Buy it... if you gravitate towards the best of the noble and heroic themes for bold brass that seemed to be everywhere in 1980's science fiction movies.

Avoid it... if cheesy 80's ray gun sounds in the rest of the underscore are simply too much to handle nowadays.

The Last Starfighter: (Craig Safan) The early 1980's represented the pinnacle of popularity for corny science-fiction movies, with one of the more typical stories to streak into space at the time being The Last Starfighter. It's hard to imagine now that in 1984, The Last Starfighter was a rather innovative and serviceable entry in the genre, featuring cutting edge special effects technology that served as the origin of the next decade's computer-generated animation. You can laugh at it now, of course, with its silly effects betraying the modest budget of the film, but the unsophisticated visuals were a match for the subject matter of the film: video games. The story of The Last Starfighter is quite intriguing, especially for video game aficionados, basically entailing that aliens seed certain video games on Earth as an experiment to determine which humans would make the best pilots in a real-life representation of the game. In this case, that means a battle between advanced space-faring races. One particular everyday kind of guy is recruited from the arcade to the stars and thus begins his fantastic journey. The choice of composer for the assignment was not expected; along with a music director to supervise the licensing of songs for the film, Craig Safan was hired for the project. At the time of this score, Safan was best known for his eventually long-standing piano theme for the hit TV show "Cheers," and science fiction on the big screen proved to be a new journey for him as well. The producers of the film, like any with high hopes of transcending the usual trash of the era, desired a large space opera score, with Holst and John Williams obviously in mind, and offered Safan five days with an orchestra as large as he needed to achieve the right sound. As you might expect, the prospect of such a recording was a once in a lifetime opportunity for Safan. He greeted it with enthusiasm that he later recalls as the best moment of his career. He wanted to produce the space opera sound without allowing it to fall into the well of existing, cheap Star Wars imitation scores. His theory was to have everything revolve around strong melodies, which was often lost in that era to experimental sounds and sheer weight of often overwrought orchestral sound.

	Learn about supporting Filmtracks

The resulting title theme for The Last Starfighter endures as one of the most noble, heroic, and expansive of the era. Its intelligently layered brass and yearning strings were performed against a backdrop of an oversized woodwind section and a militaristic snare drum. Most remarkable about Safan's theme is its versatility; its highly melodic construct allows for it to serve in romantic and dreamy situations as well as the expected battle sequences. The weaker moments of the score are those in which Safan succumbed to the use of cheesy early-80's electronics to make ray gun sounds and insert them into the active cues with the full orchestra. In those sections, the score tends to sound badly dated and, as such, suffers the same fate as the movie. In the end, however, the depth of the layered brass is what elevates the score The Last Starfighter above most of its contemporary peers. The music was released twice on CD, with the early Southern Cross album of 1987 falling out of print and somewhat of a collectible within five years. That album featured less score material, but also offered two early 80's-style rock songs written by Safan and sung by Cliff Magness for the film's source music (the first is reasonable, but who can really listen to that style of music anymore?). In 1995, Intrada Records obtained the rights to Safan's work and released a score-only album (minus the songs) and including about twice the number of Safan cues. Despite the much longer running time, the 1996 album didn't offer substantially better material than the previous product, but score purists should not waste their time on the old Southern Cross album when comparing the two. Both, unfortunately, are completely out of print, with even Intrada's album having fetched prices well over $100. No matter which album you manage to obtain, The Last Starfighter is a worthy listening experience. If you decide not to open your wallet for the original recording, then keep an eye out for several good re-recordings of the title theme on science-fiction score compilations, including a stunning performance by the Cincinatti Pops under the direction of Erich Kunzel in the mid-1980's. The title theme is a show-stopper and should be included in any serious film score fan's collection. ****   Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download