The Last Starfighter [Model CX26134]

After Atari acquired the rights to The Last Starfighter (convinced it would be a hit), they set to work on developing games based on the movie for the 5200, 400/800, and 2600. The problem was that the game Alex played in the movie was impossible to reproduce on any home console of the time (in fact it was impossible to make a game like that at all in 1984, the one in the movie was just computer generated graphics), so programmers had to be creative in their approach. Although both games were finished in time for the movie, Atari canceled The Last Starfighter due to the collapsing market.

Although the title suggests that this game is based on the 1984 movie, this prototype is actually an early version of the game that eventually became known as Solaris. Although the 5200/400/800 game has some elements from the movie (including a nice shot of the Gunstar taking off), the 2600 version doesn't seem to resemble the movie in any way shape or form. The Last Starfighter is actually almost identical to Solaris with some minor gameplay differences. This is most likely because this game was never meant to be The Last Starfighter. It has been discovered that Tod Frye was working on another version of TLSF, which never materialized. Atari mostly likely saw Doug's wonderful new game (which was called Universe at that time) and decided that it would make a perfect fit for the Last Starfighter license. This allowed Atari to get a TLSF game out the door quickly and freed up Tod to work on other higher priority projects.

After being canceled in 1984, Atari decided to release The Last Starfighter as a new game for the relaunch of the 2600 in 1986. The problem was that The Last Starfighter license was owned by MCA who was currently suing Warner (who owned Atari at the time) over lack of payment. The solution? Rename the game and take out any references to TLSF. The result? Solaris. It appears that Atari chose the new name based on the pseudonym Doug Neubauer used while writing TLSF. Pseudonyms were nothing new for Doug, he wrote many 2600 games under the name Dallas North.