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46-533: Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology is a 1980 book written and edited by Stan Goldstein and Fred Goldstein, and illustrated by Rick Sternbach . At the time of its publication it was the official history of the Star Trek universe. The first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation used references and dates that indicated that the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology was no longer being followed, and it

92-797: A Creative Technical Craft . At around the same time, Sternbach collaborated with Charley Kohlhase and Jim Blinn at JPL on the Voyager 1 Jupiter flyby movie, creating textures for the Galilean satellites . With four other artists, in 1981 Sternbach helped found the non-profit International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA), to arrange projects that promote and foster space art. In 1983, he worked as an illustrator on The Last Starfighter , story-boarding visual effects sequences and developing texture maps for computer rendered space scenes. After Star Trek , as Scenic Artist on Steven Soderbergh 's Solaris , Sternbach contributed control panel designs to

138-427: A college tuition has been rejected. The inventor of Starfighter , Centauri, arrives in a futuristic car with a proposition for Alex. Centauri is in fact a disguised alien and his car a spacecraft. Alex is taken to the planet Rylos while Beta, a doppelgänger android , is used to cover Alex's absence. Alex learns there is actually a real conflict between a Star League of peaceful worlds and the oppressive Ko-Dan Empire;

184-689: A computer-graphic backdrop — but the sensitive love story between Guest and Catherine Mary Stewart cuts through the cuteness and gives the intergalactic adventures a much-needed boost." The Last Starfighter ' s popularity has resulted in several non-film adaptations of the storyline and uses of the name. A musical adaptation was first produced at the Storm Theatre Off-Off Broadway in New York City in October 2004 with music and lyrics by Skip Kennon and book by Fred Landau. In November 2005,

230-581: A disappointed Centauri gives Alex a means to contact him should he change his mind. A saboteur eliminates Starfighter Command's defenses and the Ko-Dan attack, killing the Starfighters and destroying their Gunstars. The saboteur warns Xur of Alex's escape. Alex discovers Beta and contacts Centauri to retrieve him. Centauri arrives just as Alex and Beta are attacked by a Zando-Zan, an alien assassin in Xur's service. Centauri

276-610: A few lines of dialogue that were ultimately cut from the film, but he still is visible in the background of several scenes. Composer Craig Safan wanted to go "bigger than Star Wars " and therefore utilized a " Mahler -sized" orchestra, resulting in an unusual breadth of instruments, including "quadruple woodwinds" and "eight trumpets, [trombones], and horns!" At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , The Last Starfighter received an approval rating of 76%, based on 90 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "While The Last Starfighter

322-714: A friend of science fiction writer Greg Bear , after his illustration of "A Martian Ricorso" featured in the cover of the February 1976 issue of Analog . During 1974 to 1976 he produced several original works of art for the Gengras Planetarium, part of the Children's Museum of West Hartford, in Connecticut. The works included airbrush paintings of the Earth as a primeval planet. It is unknown if these works are still in possession of CMWH,

368-414: A friendly reptilian Navigator named Grig, and explains his unwillingness to take part in the coming conflict. Grig sympathizes with Alex while Centauri tries to persuade him to stay, touting him as a gifted Starfighter. Xur contacts Starfighter Command as Alex watches. After publicly executing a Star League spy, Xur threatens Rylos with imminent invasion, and an unnerved Alex asks to be taken home. On Earth,

414-493: A hundred alien ships and escaping without a scratch." Halliwell's Film Guide described the film as "a surprisingly pleasant variation on the Star Wars boom, with sharp and witty performances from two reliable character actors and some elegant gadgetry to offset the teenage mooning". In 2017, Variety described it as having "a simple yet ingenious plot" and continued "the action is suitably fast and furious, but what makes

460-547: A number of concepts to add realism to the Star Trek universe, such as the Structural Integrity Field and the Inertial Dampener. To this end, they produced a technical manual for each series, that was made available along with the series bible to any prospective script-writers to familiarize them with the concepts behind the series' technology. In 1991, Pocket Books published an updated, illustrated version of

506-507: A resolution of 3000 × 5000 36-bit pixels . Digital Productions estimated that using computer animation required only half the time and between a third to half of the cost of traditional special effects. The result was a cost of $ 14 million for a film that made close to $ 29 million at the box office. DP used Fortran , CFT77 for programming: Everything was in FORTRAN, because it was the only language with vectorization when we started and remained

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552-471: A sequel or remake, but Jonathan R. Betuel has allegedly indicated that he does not want another film made. The rights to the film have not been clearly defined due to conflicting information. Multiple sources say Universal Pictures still owns the theatrical and home media distribution rights while Warner Bros. , which absorbed Lorimar-Telepictures (Lorimar's successor) in 1990, has the international distribution rights. Another source states that Universal has

598-512: A theatrical film. The character of Centauri, a "lovable con-man", was written with him in mind and was a nod to his most famous role as Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man (1962). The Last Starfighter was released on July 13, 1984, by Universal Pictures . It received $ 28.7 million in the worldwide box office, against a budget of $ 15 million, and positive reviews from critics. The film, along with Walt Disney Pictures ' Tron (1982), has

644-671: A trailer park with his mother and younger brother Louis, spending most of his spare time as the park's ad hoc handyman. Aside from his girlfriend Maggie, Alex's only diversion from his mundane existence is an arcade game called Starfighter , in which the player is "recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada" in a space battle. On the evening he breaks the game's record as its highest-scoring player, Alex becomes angry and depressed on learning his bank loan for

690-481: A working arcade cabinet of the game. In February 2008, production company GPA Entertainment added " Starfighter – The sequel to the classic motion picture Last Starfighter " to its list of projects and two months later the project was reported to be " stuck in the pre-production phase ". It was still there as of January 2012 . Hollywood directors, including Seth Rogen and Steven Spielberg , as well as screenwriter Gary Whitta , have expressed interest in creating

736-561: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Rick Sternbach Born July 6, 1951, in Bridgeport, Connecticut , in 1969 Sternbach enrolled at the University of Connecticut with an art major, but after a couple of years switched to marine biology. After leaving University, he became an illustrator for books and magazines, with his first cover illustration published on the October 1973 issue of Analog magazine . Sternbach became

782-602: Is an android imposter, Beta reveals everything to Maggie. They steal a pickup truck and chase the Zando-Zan back to its ship as it attempts to warn Xur. Beta has Maggie jump out before sacrificing himself by crashing the truck into the ship, destroying both and leaving the assassin's warning incomplete. The arrogant Xur assumes Alex has been eliminated and orders the armada to invade, but is quickly proven wrong as Alex and Grig ambush his command ship from behind. Ko-Dan Commander Kril orders Xur's arrest, but Alex's attack severely damages

828-485: Is clearly derivative of other sci-fi franchises, its boundary-pushing visual effects and lovably plucky tone make for an appealing adventure". Metacritic gave the film a score of 67 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Over time it has developed a cult following . Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars. While the actors were good, particularly Preston and O'Herlihy, Ebert wrote The Last Starfighter

874-479: Is persuaded to stay and help rebuild the Star League's Starfighter legion by Grig, Rylan Ambassador Enduran, and a recovered Centauri. Alex and Grig briefly return to Earth, landing their Gunstar in the trailer park, where Grig tells its residents of Alex's heroism. Alex bids his family farewell and asks Maggie to come with him, and she agrees. Inspired, Louis begins playing the Starfighter game. The Last Starfighter

920-582: Is wounded protecting Alex, and he and Beta explain that more of them will be on their way to Earth; the only way for Alex to protect himself, his family, and his world is to embrace his ability as a Starfighter. Alex agrees, and Centauri flies Alex back to Starfighter Command before succumbing to his injury. Alex and Grig take off in a prototype Gunstar which survived the earlier attack. While Grig mentors Alex, Beta finds it difficult to maintain his impersonation, particularly with Maggie. When another Zando-Zan shoots Beta in front of Maggie, revealing to both that Beta

966-730: The Next Generation Technical Manual and then seven years later, the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual . When Voyager finished its seventh year in 2001, the producers decided they wanted a different look for the prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise that was set in the 22nd century, so Sternbach did not transfer over to the Enterprise art department, concluding his fourteen-year employment at Paramount Studios . Sternbach returned to Star Trek in 2002, when he produced control panel designs and signage for

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1012-672: The Enterprise-E and Romulan starships in Star Trek Nemesis . As of 2015, he is also a member of the board of advisers for the Hollywood Science Fiction Museum. Sternbach is also a noted contributor to the usenet newsgroup sci.space.history, and is an accepted expert on the various paint schemes used on the Saturn V booster. His company, Space Model Systems , is a leading provider of accurate decals for model kits of

1058-504: The Last Starfighter name. The home computer version was eventually renamed and released (with some minor changes) as Star Raiders II . A prototype exists for the Atari 2600 Last Starfighter game, which was in actuality a game already in development by Atari under the name Universe . This game was eventually released as Solaris . In 1990, an NES game titled The Last Starfighter

1104-460: The Barbarian . The computer graphics for the film were rendered by Digital Productions (DP) on a Cray X-MP supercomputer. The company created 27 minutes of effects for the film. This was considered an enormous amount of computer generated imagery at the time. For the 300 scenes containing computer graphics in the film, each frame of the animation contained an average of 250,000 polygons and had

1150-583: The CPU. Gameplay would have been taken from game scenes and space battle scenes in the film and would have included the same controller that was used on the first Star Wars arcade game . The game was abandoned once Atari representatives saw the film in post-production and decided it was not going to be a financial success. Home versions of the game for the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 consoles and Atari 8-bit computers were also developed, but never commercially released under

1196-741: The Cardassian Galor class starships , the Klingon Vor'cha and Negh'Var class starships and Federation starships such as the Prometheus class, the Dauntless, the Nova class and the USS Voyager itself. As fans of the original series of Star Trek and fans of the space program, Sternbach and Michael Okuda found roles as Technical Advisors on the series, advising the writers on technical matters and developing

1242-533: The Prometheus station set and the Athena 7 ship cockpit and also designed and rendered animated loops to play on background set displays. In January 1987, Sternbach was hired along with Andrew Probert (the first two art department hires) to start design work for a new Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation . Sternbach recounts that he heard the news about TNG on his car radio, and then quickly called Gene Roddenberry 's office. Sternbach helped define

1288-618: The Saturn V, as well as the Apollo Command Module . The Last Starfighter The Last Starfighter is a 1984 American space opera film directed by Nick Castle . The film tells the story of Alex Rogan ( Lance Guest ), a teenager who, after winning the high score in an arcade game that's secretly a simulation test, is recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also features Dan O'Herlihy , Catherine Mary Stewart , and Robert Preston in his final role in

1334-420: The command ship's weapons and communications with its fighters, and Xur escapes in the confusion. Alex and Grig attack the Ko-Dan fighters but are outnumbered and overwhelmed. Alex desperately activates a secret weapon that quickly destroys the remaining fighters. Kril attempts to ram them, but Alex cripples the command ship further, causing it to crash into Rylos' moon. Alex is proclaimed the savior of Rylos, and

1380-400: The distinction of being one of cinema's earliest films to use extensive "real-life" computer-generated imagery (CGI) to depict its many starships, environments, and battle scenes. There was a subsequent novelization of the film by Alan Dean Foster , as well as a video game based on the production. In 2004, it was also adapted as an off-Broadway musical. Alex Rogan is a teenager living in

1426-487: The film and television industry. After some work for Disney and PBS , in April 1978, Sternbach was offered an illustrator position on Star Trek: The Motion Picture . As a member of the art department, working alongside Mike Minor , Sternbach designed control panel layouts and signage for the starship sets. He also helped to create the animated asteroid wormhole sequence and helped source material from NASA / JPL that

Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology - Misplaced Pages Continue

1472-432: The latter's armada, poised to invade Rylos, is led by Xur, a tyrannical Rylan traitor who has sabotaged the Frontier forcefield shielding Rylos and other worlds from the Ko-Dan. The last line of defense against the armada is a small fleet of Gunstar spacecraft, operated by "Navigators" paired with gunners called "Starfighters". Centauri's Starfighter arcade game is a recruiting tool designed to train Starfighters. Alex meets

1518-420: The look of the 24th century that would be used throughout The Next Generation and the series that followed it, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager . Props such as the phasers , tricorders , PADDs and the communicator badge were all based on his designs. During his time in the Star Trek art department at Paramount, Sternbach was also responsible for a number of starship designs including

1564-449: The movie especially enjoyable are the quirky character touches given to Guest and his fellow players." Variety also noted that film critic Gene Siskel described The Last Starfighter as the best of all Star Wars imitators. Alan Jones awarded it three stars out of five for Radio Times , writing that it was a "glossy, space-age fairy tale" and "highly derivative — Star Trek -like aliens have Star Wars -inspired dog-fights against

1610-472: The only language with good vectorization through the life of DP. Not all special effects in the film were done with computer animation. The depiction of the Beta unit before it had taken Alex's form was a practical effect , created by makeup artist Lance Anderson . The Starcar, created by Gene Winfield and driven by Centauri, was a working vehicle based on Winfield's Spinner designs from Blade Runner . Because

1656-449: The option to remake the film while Betuel has sequel rights. Further complicating the situation is a claim that both Universal and Warner Bros. each have remake and sequel rights. In July 2015, it was reported that Betuel will write a TV reboot of the film. On April 4, 2018, Whitta posted concept art for The Last Starfighter sequel on his Twitter account. In the same tweet he also indicated that Betuel will be collaborating with him on

1702-526: The original cast recording was released on the Kritzerland label. Alan Dean Foster wrote a novelization of the film shortly after it was released ( ISBN   0-425-07255-X ). In the same year as the release of the film, Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Bill Mantlo and artists Bret Blevins and Tony Salmons in Marvel Super Special #31. The adaptation

1748-491: The original owner and client of Sternbach. In 1976 he helped found the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA), to give legal advice to science fiction and fantasy artists on contracts and copyrights. In 1977, inspired by the story of artist Ralph McQuarrie 's move from working in the aerospace industry to working for George Lucas on Star Wars , Sternbach moved to California to seek illustration work in

1794-403: The project. In a follow-up interview with Gizmodo , Whitta referred to the project as "a combination of reboot and sequel that we both think honors the legacy of the original film while passing the torch to a new generation." On October 20, 2020, Betuel stated that, with Whitta, a script for a sequel is being written and the rights to the film were recaptured. On March 25, 2021, Whitta posted

1840-456: The test audiences responded positively to the Beta Alex character, director Nick Castle added more scenes of Beta Alex interacting with the trailer park community. Because Lance Guest had cut his hair short after initial filming had been completed and he contracted an illness during the re-shoots, his portrayal of Beta Alex in the added scenes has him wearing a wig and heavy makeup. Wil Wheaton had

1886-478: Was "not a terrifically original movie" but it was nonetheless "well-made". Colin Greenland reviewed The Last Starfighter for Imagine magazine, and stated that "apart from a mildly amusing little sub-plot with the android replica left on Earth to conceal his absence, Alex's adventure is strictly the movie of the video game: simple as can be, and pitched at a pre-teen audience who can believe Alex and Grig blasting

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1932-417: Was also available as a three issue limited series . In 1984, FASA , a sci-fi tabletop game maker, created a gaming system The Last Starfighter: Tunnel Chase for The Last Starfighter . A real The Last Starfighter arcade game by Atari, Inc. is promised in the end credits, but was never released. If released, the game would have been Atari's first 3D polygonal arcade game to use a Motorola 68000 as

1978-447: Was eventually replaced by Star Trek Chronology as the official history of the Star Trek universe. "Spaceflight" was later declared apocrypha in 2002. In 2006, Pocket Books published Voyages of Imagination , which expanded Star Trek Chronology to include the events of all of the Star Trek novels. This article about a science fiction book is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Star Trek article

2024-425: Was released, but it was actually a conversion of Uridium for Commodore 64 , with modified sprites, title screen and soundtrack. A freeware playable version of the game, based on what is seen in the film, was released for PC in 2007. This is a faithful reproduction of the arcade game from the film and features full sound effects and music from the game. The creators of this game, Rogue Synapse, have also built

2070-471: Was shot in 38 days, mostly night shoots in Canyon Country . It was one of the earliest films to make extensive use of computer graphics for its special effects . In place of physical models, 3D rendered models were used to depict space ships and many other objects. The Gunstar and other spaceships were the design of artist Ron Cobb , who also worked on Dark Star , Alien , Star Wars and Conan

2116-508: Was used in the design of V'ger . From 1977 to 1980, Sternbach worked as an Assistant Art Director and Visual Effects Artist on Carl Sagan 's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage series, where he designed sets and storyboard sequences during pre-production and then worked on visual effects scenes during production. For his work on the episode The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean he won the 1980-1981 Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in

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