Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. Imagine a world where This is Spinal Tap and Repo Man hit theaters on the same day. That is the world of 1984.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory.
This time around it’s July 13, 1984, and we’re off to see The Last Starfighter and The Muppets Take Manhattan.
The Last Starfighter
(This review was originally published in 2019 when I first got this idea for the project. I watched the film again in 2024, and portions of the review have been updated.)
The Last Starfighter has one very big thing going for it: Endless charm.
Alex (Lance Guest) lives with his mother and younger brother in a trailer court. While he dreams of making more of his life, he just can’t seem to catch a break. His two happy places in life are his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) and the Starfighter video game in the trailer court. What he doesn’t know is how that video game is going to change his life.
One of the biggest promises of The Last Starfighter in 1984 was it was the first film to heavily rely on computer graphics. However, in this time period, that meant using a Cray X-MP. For those of you not familiar with computers, Crays were the supercomputers of the 1980s. Merely being mentioned meant you were doing something that required what was, at the time, a tremendous amount of processing power.
In the end, we ended up with 27 minutes of computer graphics, and while it is incredibly dated by today’s standards, it gave you an idea where we were headed to be sure.
As to the story, it’s fairly basic, but you can’t help but like it. You couldn’t help by root for Alex (Lance Guest) and the predicament he finds himself in. Not only did he think he was just playing a video game, but then he found out he was one ship against an armada.
What’s most amazing here is that this film didn’t get a sequel. It was ripe for it without knowing what happened to Zur (Norman Snow), or how he had even come to work with the Kodan. And while Alex has a job on Rylos, what in the world was Maggie going to do there? (And where did she sit on the trip? The Gunstar only had two seats…)
There has been talk of sequels and reboots over the years, but nothing has ever come of it except some artwork. Part of that may be because the rights are a bit of a mess due to mergers over the years, but something tells me we’ll see something in this universe again someday.
For now, if you’ve never seen it, don’t go in with high expectations and you should enjoy it. If nothing else, you will be endlessly charmed by it.
The Muppets Take Manhattan
(This review was originally published in 2019 when I first got this idea for the project. I watched the film again in 2024, and portions of the review have been updated.)
It’s a bit hard to believe, but by 1984 we were already on our third Muppets movie. This seems so out of character for the film business back then, but whatever, it was working.
The Muppets Take Manhattan, to be blunt, has about as basic a plot as you can get. “Small town folks go to the big city to live their dreams… hit hard times… succeed in the end.” It’s clear cut, and easy to roll with, and when you’re working with Muppets, that’s probably a wise idea.
It’s a Muppet movie. There really isn’t too much else you can say about it. They’re cute, they’re fun, and they’re comfortable. Maybe a story with a tiny bit more complexity would have been nice, but it is what it is.
And I will never turn down a chance to watch Animal be Animal. Or this scene with Dabney Coleman.
1984 Movie Reviews will return on July 20 with The Bostonians, The NeverEnding Story, and Revenge of the Nerds!
