Beyond the Stars
Entry updated 8 June 2026. Tagged: Film.
US film (1989; vt Personal Choice). Moviestore Entertainment. Directed by David Saperstein. Written by Saperstein. Cast includes F. Murray Abraham, Olivia d'Abo, Don S Davis, Robert Foxworth, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, and William S Taylor. 93 minutes. Colour.
Introductory flashbacks show astronaut Paul Andrews (Sheen) taking a solitary walk on the Moon in the 1970s to obtain samples for geologists; there are later flashbacks showing the same incident. In the main story, teenager Rick Michaels (Slater), who is determined to someday become an astronaut, launches a model Rocket that accidentally goes through a window of his high school, causing some damage; as a result, he is suspended for a month. He decides to visit his divorced father (Foxworth), who has moved to Oregon. There, he meets his father's girlfriend Laurie McCall (Stone) and a young woman, Mara Simons (d'Abo), who becomes his girlfriend, though they briefly separate after an argument. Most significantly, Mara introduces him to her friend Andrews, because Rick longs to hear him talk about his experiences as an astronaut, including that walk on the Moon. But the former astronaut has become an embittered drunk, and he coldly refuses to discuss his storied career. Later, however, he bonds with Rick, as the lad helps him build a greenhouse while he also works on another model rocket, which he finally launches successfully. Andrews travels to Huntsville, Alabama, to meet with old colleagues, and then he dies of undisclosed leukemia, probably a result of the radiation he was exposed to on the Moon. But he leaves a note for Rick with instructions for retrieving a hidden object, which turns out to be a glowing red artefact (previously seen in the flashbacks), obviously of Alien origin; Andrews picked it up on the Moon, concealed it from NASA, and brought it back to Earth. This experience perhaps explains why, after returning to Earth, he started acting strangely and was removed from the space programme. It is left unclear what Rick and Mara will do with the astronaut's discovery. Concluding credits dedicate the film to the American astronauts who died during space missions.
Although the film's original title, Personal Choice, was used in some international markets, the film was retitled for its American release, surely because the original title had no obvious relationship to the film's story. Whatever Saperstein's first intent might have been, the idea of the importance of making personal choices is at best a muted theme in the film, rarely referenced. For that matter, the astounding revelation of evidence of intelligent alien life is also given little attention, as the film instead focuses on Rick's gradually improving relationship with his father, his budding romance with Mara, and his heartening friendship with Andrews, which appears to improve both of their lives. Hence, the film might be cited as an early example of the theme that would dominate Spacesuit Films in the twenty-first century: space travel as a way to support and strengthen family values. [GW]
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