Beyond the Stars
1989 film by David Saperstein
Beyond the Stars is a 1989 American science-fiction drama film written and directed by David Saperstein and starred Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Olivia d'Abo, and F. Murray Abraham. The film was originally titled Personal Choice.
Plot
Eric is the teenage son of a computer scientist who worked for the Apollo program, which sent the first humans to the Moon. Eric, determined to become an astronaut himself one day, befriends Paul Andrews, the thirteenth man on the Moon. Paul is avoided by other astronauts nowadays because he was very rude and distant when he returned from space. Eric slowly learns that during his excursion on the Moon Paul discovered something that he keeps as a secret.
Cast
Production
The movie was filmed in and around Huntsville, Alabama and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, and outside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, during fall 1988 and under the title Personal Choice.
The story was inspired by the life of Buzz Aldrin.
The film was renamed Beyond the Stars, but was never released in American theaters. Later it was shown on cable television and released on laser disk.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Beyond the Stars” is 1989 film by David Saperstein. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Beyond, Stars and film, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1989 film by David Saperstein” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1946699. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989 and 1988.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Beyond the Stars”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Beyond the Stars primary sources, Beyond the Stars archive and Beyond research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Beyond the Stars”?
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Beyond the Stars” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.