Trivia / Dark Star

• Creator Backlash: Writer and co-star Dan O'Bannon was disappointed with the final film, saying that "instead of the most impressive student film ever made, we had the least impressive professional film ever made". He also hated the alien beach ball creature they came up with. His desire to make a film with a believable alien resulted in Alien.
• Creator's Oddball: For John Carpenter, better known for action and horror films. The closest he came to working with a comedy again was Big Trouble in Little China, and there, he fused it with an action movie.
• No Budget: The film was made on a shoestring budget of $60,000. And it shows.
• One-Book Author: Cal Kuniholm became a piping engineer and died in 2008; Dre Pahich only starred in a short film by Dan O'Bannon before Dark Star. The few supporting cast members have no info available about them either.
• Reclusive Artist: All that is really known about Dre Pahich (Talby) is that he had a thick accent which required him to be dubbed. Nobody seems to know where he was from or what happened to him after the movie came out. Even co-star Brian Narelle knew very little about him (they never actually met until the premiere- every shot of them together was done with a double, while the scenes of him talking in the dome were shot separately), and in an interview asked that Dre get in touch.
• Referenced by...:
  • Guess where indie band Pinback got their name from?
  • The character Pinbacker from Danny Boyle's film Sunshine is (somewhat) named after Pinback, as confirmed by Boyle himself.
  • The Marvel Comics storyline Operation: Galactic Storm begins with aliens attacking Rick Jones... in Benson, Arizona.
• Throw It In!: The Let There Be Light feature has Brian Narelle relate how Cal Kuniholm improvised playing finger filet. He genuinely stabbed himself by accident and kept his composure until the take was finished.