The Starfighters

I always wonder why they thought having the romantic interest be a corn detassler from Iowa was a good idea.

Unless the true purpose of this movie was to teach pilots how to fall asleep.

4 Likes

How to fall asleep in their poopy suits, you mean.

2 Likes

If I’m remembering right, the Italians had a nickname for this plane which translated to “Flying Coffin.” I want to check out the parallel dimension where that was both the title and the plot of the movie.

2 Likes

All I know is that this movie and Scott Thorson and Bob Dornan make me rock hard for corn cobs.

I love it.

Shake your dinners, you wild fuelling capsule!

1 Like

AKA “The Widomaker”.

1 Like

Starring William Windom? (As a Murder She Wrote fan, I feel like he’d acquit himself at least as well as anyone in this dimension’s version of the warplane paid programming movie.)

Sorry, I meant the aircraft.

1 Like

I get you. I was just having a bit of fun.

Yeah, whilst its not “bad” on an objective, technical level like with Manos’ crummy editing etc, I consider The Starfighters to perhaps be the most boring film they’ve ever riffed (so far). Its a whole lot of mid-air refuelling stock footage with a little bit of a plot sprinkled in. And for a film supposedly trying to serve as propaganda for USAF recruitment, what little plot there is seems to be counterintuitive: assuming I’m remembering correctly, isn’t the story about an Admiral or a General or something who really wants his son to be in the Air Force and go off to save the day, but when he finally is dispatched to a combat zone, suddenly the Dadmiral regrets putting his son in that situation?

The Starfighters says: Join the Air Force, your loved ones will regret letting you go to war!

8 Likes

More specifically, Dad thought the titular plane was unworthy of his son’s talents, which is why he wanted the kid transferred someplace where he could “push the big stuff around,” etc.

You can tell you’ve hit rock bottom when you start to pay attention to the plot of this movie. I’ll just show myself out.

8 Likes

Yeah, for some reason Dad thinks bombers are better than fighters, which makes no sense whatsoever.

3 Likes

I thought Dad was a Congressman

2 Likes

My understanding is that the “movie” was funded by the plane’s manufacturer. The plane was poorly designed. (The way he brags about how the wing is so sharp you can slice a carrot on it? Yeah, not great. It makes the whole thing more unstable.) No one wanted to buy it. That’s a very expensive piece of machinery to design and build only to have it flop.

So the whole thing is a feature-length ad for how great the plane is, and how foolish certain government officials are for not seeing its value.

Except it seems they didn’t really bother hiring a writer, at least not one who knew how to make a decent movie. And, while they had some planes on the ground they could film, there was no combat footage. This wasn’t done in conjunction with the military, since the whole point was for the company to get the military to buy. Nor did they have the budget for special effects. So they just made do with stock footage from the training grounds.

The result is 90 minutes of stock footage interspersed with good, wholesome pilots talking about how great the plane is, and a minor subplot about an annoying Congressman who’s stuck in the old days when WWII bombers did the important stuff and fighters were just escorts whose job it was to keep the enemy fighters from taking out the important planes.

12 Likes

Oh yeah, that’s it. Its been over 2 years since I watched the episode, hence my shaky memory. Was positive the Dad was armed forces, but upon checking, you’re right.

2 Likes

He was both. In his younger years, he was also a pilot.

That makes sense. I haven’t been into military aviation in a long time, but I don’t recall a lot of praise or admiration for that particular aircraft. And I knew a dude who swore by the A6 intruder, even tho he used to have to kick some part of the avionics to make it work right occasionally.

1 Like

Yeah, pilots get attached to their planes. Which is understandable and probably a good thing. I remember the Intruder had its own movie, as well. Based on the book of the same name: Flight of the Intruder. It also didn’t do very well, but at least it apparently had action and a plot.

As for the pilot turned congressman in Starfighters: The actor actually ended up becoming a congressman IRL.

2 Likes

I knew someone who was in that movie! He was part of the carrier crew (rescue and salvage team, I believe). He is in only one scene, when the entire crew is ceremonially lining the deck (“manning the rail”). The shot took forever to film (the filmmakers actually paid the Navy to turn the ship 180° to get better lighting–VERY expensive), and at one point he had his foot up on the rail in front of him, and he was talking to his friend beside him. It turns out they were filming at that moment, and that was the shot that got included in the finished film (it was an extremely wide shot, so most people wouldn’t notice).

4 Likes

Saw Castle of Fu Manchu again the other night. Not really sleep-inducing, because my brain insists on trying to work out what the hell is going on. With Starfighters, though, my brain very quickly concludes that nothing is going on, and that it all can be safely ignored.

5 Likes