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The setup could be that of dozens of other films from the time, except this time it feels specifically like life on Uncle Owen’s moisture farm. Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) is a restless teenager living in a southern California trailer park with his mother and younger brother. His girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) lives nearby. Forgive me for giving into convention, but it’s the most well-adjusted trailer park I’ve ever seen. Everyone comes out of their homes to water their lawns and say hello to each other at the same time every morning. There are adorable little old ladies, hard-working middle-age single parents and exactly one black man, all living in the sort of blissful harmony you usually see only in a Coca-Cola commercial

Alex’s peers, including Maggie, spend their free time doing what kids in rated PG movies do. They ride around in the backs of pickup trucks, they hang out at the lake, and the action never gets past a little light petting and pecking on the lips. Alex, of course, has bigger aspirations. His days are mostly spent doing odd jobs around the park, and his friends mock him for wanting to go to college. But Alex has big dreams...of...well...actually we’re never really told what.

Alex just HAS big dreams, and a pleasant but dull as dishwater existence at the Shady Acres trailer park isn’t going to cut it.

As luck would have it, Alex is really, really good at the Starfighter video game that sits outside the local coffee shop. Alex spends a lot of time there, clearing his head by killing aliens. Also, that one black man in town? His sole purpose in the film is to be the Wise Old Negro who dispenses sage advice like, “When your chance comes, you’ve got to grab it with both hands and hold on tight.” But I did warn you this movie was derivative, and it is also from the 1980s, when people were more comfortable with eye-rolling ethnic stereotypes.

Alex eventually beats the high score of the game, to the delight of the entire town. Not ONE person tells him that videogames are a stupid waste of time - they ALL cheer him on. If the Septuagenarian Stepford-like atmosphere of this trailer park wasn’t already weird enough, this just takes you right out of the damn movie. But, no matter. The Last Starfighter has a pretty good sense of humor, you’ll come to find.

What I’m saying is, a bunch of old people getting excited about a videogame is the LEAST unusual thing that happens to Alex in this story.

Later, in the middle of the night, a strange car pulls up alongside Alex, who is wandering around at that time because it’s important he be alone (this is that kind of film). Behind the wheel is an eccentric old man named Centauri (Robert Preston), who casually informs Alex that he’s the inventor of the game, and is looking for the teenage boy who broke the record, so could he please get into the car? Obviously, Alex agrees, because that all seems logical. And even when Centauri turns out to be a lizard, and the car transforms into a spaceship with California plates, Alex takes it pretty much in stride.

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