John Carpenter doesn’t usually do fuzzy, warm and tender. But after The Thing got trounced by E.T. at the box office in ’82, maybe JC wanted to make peace with the idea of a benevolent alien jesus.
Starman (1984) is his take on that cosmic messiah archetype – a sci-fi road movie where Jeff Bridges, in one of his most beautifully strange performances, plays an extraterrestrial who crash-lands, clones a human body, and goes on a cross-country trip with a grieving widow (Karen Allen) while the government closes in. But not a BMX in sight.
For a director known for ice-cold nihilism and creeping dread, Starman feels like Carpenter proving he could do pathos just as well as horror. It’s not a film that often gets mentioned alongside his greatest hits, but there’s something deeply affecting in the way it balances wonder and sadness.
He gives Spielberg a run for his money.
It even spawned a short-lived Starman TV series in 1986, with Robert Hayes taking over the role and Christopher Daniel Barnes (movieverse Greg Brady) as his son. I was sad to see it cancelled after just one season.
But the film stands on its own as a rare moment where John Carpenter (mostly) lets go his usual cynicism and tells a story about kindness, curiosity, and what it means to be human.
This is a movie that cares.
It’s also my answer to WWJCD. He’d direct Starman. -Pop