were making. Never a formula for business success.

Midway into production on "The Last Starfighter", Lorimar went away and Universal took over the film. Normally, that would be the signal that all folks hired by the previous regime get their contracts terminated but I was also working as a consultant to Universal (on "The Thing", "The Dark Crystal", etc.) so my contract got adjusted and I continued on the film.

Lorimar was based on the old MGM lot (later Columbia-Tri-Star and now Sony) and that's where the interiors for the film were shot. Probably the closest studio to my house, it was easy to pop over and spend time on the sets, talking to the cast and crew for the various things I needed to do. Oddly, I faced a bit of hostility from the film's Unit Publicist. He seemed to feel threatened by my presence and made a point of telling me that He Was In Charge. I smiled, told him "of course", and went about my business, mostly ignoring him and doing my stuff. Only time I ever had that sort of thing happen.

"The Last Starfighter" was a fun film, taking off from that kid fantasy that all the video games we were playing in the '80s were secretly a test by a) our government, b) some covert organization, or c) aliens to determine who to recruit for special missions. In the case of "The Last Starfighter", it was aliens.

The script was written by Jonathan Betuel who, coincidentally, also wrote and directed "My Science Project", a film I would work on for Disney/Touchstone the following year.

Most all of "The Last Starfighter" cast was great. Lance Guest was the titular star. A nice young guy (not quite as young as his character, but closer to it than a lot of people cast to play teenagers) who did a great job bringing to life the excitement and apprehension of discovering aliens are real and they want you to help fight their war in space.

But the cast member who really excited me was Robert Preston. I (and everyone else on Earth) loved him as Harold Hill in "The Music Man", a part he was born to play and embodied to the hilt. And his role in "The Last Starfighter" as Centauri, the alien who recruits and mentors Lance's character, was clearly written and performed to be Harold Hill in Outer Space. He was wonderful. And I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with him.

Just to prove that Hollywood is a small town about three blocks square and that coincidences run high, I ran into Lance a few years ago when he was starring in "Special", a play about the making of "The Star Wars Holiday Special".

I was invited by my friends Richard and Sarah Woloski to go with them to see it and I went because of the subject matter. I didn't know Lance was in it until we got there. (The play, by the way, was great. Hilarious. And surprisingly accurate. The more you knew about the making of "The Star Wars Holiday Special", the funnier it was. The night we went, Bruce Vilanch, one of the Holiday Special's writers, was also in the audience.)

After the curtain on the play, the actors came out to chat with the audience and I got a chance to spend some time with Lance, briefly catching up and talking about "The Last Starfighter".

Among the photos herewith, the button we gave away at conventions and other places to promote "The Last Starfighter". As my friend Shawn Crosby pointed out to me, the imagery has been used several times in other films as a sort of "Easter Egg"/homage to "The Last Starfighter".

Oh, and the other movie I worked on that came out that same day in 1984? "The Muppets Take Manhattan". About which more another time.

What do you make of Craig Miller’s experiences on the sci-fi set of The last Starfighter? Leave a comment and let us know.

For a great alternative to mainstream science fiction that The Last Starfighter fans will love, with spy thriller action, read The Stars Entwined on Amazon!

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