“Starlight Brigade” is a song by Tupper Ware Remix Party and Dan Avidan of Ninja Sex Party. It’s notable for having an Animated Music Video that manages to cram a complete Space Opera epic into less than four minutes.
On an alien planet, blue-skinned child Strive contemplates the night sky. Wonder turns to horror as a sinister polyhedron appears and absorbs all of the stars.
Years later, a despondent Strive is mourning the empty sky when a mysterious space ship crash-lands nearby. Strive blasts off and joins the Starlight Brigade to take the fight to the star-thieves.
Wonder, heroism and really good music ensue, right here.
Arrays of tropes await, but fears allay
- Alien Blood: Strive gets a cut on his face at one point, revealing his purple blood.
- All There in the Manual: The protagonist isn't named in the video itself, but was referred to as Strive by the animators.
- Author Avatar: The Starlight Brigade members are anime-style versions of the band's stage personas, with Strive being a stand-in for Dan Avidan and with Ninja Brian also getting his own ship and avatar.
- Changed for the Video: The music video is roughly a minute shorter than the version on ''Together Through Time,'' removing some lyrics, an extended solo after the second chorus, and an extended outro that originally faded out.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each ship has a different color and matching contrail, making for some beautiful scenes as they fly together.
- Darkest Hour: When the brigade tries to ram through the force field protecting the polyhedron, Strive's ship is badly damaged and loses power, followed by him blacking out.
- Dark Is Evil: The polyhedron and its fleet are black, in contrast to the brightly colored ships of the protagonists, and it kicks off the plot by snuffing out the light of the stars.
- Deadly Dodging: Strive defeats two of the polyhedron's drones by flying between them and dodging their fire, making them shoot each other.
- Family of Choice: When Strive meets the Starlight Brigade, they immediately warmly welcome him to the team.
- Fireball Eyeballs: When Strive recovers from blacking out, fire comes from his eyes.
- Jumped at the Call: When the ship crashes on Strive's planet, he only briefly hesitates before getting in and taking off.
- The Hero's Journey: Strive speedruns it in under four minutes.
- Match Cut: Young Strive is shown with his arm raised over his head as we Time Skip to adult Strive in the same pose.
- Meaningful Name: To strive means "to make strenuous efforts toward any goal", and Strive is risking his life to restore the stars to the sky.
- Oh, Crap!: When Strive's ship is damaged and he passes out, the other pilots go into a panic.
- Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Strive is androgynous, leaning towards feminine features, but is canonically biologically male.
- Power Dyes Your Hair: When Strive gets his second wind, his hair stands on end and starts glowing like it's made of fire.
- Ramming Always Works: The team defeats the aliens by ramming through the force field and then through the polyhedron, causing it to explode and take out the enemy ships (and returning the stars to the sky).
- Recurring Camera Shot: Strive's hand reaching toward a star. This is the first shot we see, then repeated during the assault on the polyhedron, where he reaches for a star he can see beyond the barrier.
- Red Alert: While the Brigade is planning their attack, alarms suddenly go off, followed by the team rushing to their ships to take off.
- Shout-Out:
- When the team blasts through the polyhedron, their contrails recreate the famous album cover from Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
- Ninja Brian's outfit was partially inspired by Shredder
- Sinister Geometry: The antagonist of the music video is a gigantic black tetrahedron.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Blasts off the idealistic end and never stops accelerating.
- The Stars Are Going Out: The polyhedron steals the light of the stars, plunging the universe into gloom and darkness. Its destruction restores the stars to their proper place.
- Unusual User Interface: The Brigade's robotic member controls their ship by drumming. At a couple points he drums in time to the song's beat.
- Vehicular Turnabout: Strive's ship originally belonged to the polyhedron fleet
- The War Room: When Strive meets the Brigade, they take him to a space station where they plan out their attack.
- The World Is Just Awesome: Strive is repeatedly struck by wonder and joy as he flies through the cosmos.
