Watching this movie turns me into a 9year old me. Looking to the stars to be the hero the galaxy needs! So cheesy, so nostalgic soooooo good! I don't think I could recommend this to younger people (and expect them to like it) as the graphics don't hold up. Some of the acting is over the top and cheesy. The plot is thin. This is a fun movie with some tense moments and some pretty good comedy. The acting from the main characters is what pulls the movie together and for me gives it that timeless quality. I don't doubt it helps that I saw this as a kid in the theatre and it holds a special place in my heart.

This was one of the first movies I saw in a theater, 1985, the year after its release. And I tell you, this movie wasn't a big deal then; it was considered a well made but derivative B movie, and the CGI effects were almost never mentioned in reviews or articles. I have checked it now in newspaper archives online, so I know I remember it right.The ironic thing is that "Young Sherlock Holmes" (1985) was released this same year; I saw it soon after "The Last Starfighter". The Sherlock Holmes movie was hailed for its alleged groundbreaking CGI effect: a very short sequence where a knight of stained glass attack a priest. This effect lasted perhaps 20 seconds..."The Last Starfighter" is full of CGI sequences, and either me or my friends in the theater recognized them as computer images, and absolutely not as "cheap video game graphics" as some reviewers here describe it. And no journalist or reviewer saw it that way either, back then. But when I watch this movie on DVD today, many sequences really look distinctly artificial with unnatural sharp edges and light, much like computer graphics, which give them a style that cut them out from the rest of the movie. My theory is that the celluloid copies that we were watching in the theaters smothered this down and gave these sequences a much more natural look; and that the movie makers originally counted on this when they incorporated the CGI scenes with the rest of the movie.The movie is well made, with a rather original story and good performances by the actors. Not a very great movie, though, but it is entertaining and without doubt movie history.

I would give this movie an 11 if I could. Even now after 30 years, I still laugh at the early scenes' subtle jokes and intricate character interplay while crying multiple times as love and commitment continually overcome fear and hesitancy in the final half hour. While both Star Wars and this movie portray a "small town" boy thrust into the intergalactic spotlight, Star Wars plays out on the grand stage while Starfighter is more the intimate portrait. Not to mention, Starfighter went where no movie had gone before in basically inventing from scratch the CGI technology that we now take for granted. How much longer would it have taken if the producers had not taken the leap of faith that this movie could be built on a computer screen versus the tried and true modeler's table. And then there is Craig Safan's score that rivals and in many cases surpasses John Williams' Star Wars themes. I still often listen to the soundtrack, turning the volume way up as the heart wrenching notes that carry the final scene give way to a crescendo of joy as the credits roll. In the end, there is one small scene that will forever lock The Last Starfighter as my favorite right beside Star Wars. The scene occurs just after the Beta unit sacrifices himself to save Alex. That is when Maggie turns to the sky and speaks to Alex across the gulf of space, knowing he will hear even though light years separate them. Five simple words that characterize the theme of the entire movie. You can hear those words and understand their meaning by watching yourself. And then learn what a truly special movie The Last Starfighter is.

Alex lives in a remote trailer court where his mother is manager and everyone is like a big extended family. Alex becomes the top scorer of Starfighter, a stand-up arcade game where the player defends "the Frontier" from "Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in a space battle. After achieving his best score, he is approached by the game's inventor, Centauri. Stepping into Centauri's vehicle, he is seemingly doomed to stay at his trailer park home all in his life, he finds himself recruited as a gunner for an alien defence force when Centauri is a disguised alien who whisks him off to another planet.....Its a sound idea, having a kid get recruited because he is great at a video game, but one cannot help that this was done before in the movie 'Nightmare' an anthology horror movie that featured Emilio Estevez as a gaming wiz who gets sucked into the video game.This was made a year later....But anyhow, that's just nitpicking, its a fun movie, with a hilarious villain, and who couldn't love a movie more when you find out Grig was played by 'The Old Man' in Robocop.And the effects. Even though they are nothing compared to today, or even a few years after this, they still make the movie, and they really compliment the films narrative.Other than that, its a fish out of water tale of your average Joe, becoming something they had never dreamt of.Plus it stars Lance Guest, the only person on earth who made a shark scream with a camera...