Trama

In the far reaches of space, a small crew, 20 years into their solitary mission, find things beginning to go hilariously wrong.

A low budget, sci-fi satire that focuses on a group of scientists whose mission is to destroy unstable planets. 20 years into their mission, they have battle their alien mascot, that resembles a beach ball, as well as a "sensitive" and intelligent bombing device that starts to question the meaning of its existence.—yusufpiskin

The misadventures of a deep space wrecking crew. Charged with an endless mission to destroy unstable planets and long since worn down by routine, isolation, faulty equipment, and each other they're slowly pushed to the edge in this offbeat, low-budget response to 2001.—yusufpiskin

The crew of the Dark Star are on a 20 year mission to clear a path in space by destroying planets that are in the way of navigation routes. After a series of mishaps Mother, the ship's computer, can no longer persuade Bomb not to detonate. Even the dead captain is of little help in arguing with Bomb who is bound to do his duty.—Stephen Hendricks <shendric@fortmyers.com>

In the late 22st Century, an incoming message from Earth arrives to a spaceship. Colonel Watkins (Miles Watkins) says that the trip is being broadcast live which has been nearly 20 years since it was launched from planet Earth. The messages take around ten years to arrive. There was a radioactive leak, and Commander Powell (Joe Saunders) died. In consequence, there is a week of mourning on Earth, all flags are half-mast, but Congress won't pay for a radiation shield. "Dark Star" is the spaceship.

There are four crewmen on board the spaceship. The new commander, Talby (Dre Pahich; voiced by John Carpenter), sits in a bubble on top of the ship, falls asleep... dreaming about the Phoenix asteroid which circles the universe every 1.23 trillion years. The other crewmen, Sgt. Francis Boiler (Cal Kuniholm), Lt. Doolittle (Brian Narelle) and Sgt. Pinback (Dan O'Bannon) spend most of their days in the cramped control room. Doolittle has become a bit "spicy" from the years in isolation.

The crew can speak to Bomb 19 (voice of Alan Sheretz), which destroys a planet. Dark Star goes to hyperspace and leaves the hell out of there, watching the explosion from far away. The computer (voice of Cookie Knapp) says that they've destroyed the last unstable planet on that solar system. However, the computer finds another unstable red-dwarf planet, so they have to go and check it out.

Boiler puts on some country music on the radio. On the ship's log, we can hear that a part of the ship self-destructed. They are dancing to the sound of funky music. The computer tells about something on collision course, and the defense system was destroyed some time ago, so they try to do something manually. A thunder activates a bomb. Bomb 20 (voice of Adam Beckenbaugh) is deployed, but luckily, the computer overrides the orders and Bomb 20 finally goes back to its place. Images of a hole around the destroyed laser machine.

Doolittle, Pinback and Talby go to their room. They sleep in the same place, and it looks like an apartment from the projects in the 1960's. One of them makes music with empty bottles of liquor.

Talby should be watching the ship, but he's always sleeping. He is advised to see the rest of the ship. He says that space can be wonderful and full of color, and Doolittle says that he misses Earth and Mars as well. Boiler starts shooting a square of metal just to distract himself, although Pinback tells him not to do it. The computer tells Pinback about the alien going awry, telling him that it was his original idea to bring him into the ship.

The alien (Nick Castle) literally looks like a beach ball with legs. It doesn't want to eat. Pinback brought it in because he thought it was fine. Pinback is cleaning up the alien's mess when it attacks him. The alien leaves the room. Pinback gives it a plastic toy, and it eats it, but when Pinback goes to pick the broom, the alien is not there. It holds the broom and hits Pinback with it. Pinback looks for the alien in the bowels of the ship. Pinback uses a plank to go to the alien. A sign says "Emergency air lock interior room". The alien goes around Pinback and takes the plank away. He tries to cross the shaft, although the corridor is very narrow. It is the lift shaft, and the computer says that it's been activated. Pinback tries to move on towards the alien, but it attacks him. He falls down, but can hold onto the thin layer of pass-way. The alien jump and tickles Pinback. The lift seems to stop when Pinback interrupts it. The lift goes up again, with Pinback holding onto an outer metallic handle. The alien turns on the laser, which makes all the systems go crazy.

Meanwhile, Doolittle and Talby have kept on talking. Bomb 20 has received a signal to ignite itself again. The computer tries to reason with it, saying that it was an error again. Bomb 20 finally agrees, but it says that that was going to be the last time.

The lift stops at the third floor, and Pinback thinks of jumping out. He unscrews a floor trap and gets onto the elevator. He gets stuck. He tries to use the phone for help, but it's out of order. He presses another button, and opera music resounds. The elevator keeps going up and down for no apparent reason. He presses another button to clean the lift, and presses 1, which will make the elevator clean itself.

Finally Pinback leaves the elevator amid a mist of smoke and with a metallic lid around his waist. Now, at this moment, he's really pissed off, so he goes to pick and anesthetic gun. Soon enough, he finds the alien, cornered somewhere. He shoots the alien, who flies all over the place, and ends up deflated.

Pinback talks about his ordeal to the rest of the crew. They have lunch together talking about Talby being mentally unstable. Talby goes to the computer room, and says to Doolittle that the computer has found the malfunction in the ship.

Powell left a message, saying that he doesn't intend to come back to Earth. Pinback checks his past diary logs, stating that nobody recognizes his good qualities, and that nobody said "happy birthday" to him. The computer has finally found the malfunction: it's the laser. However, everybody is sound sleeping but for Pinback.

Eventually, they find the unstable planet. Bomb 20 is deployed. Pinback is in the emergency air lock, where there is a door which can be opened without depressurization. There, there is the laser who works badly. Nobody wants to hear Pinback, because they are busy with the deployment of Bomb 20. The laser is turned on, and it shoots inside the ship. The laser makes Pinback blind, and he crosses the path of the laser beams. This creates further malfunctions, so they can't drop the bomb. Everybody panics on the bridge because the explosion sequence goes on, and Bomb 20 refuses to turn itself off.

The computer will only contain the damage done to the ship by Bomb 20 up to a certain degree. They have to ask Powell, in the cryogenic deep-freeze compartment, what could be done. Powell asks about the Dodgers, and complains that he's lonely. When he is about to give a suggestion, the mike has a malfunction, and then Powell forgets about it. Pinback tries to reason with Bomb 20 while Doolittle questions Powell. Doolittle goes out to space and talks to Bomb 20.

DOOLITTLE: How do you know that you exist?

BOMB 20: Intuition.

DOOLITTLE: You can't base everything on intuition.

BOMB 20: I think, therefore I am.

The dialogue goes on and on like that. Bomb 20 agrees that its experience of the outer world depends on possibly wrong information. It says that it'd be nice to keep on discussing the matter with Doolittle, but that it has no time, because it will go off in 49 seconds. Meanwhile, Boiler tries to shoot the bomb. In the fight with Pinback, he almost shoots him.

Doolittle tells Bomb 20 to consider what his purpose in life is. "To explode, of course", says Bomb 20. As it can only explode once, it wouldn't like to explode at the wrong time, would it? "Of course not", says Bomb 20, but as it had admitted before that it had no proof that the outer world does exist. "Nine seconds", says Bomb 20, and "my memory is very good". It has no proof that the orders are either wrong or correct. Bomb 20 goes back inside Dark Space to think further about the matter.

Doolittle tries to rescue Talby, who was shot out of Dark Space. Now, Bomb 20 thinks that no order coming from the outer world can be reliable, so it explodes itself happily although Pinback tries to reason with it. Both Pinback and Boiler are killed by the explosion, while Talby and Doolittle are left stranded floating in space. Powell goes flying away wrapped in a bath of ice.

Talby gets trapped in a traveling concussion of lights, so that he'll be traveling through the universe forever as part of the Phoenix asteroid. Doolittle uses a piece of debris to surf down to the red planet as a shooting star where he presumably burns up to his death.

---written by KrystelClaire