Dark Star

Dark Star is a 1974 sci-fi tongue-in-cheek comedy motion picture directed by John Carpenter and co-written with Dan O'Bannon. Dark Star was ranked #95 on Rotten Tomatoes' Journey Through Sci-Fi. Although destined for eventual theatrical release in 1974, this was only possible as a consequence of a successful series of showings at a number of film festival in 1973. Originally the film was a 45 minute student short filmed on 16mm film. The movie was seen by producer Jack H. Harris, who gained the theatrical distribution rights to the film, and arranged for it to be transferred to 35mm, and paid for the addition of 38 minutes which brought the movie up to feature film length. Director John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay. Six years later, the basic "Beachball with Claws" subplot of the film was reworked from comedy to horror, and became the basis for the O'Bannon-scripted science fiction horror classic, Alien. The special effects on the movie were done by Dan O... full article at wikipedia