DARK STAR (1974) **1/2 Working off 2001 and Star Trek, John Carpenter quite reasonably projects a future in which space is conceded to the freaks, and beards are ubiquitous. And why not? In fact, isn't there a better argument to be made that not nearly as much as possible has been accomplished because our guys in space are these clean-cut never-had-an-original-idea-in-their-life politically correct automatons? No telling. That's certainly not what I heard about Alan Shepard, though. Of course that was a long time ago, too, and we haven't seen much evidence of personality development in the astronaut program since. They keep emphasizing other stuff, Mars and comets. What could a really smart creative individual do out there, with all the modern hardware and without having to repeat the obvious and everything back and forth? So yeah, freaks in space. No that they do much either, but it's probably more entertaining. Source material for Star Wars and everything that's come since, but more in terms of what might go wrong than what might be interesting. Another missed boat. So, anyway, if there're going to be all these guys floating around in space for 20 years (but only aging three) smoking off roach clips, exactly how much dope is NASA going to load 'em up with? Or was it a hydroponic solution?
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