Starfield

Starfield (1984)

Memorable Quotes:

John Hague: And what's your name, hotshot?
Tarbor: I'm afraid it's quite unpronounceable in your language, human. You say your "r's" funny. (more)

• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The Pantheon is without oxygen for more than half an hour, but the average human can last only minutes without oxygen before suffering severe brain damage or death. However, John Hague may have been an incredible, unprecedented genius before the oxygen deprivation, and the severe brain damage may have left him at normal intelligence for the rest of the film.
• Factual errors: Severed arms cannot scream.
• Revealing mistakes: When he speaks, Greg Evigan's stubble moves a fraction of a second slower than his jaw.
• Revealing mistakes: In several shots, cuts and bruises are visible on Sybil Danning's face. These are the results of an on-set hurly-burly stemming from the accidental removal of Michael Berryman's nose-shackle; the massive creature caught Danning's scent and could not control its brutality.
• Miscellaneous: Richard Lawson was the product of an unplanned pregnancy.
• Factual errors: People would die too quickly after being submerged in lava to have sex.
• Continuity: John Hague's "crawdad rocking out" tattoo changes captions. As the camera pans away from the duck pond, the banner beneath the crawdad reads "born to fuck," but when he turns to walk away, the banner reads "rock out forever."
• Revealing mistakes: The presence of a giant hand holding a paintbrush reveals that the matte painting depicting the landscape of planet Bromule is actually a still frame from The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross.
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Characters' breath is visibly steamy on planet Bromule even though it is supposed to be hot. Perhaps the planet is really, really hot, and what looks like steam is actually smoke coming out of their lungs. And maybe they are wearing thick down coats to prevent the sun from burning through them.
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Emperor Krutonn repeatedly mispronounces the word "gravity" as "gravy."
• Miscellaneous: Dennis Quaid begins to say "thanks, mom" as Ally Sheedy is serving him stew, but then turns beet-red and attempts to salvage it by saying "thanks momumental stew& it is so good& monumental stew, I said."
• Factual errors: Theoretically, "Star tornadoes" can only occur in the exotic physical conditions present during the collapse of the universe, or during Passover. Even aside from this, the crushing force of gravity would be far too strong during a star tornado to accommodate a fistfight.
• Continuity: The same extra is reused multiple times throughout several scenes. The extra is dressed exactly like Clancy Brown's character and occasionally speaks his lines. The extra also looks, quite uncannily, exactly like Clancy Brown. This extra is always present in scenes and situations in which Clancy Brown's character would logically appear. Other characters call this extra by the name, "Cactus," which is also coincidentally the name of the character played by Clancy Brown.
• Crew or equipment visible: Occasionally, Willy "Candlestick" Banks just can't resist sticking his head into the frame and waving.
• Factual errors: Barring extraordinary circumstances, people wouldn't still be listening to Nik Kershaw in the year 2099.
• Revealing mistakes: As Emperor Krutonn gazes into the Starfield, his left eye slowly wanders to the left until slotting neatly into the "lazy" position with an audible click.
• Miscellaneous: The congenitally hairless Michael Berryman can be caught jealously eyeing Jon Polito's delectable, waxy mustache, visualizing it upon his own barren countenance, plotting ways to make it his own.
• Revealing mistakes: Close inspection reveals that the model used for the Star Dreadnaught is actually an unmodified bronze paperweight in the shape of the Empire State Building. Further minute inspection reveals a cat's paw batting at the object as it flies across the Starfield, which, upon close inspection, is a corkboard, spray-painted black and festooned with yellow push pins.
• Unwarranted smells: During the Starfield backpedal scene, a faint odor of spoiled crab meat can be detected.

• Factual error: When Hague shoots Krutonn's troops during the prison escape scene, several of them can be seen spontaneously giving birth. Guns can only take life, not create it. Remember that.
• Continuity: Several times throughout the movie, the blend of cocaine Greg Evigan is high on alternates between Bolivian blow and classic Colombian.
• Revealing Mistakes: Hague's escape pod is a 1982 Cheva Nova with "THE AIR FORCE OF SPACE" written on a posterboard taped to the windshield.
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Several times during the final scene in the medical bay, a heavily armed commando team bursts through the door and riddles Sprockets with darts as he lays motionless in bed. While morphine is traditionally administered through an IV or needle by a trained nurse, there is no way of knowing how this practice may change in the future, up until and including forced euthanasia.

• Dozens of crew members were critically masculinized when Dennis Quaid'srugged intensity accidentally exploded during filming of the climactic final battle between Captain Hague and Emperor Krutonn. Slowed down footage of the incident shows an unconscious Sybil Danning hurtling through the air and hitting the ground sporting a five o' clock shadow and mountain boots.
• Actor's Trademark: Michael Berryman's character shot execution style while cradling rabbit.
• Director Trademark: Hero suckles newborn kangaroo inside protective pouch for 7-10 months
• Despite warnings from an elderly Chinese shopkeeper, director Willy Banks allowed water to be given to Jon Polito, who consequently went into convulsions and spawned Dennis Franz.
• The film's shot of Ally Sheedy falling off a cliff to her death was one of the first to use greenscreen technology during the 1980's. To shoot the scene, the actress was first flown in a helicopter over a giant green soundstage then dropped several hundred feet, with the soundstage later being replaced with an image of the canyon floor in editing.
• Miguel Ferrer was the fifth person to be cast as Chimney and the only one to survive the movie after cast members tearfully pleaded with director Willy Banks to stop filming his underwater scene in stop motion.
• Director Trademark: Hot air balloon kills a Protestant
• Filming for the movie was repeatedly delayed after several successful attempts by 1930s expeditionary filmmakers to parade a shackled and enraged Michael Berryman before a Broadway audience.

– Dr. David Thorpe (@Arr)