Why wasn't a sequel ever made for Last Starfighter or KRULL?

I grew up on these movies as a teenager and have have always desired a sequel. Both are classics now, and should have sequels since they were set up for them. Fantasy and Sci-fi are so hot right now in tv and film, I just can't understand why they haven't been green lighted.


Changed the title to "or". Fingernails on the chalkboard sort of feeling seeing that as "of". Yes, I'm OCD.

 

I have not checked but I will guess that neither film did well enough at the box office to warrent sequals.

 

Box office performence and a general lack of interest.

 

This was probably a lame idea for a thread. It's just these movies had a big impact on me as a teenager. Of course SW and Indy as well, but I just always wondered why they never did the sequels, even if they made them direct to dvd. Hell, LOTR, the PT, and the Matrix have revitalized both genre's so I don't see how they wouldn't be popular. The way things are now, most producers don't even worry about box office results with dvd profits and over sea profits. Plus, both of these movies have a fanbase. More cult fanbase, but fanbase none-the-less.

 

A sequel to "Krull" might be a bit unnecessary, but "The Last Starfighter"? They left the movie kind of open-ended, and think of how they could update it to current gaming standards! Pilot recruitment via a multiplayer flight combat game? A new "Galactic Empire" to battle?

 

Well, there are a few things to remember...
Krull was an absolute box-office failure. This is what happens when you rewrite the movie completely in mid-filming. See, it was originally something like "Dragon Raiders of Krull", but "Dragonslayer" came out while they were filming it, and it was so poorly received that they rewrote Krull to not have dragons in it. Thus, the story didn't make much sense, and other sections just fell apart.

Now, on the Flipside, Last Starfighter was a one-off idea that was fine as a single movie, and left open ended, and storywise, was ok. On the other hand, the CGI technology wasn't there yet--the amount of time required was cost-prohibitive. Fine, all the effects are done using a computer is a nice novelty. But the movie was made using a Cray Supercomputer because that was the only machine with processing powere capable of handling the computations and renderings.

Interesting note: The first thing the studio animated was three x-wings flying in formation. One executes a loop. Looks perfect. Lucas was reportedly "unimpressed and uninterested". The worm turns, does it not?

It would be kinda neat to see something happen with the storyline, but really, Last Starfighter, while it could have been continued, didn't need it. Krull, on the other hand, needed someone with a clue to rewrite the story into something other and a bad hollywood interpretation of what D&D was about.

 

The footage of those Xwings was included in a Starfighter DVD a while back, and I dont blame Lucas. They were nowhere near the necessary quality to stand head to head with the models of the time.

 

The title of this thread caught my eye because I love both of these movies ("The Last Starfighter" more so) and I tend to lump them together. As stated, both were basically failures at the box-office, but I think that while "Krull" is (Unfairly IMHO) relegated to "Turkey" status, the reputation of "The Last Starfighter" has improved over the years. It has a great score, charming performances and a lot of heart. What holds it back is an underdeveloped villain and the rather static action due to the constraints of the CG technology.

If you head over to IMDB you'll find that both "Krull" and "The Last Starfighter" have a small, hearty band of believers who want sequels or re-makes, but I think Paris Hilton is more likely to win an Oscar than for that to ever happen. Still, "Tron" was also a box-office disappointment around the same time as "TLS" and "Krull" but there is talk of a sequel there. In this day in age of recycled ideas and re-makes you never know.

 

It's so funny that this thread came up.. I've been thinking a lot lately about writing an updated version of the Last Starfighter. The story is decent and with a little beefing up on the action and better development of some of the characters, it could be really epic, worthy of sequels. But we'll see how busy I get with other projects. Someone should really do something with this flick. Krull though.... I don't know.

D_M_S_L

 

last starfighter, I would see, Krull, never heard of it, till this thread. Loved Last Starfighter as a kid, I think it was one of the first films to use cgi for most of the movie, mind you this was done in 1983 or 1984, can't remember when it was released.

 

Well, I can't say I totally agree with that. I thought they looked pretty good, exp for the era. Remember, it was only a demo. Had Lucas been willing to invest in a year or so AT THE TIME, I think it could have produced something neat.

 

if they remade "THE LAST STARFIGHTER" today, the arcade game would get replaced with an MMORPG.

Put simply...Krull was the mutated joining of Conan to Star Wars...and it failed to impress either fanbase. Cult followings always crop up. I don't particularly dislike Krull...but that's what it was.

And it did have a remake.

It's called Eragon.

I think if they remade Starfighter today...it would not only be a success...but the remake would spawn sequels...simply because the tech is cheap enough to render the whole project a "bargain" by Hollywood standards today.

I NOMINATE ROBIN WILLIAMS FOR CENTAURI!

 

I thought Krull was horrible and cheesy. Medieval meets the space age? O...k..... The Last Starfighter was great and it ended perfectly. I don't think there should have been a sequel for either for those two reasons.

 

I thought Krull was spectacular. I actually liked it more than the SW prequels. I've never seen the The Last Starfighter.

 

Krull was an, umm, interesting movie, but it really didn't merit a sequel. One major problem that it had, both as a story in its own right and as a setup to any kind of franchise, is that it did an atrocious job of world-building. We get almost no sense that this is any kind of populated world. We see no cities or towns, and only learn about one village because some women from it come to the camp. The castle at the beginning seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and we don't know if all these people there for the wedding live in the palace or have their own homes elsewhere (not that it matters, since they're all wiped out anyway). Imagine making a movie about a trip across any country of your choice without ever showing a city, town, village, or farm.

 

EarthKnight, I would recommend watching Last Starfighter. I don't make positive recommendations often or lightly.

The reason for the shoddy worldbuilding, Drabba, is that the world was rewritten several times during production and filming. Orignally titled "Dragon-Riders of Krull", all the dragons and dradon references were removed when DragonSlayer turned out to be such a crapfest and box-office failure.
The Black Hole survived mid-filming rewrites with at least a modicum of integrity and plot logic. Krull failed on every level. Only the FX and Music are better than merely tollerable.

 

'The Last Starfighter' is being released on HD-DVD [No Blu-Ray] on September 18th. Same features as the "Special edition" DVD from 5-6 years ago.

 

HAHA...HD quality primordial CG...what a con.