Dark Star

John Carpenter directed this wigged-out spoof of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film originally began as a 45-minute U.S.C. student film project by Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon that was eventually expanded into a feature length production. The sstory takes place on the deep-space cruiser Dark Star, where a crew of laid-back astronauts are assigned the task of blowing up planets with unsuitable life forms in order to make the universe safe for the human race. The leader is Commander Powell (Joe Sanders), who is cryogenically frozen after being killed in a freak accident. Next in line is Doolittle (Brian Narelle) who tries to keep the rest of the crew in check. However, there is a lot of down time between planetary explosions and the tediousness is starting to get to everyone. However, after a series of accidents, a smart bomb --i.e. a bomb that can talk and think on its own-- does not detach itself from the ship as planned and will explode within 24 minutes unless it can be cajoled into disarming itself.