Beloved 80s Sci-Fi Space Adventure Gets Long-Awaited Upgrade

Admittedly, Arrow Video, a company in charge of the 4K upgrade, already released The Last Starfighter in 4K in North America, but the rest of the world didn’t have this gem available in 4K—until now. The movie is now restored from a 4K scan of the original negative of the film and features a 4.1 mix originally created for the film’s 70mm release in 1984. The latter was never included in the previous home video formats since surround wasn’t as widespread as today.

Apart from technical improvements, The Last Starfighter in 4K will also arrive loaded with plenty of new footage and archival bonus features, including two commentaries, an in-depth analysis of the score, the film’s special effects, the screenplay, and the same-name video game cabinet. The movie is set to arrive on July 15, featuring a collectible booklet and a limited-edition slipcover on top of everything we previously mentioned.

As for Gut Ritchie and Henry Cvaill’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E, which is supposed to drop two weeks following the release of The Last Starfighter in 4K, the package will include brand-new commentary from the critics and a wealth of new interviews and featurettes. This includes a featurette on the original The Man from U.N.C.L.E television series, which aired from 1964 to 1968. Additional content includes a double-sided fold-out poster, an illustrated booklet, and a reversible sleeve with brand-new artwork.

The Last Starfighter follows a teenager, Alex Rogan, who lives in a trailer park with his mother and younger brother. He soon becomes angry at his circumstances following a scholarship rejection and seeks entertainment and escapes in a game called Starfighter, where players defend the so-called Frontier against the Xur and Ko-Dan armada in space battles. After Alex becomes the highest-ranking player in the game, he learns that the game actually represents a real-life conflict between aliens.

He then gets abducted by the aliens to lead them in their war against the opposing faction, saving the entire alien race from destruction and becoming their hero. He then returns to Earth for a brief moment but subsequently decides to go with the aliens, and the movie closes with Alex’s younger brother, inspired by his action, starting his own Starfighter game. This leaves plenty of room for a sequel; unfortunately, one never came despite the movie being a relative success.

In fact, actor Wyatt Russel, the son of the legendary Kurt Russel, recently disclosed that he’d be more than happy to work on a remake of The Last Starfighter with his father. While that might be an interesting idea, making a sequel in which Louis—the original protagonist’s brother—follows in his brother’s footsteps would make things more interesting. While we wait for that to happen—if it ever does—the recently announced The Last Starfighter in 4K is the second-best thing.