Catherine Mary Stewart talks about classic 80s sci-fi The Last Starfighter

Remember those lightweight fantasy films from the 1980s that took the Star Wars blueprint and essentially copied it for a young audience in awe of space adventure and video games?

If not let me jog your memory with a few storylines - guess the film. No. 1 - a video game expert is transported into his own game to play against the evil baddie he created. No. 2 - three children dream of a galaxy far, far away, eventually building a spaceship out of a scrapped fairground ride. No. 3 - an ace video game player is recruited by aliens to play the game for real in outer space.

Do you have the answers? The first one is of couse "Tron", the second is "Explorers", and the third is the film Strange Conversation is pointing its nostalgia stick out today - "The Last Starfighter".

"The Last Starfighter" appeared in 1984, directed by Nick Castle. The film is noted, alongside "Tron" for being one of the first to use computer-generated imagery. The original "Star Wars" trilogy used stop-motion techniques. The film, strangely, was turned into a off-Broadway musical a few years ago. One of the film's co-stars Catherine Mary Stewart (who was also in some other great 80s films such as "Weekend at Bernies"), who plays Maggie in the film, recently talked to Natsukashi about her role, and why it became such a popular film in the 1980s. Check out the podcast here.