Video: Our first really good look at Hulu’s new sci-fi series Future Man is finally here, and it’s really leaning into its premise of basically being The Last Starfighter. There’s even a self-aware reference and everything! But it also shows what’s going to set it apart from the cult classic movie, with a few laughs along the way.
Image: Still via YouTube
While the first half of the trailer goes all in on the Last Starfighter stuff — showing how deadbeat janitor Josh (The Hunger Games‘ Josh Hutcherson) finds himself helplessly recruited into an intergalactic adventure for being good at a video game that is secretly a training program in disguise. But once it makes its meta joke about its inspiration, Future Man reveals that really it’s more going to be about zany time travel than it is anything else.
Which is fine by us, because it looks like it could be some goofy fun, as Josh and his new futuristic friends find themselves hopping around the timeline of Dr Elias Kronish (Keith Goddamn David) in an attempt to stop him finding a cure for herpes that could somehow destroy the human race. Acknowledging the Last Starfighter parallels and moving past it definitely works better than fixating on it — even if it’s moving directly to a slew of other ’80s movie references.
Future Man begins on Hulu in the US November 14. An Australian broadcaster has not yet beev announced.