The Last Starfighter (1984)

What if beating a high score at the arcade meant you were Earth’s only hope? This week on The Regular Guy Movie Show, we’re blasting off with 1984’s The Last Starfighter — the cult sci-fi classic that swapped Star Wars’ model ships for pioneering CGI, and gave us wish fulfillment for every kid who ever dropped quarters into an arcade cabinet.

We dig into:

• The wild leap of faith this movie took with computer-generated battles — groundbreaking in ’84, clunky now, but undeniably influential.
• Why Centauri (Robert Preston) and Grig (Dan O’Herlihy) are the real MVPs of this movie.
• Xur’s over-the-top villainy and the Ko-Dan Armada’s poop emoji aesthetics.
• Space combat done right vs. done wrong — and why Starfighter was ahead of its time in zero-G dogfights.
• The Boddicker Award showdown: Centauri’s fast-talking space con man vs. Grig’s lizard mentor dad-energy.
• Why Centauri’s car looks like a DeLorean that flunked out of space college.
• A sidekick showdown where Grig goes head-to-head with Chewbacca, Goose, and Donkey from Shrek.

And because we can’t stay on target for long, we’ll also talk about:

• Our favorite arcade games from the 80's
• The versatility of Days of Our Lives for hitting on college girls back in the day
• And the embalming secrets of the ancient Egyptians (because apparently that’s where our brains went).

So grab your quarters, load up Death Blossom, and join us as we relive the movie that asked: what if your video game skills were the only thing standing between Earth and annihilation?

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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