Confession time: As far as sci-fi space operas went, my heart had already gone out to The Last Starfighter long before I had ever heard of Star Wars. To be fair, the George Lucas juggernaut was too rich to play in the movie matinee shows I used to catch on TV while growing up, while Nick Castle’s 1984 considerably less successful space adventure used to pop up on the telly at least once a month. Still, I feel no shame in my fondness for it. I was going through my brief yet intense obsession with video-games, so I could relate to the main character, a youngster (Lance Guest, whose stardom never really took off) who uses his expertise at an arcade game to escape the frustrations of having to live in a God-forsaken trailer park. All the same, my young self would often squirm through these early, earthbound sequences. “Where the hell are the aliens and the spaceships,” I would ask. As if on cue, a visitor from outer space (Robert Preston, who’s delightful) materializes to inform Guest that he’s been recruited to join an alien force and defend the galaxy against slimy invaders. So we’re off into the stars along with the hero’s girlfriend (Catherine Mary Stewart, another one of those ‘80s whatever-happened-to mysteries) and a reptilian sidekick (the great Irish actor Dan O’Herlihy, hidden under scaly latex). Crammed with action, jokes, and not-bad special-effects, this one is still a blast. And, yeah, I still prefer it to any of the pricier, more humorless Star Wars movies.