COOL STUFF: "The Ko-Dan Armada — For Real!" (6 November 2007)

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TOP: The Last Starfighter movie poster from 1984!

Hi All,

Way back in 1984, one of my favorite sci-fi movies ever debutted, The Last Starfighter, a fun little romp of a film that helped to pioneer the use of CG (computer generated) special effects. One of most entertaining details of the movie back in the 1980s was the use of a video arcade game unit in the film as a recruiting tool to find star pilots for a fantastic galactic force of Gunstar starfighters to defend the universe against bad guys everywhere. The idea was that if you could beat the video game, you'd make a good starfighter pilot since you'd have the right eye-hand coordination, reflexes, and all that. It worked in the movie at any rate and after the film came out, young people everywhere scanned video game arcades everywhere for Last Starfighter units hoping to enlist in the galactic force, but... a video game of the movie was never made... until now!

Check out this excerpt from a cool Galactica Watercooler post:

As we discussed at length in DTA Podcast #1, we all ran out of the theater after seeing The Last Starfighter hoping to find a Starfighter game in the arcade — so we could blow our little hometowns home planet forever. Well, now you can have a Starfighter game of your very own — but you’ll have to build it yourself.

Here’s the skinny: the great folks at Rogue Synapse — a resource for movie-aficionados and game cabinet builders — have not only researched the details of the game cabinet from the movie, they’ve also developed a working version of the Starfighter game. This is the game that should’ve hit arcades right after the movie but never did. And it’s a free download!

Post continued at the Galactica Watercooler...

Galactica Watercooler entry for the new Last Starfighter video game:
http://www.galacticawatercooler.com/2007/10/31/fight-the-ko-dan-armada-for-reals/

So, alright already, let's go out and blow up the Ko-Dan Armada!

TOP: A REAL The Last Starfighter video game unit.

And if you've never seen the film, go out and rent it soon. It's a family-friendly film and just good, clean fun. I'm including two links about the film below if you'd like to learn more about it.

IMDb (International Movie Data Base) entry for the The Last Starfighter:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/

Wikipedia entry for the The Last Starfighter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Starfighter

TOP: The awesome CG Gunstar space fighter from The Last Starfighter.

And if you ever wanted to get a miniatures model version of the Gunstar, this is the place:
http://www.minimodelmadness.com/store/

Mini Model Madness has all sorts of fun resin replicas of movie vehicles. I've seen games use MMM models before for miniatures wargaming... They're a bit pricey but they paint up nicely.

Have a great Tuesday!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

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