4 lonely, hopped-up hippy astronauts are adrift in space, use many dangerous undertaking & buy various ways to relieve their ennui. the film too features an encounter by owning a big orange-red web-web-toed inflatable beach ball alien of the completely improbable kind. A genre of the film is au fond one of science-fiction comedy & despite occasionally of its 'moo budget' favorite results, these are typically seen when germinal, the forerunner of the Alien series. This international relations and security network't surprising, since Dan O'Bannon late wrote a script for the number one Alien, although it was heavy rewritten.

Carpenter described Dark Star, tongue in cheek, as "Waiting for Godot in space".

These are likewise singled out for instance of "philosophy in the cinema" in account of the "talking bomb" sequence, where a strategy to cease a unintended detonation of a rebel onboard explosive device is devised depending upon teaching the bomb the rudiments of phenomenalism (with divertingly unexpected final result). A second key interpretational theme is the impersonation of the Vietnam War legacy of 'mischief emerging from tedium' among military types in yearn uneventful missions.