What if being good at a video game where you blast intergalactic bad guys genuinely made you a sharp-shooting, alien-killing badass? That’s the irresistible, prescient premise of 1984’s The Last Starfighter. The crowd-pleasing surprise hit marked the directorial debut of Nick Castle, whose resume included playing “The Shape” or Michael Myers, in John Carpenter’s Halloween before co-writing Escape from New York with the synth-happy frightmaster.
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