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Now, I know I’m indulging in a bit of plot recitation here. But it’s important that you understand how utterly stupid the first half of this movie is. I don’t want you to feel like I let you walk into it. And if you did not grow up in the ‘80s, the tone of The Last Starfighter might be a little off-putting. Yes, it’s one of those “young boy with restless spirit is the Chosen One” stories. But it’s also part Star Wars, part ABC Afterschool Special, and part Woody Allen movie in space. The film seems well aware of all this, and as such it even makes a little fun of itself from time to time. That’s good, because the leaps of logic don’t get any better in the second half.

The video game Alex wasted his youth on was actually a recruitment platform for pilots. And having broken the high score, Alex is now swept up in an intergalactic war between the forces of Goodness, and a race of alien lizards with British accents. Nobody mentions what an incredible act of desperation it is to pick out fighter pilots this way, and I love that. That’s like Dale Junior recruiting you for his race team based on your Xbox Live profile. The Last Starfighter aspires to be nothing more than a crowd pleaser, and this sense of awareness is what makes me forgive such narrative trespasses.

Besides, in the second half, the star of the show is the special effects. Starfighter used innovative techniques to achieve a very distinctive look that I’ve seldom seen since (television’s Babylon 5 comes to mind). It’s the kind of cartoonish looking early CGI that wasn’t any more realistic looking back then than it is now. But it works exceptionally well for what it’s meant to do, and it really does have a unique, fascinating look. I can appreciate it even now, and what I appreciate even more is that the film’s sense of consciousness extends here, too.

Very specific plot points address the limitation of how many ships can be onscreen at once, and why a particular cockpit effect looks the way it does. This is a rare occasion when a film swung for the outfield rather than the fence with a new technology, and that sense of restraint does the film many favors.

It’s all of these things - plus some surprisingly crisp individual performances - that make me love The Last Starfighter. It knows what it is, it isn’t embarrassed by that, and it really, really wants you in on the fun. It’s like your neighbor who has the Camaro. We all know it’s because he can’t afford a Corvette. But in the right hands, a Camaro can be just as much fun. The Last Starfighter is not Star Wars, but it’s almost good enough.

And that’s all I ever needed it to be. With the passage of time, I realize that as a kid I was jaded by my love for Star Wars. I’ll never get to be a kid again, but it's a pleasant surprise to find out I like The Last Starfighter considerably MORE than I did back then. Fair enough trade for me.

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