
The Last Starfighter is a 1984 American space opera film directed by Nick Castle. The film tells the story of Alex Rogan (Lance Guest), an average teenage boy recruited by an alien defense force to fight in an interstellar war. It also featured Robert Preston, Dan O'Herlihy, Catherine Mary Stewart, Norman Snow and Kay E. Kuter.
The Last Starfighter, along with Disney's Tron, has the distinction of being one of cinema's earliest films to use extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI) to depict its many starships, environments and battle scenes. It is one of the first films to use CGI to represent "real-life" objects instead of a digital graphics.
The Last Starfighter was Preston's final film role. His character, a "lovable con-man", was a nod to his most famous role as Harold Hill in The Music Man. There was a subsequent novelization of the film by Alan Dean Foster, as well as a video game based on the production. In 2004, it was also adapted as an off-Broadway musical.