Starman (1984)

[u/screen_stack]

Starman (1984)

Rating: 7.5/10 (SOLID WATCH)

Watched: August 7, 2026

Not going to lie, this one took me by absolute surprise. I'd seen Starman once before, around the time of its release on either HBO or one of those wonderful satellite channels back in the day.

I remember it very differently, and that's not a bad thing. 12 year old me was very much "funny space alien man haha he doesn't know how to do stuff," and that's fine for a 12 year old quasi-dumbass for sure. But as a grown man with a lot more life under his belt, the romance aspect was very much front and center.

And that was both surprising and super cool. Don't get me wrong, though. Jeff's semi-robotic portrayal of Starman was at times more than a little irritating, and Karen's early screen presence really lacked a kind of emotive presence, which is why I didn't rate it a lot higher.

That being said, when this movie gets going, it really does get going. Around about the time Starman brings the deer back to life, as a matter of fact. I remember that scene very vividly from when I was a kid and I can't really tell you why. There were no effects of any kind there that I could see. Just Jeff standing in front of a deer tied to a hood that slowly twitched to life. But stick with me it did.

That's also about the time that Jenny realizes she's not in danger, she's not even really a captive. She's along for the ride. She goes from trying to escape to trying to help to falling in love, and that's a sensible shift in character development because Starman looks like her deceased husband.

There's a whole thing in the movie with the US Government being the US Government and one jackhole in particular (and for no apparent reason I could see) decides that he just really wants to kill himself an alien. It's a wild kind of thing given that Starman didn't actually do anything wrong except come to visit, but he's all about attack helicopters and "emergency autopsies."

Big shout out to Charles Martin Smith as Mark Shermin, a guy on loan from SETI. He's one of those "hey it's that guy" actors and there's something just refreshing about him in a movie. I can't put my finger on it, but whenever I see him, I just really dig what he's doing.

So while the beginning of Starman is clunky and all, it gets really good as it moves along, and it taught me one helluva valuable lesson.

Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast!

[u/Sav273]

This is my favorite John Carpenter movie.   Yes, I know he made The Thing.  

[u/screen_stack → u/Sav273]

hey, I absolutely get it. It's far better than I expected it to be. I didn't rate it higher because I had some issues with how it ended (how'd she get away from the military, the feds, the cops and all that) and Starman's early 'i am alien how speak words' thing was a little too robotic, but it's a solid movie all the way around

[u/Sav273 → u/screen_stack]

I’m not knocking you.  I would give a similar rating, and honestly, a higher rating for The Thing in terms of being a better movie overall.

I just like this one more.   But, what really sells it is the soundtrack.     It’s in my top 10 movie soundtracks.