You may not have heard talks of the Dark Star remake, truth is it went mostly under the radar. Of course you'll naturally think it'll be a dmubed down version with lots of space battle crud. In actuality however it was filmed with smaller budget (!!!) and it honestly keeps true to most of the original script, although a few things were written out.
Some of the missing bits are -
*Doolittle's fate, he is given a happier ending in this version
*The character of Talby, which was what bugged me the most seeing as he was one of the main plot points of the first movie.
*The beachball creature, who was seen as too trivial a plot point to include (OK it was seen, but just once. (you can find this clip on the official site) Pretty odd, it seems it just disappears)
Although much of the original soundtrack is omitted, there are a few clips of "Benson, Arizona" near the beginning and end for fans of the original film.
And yes, it is done with a younger cast, and their acting is not the best but what do you expect with such a movie (especially such an obscure one) in this day and age? A remake to boot? I thought they did pretty good considering the conditions they worked in. A nice tidbit is the return of Cookie Knapp as the computer.
Overall, the tone of the film is predictably not captured as well in this version, but it was overall a good venture. Look for the not-so subtle reference to another Carpenter flick in the film, around Powell's resurrection thingie!
You can check out some clips the directors put on Youtube for the public, and you can see what I mean.