The Last Star Fighter premiered on July 13, 1984. The film stood out at the time for it's heavy use of early CGI and was often compared against Return of the Jedi that was still using stop motion, puppets, and matte paintings. Behind the scenes, the film was connected to the Halloween universe as its director Nick Castle played "The Shape" in Halloween, Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, and "flasher" in Halloween Ends, and stars Lance Guest appeared as Jimmy in Halloween II and Dan O'Herlihy starred as Conal Cochran in Halloween III Season of the Witch. In the story, an alien named Centauri (Robert Preston in his final theatric role) travelled to Earth to recruit high schooler Alex Rogan (Guest), who lived in a trailer park, because he passed a starfighter test disguised as a video game. So his absense wouldn't be noticed, Centari left a Beta clone to take Alex's place and spend time with Alex's brother Louis (Chris Hebert) and Alex's girlfriend Maggie Gordon (Catherine Mary Stewart). Meanwhile in space, due to a betrayal by Xur (Norman Snow), Alex found that he and alien pilot Grig would have to use the last starfighter to fend off an invation lead by Lord Kril (Dan Mason). ("The Last Starfighter", Film, Event)