History Film / DarkStar

* HeadInTheSandManagement: The way Doolittle, as acting commander, handles any damages or technical malfunctions on the spaceships. He refuses to investigate and fix any of them until it’s an immediate matter of life and death.

* ActionPrologue: Before the opening credits we witness the crew destruct a planet.

The film is about the small crew of the titular scout ship, whose job is to destroy unstable planets which might threaten future colonization, and one of their doomsday bombs becoming self-aware.

* AllForNothing: Yes, the planets the crew destroy are unstable and could eventually threaten life in that system, but only on a cosmic time scale. It will take thousands, perhaps even millions of years for the orbits of said planets to destabilize enough to be a threat, which means they aren't really a problem that needs to be dealt with any time this millennium and the Dark Star's mission is completely pointless.
* ArtisticLicenseSpace: While the ''Dark Star'' does not make noise in space, it does stop on a dime...intentional use of the RuleOfFunny.
** Note that it does so when coming out of hyperdrive. Modern shows have ships doing exactly the same thing, which is justified if an esoteric Drive is used to circumvent Newtonian physics.

* SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay: While the ''Dark Star'' does not make noise in space, it does stop on a dime...intentional use of the RuleOfFunny.
** Note that it does so when coming out of hyperdrive. Modern shows have ships doing exactly the same thing, which is justified if an esoteric Drive is used to circumvent Newtonian physics.

* BittersweerEnding: [[spoiler:The ship is destroyed and all crew members are killed. However, Talby gets carried away by the Phoenix Asteroids (meaning he'll get to see the cosmos before he runs out of air), and Doolittle decides to surf into the planet's atmosphere. Not exactly ''happy'', but it's AGoodWayToDie.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:The ship is destroyed and all crew members are killed.]]

* EpicFail: Doolittle's attempt to stop the bomb from detonating.

[[quoteright:233:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/darkstarposter.jpg]]

* FiveFingerFillet: Boyler sucks at it.

* LiteralCliffhanger: Pinback in the elevator shaft.
* LogicBomb: "Let there be light."

* MikeNelsonDestroyerOfWorlds: The entire crew.

* PluckyComicRelief: Pinback and Bomb No. 20.

Not to be confused with the video game featuring the cast of ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]'', the final level in ''VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards'', or the SealedEvilInACan from VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiBowsersInsideStory

* NotNowKiddo: When Talby finds out about the laser malfunction, he tries to communicate this to Doolittle, but the latter is too busy with the detonation maneuver that he decides to cut the communication line to Talby. Disaster ensues.

* HumanPopsicle: The dead commander was put into deep-freeze where his half-living souls could still be contacted through an electronic device.

* MagicalSecurityCam: during the asteroid storm, the ship's computer displays an image of the bomb clearly taken from outside the ship, and from the perspective of the audience.

* GeorgeLucasAlteredVersion: This movie was originally a 68-minute student short film. When it was acquired for distribution, new footage was added by the producer. Later, John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon re-edited the film into a [[ReCut director's cut]], removing much of the footage shot for the theatrical release and adding new special effects.

* MistakenIdentity: Pinback tells the others a story about how he isn't the real Sergeant Pinback; supposedly the real Sergeant Pinback drowned himself in a fuel tank, and the guy was mistaken for Pinback because he'd put Pinback's spacesuit on while preparing to save him. It's uncertain if that's the truth or just a story he made up trying to distract everyone from the maddening tedium of the voyage (if the latter, doesn't work because nobody cares).

* PublicDomainSoundTrack: Pinback's plight of being trapped in the elevator is not made any easier being accidentally turning on a track from '''Theatre/TheBarberOfSeville''.

* RaceAgainstTheClock: The movie's climax in which the crew has to stop the detonation sequence of Bomb #20 after it wouldn't drop out of the ship's bomb bay.

* MistakenIdentity: Pinback tells the others a story about how he isn't the real Sergeant Pinback; supposedly the real Sergeant Pinback drowned himself in a fuel tank, and the guy was mistaken for Pinback because he'd put Pinback's spacesuit on while preparing to save him. It's uncertain if that's the truth or just a story he made up trying to distract everyone from the maddening tedium of the voyage.

* UsedFuture: Taken to the extreme. Quite possibly also the TropeCodifier, predating its later uses in ''Film/StarWars: Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/{{Alien}}'', both of which co-writer Dan O'Bannon was involved with (special effects in the former and writing the original script for the latter, which was heavily reworked from this film after it failed at the box office).

* AGodAmI: [[spoiler:Doolittle succeeds at convincing Bomb #20 that its external sensory data is a lie and it itself is the only thing it can be sure exists, in a desperate gambit to make the bomb disregard a stray signal telling it to detonate while still attached to the ship.]] Unfortunately, the character in question uses this new 'insight' to become a solipsist and eventually decides that, in the absence of anything else having any proof of existence, this means it is, in fact, God. And God said "let there be light"... And there was light...

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dark_star_1974_poster_03_5236.jpg]]

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Doolittle attempts to teach Bomb #20 phenomenology to prevent it from exploding. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, all this does is lead the bomb to conclude that its the only existing thing in the universe and explodes anyway.]]

-->'''Pinback:''' Hey...bomb?

* ChekhovMIA: Commander Powell was introduced early as having died on the mission prior to the movie's timeline. In the climax, he is revealed to be stored in a HumanPopsicle from where his half-living soul [[InterrogatingTheDead could still communicates with Doolittle]].