***SPOILERS***
***Spoilers for The Thing and E.T. and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2***
This is another brilliant film by John Carpenter. Well constructed in the horror style, but focusing on science fiction themes. It's the adult E.T. (1982). That beautiful optimism versus fear of the Other. Humanity's search for other sentient life, but also our instinct to destroy the unknown.
The film opens with Jenny (Karen Allen, Indiana Jones) who is grieving the loss of her husband Scott (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski). And the alien mimics Scott in order to gain acceptance and reassure her, but it is his likeness that is terrifying to Jenny. All the set up is there in the first sequence with Jenny, as the alien looks at photograph albums and objects and videos in order to mimic him. But first it is like the birth of man. Jenny witnesses the growth from baby (which looks horrifying! See below) morphing into this Scott-like being.
John Carpenter set's up the ball obejcts in the birth scene which plays out throughout the film as his weapons and healing power (interpret that as you will! Jokes aside). I also love love love the weird 80s visual effects that are part maybe early digital effects and part puppets that John Carpenter was fond of, see The Thing (1982). I feel this film is positioned as an optimistic response to The Thing, but also a adult companion/ response to E.T. which is very similar in terms of wanting to destroy the alien and one human teaches it human kindness and helps it reach it's people back in space.
Jenny's first response to the man is to take on a phallic object of the gun (a Checkov's [literal] gun in order to protect herself as a vulnerable female.
A beautiful shot (above) or the gun mirroring his foot as Scott-alien learns to be a human and shoots the gun learning which will come into play throughout the rest of the film.
Jenny leaves a note saying she's kidnapped but Scott-being can't understand/ read and then it's shown he takes down the note and asks her what it means to be "kinapped". He holds the gun to her head but unloads the clip stating that "I mean you no harm". (See below).
This is an amazing sequence (see above) where Scott-being doesn't understand the killing of deer and heals the dead body, which is a precursor and Checkov's gun to healing Jenny when she is shot.
See above Scott being is shown as a fully grown man naked. This completes the birthing scene. I want to reference a great video blog on youtube I saw stating a concept of "Born sexy yesturday" (see link) it's a great film analysis. Talking about the objectification of women as aliens or robots that are childlike and "innocent" but also sexualised as adult females. It mentions this reverse of this trope of males and says that it is the opposite and that men child figures are not sexy. I argue against this concept. The analysis mentions Starman specifically (see video). And for the most part I agree with his analysis. Scott-being is a child and Jenny acts as a mother figure teaching him to speak and do everything. But about half way through the film he becomes the traditional hero archetype after she gets shot. She gets shot because she tries to stop him from shooting at the cops.
Above: Jenny shot dead in the car chase with police.
A beautiful iconic hero shot of Scott-being walking out of the explosion carrying Jenny's body/ saving her.
Scott healing Jenny (who is shirtless) becoming an object. This mirrors the deer scene (above).
This sequence after Jenny and Scott-being escape he becomes the child-like object where she helps him undress. However he becomes sexualised as a full herolike man after he saved her life. All this despite her feigned anger at him leaving her behind.
Jenny undressing Scott-being as he doesn't know how to undress himself and her ramblings about him catching cold with "pneumonia".
Scott-being earlier talks about remembering everything and copies her. This begins the sex scene and you have to give it to John Carpenter's wink to the audience and tropes having a shot of a train travelling. Much like the scenes where they showed trains going through tunnels to symbolise sex.
The scene scene has a number of changing positions basically equal in power status between male and female with roles reversing.
After the sex scene Scott-being becomes the true hero archetype positioning Jenny as the object. And also he impregnates her after a conversation saying that she was unable to have children, but he said basically his magic alienness means that she can now have a child that will be like him, but also human and he hopes that she will tell the child about him.
There is also something of a religious themes to Starman in that he is like Jesus with his powers of healing. Also the more recent film Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 (2017) makes a nod to this because it shows Starlord's father as Kurt Russel's character, a celestial being that impregnates a woman in the 80s.
Overall I love this film. My only real criticism is the cheesy 80s music which is a disappointment because John Carpenter films usually have brilliant dark themed music. And while the music is thematically pertinent it is just a little too light and fluffy for my taste and differs from his stuff. I think the themes of humanity's search for intelligent life in the universe is great and also fear of the Other. While the interesting roles of strong female character is great, it is unfortunate because she becomes the mother figure, but is the "Final girl" much like in horror films, but is not in fact surviving anything, she is left behind as a future single mother. She is healed of her grief, and given a new grief of losing Scott-being. But now she will have a child to focus on and becomes a mother figure as can be seen through the progression of the film.
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