Good SF Movies

We have a thread dedicated to appalling SF movies, (quite an interesting thread, I will add) but I can't find a thread that talks about good SF Movies. I am certain that there are actually SF movies out there worth watching to see more than poor actors, a lamentable plot, or rubbish special effects.

So, let's list some good SF movies...

Well, the bad SF movies thread is intended to be a bit tongue in cheek and does list some good ones to counterpoint the awful. I think even the hardiest SF fan will admit that the field has hardly been well served by the medium of cinema. Part of the problem being, as has been noted, the folks making SF movies know NOTHING about the genre.

But my vote for the best SF movie of all time goes to "2001".

2001 gets great reviews but I have never been able to sit through it. That could just be me.

I have three titles that are, in my opinion, the best science fiction movies.

Silent Running, 1972
Colossus: The Forbin Project, 1970
Forbidden Planet, 1956

The third title I mentioned in the other thread, but I really like it and not just because Anne Francis wears such a short skirt. The plot is good. The effects were good for the time but I don’t think good effects make a science fiction movie good. Thanks in part to the over use and abuse the studios made of Robby the Robot and the later career of Leslie Nielsen this move is underrated.

The 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is another underrated movie, but its strength is how well it captured the paranoia of the United States in the1950’s.

Alien, dir. Ridley Scott - the best of the Alien films.

Delicatessen, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro - classic French comic dystopia.

Brazil, dir. Terry Gilliam - what 1984 should have been.

Fahrenheit 451, dir. Francois Truffaut - the fact that it's dated actually works in its favour.

Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky - the only sf film which has come close to replicating the act of reading a good sf novel.

Ian I agree Alien is a fantastic movie but I am one who always saw it as horror more than science fiction. The others on you list go to my Netflicks que. I have not seen any of them, I really need to get out more.

Whatever you do, don't rent the Steven Soderbergh remake of Solaris by mistake. Get the Russian original. Tarkovsky's Stalker is also excellent.

My list:

I agree with Cliff, 2001 is the current topper of sci-fi movies. If you can't sit through the movie, try reading the book first and then seeing the movie again. I dunno, it worked for me at least. Kubrick's Clockwork Orange is no slouch either.

Alien and BladeRunner. I wish Ridley Scott would do more sci-fi as these two are both terrific and have held up very well.

I'd say see The City of Lost Children over Delicatessen, but that's just personal preference. Both are terrific.

Brazil is fantastic.

If you can handle the pace, I'd recommend Dark City. It's like The Matrix without the stupidity. Too bad that guy derailed so badly by doing I, Robot.

It's been a while, but I remember Gattica being very good.

Personal faves that are likely to stir some controversy: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and A.I., Starship Troopers... there's more, I just can't think of 'em now.

Ha. I left out my "controversial" favourites... one of which was Starship Troopers. The film is the only sane response to the book. also Lynch's Dune - it's a mess of an adaptation, and Lynch made some weird decisions over some of the material... but it evokes the feel of the book to a T.

Oh yeah, Lynch's Dune! There's been some discussion between Cliff and me, but I thought it was great.

A sci-fi movie that isn't great, but is worth a watch is the adaptation of The Andromeda Strain. It's been a while, but I remember being impressed that they didn't dumb everything down and they didn't insert action sequences. A movie about scientists in a facility doing science: imagine that.

I love "Forbidden Planet". Fun flick. And Bruce Dern's performance in "Silent Running" is absolutely first-rate.

Jeunet fan here too--"Delicatessan", "City of Lost Children" and the fourth "Alien" movie.

I really liked the Michael Radford adaptation of "1984"--one of the bleakest, most hopeless films ever. And a great final performance by Richard Burton.

I think I posted a roster of my faves on the very first SF film thread (the one that stretched to well over 400 messages) so I won't belabour the point.

>5 TLCrawford: - it's easy to see Alien as a horror film as it is essentially a haunted house scenario - a group is trapped in an enclosed setting, and the final girl can only survive by escaping that environment.

>7 jseger9000: - A.I. is not as bad as most people say - the first 2/3's of the film is quite good but unfortunately the last third is a disaster.

This Island Earth is worth a mention (Rex Reason must be one of the best leading man nom de plumes) - superior to the novel, which I just finished reading.

Ach, don't get me started on "A.I." again, you swine...

I wonder how many people would have liked A.I. more if it ended with the boy finding the Blue Fairy. That probably would have been a better ending, but the end was interesting. Even though seeing mom again was cheesy, but I liked the future society of pure robots because it tied in well with Gigolo Joe's final words.

I wonder how many more people would have liked "A.I." if Kubrick had managed to do it, instead of handing it off to a populist hack like Spielberg?

THAT'S the question I'd like the answer to. As has been already noted however, Aldiss (the writer of the original story) thought that Kubrick went way off base with his original conception by turning it into some allusion/homage to "Pinocchio" and I absolutely concur. That's what brought out the sentimental, treacly aspects that I despised.

I loathe this movie. See it back to back with Spielberg's "Always"...but make sure you have a bucket to retch into at regular intervals.

2001-is the best SF film ever made. Arguments could be made that it's the best film ever made.

Forbidden Planet -my bid for the best SF film ever made prior to 2001. What that film is truly about doesn't ever go away as a topic of discussion.Reconsidered it's one of the central themes of Ballard's work.

Solaris -the Tarkovsky original sets the bar for serious philosophical discussion in the context of an SF film.

Gattaca underated character study in a convincing SF context

Zardoz -flawed, but this is the best discussion on film, of a future of immortal men.

Alien -one of the best horror films ever made is also a very good SF film. An outside of the box (for film anyway) consideration of what the term "alien" might truly entail.

The Man Who Fell To Earth another underated character study in a convincing SF context

The Andromeda Strain still the best SF tech thriller to my eye.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers -I agree on this one.

Best Franchise films IMO:

Star Trek: First Contact
and
Serenity

I always wonder is it a mistake to not put the first Planet of the Apes film on a list like this? Isn't that a really important SF film that's not badly done at all?

You mean the Kubrick that directed Eyes Wide Shut - a film that makes both A.I. & Always look like masterpieces.

Eyes Wide Shut is a failure for a number of reasons, but it's more successful than Always. Which I find interesting as a failure, because despite accusations of populism, I can't imagine anyone truly enjoying that film or 1941 quite as much as their director.
As far as failures go,Eyes Wide Shut is on par with A.I.

I couldn't bring myself to watch "Eyes Wide Shut" because it stars...well, you know who. And there were allegations made that after the movie was completed and Kubrick safely in the ground, Cruise went in and did some "touch ups".

The score is brilliant, however, and features some astonishing pieces by the inimitable Georgy Ligeti.

I think the party sequence in that film is a trip. It's worth watching just for that. It's an old man's movie about sex that doesn't work. The whole Kubrick/Terry Southern thing that Blue Movie is about was:
"what if you made a major motion picture with A list stars that was a porn film?
I guess the notion stuck in Kubrick's mind as unfinished business. But an obsession like that is more of a young man's dream, and this film comes off ...well, timid, and male ego blinded.

BLUE MOVIE is a curio of a book and I rather liked it. I recall one particular scene that, for the sake of the blushing types, I can't really describe in any detail but it was erotic all right. Too bad Kubrick didn't do that one instead of "Eyes". I have the novella "Eyes" was based on but haven't read it yet.

"An old man's movie about sex that doesn't work."

Arthur, you've done it again. Very good, that...

Blue Movie is a feelthy book. Reading it has the odd effect of convincing you that some barrier of underestimated importance has been passed through and western civilization is truly in jeopardy.But I guess it isn't true because we're all still here...

Southern is a favorite writer, but his sometimes ferocious misogyny can be rather startling to read today. It made this book a rather unnerving read for me. I find Candy a more tolerable exercise in same.

Oh, come on Cliff! you can't just keep trotting Always out when you want to complain about Steven Speilberg! That's like dragging Eyes Wide Shut out every time someone complains about Kubrick.

By the way, from what I remember Tom Cruise was actually defending Eyes Wide Shut from the distributors that wanted to do further touch-ups. Tom might have taken a one way trip to crazy land, but I respect him for protecting Eyes Wide Shut as much as he did (the only changes were the ones Kubrick knew about already) and for his from the heart job narrating the Stanley Kubrick documentary I have.

You should rent that documentary. Kubrick was a fascinating guy and it's amazing the power he weilded. Speilberg telling the story behind working with Kubrick on A.I. (whatever your opinion of the movie) is really something else.

I think you ought to check out Eyes Wide Shut too. It has problems and I think prejudices going in will color your perceptions, but you owe it to yourself to at least rent it once. I liked it over all. It's not The Shining or Dr. Strangelove, but it's not Always either.

Arthur,

Shame on us for forgetting Planet of the Apes on this list! The original movie with it's weird, discordant soundtrack and trademark Rod Serling ending was brilliant! I think I ought to watch that one again.

"Shame on us for forgetting Planet of the Apes on this list! The original movie with it's weird, discordant soundtrack and trademark Rod Serling ending was brilliant!"

Forgetting that this film is actually pretty good, is an easy thing to do. The sequels don't help.

I agree with #25, the sequels poisoned my memory of the original.

Gattaca was an excellent near future sci-fi extrapolation.
Serenity is great fun.
the Original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was very effective - traumatized my childhood..but effective.
I'll put in my generic plug for "Serial Experiments Lain"
I liked Blade Runner a lot.
Alien/Aliens (leaving sci-fi or not question aside)
Pi (hey....a room full of command line Unix boxes that can answer just about any arcane question surely is sci-fi)
12 Monkeys
The Philadelphia Experiment
Primer

-----
Near future dystopias aren't really sci-fi, as much as i like some of them (V for Vendetta, Clockwork Orange..)

I've been trying to find "Colossus - the Forbin Project" for years now - but have never seen it.

Monsieur jseger: Alas, if "Always" was the ONLY bad movie Spielberg has made.

But the list is somewhat lengthier than that. After the first 20 minutes, "Private Ryan" is pointless (to my mind); "1941" is, well, what can one say about THAT abomination? Even "Close Encounters" (probably the best of the litter) is overlong and that doesn't take into consideration the dreadful re-editing that went into "The Special Edition". "Empire of the Sun" meandered like an ancient river and "A.I."...y'know what I thought of that. I showed my sons "Jaws" a few weeks back and they liked it, mainly for the great performances of the trio of Scheider/Shaw and Dreyfuss.

Kubrick could be ponderous, self-important but out and out, all the way through awful...not usually.

I do have that Kubrick documentary and it's very, very good. A very strange man, our Stanley.

Bob, I'd go along with most of the titles you cite--but what's "Serial Experiments Lain"? Not familiar with that one. "Pi" I liked quite a bit but "Gattaca" just didn't grab me. Will give it another chance if I see a copy in a bargain bin.

Gattaca's very low keyed and understated, to the verge of being cold. i can easily understand not liking it..

Serial Experiments Lain is a rather amazing anime series that (before the Matrix) did all the Matrix wanted to do and much more. You have to be able to get over the typical anime fetishizing of young adolescent girls; but SEL gets ever more complex and baroque as you work your way through it. The whole series isn't THAT long (13 episodes i think) - I rented it first from our local (while it still existed) dvd rental store, then just bought the set.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_experiements_lain or
http://www.cjas.org/~leng/lain.htm

--
But then i also like the Cowboy Bebop stuff a lot...
W/ Bebop, it shares a terrific soundtrack (tho...not quite as good as Bebop's...)

Even "Close Encounters" (probably the best of the litter) is overlong and that doesn't take into consideration the dreadful re-editing that went into "The Special Edition".

Ah, you can't blame Spielberg for the whole 'Special Edition' of Close Encounters. Look into it some time. They took the movie away before he finished filming it so they could rush it out as a Star Wars cash in. Later Spielberg asked if he could now finish the movie, but was only allowed if he added footage inside the mothership (that's the 'Special Edition'). The 'Collector's Edition' that's available on DVD is what was originally supposed to be released in the first place.

I think you've missed the boat on Private Ryan, but we've already had this talk.

Spielberg deserves some credit. Yeah he did Always and Hook, but hey, he's done thirty movies and counting. Most are pretty good and a fair number are classics. (Now as a producer, that's a different story!)

Serial Experiments Lian is an anime series. I've not seen it yet.

Many movies that have been named are on my favorites or near favorites lists.

Some of my top favorites in no particular order:
Alien
Bladerunner
Solaris - both movie versions
Gattica
Logan's Run
The 13th Floor (1999, dir Rusnak)
The Andromeda Strain
Star Wars (:P)

I'm sure I'll remember a few more to favorites after I post this, but that's a few of them.

#25 - Forgetting that Planet of the Apes is actually pretty good, is an easy thing to do. The sequels don't help.

Oh man, don't let those subpar sequels ruin the original for you. That first movie is still a good one.

Looking through this list, some movies I have never heard of but sound like they are worth hunting down. Some of my favourite movies were mentioned here, it's nice to see that other people appreciate the movies I do.

I cannot believe that no one has mentioned The Terminator, or Terminator 2, though. Is it just me that likes it, or is it not considered SF by those on here?

#2

Although I enjoy the absurdity of poorly made SF movies, I cannot sit through an hour and a half of it. If a movie does not interest me within the first ten minutes of me sitting down to watch, I am gone.

#11

I see that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is being remade as a film and being released this year, starring Keanu Reaves. I wonder how good it will be? (Sorry, probably shouldn't mention it in a thread about good SF films)

I cannot believe that no one has mentioned The Terminator, or Terminator 2, though. Is it just me that likes it, or is it not considered SF by those on here?

To me those Terminator movies are sci-fi (enough for Harlan Ellison to sue!). I just haven't mentioned them because to me they aren't very good. One thing I've noticed about James Cameron movies is that I will enjoy them at first (hey, I even enjoyed Titanic at first) but they have a very short shelf life. Now the only movie of his I can sit through is The Abyss and even then I'd rather watch something else.

Best film Cameron ever did was Galaxy of Terror, a Roger Corman rip-off of Alien, on which he was second unit director and production designer.

I could watch 'The Abyss' over and over and I can explain why in three words. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

"Galaxy of Terror" sounds like my kind of fun--will put it on my list.

#35: I assume your comment on "Titanic" was MEANT to send me into a stuttering rage? You succeeded brilliantly, you rotter; it's too early in the morning for that kind of remark. From the first frame to the last, the very WORST movie of all time. Give me "Plan 9 From Outer Space" over that one any day...

Okay, maybe not the most popular choice, but hear me out.

I'm not much of a Star Trek fan; never watched the original series after a brief period as a kid, and while I've caught a few episodes of STNG I was never too interested.

But I have one exception to my disinterest: Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan. I love this movie, and will watch it anytime, anywhere. I saw it in the theater at the tender age of eight, was on the edge of my seat the whole time and have had a strange fondness for it ever since.

I can logically acknowledge that it's not a cinematic masterpiece, but I love watching Ricardo Montalban as Khan just for the camp factor, and to me it's the best of the series.

To me, Wrath of Khan is like an over-extended episode, and not a very good episode at that. The Motionless Picture at least had a proper sfnal plot, and there are some really nice bits in The Search for Spock. The Voyage Home is just horribly dated.

The voyage home is probably the worst of the series.

Cliff, I admit that I threw Titanic in there as a little bit of a goad to you. But it is still true and helps me prove my point about James Cameron.

When it comes to the Star Trek movies, my favorite was the first one. I guess because I'm not a big fan of the series and that first movie seemed to have the least in common with it.

But the second one will always get big points for William Shatner's "KAAAAAAAAHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and the submarine-esque battle at the end was cool.

"Wrath of Khan" is a delightful film, by far the most mature and grown-up of the Trek flicks. Kirk encountering the life that could have been...and facing up to his own mortality. Screenwriter/director Nicholas Meyer knows his classics too, the quotes from MOBY DICK, etc. Meyer is the guy they should have handed the franchise over to, not that moron Abrams.

It's the Shatner directed "Star Trek V: Final Frontier" that gets my vote for worst (of the original series flicks). A 60+ year old Nichelle Nichols doing a strip tease at the top of a sand dune is just...it's...I...

"The Next Generation" movies started out poorly and just got worse and worse. The last one was so utterly awful in every respect...at least TOS cast went out with a touch of class with "The Undiscovered Country".

Cliff, I'll take your word on The Final Frontier - I've never actually seen it, thank the gods.

From: the Office of Lather, Drool, Obfuscate and Standoffish, Legal Counsel for Cliff Burns

re: Internet Abuse

The continuing invective directed toward our client by certain individuals on this and other threads of the so-called "Science Fiction Fans" forum must cease forthwith.

Mr. Burns has sought legal advice against those who make hurtful, libelous or otherwise nasty comments against him in order to provoke mirth among a loosely affiliated group of individuals known only as "People who like making Cliff Burns' life a living hell".

We warn you, officially, against future references that question our client's a) sanity b) intelligence quotient and c) vast knowledge of things to do with really cool space stuff.

We trust this matter will be dealt with in a mature and reasoned fashion and thank you for giving full consideration and due attention to this distressing state of affairs.

Sincerely,
Hed O. Lather,
Chief Counsel

The best moment in any Star Trek movie is in The Undiscovered Country - Kirk is fighting a shapeshifter who has taken Kirk's appearance, and we get this snippet of dialogue:

Kirk: I can't believe I kissed you.
Martia: Must have been your lifelong ambition.

Probably the most accurate piece of characterisation in either the tv or film series.

Re Terminator - the first one is enjoyable but the sequel has plot holes you could drive a bus through. I can't even bring myself to have an opinion about the 3rd one.

Terminator - the first one is enjoyable but the sequel has plot holes you could drive a bus through.

Like for instance how they were suddenly able to transport metal through time yet Arnie still had to show up naked? That always bugged.

Perhaps the robots improved their technology?

In any case, sometimes you just want to watch a movie that has Arnie blowing everything up as the near-invincible futuristic robot.

That twenty-minute scene in the laboratory rocked.

In any case, sometimes you just want to watch a movie that has Arnie blowing everything up as the near-invincible futuristic robot.

I'm stuck between wanting to keep it simple and say "yeah, but seriously is Terminator 2 a good sci-fi movie?"

Or getting nerdy and talking about how in the first movie they had already defeated SkyNET and The Terminator was supposed to be the last thing it sent through.

I don't know, I don't dislike T2 because of the gaping plot holes. I just don't like it much overall.

And I liked Robocop and Starship Troopers, so sometimes I do like to watch sh!t blow up.

I just finished watching an interesting piece of sci-fi named "When Time Expires" (I think) from 1997 with Cynthia Geary and Chad Everett as daughter and father. I can't remember who the male lead was, oh, and Mark Hamill was in it also.

It had to do with time travel and parking meters (get it, when time expires?) in the not to distant past away out west.

I've got to admit, it was a much better movie than I expected.

Don't know that one, Gene.

I watched Dreyer's "Vampyr" this morning and was left open-mouthed with awe. What a film. For ANY genre.

Richard Grieco and Tim Thomerson! Booker and Jack Death.

Why did I have come across Thomerson's name when I was reading the good movie thread?

I did like the first Trancers movie and 'Zone Troopers' but I never thought they were good, just fun.

How could you forget a very young and very cute Helen Hunt--in a Santa outfit yet...

How could I forget that? I must be getting senile.

#49

Perhaps I should classify it as a good action movie that has some SF elements, then.

"Perhaps the robots improved their technology?"

Yeah, that's always what I thought it was -the robots developed the T-1000, and the human resistance grabbed hold of the older technology and reprogrammed the original Terminator.So they transport the original Terminator "old school style" Isn't that it? I don't remember if there's a discussion explaining if the liquid metal alloy can transport through time due to it's nature, or due to an advancement in the time travel technology. Is it even in gone into how the resistance transports the reprogrammed terminator?

I don't remember if there's a discussion explaining if the liquid metal alloy can transport through time due to it's nature, or due to an advancement in the time travel technology. Is it even in gone into how the resistance transports the reprogrammed terminator?

It's been a while since I've seen T2 and I'm not the biggest fan anyway, but I'm pretty sure all that extraneous detail was tossed aside in order to make room for more scenes of the semi driving through the LA river.

Seriously though, I don't remember any sort of explanation whatsoever.

Besides, in the first movie right before Michael Beihn bonked Sarah Conners, didn't he tell her that they had defeated SkyNET, sent him through the same transporter as the terminator and then blew up the transporter? Maybe that was some funky sort of pillow talk?

Overthinking crap movies like this is what kept me from enjoying The Santa Clause. (Well, okay, that wasn't the only thing that kept me from enjoying that steaming pile...)

I can't believe nobody mentioned Children of Men which I thought was the best SF to come out in the last couple years.

But then, I loved A Scanner Darkley and The Fountain.

Loved "Scanner Darkly" myself.

Best Dick adaptation ever.

"The Fountain" has a wonderful soundtrack but the movie, while visually stunning, seemed empty at its centre.

Children of Men was very good, yes.

A Scanner Darkly I'm kind of conflicted on. I haven't read the book, but as a movie I loved the rambling crazy bits with the junkies. The actual sci-fi elements just didn't seem to work as well for me. I kind of felt like Linklater was out of his depth when it came to the sci-fi bits.

I'm a little afraid of The Fountain. I'm curious about it, but have also heard it's something of a trainwreck. Perhaps I should seek opinions on this board?

Hey Cliff!

"Fountain"--see above: beautiful but hollow at its core. Don't miss the soundtrack, a collaboration between Mogwai and Kronos Quartet that is simply wonderful.

Re: "Terminator"--the ending is obvious all along, the terminators HAVE to fail because John Connor lives to the future to defeat them. So there's no real drama there. It's the execution that creates the fun.

The first movie was tight, nasty, intense.

The second one lapsed into sentiment, though certain set pieces (the semi chase through L.A.) show Cameron knows how to edit action scenes.

And NO ONE better mention to "Titanic" again...

Pee-Ess: Haven't seen the movie "Children of Men" but I did read the book and though it has its moments, it's quite dull and the ending too upbeat.

"I'm a little afraid of The Fountain. I'm curious about it, but have also heard it's something of a trainwreck. Perhaps I should seek opinions on this board?"

Here's the basic premise of The Fountain underneath all the multilayering and mysticism:

A noble doctor nobly tries to come up with a cure for his wife who is nobly dying from a brain tumor.

What century was the last time that mildewed premise was capable of making an emotional connection with an audience?

It's really a neat film to look at, but the above story played for me like an old radio melodrama. At about the middle point I said to myself 'You gotta be kidding". I know "everything old is new again" , but not this time. This story is still a toothless, obvious relic -a true soap opera in the original sense of the word.

Who knew the director of Pi and Requiem For a Dream was such a cornball?

Cliff - The Children of Men the book is rubbish, Children of Men the film is very good.

#59 - Best Dick adaptation ever.

Cliff, I don't know how well your Dick adapts, but mine does just fine, thank you.

Gene! Cruel, vicious, completely out of character.

Good man.

At the risk of anyone pointing and laughing at my taste in movies, I'll add these to my list of good SF movies for various reasons:

The Last Starfighter - how cool is it to be recruited!
Men In Black - I'm not big on comedies, but this works as comedy and SF both
Contact - the 1999 Jodie Foster movie, interesting conflict well done
Galaxy Quest - in spite Tim Allen and the fact that its a comedy, its a SF movie someone had to do and it was done well.

See earlier post for my more sedate entries. :-)

Cliff, just want to keep everything around here on the up and up, so to speak.

I'll also say that I loved Children of Men. The more I see of Clive Owen, the more I like him as an actor.

The Fountain was VERY lovely visually and aurally (??) and, i think, worth seeing - not great, not "deep" but a nice love story. I thought it more a "fantasy" than sci-fi, but that's not a big deal to me.

I thought Children of Men, again, was worth seeing in a theater, and had some great scenes - and excellent production. The plot was predictable - even given that i'd read the book (which i didn't much care for), but the acting was first rate.

V for Vendetta was great fun; not really sci-fi but a well done adaptation, even if Alan Moore washed his hands of it early on. I liked it MUCH more than the Matrix..We got the DVD and it's been interesting how much detail there is throughout; one can keep finding more and more odds and ends that all fit.

I guess Snowcrash is in perpetual pre-development. sigh.

This is probably the wrong thread to post this, since it wasn't exactly good sci-fi, but I just watched Cloverfield. Overall I liked it, though it bugged me how everyone looked like they stepped out of a Gap ad. But for the first stretch when we are focusing on the characters I was just getting antsy and thinking 'Hurry up, Godzilla!'

Also I thought George Romero's similarly done Diary of the Dead was a better movie.

"Cloverfield"--yuck. Refer to "bad"' thread, where we can annihilate it for fun.

Haven't seen the Romero--stopped watching zombie movies, just too much preponderance of gore, no characters, no stories.

I'll give "Children of Men" (the movie) a shot some time. I like Clive Owen too--"Croupier"'s a good movie.

Just ordered a copy of an all-time fave from younger years, "The 7 Faces of Dr, Lao"--Harryhausen and Chas. Beaumont and Finney. Love that little flick. Can't wait to show it to my sons--they LOVE Harryhausen, bless 'em...

Cliff,

stopped watching zombie movies, just too much preponderance of gore, no characters, no stories

Hey, you can't say that about Romero zombies!

I highly recommend this list of Top 100 Sci-Fi Films:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_film.html

The only obvious omission I can see is that Children of Men is not on the list. It may be due to the fact that it has only been out for about a year now.

That's a very traditional list.

All six Star Wars films should be listed separately.

...and then all but the first should be taken off the list, taken out to a landfill, splashed with high octane fuel and...

I like The Island, with Scarlett Johanesen and Ewan Mcgregor, and not based on a book (as far as I know) but it does feel very familiar in theme, but can't put my finger on it.

I have 12 monkeys on DVD, and have for over a year but never watched it, maybe I should get round to it.

Oh, 'The Island'... I could go on a CliffBurns like rant about that sinker-ino. Sorry Muse, I don't mean to run down your movie there.

If it feels very familiar to you though, that may be because it was plagerized from an older movie called The Clonus Horror. (That's not just my cranky opinion. There was a lawsuit.)

Here's the Amazon synopsis for Clonus: Somewhere in California is a secret industrial complex. Apparently well know to certain priveleged members of the inner circles of government, this factory has only one product: human clones! These clones are identical replicas of members of the top 500 of politics and big business. Raised to adulthood, they are then frozen and cryogenically stored so that their body parts can be used to give more or less eternal life to the chosen elite.

The plan is to keep these clones in a state of almost childlike innocence and deny them any knowledge of the real world outside. They are brainwashed with dreams of a mythical place called "America" where (so they are told) they will go if they are lucky enougb to be selected.

A series of unplanned accidents leads to one of the clones finding out too much and becoming curious. One day he escapes from the clone farm and comes looking for answers in the "real" America...

(I also found out in 1996 Michael Marshall Smith wrote a very similarly themed novel called Spares that was optioned by the same production company that threw together The Island...)

...leave me out of this, I couldn't even bring myself to watch "The Island" and I rather like Ewan McGregor as an actor.

From the writers of "Transformers: The Movie" and (God help us) the latest "Star Trek" film.

> 28: ""1941" is, well, what can one say about THAT abomination?" asked Cliff.

Well, I liked the end credits.

Seriously! The end credits have a (for once, un-derivitive) John Williams jazz march that once heard can never be forgotten (this is a Good Thing, trust me). But as I was unprepared to sit through a 2-hour plus tedious film just to enjoy the end credits, I taped them - just them - so I can enjoy any time. (Or at least, could enjoy if I could locate the tape...)

> 46: jargoneer: too right about Shatner. How he walked straight into his appearances on 'Third Rock from the Sun' playing a character called 'The Big Giant Head' without any momentary flicker of irony is beyond me.

Robert: you taped the end credits of "1941"? For the music? Now that's a first for me. Couldn't you just buy the soundtrack off eBay or something for about a nickel--sorry, a shilling?

"1941" is impossible to sit through. Painful. But nowhere near as bad as "Always", which is...execrable.

I think my favorite "Trek" line is from "Wrath of Khan", where Kirk/Shatner remarks ruefully: "I've cheated death...and congratulated myself for my ingenuity." And by the way, both movies cited--II & VI--were written by Nicholas Meyer. I reiterate: this is the guy they should hand the franchise over to and say "it's all yours, Nick".

I transferred the entire soundtrack of "Cinderella" (not the Disney, but the Cheryl Smith) to mp3 and put it on my PC. The songs are incredible. "The Snapper" is one of the best songs ever.

Gene: you have just proven yourself to be far more technically adept than I ever will be. The things I scream at my computer sometimes...not because it's dumb, it's ME. I'm just so linear and slow with my thinking and when confronted by some of the really terrific technology, I revert to cro-magnon. If it wasn't for my wife, I'd be seriously screwed.

Embarrassing really...

Found a couple of DVD's mentioned on this thread - "Brazil", "Gattaca", and "Children of Men".

"Brazil" - loved it's humour, but the movie really stalled for me when it got up to the love interest part, and dragged that out for more than twenty minutes. I gave up there.

"Gattaca" - excellent idea, delivered and acted well. There were some huge coincidences that I didn't like - I won't say what they are, for anyone who wishes to watch the movie, but would add my recommendation of this movie to everyone else's.

Will watch "Children of Men" at the next opportunity, and have already watched "Blade Runner" and "2001". Thanks for the recommendations so far.

#85, rojse,

"Blade Runner", "2001", "Brazil", "Gattaca", and "Children of Men"

Had you never seen these before? Man, I envy you the big block of quality you are enjoying right now! Don't ask why I'm randomly picking this from the list above, but I would suggest you rent The City of Lost Children soon if you haven't seen it already. Like Brazil it is a triumph of style over substance, but to my mind it is at least more evenly paced than Brazil was (not to knock on Brazil).

triumph of style over substance - sounds a lot like Blade Runner to me.

Can't agree with the sentiments expressed re: "Brazil" and "City of Lost Children". Those were movies with both style AND substance. "Brazil", in particular, is one of my ten all-time best, an original and decidedly bleak vision. "City of Lost Children" is a masterful modern fairy tale, sumptuously designed, yes, but with a beating heart at its core.

The love story at the heart of "Brazil" is meant to be unreal, it's based on a dream, after all, an idealized version of Jonathan Pryce's perfect woman. The real woman turns out not to like him very much and she's a TERRORIST. The ultimate obscure object of his desire (as it were)...

Er...for some reason my remarks have been printed in italics, though I made no effort to do so. I guess the A.I. running the program decided they were so smart and insightful that...

Nobody's yet mentioned "Plan Nine from Outer Space"

I was in charge of the films at a Novacon in Birmingham and run by the Birmingham Science Fiction Group, in the late '70s, and the booked films did not turn up. I finished off renting this little gem from a back street film library in Coventry as the only SF film I could find.

Edward D Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" and some early early "Star Trek" Bloopers made for a memorable evening........ I wasn't lynched, and I even had drinks bought for me at the end.

Children of Men seems to be another one those movies that slipped beneath my radar.

I looked it up and it sounds like a movie I'll either need to be in a very good mood or very dismal mood to watch. Sounds original, for sure.

Brazil was one of those movies that I watched, a couple of times, many years apart and sat thinking about how I know I "should" like it. I suppose I did in a very removed cerebral sort of way, but I never quite got involved enough to forget for a moment I was watching a movie.

Reading the description of Children of Men makes me think it will be the same way. Still, seems like I'll have to track this one down and give it a try one day.

As for Star Wars - I'd put Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Empire all in the good movie category. Same with Alien, Aliens, and Alien3. The former formed a well crafted, entertaining and satisfying story arc, the latter brought something new each time - suspense horror, action adventure, psychological drama.

I see no-one's yet mentioned the best SF movie I ever saw: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Fabulous film, that, and if anyone says it isn't SF, I'll see them outside later. :P

>>Edward D Wood's "Plan Nine from Outer Space" and some early early "Star Trek" Bloopers made for a memorable evening........ I wasn't lynched, and I even had drinks bought for me at the end.

.................One of the worst SF films even made......................

Cliff,

I didn't mean to imply that Brazil was shallow. Please don't let me give off that opinion. Tom Stoppard's no slouch. I just meant that the style of the thing overshadows everything else. Though I LOVE the movie myself, I can see where Rojse is coming from when s/he says the movie stalled at the love interest part. I don't agree, but I can see why people would have that opinion.

I also don't think City of Lost Children is shallow. No stylish but empty movie would belong in my list of good sci-fi movies (which is why I beat up on James Cameron earlier).

As for jargoneer's Blade Runner quip: "Ouch baby. Very ouch!"

>82 CliffBurns:: Cliff, we didn't have eBay in those days. Or the Internet. Or even PCs (well, perhaps we did, but they had half the memory of my desk calculator and had to load programs from a cassette recorder).

How times have changed!

Brazil seemed to try to hard for my taste. I really liked Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the Fisher King. It's not sci-fi, but maybe we could file Fear and Loathing under fantasy???
"What? No. We can't stop here. This is bat country. "

I don't know about Fear and Loathing... being a fantasy, but what a great movie, huh? How could you not love the times when Benicio Del Toro would say "As your attorney, I suggest you..." it was always some terrible advice about drugs. I'm at work now, so I can't look up a proper quote.

Well, Benicio, while a fine actor, was totally miscast as Oscar Acosta. Hard to find someone who can effectively play a radical, violent, druggie, 300-pound Chicano attorney with a propensity for projectile vomiting geysers of blood from his ruined guts. And Johnny Depp--no, sorry, not a good Thompson (Bill Murray did a far better job in the substandard "Where the Buffalo Roam"). But the screenplay itself was one of the most faithful adaptations of a book I've ever seen. Literally a scene by scene translation. Really think a different cast might have carried that one off. It had the look of what of those Hollywood "package" deals. An unfortunate misfire.

I had the pleasure of driving that stretch of highway from Barstow to Los Angeles years ago and it was a thrill to re-create that famous voyage, though without the trunk full of drugs and strange, Okie hitch-hikers...

most of my favs have already been listed but I'll throw out Pitch Black, Stargate, and Aeon Flux (mostly because Charlize Theron was my girl crush) Fifth Element, Independence Day and The Thing.

Eeeeeeee! The thought of Independence Day being considered a good sci-fi movie (or a good movie!) makes my soul wither a little bit. I will give you Pitch Black though. It's nowhere near the top, but I liked it. I even admired what they attempted with the sequel.

#98, Cliff,

I think you are off on your assumptions about the Fear and Loathing... movie. I haven't read the book myself, so I can't speak to how accurate Benicio was, but Hunter Thompson was the one that wanted Johnny Depp cast to play him. Hunter was also there through filming, so apparently he was happy with Depp's portrayal. Depp was cast before Terry Gilliam was hired on.

In fact, Repo Man's Alex Cox was the original director, but he and Hunter just could not get along (what a shock!). Whatever else you might think of them, neither Alex Cox or Terry Gilliam are exactly Hollywood package-types.

Having said that, I am curious to see Where the Buffalo Roam. It's somewhere's in my Netflix queue.

hey, it had Jeff Goldblum in it, besides someone posted Starship Troopers so I figured I was safe. Just for that I'm gonna put Enemy Mine, Explorers and Last Starfighter on the list.

Johnny Depp was great as Hunter (I didn't love Bill Murry) and I loved Repo Man.

#102 I beat you to Last Starfighter, so there's at least two of us that thought it worth a nod...what's not to like about a story about atrailer park fix-it guy to starship pilot :-)

yeah..I kept playing asteroids just in case Grig showed up.

need to put Repo Man on our netflix queue - saw it on the vcr eons ago...could be some good extras????
Has anyone seen Iron Man? we're desperate for something..it doesn't have to be great, merely somewhat better than average, to go see @ a cinema.
thanks
bob

I don't think Hunter's tastes were too sharp in the last decade of his life--one look at his writing during that period showed the man was a parody of his former self. The last decent book he wrote was CURSE OF LONO from the mid-80's. I don't detest Depp, he's a mildly interesting actor but, really, a disaster as Hunter.

"Where The Buffalo Roam" is a C- movie but I did like Murray's performance. He has some wild Thompson stories too.

Gilliam hasn't had complete control over one of his films since "Brazil'. BECAUSE OF "Brazil". You know the story about how the studio was recutting "Brazil" into some piece of shit and Gilliam snuck in, stole his print and spirited it off.

Sid Sheinberg, the head of Universal Pictures (think I have this right) gets a call telling him there's good news and bad news. Good news: one of his films has just won the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Award. The bad news? It's Terry Gilliam's cut of "Brazil". So they had to release it as is. Terry has never had the same autonomy since. The Weinsteins destroyed "Brothers Grimm", "Tideland" had only limited release, "Fear and Loathing" was a botch job and a box office bomb, if I'm recollecting correctly.

I don't hear Gilliam talking about "Fear and Loathing" much--he calls "The Fisher King" (his most commercially successful movie) a sellout (though my wife and sons quite liked it). His take on Don Quixote ran out of financing (though the documentary "Lost in La Mancha" is brilliant) and now, with his latest film, one of his leads (Heath Ledger) dies halfway through the movie.

Poor bastard is snake bit...

#86

Watched Blade Runner a few years ago. Liked it so much that I brought the five-disc edition when it came out. 2001 is in both my ten favourite movies and ten favourite books; should probably watch it again.

Hope to watch Children of Men this weekend, (brought it for under $10), and 2010 - the second probably is not so appropriate for this thread, but if it is half as good as 2001, I will be in for a treat.

2010 is very good. It's just that it is the sequel to such a jaw-droppingly great movie, so no matter what, anything short of Kubrick directing it is going to be a problem. It is out of date with the Soviets and all. Too bad they didn't use the Chinese, then the movie would have been prescient.

I remember somebody here (let's face it, probably Cliff) ripping on Roy Schieder. Whatever else, John Lithgow has a very good bit on a spacewalk. (As usual, the book is better.)

oh..The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai through Space and Time. An all time favorite, and surely sci-fi!

I've just noticed, nobody has mentioned Tron. It's funny because I will admit, Tron isn't a good movie, but with its one-of-a-kind look and its forward thinking on computers, it deserves some credit as good science fiction. Does that make sense?

"Let's face it, probably Cliff"

I know someone who's going to get SUCH a pinch.

#102, hey, it had Jeff Goldblum in it, besides someone posted Starship Troopers so I figured I was safe...

Beeg,

Okay, I've gotta give you Jeff Goldbloom. But man, oh man, there are worlds of difference between what Paul Verhoeven did with Starship Troopers and hackwork like Independence Day.

By the way, if they chopped the last bit off of Explorers, that one would be a masterpiece. I'd read somewhere about what happened with that movie. There are a couple of different stories, but the one I remember right now is that the film was greenlit before the script was finished and only after starting did they realize they had no clue how to end it.

I've heard people provide some fairly good defense of the ending of Explorers, but no matter how good the defense is in theory, it doesn't make it any easier to sit through that last twenty minutes or so.

#112 - Sorry Cliff! I had to do it!

My overall favorite scene in 2001, and this goes strictly to my sense of humour, was the guy reading the seemingly endless instructions printed in about a Pica font on how to use the zero gravity toilet.

That was a nice touch, wasn't it, Gene? And the fact that a flight to the space station in that Pan Am shuttle was so commonplace that Heywood Floyd could fall asleep during the journey.

Oh, to live in such a world as that.

I didn't see "Explorers" but it's a Joe Dante film so that's probably why. I put him right down there with Zemeckis and John Hughes.

"Independence Day" is dopey fun, that's about it. The opening, with the giant shadow crossing the moon's surface. Nice touch. The president's speech at the end, Randy Quaid's annoying character...blaaagghh!

Randy Quaid has my vote for anything he chooses to do. He is absolutely my favorite character actor. That rubber face! What a hoot!

Cliff, it boggles the mind some of the stuff you will run down and then have something positive to say about Independence Day. Roland Emmerich is a slightly less talented Michael Bay. Compared to Roland Emmerich, guys like Joe Dante, Robert Zemeckis and Joel Schumacher are autuers.

Also, I'm curious about your opinion of Mars Attacks! Let the predicted attack begin.

(To me these are similar movies. While Tim Burton knew he was making a subversive, bad 'alien invaders' movie while Dean and Ron ripped off Arthur C. Clarke via V. I just picture them as they were writing it saying 'Let's have the pilot punch out an alien. I'll be so cool!')

"Independence Day" was "dopey fun"--that's all I said. Hardly a ringing endorsement. "Plan Nine From Outer Space" is dopey fun too. Emmerich and Devlin make popcorn movies--have never seen "Godzilla" or "10,000 B.C." (don't intend to) and thought "Day After Tomorrow" was a series of special fx tableaux. Again, no ringing endorsement there.

Michael Bay is Ed Wood with a 100-million dollar budget.

"Mars Attacks" was dreadful. Not funny enough to be a spoof. I think Burton's over-rated as a film-maker--visually strong but there's something missing in most of his flicks. My favorite Burton is "Ed Wood". My wife loves the design of his movies but she's a visual artist and appreciates that sort of thing. I'm a script and character guy.

"Sleepy Hollow" was not good, not good AT ALL.

#118, *lol*. I would also throw "Armageddon" at Cliff and wait what he has to say (well, technically it wouldn't qualify as SF, even if it's set in the near future). Some films were never meant to be serious stuff, and Armageddon is one of them. Not so sure about Independence Day...

I also have to cast my vote on the small side of the 3:1 ballot against Solaris (2002) in this thread. I haven't read Lem's book yet, and I didn't know the 1972 Tarkovskij film back then. I just went to watch what seemed to me a brainy SF film. And it was right down my alley. True, Tarkovskij took more of the original philosophy in Lem's book. But while watching his version I always felt like looking in through a window, I wasn't involved. Soderbergh managed to draw me right in with the cinematography, the pacing and not least of all the music. And it worked the second and third time as well.
Sometimes knowing nothing of the "grand" predecessors allows a fresh look at a film...

Michael Bay is Ed Wood with a 100-million dollar budget.

Amen. Who decided it was a good idea to give a guy who used to direct Playboy centerfold videos that kind of money to make his adolescent dreams come true?

Throw "Armageddon" at Cliff?

Whatever did I do to deserve such a thing?

HATED it. And "Deep Impact" and those giant disaster films with four pages of actual dialogue and 90 minutes of CGI. They are everything I detest in contemporary films.

May the producers CHOKE on the money stupid movie patrons throw at them for rubbish like "Iron Man".

Today, Orson Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" arrived in the mail and my hand actually trembled as I held it. My own copy. It's been years since I've seen it and that was a bad print, poorly remembered. THAT is a film, my friends, even though it was made on the cheap and sometimes the vocal track doesn't line up with what people are saying. The passion and brilliance of Welles makes these comic book adaptations, with all their frills and bells, look like the pieces of shit they are.

I think Burton's over-rated as a film-maker--visually strong but there's something missing in most of his flicks.

I will give you that. I think what is missing is heart. It was there in Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands. Otherwise Tim Burton is all about the visuals and can be mechanical.

"Mars Attacks" was dreadful. Not funny enough to be a spoof. The funny thing is I will give you that even though I liked it. I have to agree that it isn't humor that works for everyone. I loved it but can easily understand why some people would hate it. (I disagree with you on Sleepy Hollow though. That is a terrific movie.)

*lol* Thanks, Cliff! I usually yawn at disaster movies and stuff like Deep Impact. But!
I love Armageddon, it's nowhere near my favourite but as a conedy/farce (!) I consider it pretty good (who here thought it was anything but that after Bruce Willis started hitting golfballs at Greenpeace and fired a shotgun at his lieutenant. *snerk*)

Jseger, can I pinch Cliff?? can I huh? can I?? Sleepy Hollow was most beautiful horror movie I've ever seen. It was just stunning, and Johnny Depp *swoons* He carries any movie he stars in.

Shouldn't this all be on the other movie thread, where we discuss the worst SF movies? It seems quite inappropriate to be discussing great movies like 2001, Blade Runner, and Gattaca, and then suddenly progress onto rubbish such as Independence Day or Armageddeon without so much as a huge warning, written in flashing neon letters?

we kind of liked Tron too; the above synopsis was dead on. Not a great movie, but conceptually a new sort of movie and a different POV.

Will have to add Tron to my SF movie list, then...

Rojse,

Lemmee know what you think of Tron. Just remember, this is a movie from 1982 when the general public knew next to nothing about computers, so it was way ahead of the game. I think that was part of the problem it had when it was released.

Also Shouldn't this all be on the other movie thread, where we discuss the worst SF movies? It seems quite inappropriate to be discussing great movies like 2001, Blade Runner, and Gattaca, and then suddenly progress onto rubbish such as Independence Day or Armageddeon without so much as a huge warning, written in flashing neon letters? Remember, these movies were suggested as good movies by some users.

I dunno man. There's a lot of really so-so movies that were suggested as good sci-fi here. Star Wars, The Last Starfighter, Star Gate, Pitch Black and Aeon Flux. But you could at least see where they were coming from. But Armageddon? Seriously? (Man, sometimes I sound like such a crank!)

Yeah, ya big crank!

The header for this thread reads "good" not Great or Brilliant. I also think "rubbish and inappropriate" is pretty harsh if you want other people to feel comfortable enough to post what they think.

*adjust cranky pants*

>132 beeg: The Science Fiction Fans group is not known for being a comfortable place. I know several people, including myself, who won't post in it because of the harshness of a few members. It's a pity that the group feels so unwelcoming.

I was in a true quandary yesterday. I had the choice of watching Roger Corman's "The Day the World Ended" (?) or Terry Gilliam's "Children of Men". I struggled. Since I had seen The World End before I chose Children. I don't know which would have been the better choice. World was dated but interesting as I recall, but having seen the discussion of Children here, I chose Children.

The last thirty or so minutes nearly made up for the first hour and a half. and as I said elsewhere in this group dystopia's are just not my thing. The movie ended with me in tears, but feeling very manipulated, and I thought the story itself should have been able to bring me to tears on its own, as "Gandhi" did in several places. As "High Noon" does everytime I watch it. I'm even a sucker for "The American President" a bit of unpretentious fluff. "Children of Men" relied on the death of the hero. Manipulation. The movie seemed to break down in places, whoever was responsible for the continuity should have been replaced. In some ways it reminded me of a hippie-doper thirty years on (Michael Caine's character) trying to tell a story. Maybe that's what it was! Children would have been far more effective as a two-reeler rather than a full length feature. A short story dragged out to a novel.

I'm glad I watched it, but probably not again. Next time I'll go with Corman. With him you pretty much know what you're going to get, fun!

The opening of Children of Men is good. (Much better than a similar scene in Battle of Algiers.) Perversely, once it turned into a bit of a chase and shootout movie I thought it wasn't so good.

Gene, "Children of Men" was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also helmed "Y U Mama Tambien" and "Prisoner of Azkaban" (third Harry Potter flick). A version by Terry Gilliam would have been VERY interesting. Haven't seen "Children of Men" yet but I'm a big fan of Clive Owen's.

Ian: "Battle of Algiers" is a terrific film--finally got to see it about a year ago and found it a very powerful experience. I'm also dying to get my hands on another little-seen flick, recently rediscovered by critics and enjoying something of a renaissance, "Army of Shadows".

Morphidae: I don't mind a little friendly jousting and debate and I haven't really noticed too much personal invective in the SF fans group in the past while. There WERE some folks who used to treat the group as their own little fiefdom, trying to control topics selected and really bullying members but I think that's subsided. I find the atmosphere (at the moment) spirited and witty and I don't really sense the level of animosity that was once present.

Oops, unless I'm one of the malefactors you're referring to...

heh, personally I find you pretty amusing and look forward to your post. It's fine to have definite and rather aggressive opinions, but remembering to get off someones toes should be considered as well.

"Children of Men" moved me like almost no other film in the last 10 years or so. On the way home from the cinema I usually chat with people and the taxi driver, but this time I didn't say a single word. And that had little to do with the hero being pulled out of the game at the last minute. The whole thing was just very close to home. When watching any flick set in the US of A, it's "that country over there, cross-pond". I recognise it right away by the cars and the architecture. Children of Men was like "God, that bus stop looks like the one in front of my sister's house", "oh, I know this place!". Also a few *snerks* (such as Battersea power station combined in CGI with the Wobbly Bridge). References to foot-and-mouth disease/mad-cow disease. That's what made this Dystopia so damn effective, that it could have been my place and my neighbours.

I also loved that the main character never, not even once, touched a gun to get his protegé to the destination (it occurred to me that he was almost bullet proof, being around Kee. No-one would ever shoot at *her*!).

Beeg: If I DO say something hurtful, the best thing to do is drop by my LT "Profile" page and send a word or two my way.

Humour is a subjective thing--I really can't imagine my saying anything DELIBERATELY rude but one never knows if a bon mot will be perceived as a cutting or rude remark by someone else. Unless you TELL them.

Personally, I rather like it when someone takes the wind out of my sails with a clever barb (something that's been known to happen in this and other groups, believe me). Folks have pointed out my inconsistencies, brought me to task for defending one type of bad book or movie while deploring another and that's all to the good. As long as it's done in fun and not trying to one-up the person or portray yourself as an unimpeachable expert. I have my views and opinions but they're ONLY that. People I very much respect and like disagree with me, sometimes vehemently, and I don't take offense. I treasure the give-and-take.

Ian, jargoneer, thingmaker, GirlfromIpanema, Murmurs (hey, Ron, haven't heard from you!), ArthurFrayn, Jseger, geneg and several others I can think of are fun to cross swords with and their rejoinders and digs often provoke a smile on a rotten day.

Hope that clarifies matters.

It's enough to make Cliff fume but Iron Man has received half decent reviews in the UK: it sounds like the film-makers actually put some thought into it.

I'm surprised that no-one has mentioned the film that was responsible for the fall of communism in Europe - Mac and Me.

"Mac and..."

Oh, Jesus Christ! (Laughing like a maniac)

See what I mean, Beeg? Half the time I wanna KILL these people...

Mac and Who?
Now you've made me curious.

Ok. I am getting a feel for peoples likes and dislikes.:) How do you all feel about Logans Run?

I enjoyed Logan's Run at the time. Not having read the book I think was probably a plus. I had seen Jenny Agutter in Walkabout and was somewhat smitten with her.

Terry Gilliam may not have directed "Children of Men" but his name is all over it. what was he, a producer?

I actually stopped by here just now to mention this: I was watching "Shark" (U.S. television show starring James Wood) when I suddenly remembered an old James Wood movie from the seventies I think, "Videodrome". I saw it when it came out, but don't remember much of it. As I recall I did feel somewhat disturbed by it.

a David Cronenberg film with Blondie's Debra Harry. LOL I remember bits of it as well - esp the part where he puts his head in the TV screen.

Brilliant and, yup, very disturbing Cronenberg film. I thought James Woods very impressive in it--almost as good as he was in "Salvador" (one of the great film performances).

Gene: "somewhat" smitten with Jenny Agutter? No wonder. Lovely, lovely lass. Can't recall Gilliam being associated with "Children of Men" in any capacity but I could be wrong.

"Logan's Run", the movie, unfortunately starred Michael York, whom I've already described as one of the two or three worst actors in cinema history. The film is currently being remade (I know someone who pitched a script concept) and it's one of the few cases where the remake HAS to be better than the original.

Let me give you some dystopian movies I like.

Some are kind of cheesy but enjoyable.

Rollerball
Death Race 2000
Idiocracy
Escape From New York
Dark City
Farenheit 451
Sleeper
Metropolis

Logan's Run is supremely silly. Okay, Jenny Agutter. But. Michael York. Not to mention bad effects - you can actually see the city wobble in some shots.

You know, the one thing that impressed me about Logan's Run all these years later (besides Jenny Agutter) was the way the sets of the future city looked like a mall (I mean this in a good way). I wasn't sure if this was done purposely or if that was just the '70's version of the future, but either way it was a very good commentary on that society.

Logan's Run is a movie ripe for a remake. For once there would be a reason for all of the actors to look like they stepped out of a Gap ad.

148 - tcgardner,

Very good list. I would include Soylent Green and The Running Man (oh, Cliff is going to have a field day with me on this one!) as well though.

Rollerball, Soylent Green and Death Race 2000 are all movies that I felt like I should have liked but didn't. I have put them all in my Netflix queue to give them a second chance.

Soylent Green, yes! I forgot about that. Charlton Heston does good SF. (Ducks as Cliff slings something small and heavy at my head.) That is a bit tongue in cheek, but I liked The Omega Man too.

The Running Man. Eh. I am just not too thrilled with it. I did love Richard Dawson though. One of my favorites on Match Game. Along with Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers.

The Quiet Earth, NZ 1985.

The Omega Man... The Omega Man! I can see I'm going to have to give that one a rent again as well. I remembered hating the disco-zombies with their New Age preaching and sparkle-tastic robes. But I only ever seem to read varying degrees of praise for it. I must have missed something there.

I think The Running Man's rep was increased a few years back by the concurrent passing of the patriot act and the rise of reality TV. It went from an Arnie fantasy flick to scarily prescient. But I also like the satire of it all and Richard Dawson rocked.

Yes, The Quiet Earth isn't bad. A bit amateur but entertaining.

What's the consensus on Disney's The Black Hole? I thought is was not bad (when V.I.N.CENT and Bob were not in the scene). Honestly, if the good robots where not in the movie it would be a small study of what makes us human. As it is, the campiness overshadows.

"What's the consensus on Disney's The Black Hole?"

I found it a terribly annoying film. At that point Disney was running on fumes.The coy robots can provoke projectile vomiting and murderous impulses.
Tron was a step in the right direction.

Still like Soylent Green and Rollerball. And Deathrace 2000, which is dumb done right.

Never liked Logan's Run (always liked Jenny Agutter) even when I was a kid. Always thought it was a self important dumb film shot in a mall covered with aluminized mylar. Surprised upon rewatching, how not good The Omega Man is. Even cheesier than I like. And dull.

I finally saw The Running Man for the first time a few years ago. Shockingly bad! Poop.The idea of casting Richard Dawson is fun,and Maria Conchita Alonso is neat, but the resulting film is still weary and brainless. Looks like it cost $1.45 to make. God, the 80's...

Logan's Run?
Hey, I had a crush on Michael York! But I was only 14, so that is an excuse, right?
On re-watching it earlier this year: Meh. The choices in decoration are a bit irritating today. But I liked Peter Ustinov doing his Ustinov thing. And at the heart of the film there is a good story, actually.

Ditto on the crush, also Farrah Fawcett, god she was terrible but I thought she was totally gorgeous. One of my friend's brother was a runner (the one on the bridge) and I thought I was so cool I knew someone in the movie.

158 - I hear you! I first was smitten by Michael York watching Romeo and Juliet.

I also agree Logan's Run is a good story and put in the context of the time, I still count it as a good film. One film that I rewatched recently that didn't work so well for me was Soylent Green. Once you know where the story is going, it kind of thuds along and degenerates into chase and escape scenes. But I've no objection to counting it on the list, as it had its moments and it was an original story.

I give raspberries to those who dismiss Star Wars. It brought a new level of quality to the SF screen effects during its time. It even holds up remarkably well, and its mythic characters are enduring (and in some cases endearing). I don't think a SF movie has to be an intellectual masterpiece to qualify for good. The ideas were simple, but the world and characters created transported you into a place long ago and far away. (I suppose my opinion is a bit colored as I had a physics final at UCLA in the last finals timeslot of the school year, and I walked down to the theater in town where my friends were holding a place for me in line. Within the hour, I was watching the opening text and relaxing from a hard school year of physics, math, chemistry, etc etc.)

I like Peter Ustinov in a lot of stuff but not in that film.A blithering, mannered performance. He's a lot of fun in Topkapi though, for example.
I like Michael York but not in that film. He's a non entity. He's fine in Romeo and Juliet. I think he's very good in Cabaret.

#160 - Gwen,

I think the problem with Star Wars is all of the sequels. Talk about your diminishing returns. The first movie is an all time classic. For better or worse, it changed the face of movies even more than The Godfather or Jaws did.

But man, by Return of the Jedi, those movies just weren't good any more. I challenge anyone to defend the Ewoks. And the prequels...

I think the prequels and the flood of novels released around that time are what moved Star Wars from legendary to it being a contemporary of Star Trek. Star Wars went from being a trilogy of landmark movies to a property.

All the double dipping Lucas has done with the DVD releases hasn't exactly helped matters.

Return of the Jedi is a terrible film, and no army of Star Wars fans can convince me otherwise. I like the first two a lot, but absolutely refuse to accept the third one just to have a perfect set. That's someone else's problem. I hate that film. I think it's a fumbled mess and rarely exciting. I saw it twice and don't see any reason to see it again ever. Not interested in having to conform to the gospel according to Star Wars fans.

162,163, Yep, I was speaking specifically of the first movie. There was a time it was just called "Star Wars", forgot I now have to call it "A New Hope" or whatever.

No kidding about dimishing returns and property. The all time low was when I was in a 99cent store staring at "Jedi Fruit Rolls".

161, Oh yeah, he was good in Cabaret for sure. Oh, and I thought he did a nice job in Babylon 5 as the troubled former gunner who had fired the first shot in the Earth-Minbari war

I now return this thread to it's normal track...

For those of the right age, seeing Star Wars when it was first released, it was an amazing event - the effects were gobsmacking; finally a film could match the images in your head. (Of course, this ended up being a disaster, with too many films being SFX lead, and factors like story and script being dismissed). The Empire Strikes Back, while it didn't have the same impact, is probably a slightly better film, and then came the Star Wars Care Bear Movie, and the trilogy ended in disaster - although compared to the second trilogy, ROTJ is a masterpiece.

Talking about trilogies, albeit not sf, it is a pity that the Weekend at Bernie's sequence was never completed - without doubt the final film would have made this the greatest work of art of the 20th century.

It seems to me that back in 1979 or 1980 when I saw "Star Wars" as a first run movie The initial crawl just simply started with "In a galaxy far, far away..." without the Chapter four header. Only after the second movie which started as episode 5 was "Star Wars" given the additional appellation of Chapter/Episode (?) 4. Is this correct?

geneg, I will swear up and down that "IV" was on the screen in the theater, but I've also heard claims from other people that it was added later - none of it the official word. However, I DO know Han shot first. ;)

"although compared to the second trilogy, ROTJ is a masterpiece"

Although a prevailing concensus, with ROTJ you can only go up, it's not possible to be worse. The Phantom Menace was more fun for me to watch than ROTJ. Jar Jar Binks doesn't seem to bother me quite as much as he seems to bother everyone else in the Western world. He's a stupid character and that's it.
Attack of the Clones is just a demo reel for breakthrough CGI effects, although Natalie Portman is very cute running around in her ripped and sweated up TShirt. No story to speak of as far as I was concerned.
I hear Revenge of the Sith is better, I haven't even seen it due to total disinterest. It doesn't even show up on my radar. I feel no compulsion to see it.

>168 arthurfrayn: - if there's one word I would never associate with The Phantom Menace it would be "fun". That was it's problem - if it had managed to be be fun I could have overlooked the idiotic script & poor direction, but it was SO boring: it went on and on and on. (It also didn't help that the main actors - Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman - can't act).

#169, jargoneer: "(It also didn't help that the main actors - Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman - can't act)."

Opinion, Your Honour, opinion!

But I agree about what was said about the later SW films...- I saw The empire strikes back first, and the original, first film later (I was too young when it came out). I lost all interest when I saw the previews for ROTJ. Jargoneer has it right: Star wars Care Bear Movie (*bwahaha!*).

" if there's one word I would never associate with The Phantom Menace it would be "fun". That was it's problem - if it had managed to be be fun I could have overlooked the idiotic script & poor direction, but it was SO boring: it went on and on and on. "

It's six of one etc. You like ROTJ better than this. For me that's not possible. At least Phantom looks good. ROTJ often looks like crap.

"It also didn't help that the main actors - Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman - can't act"

What does that really mean -"can't act"? People say this all the time but what does it mean?????

And how do you see a movie like this as a vehicle for any kind of effective "acting", anyway? I would never judge any performer's capacity to act based on their appearance in a film like this, regardless of whether I found them engaging or not.

With a few exceptions I rarely fault actors for anything I see on the screen. 9 times out of 10, they are the best thing about any film.
A movie like this is almost a diorama -there's a limit as to how much an actor could do or should do.

By way of contrast, it's to Peter Jackson's great credit that he managed to find a way to showcase most of his performers to good advantage. But that's one of the reasons why the LOTR films set the new standard for genre film making as opposed to Lucas' current ponderous, disengaged efforts.

Can't act - IMO, this means they don't seem believable. Sometimes this can be bad casting - if Liam Neeson is ever cast as a log he will be brilliant at him; likewise if McGregor is ever cast as a startled man on the street who is told he is not only an actor but a star.

I'm not sure Phantom does look good - it is so artificial; more plastic than real (which was probably useful when it got to selling the toys).

LOTR - the most over-rated films ever? Actually, I don't blame the actors here - the flaws come from the books, i.e., there are no believable characters, no sense of tragedy, etc. It's why Tolkien's novels fail as the myths he wanted them to be. And to that - the last hour of the trilogy is so awful it beggars belief. (And I like Jackson's other films).

"Can't act - IMO, this means they don't seem believable."

Ah, see this -THIS... is about as subjective as you can get. It establishes no criteria to talk about whether or not an actor is an effective performer possessing the requisite skills and talent to act. I don't believe in other people's buhleehvbl. So I know now when you say "can't act", you mean "I don't like". I think we've all been spoiled when it comes to the quality of the performers we see on film and television. Have you seen any amateur theatrical productions? Watching someone in one of those will show anyone what it means to not be able to act.

Liam Neeson is an excellent actor, and an unusual screen presence. He's good in Husbands and Wives. He's good in Michael Collins. He's good in Rob Roy. He's good in Schindler's List. My opinion? Sure, and the people that put him up for awards almost all the time. It's interesting that you view him as a log because that exactly the opposite of the persona he has created for himself IMO, to great effect, which is the sensitive "bear-man".
There's nothing for him to do in the new Star Wars films. There's not much for anyone to do in those films.

"LOTR - the most over-rated films ever?"

Not a big Tolkein fan, or a fan of high fantasy, but I have to admit I think Jackson did an amazing job with this material. His dedication to getting the essence of it right, is startling
So, I don't agree. Brain Dead is not better, although it's certainly uglier. I like Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, but I don't think they're better either ;)

And I see the b-word creep up in your evaluation of the Tolkien novels. I'm not sure that's how I'd evaluate a presentation that has at it's heart a mythic foundation. The novels aspire to the fable, the epic ballad and poem, not the modern psychological drama.

While it may be necessary for you and many others, "believability" is not the ultimate measure of whether any fictive presentation is worthy or successful. The concept is far too subjective and constantly in a state of transition. The best actors of the silent era are not bad actors because the mannered techniques they used are not "believable" to a modern audience. Greek Drama performed in it's traditional format is not bad theater because it doesn't create a convincingly false space for us to peek into. And I'm certain as a genre fan your'e familiar with how one becomes familiar with special effects in films until they cease to be anything other than what they are. Are Ray Harryhausen's films bad now, because they no longer look "believable"?
To me all fictive presentations are inherently a crock regardless at how successful they are at their illusory aspects. I personally try to get past that concept in order to approach the thing on it's own terms. Ultimately even a puppet show at a Children's Zoo, can have something at it's heart that's worthy, that has nothing to do with believability.

"likewise if McGregor is ever cast as a startled man on the street who is told he is not only an actor but a star. "

If the man can make me laugh, and immediately choke on that laugh within the first 45 seconds of a (radio!) play, he can't be all that bad :-) (not that I have seen a lot of his films, none of his big ones certainly).

#172 - LOTR - the most over-rated films ever?

No. No they are not. They deserve every bit of honor that has been bestowed on them. Peter Jackson is a genius of a director and The Lord of the Rings proves it. (Heavenly Creatures was a pretty good hint though.)

(And I like Jackson's other films).

So do I. Except for his take on King Kong. It wasn't bad at all. But I like it less than his other movies. (Well, maybe a tie with Bad Taste, but man, you have to admire that movie for what he was able to pull off with so little.)

(Well, maybe a tie with Bad Taste, but man, you have to admire that movie for what he was able to pull off with so little.)

What that early effort does show is that even then with no budget, he had an uncanny genius for storytelling using parallel editing.

>173 arthurfrayn: - it has nothing to do with liking or not liking an actor. I've met Neeson and he seemed a nice guy, that doesn't mean I think he can act. Re Schindler's List - he's the weakest thing in the movie; his big speech about the worth of a human being at the end is more cringe-worthy than moving. Using awards as a criteria is disingenuous: we all know most awards have a mixture of criteria behind them, i.e., any film that mentions the holocaust gets an Oscar nomination.

I wasn't talking about the believability of LOTR - Jackson's films are technically superb - the way the hobbits alone are dealt with is deserving of praise. There are only one or two moments in the films that the effects fail, which for 11/12 hours is quite an achievement. Tolkien wanted to create a purely English myth but he fails because he can't deal with the complexity of people: in the books or films we never believe that these people may fail - it is a childlike tale of good versus evil. Compare this to the most enduring English myth that Tolkien wanted to replace - King Arthur.

>174 GirlFromIpanema: - that was the writer that made you feel those emotions - actors are just ciphers, albeit ones that work and ones that don't.

ps...obviously the LOTR films are not the most over-rated: that is The Shawshank Redemption - a nice film but one of the best ever!

pps...McGregor's uncle is in the original Star Wars trilogy as Wedge, one of the alliance fighter pilots; but he's also in Local Hero, and everyone should watch that instead.

Watched 2001 again. Brilliant movie in all regards. An excellent plot, great special special effects. The quietly sinister robot was extremely well done, and I even loved the music - and I usually don't care for the music at all. The epic opera music was brilliant, and I liked the eerie monolith encounter music, too.

Looking through this thread, I have to ask: "Why is it so hard to make a good science fiction movie?" There are about fifteen or twenty great movies on here, and another fifteen or twenty movies that some on here like, and some don't, and the rest are movies that one or two like and have been bagged by everyone else.

It's not as if directors are starved for material, because science fiction boasts a multitude of excellent stories that could be plundered from all sorts of genres, which could suit any sort of director, no matter how low or highbrow they wish to be.

We have skills in CGI that could be used to make practically any sort of scene that a director wishes, and reams of knowledge that we didn't have previously.

It says something about the state of science fiction that the cream of the SF crop are movies that are over twenty years old, and 2001 is nearing it's fiftieth anniversary.

177>
"Using awards as a criteria is disingenuous: we all know most awards have a mixture of criteria behind them"

It's not a criteria, it's just perhaps an indication that more people share my evaluation of his work than yours and he's been up for multiple awards for performances other than in Schindler's list. He was recently nominated for a couple of awards for his performance in Kinsey.

"I wasn't talking about the believability of LOTR - Jackson's films are technically superb"

I know you weren't talking about the movies, you were talking about the believability of the characters in the novel. As you say here:
"I don't blame the actors here - the flaws come from the books, i.e., there are no believable characters..."

My point was I don't think believability of the characters was a goal of Tolkein's.

"Compare this to the most enduring English myth that Tolkien wanted to replace - King Arthur."

I don't think of the characters in the Arthurian Myths as presented by Mallory, as "believable characters". Their believability doesn't even enter into my mind when I read something like that.

What's more, and perhaps more to the point is that you bothered to point out the actors you mentioned couldn't act based on their performances in the Star Wars films. And clarified this by questioning their "believability".

You mean like the "believability" of the performances of Mark Hammill and Carrie Fisher in the first films? ;) I like those performers just fine in the original movies, but not because they are great actors. Also in keeping with the "Corvette Summer in Space" concept of the original Star Wars, the characters are deliberately comic booky and ironic. Not really the most "believable" depictions of people in the environment they are supposed to occupy.

"that was the writer that made you feel those emotions - actors are just ciphers, albeit ones that work and ones that don't."

If you feel this way, than why does Neeson get the brunt of your criticism for having to pull off that awkward overwrought speech at the end of Schindler's List?

My point remains that believability is not a useful or effective criteria to evaluate the validity or quality of any fictive presentation.

>155 iansales::

"The Quiet Earth" - for the uninitiated, NZ film where a man wakes up one morning and finds the whole world de-populated.

I particularly liked the main character going a bit funy in the head, going into a church wit ha shotgun, and pointing it at the crucifix over the altar, shouting "God! Come out or the kid gets it!"

>156 tcgardner:: I lost count of the number of First Law violations in 'The Black Hole'; there were even two (possibly three) Second Law violations. Overlong, too. But the big spaceship was fun, especially the scene where it powers up - but even that level of spectacle wasn't enough for me to like the film.

'Tron' - now that was a Disney film I enjoyed and which showed a level of adult sophistication in some of the asides that I wasn't expecting.

I saw this at a cinema in Derby when it first came out, and at the time Derby had a number of resettlement homes for Vietnamese boat people, some of whom were sat behind me. Only one of them understood English, so he was explaining the plot to the others in Vietnamese, with occasional lapses into English for terms like "Master Control Program", "flip/flop memory" and "AND/OR gate". This just added to the general surrealism... The final shot where the city at night cross-fades back to the representation of the inside of the computer chip was quite remarkable.

the black hole...so bad our 4 yr old son pointed out logical problems with it. (and that's not counting the acting or subspecial effects)

>180 arthurfrayn: - "believability" is the only consistent criteria needed in any fictive presentation, in order that it works successfully. When I say "believability" I am not talking about something that has to be real but a fictive world that we can believe in - this could be Middle-Earth, the Star Trek Federation, the local mall, etc. In fact, I would argue that the reason most sf films (and books) fail is that they don't deliver a consistent universe, i.e, they are not "believable". A good example of this is the Matrix trilogy: initially certain boundaries are set up but they are constantly broken by the film-makers, thereby destroying their own fictional universe because it no longer possible to believe in it. Think of how many films start strongly and then fall apart because as the plot develops it is impossible to believe in some aspect of them.

Re Neeson in Schindler's Ark - the speech at the end is cliched but his delivery of it is completely over-wrought: that's why I said some actors work and some don't.

>179 rojse: - CGI has been one of the worst, and one of the best, things to happen to films: the best because effects are now look real, the worst because films have jettisoned the basics of plot and script in order of big set pieces - too many films are a sequence of set peices knitted together by weak linking material.

Holy crap, people, I leave town for less than two days and when I come back there are more than 35 comments on this thread I have to read and catch up on...including a couple of comments directed toward yers truly which I believe had rather malign and mischievous motivations behind them. While the cat's away...

Probably can't cover everybody's points but I will say they made for fun reading this morning as I was sitting here, sipping my coffee. A few trips down memory lane.

I actually said on another thread that I thought Charlton Heston (while he was alive and cognizant) deserved some sort of special award or citation from SF fans for his contributions to the genre: "Soylent", "Omega Man", the "Apes" movies. He was a major Hollywood actor, a superstar, who wasn't afraid of taking on an SF project and, whatever you think of his acting, he gave it his all. I give him credit for that.

He was also the worst Mark Antony in history.

"Black Hole" (shudder).

Someone mentioned "Logan's Run" looking like it was shot in a mall--I may be wrong but wasn't it shot in a mall in Houston? C'mon, you SF buffs, help me out here.

The first time I saw "Star Wars" was a momentous occasion. There was a a lot of hype leading up to the show's release--I saw a Merv Griffin episode where they showed the attack on the Millenium Falcon after our heroes' escape from the Death Star and was mesmerized. Lined up with my buddies and from the first note of that bombastic John Williams score, I was smitten. I still have the original version on tape, not the digitally enhanced Lucas wank job. Not interested in that, I want to have the version that I first saw and loved. None of the other films came close--the second one looked slick and the characters (especially Han) were already starting to parody themselves.

One of my strongest memories was taking my father (now long deceased) to see the first "Star Wars". It took days of begging before he finally grudgingly agreed--this was a man who liked John Wayne and Clint Eastwood films and hadn't been to a movie theatre since "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" or something like that.

I recall watching his face, the expressions of surprise and alarm; he'd never seen special effects like that before and the movie is also incredibly LOUD. I asked him what he thought afterward and I think he was taken aback by the whole thing. He couldn't believe I'd already seen it ten times (back then, if you stayed in your seat the usher would let you sit through the movie twice) and thought I was wasting my time and money. But his condemnation was rather weak--I think he was bowled over by the film and though it wasn't too his tastes, film had shown him something he hadn't believed possible. Foot-long models screaming and diving like Stukas, alien creatures, exotic worlds.

He was dead within 18 months.

I'm no fantasy fan but I thought "LOTR" very good, especially the first two films. The third needed to be pared down by about 45 minutes (at least). I've read the books and thought Jackson's editorial decisions were bang on--he lanced out a lot of filler and needless subplots, the silly songs, etc. But he could have cut much more from that last film, it was like he was trying to address everything and the result was bloated, the drama and intensity diminished.

That's it for this morning--it's yardwork day today at Casa Burns, raking and bagging, clearing the leaf cover off the garden and flower beds. And then imagine an incompetent arse like me up on a tall ladder, cleaning out eaves, the ladder shaking because my knees are knocking so hard...

"This Quiet Earth"--New Zealand film, was it?

I remember the scene where the last man is giving a drunken speech from his balcony to a bunch of mannequins or cardboard cutouts.

And the final scene from the movie, where he crosses over...

Cliff? Cliff? you still there? Or did you fall off the ladder? I feel with you... -I had to get on a ladder today too, on my balcony (4th (euro) floor) to fix the sunscreens. When I wanted to originally fix them I got a massive attack of vertigo and my neighbour had to do the drilling overhead. I did "confrontational therapy" though :-). And potted my tomato and my strawberries as a reward today.

Oh yeah -- SF films. I only taped The Quiet Earth the other week, haven't got round to watch it, yet.

You are right on Logan's Run and the mall, Cliff: "# The interior shots of the main hall were filmed in the "Great Hall" at the Appearel Mart in Dallas Texas." (from the IMDb trivia page for the film).

I thought the LotR films were terrible, and suffered greatly from trying to cram too much story into three horribly overlong films. Cut it all down and you could get a decent two or three hour film (singular!) out of it. Maybe.

Naturally, all the Tolkein fanboys attack me when I suggest that. So I tend not to suggest it too much, seeing as nearly everyone turns out to be a closet Tolkein fan. Grr.

You can tell who the Tolkien purists are: they let their toe hair grown long enough to MOUSSE...

where do the Leningrad Cowboys fit into the mix? (mousse like i've never seen before)

i am semi-hardcore Tolkien; read the LoTR and Hobbit a lot - ever since my mom got us the books as kids in the 50s. But couldn't ever get more than 50 pages into the Similarian (sic - to lazy to look up the correct spelling), let alone the other backstory tales (many of which we own). I did enjoy the movies a lot - although the two most tiresome actors/characters were frodo / samwise. But i find when i reread the books i skim the looooooong sections centering on that pair and enjoy the rest a lot.

How can a film that's trying to cram in too much story in be overlong? To me a movie (or book) is overlong when the premise is stretched too thin.

Now, I'm not a Tolkien fan at all. The Hobbit is my favorite book, partly because I read it so many times as a kid, but I didn't bother reading The Lord of the Rings until after I saw The Fellowship of the Ring. I do though think that Peter Jackson's film versions are milestones in the same way the original Star Wars is. To me, these are films that reminded us that special effects should be used to tell a story instead of the other way around.

The Quiet Earth. I saw that one years ago, but don't remember much about it.

Speaking of 'good' sci-fi, I'm about to go watch the Will Smith version of I Am Legend. Uh, yeah... I can only hope and pray that it is as 'good' as his version of I, Robot.

I tried watching Shivers over the weekend it was on cable but I couldn't take it, the acting was too bad, or my attention span was too short. It's one cultie movie I'll have to pass on.

I was really looking forward to those sex zombies.

#192

I would not call the most recent adaptation of I am Legend any good, but then, I was extremely dissapointed that they turned a classic SF book into a poor movie, when it had so much potential -good actors, big budget, an excellent novel to work from. My main dissapointment was the ending, which I don't want to ruin, and that they broke away from the vampire folklore while the book worked with it.

Apparently, the special edition has a new ending, which could change my opinion of the movie, if it is closer to the original, or at least removes the coincidences that plagued the original ending.

I was disappointed in the LotR series because it didn't include the only story from the books that I care about. Somewhere in @ appendix F or G is the story of Samwise and his daughter and his time as Hobbittons Mayor. After seven terms as mayor, seeing his family well settled and respected in the Shire, come the riders, come to escort poor, lowly Samwise Gamgee, the accidental traveler, the gardener's son, to the Grey Havens and oversea, Last of the Ring Bearers.

Just thinking about it gives me chills and nearly brings me to tears. I'm just a hopeless romantic.

Now, I understand why they did not include this story, after all it is rather anti-climactic, but I think stuck in the voluminous data like a diamond in a dirt clod, is this wonderful little story about luck, courage, steadfastness, love and family ending in the mists of time.

Okay, combining a classic novel with Akiva Goldsmith and Will Smith should be a crime. To put it kindly, the Will Smith I Am Legend sucked, big time.

I was okay with changing the setting to New York. I was okay with replacing the vampires with knock-offs from 28 Days Later. But like I, Robot (also manhandled by Goldsmith and Smith) the movie had nothing to do with the novel. Remember how the vampires would nogregate outside Nevile's house every night driving him mad while trying desperately to get in? Remember the grim scenes of Nevile stacking vampires every day? Remember all those other scenes that make the novel a classic? None of them are in this latest version. But the upshot is you get to watch Will Smith quote two minutes of Shrek.

Any why make the monsters GC? That made them less than scary as they never once blended in with the rest of the movie.

And who moved Fred? Don't ask me. The movie never really answered that question.

#192 - Rojse,

Apparently, the special edition has a new ending, which could change my opinion of the movie, if it is closer to the original, or at least removes the coincidences that plagued the original ending.

I wouldn't count on that. Here's the summary from IMDb:

The ending to the Alternate Theatrical Version varies from the original ending. Instead of blowing himself and the hemocytes up with a grenade, Neville discovers that the hemocytes actually came for the female he captured earlier in the movie. He relieves her of the cure and returns her to the hemocytes. Afterwards, the hemocytes leave and let Neville, Anna, and Ethan be. The three then are seen leaving New York heading to Vermont's safe zone with Anna broadcasting a message telling all other survivors that she is with Neville and is heading to the safe zone.

#197

That's even worse.

>184 Jargoneer:"believability" is the only consistent criteria needed in any fictive presentation, in order that it works successfully. When I say "believability" I am not talking about something that has to be real but a fictive world that we can believe in - this could be Middle-Earth, the Star Trek Federation, the local mall, etc. In fact, I would argue that the reason most sf films (and books) fail is that they don't deliver a consistent universe, i.e, they are not "believable". A good example of this is the Matrix trilogy: initially certain boundaries are set up but they are constantly broken by the film-makers, thereby destroying their own fictional universe because it no longer possible to believe in it. Think of how many films start strongly and then fall apart because as the plot develops it is impossible to believe in some aspect of them.

If you're arguing for the importance of consistency as a value, I think you'd find few to disagree with you. But believability and consistency are not the same thing.

How does the above apply to the "believability" of actors?

Had a lot of fun Saturday night with one of those Hammer SF films from the 1950's, "X The Unknown". The science was wonky, the premise silly but the production was executed with a certain vigor and it featured acting stalwarts like Dean Jagger and Leo McKern. Really enjoyed the lava-like creature flowing through the village. Surprisingly graphic for a 1956 flick, flesh melting off faces and some realistic radiation burns.

Last night it was the first episodes of Buster Crabbe in "Flash Gordon", which was more fun than a barrel full of LSD-laced monkeys. Loved the Hawkmen and the needle-nosed spaceships. Boy, one really spots the "Star Wars" touches, especially with the floating city and evil emperor--thank God there were no Ewoks. Unfortunately the last few minutes of the disk wouldn't play--it was a library CD and scratched pretty badly--but I think I can assume Flash and Dale came through all right. Funny how the deposed Prince looked a lot like a chubby version of Timothy Dalton (who played him in the tawdry 1980 De Laurentiis flick)...

Next time you have a scratched CD, use toothpaste on it. I had a Guitar Hero II disk the kids had made unplayable and the toothpaste fixed it right up.

ETA: White paste. No gel.

What is "Hammer SF?"

Science fiction movies made by Hammer Films in Britain, famous for their horror movies starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Can't believe nobody's mentioned Dark Star! Haven't seen it for too long, but it shows that you don't need megabucks to make a great SF movie.

Oh, I think "Dark Star" was mentioned on another thread relating to SF cinema. Whether it was cited as a "great" movie, ah....

here we go.....

*snerk*
I remember reading the novel Dark Star 25 years ago or so... - was it a novel-after-the-film-script, I wonder? I just remember that it was all pretty weird.

Hey, I thought it was fun...but definitely an early and primitive effort by the big names involved (Carpenter & O'Bannon). The acting, in particular, was really lame. But made with enthusiasm and love, that's the main thing.

And it had interesting science fiction concepts in it - an existential talking bomb, unusual alien biology... ok, maybe I'm stretching it. I'm wanting to see it again now though!

#207 - I remember reading the novel Dark Star 25 years ago or so... - was it a novel-after-the-film-script, I wonder? I just remember that it was all pretty weird.

Girl, yeah, Dark Star was a novelization of the movie by Alan Dean Foster (remember when every novelization was by him?).

What a wonderful world we live in when a no budget z-movie like Dark Star (I mean this in a good way. John Carpenter is my favorite director) had a novelization. I saw a copy in a used bookstore in Santa Monica years ago. I'm kicking myself for not picking it up. (Okay, I just looked. I can order a copy for $0.49. Guess I should stop kicking myself.)

What about Wings of Honneamise?

I've seen reviews of this movie that say it's better than 2001...

*ducks*

Re John Carpenter - Mark Kermode, a UK film critic, last week told a story about meeting Carpenter, where the director asked if he had seen his latest film. Kermode said no, to which Carpenter replied, I wouldn't bother, it's rubbish.
Seemingly Carpenter is very open about how much he hates his recent films.

Wings of Honneamise, better than 2001? Never. It's not bad, but let's be realistic here.

Hey, that one isn't available on DVD any more, is it? Did they rerelease it?

"Wings of..."? Sorry, I've never heard of it. I'll have to look that one up. As good as "2001"? I guess I'd have to see it to believe it. Some reviewer called "300" the "Citizen Kane" of graphic novels and I tore him to shreds in a commentary. That kind of hyperbole always pisses me off.

Checked it out on good ol' Wikipedia--interesting that is has a Sakamoto score. Maybe I'll try to lay hands on it some day. Always looking for more SF: animated, anime or otherwise.

This past week I watched the original "Thief of Baghdad" (1924) and F.W. Murnau's "Faust" (1926). Not SF per se but some amazing fantasy sequences, breath-taking really, especially when you consider both these films are over 80 years old. Also was bowled over by Carl Th. Dreyer's "Day of Wrath" (if you haven't seen his "Vampyr", horror lovers, you're missing a treat).

Give me these flicks over the popcorn/comic book crap out there any day. Just can't watch that stuff any more.

Later on, I'll be watching the Louis Feuillade serial "Judex" (1917) and, for fun, Ray Harryhausen's distinctive magic in the 1964 adaptation of H.G. Wells' "First Men in the Moon"--note, that's IN the moon, not ON the moon...

Cliff,

My suggestion before watching Wings of Honneamise: Forget that 2001 was ever mentioned in the same breath.

It's a pretty good bit of animation. Very pretty and doesn't rely on the action, violence and weird sexuality that so much Anime leans on like a crutch. But 2001 quality? Nah.

Okay, understood...

not sci-fi..but having had to show films @ William and Mary for film classes as a student job...
Gone w/the Wind and Citizen Kane are the two most overrated films of all time. At least w/ Kane i understand about the innovations in shooting angles and the like...but "rosebud" why not "aardvark" or "wombat" or whatever else profoundly represented lost childhood blah.....sorry...that rant comes out whenever best/worst films come out regardless of genre...sorry.....
...
Iron Man really was fun...much better than the usual faux angsty comix hero flic. More like a romantic comedy from the 40s in some ways w/ the flirty interplay between the leads.

>219 bobmcconnaughey: ..but "rosebud" why not "aardvark" or "wombat" or whatever else profoundly represented lost childhood blah"

Beyond the fact that Rosebud is supposedly the pet name Hearst gave his mistress' nether parts (as the film is based on the life of William Randolph Hearst), you don't see how the bud of a rose might be more of a symbol for lost childhood than an aardvark or a wombat?

It's also important to realize how much of that original screenplay was the work of former Hearst organization journalist (he worked on the Examiner) -Herman J. Mankiewicz.

>219 bobmcconnaughey: - the most over-rated film of all time is The Shawshank Redemption: it's not bad but it now gets listed in the top 5 of all time by viewers. (Reason #117 why the general public shouldn't be allowed to pick 'best of' lists). If you had done a little reading you would have found out that 'Rosebud' is another reference to Hearst: particularly, his nickname for a part of Marion Davies' anatomy. Allegedly it was this that pushed Hearst over the edge regarding the film.

Cliff, have you seen Dryer's The Passion of Joan of Ark? It's one of the best.

"Citizen Kane" over-rated? Sorry, won't go along with that one. I've seen it about fifteen times and it still astonishes. Welles and Toland and then Mankiewicz's screenplay...well, it doesn't get much better. Not to my mind. Always has been in my top three. So when someone mentions it in the same sentence as a piece of shit comic book...

Jargoneer, you devil, I just placed an order for Dreyer's "Joan of Arc". The man was a magician. These silent films I've been watching astonish this writer with their ability to non-verbally tell a story. Apparently, the actress who plays Joan was so drained by the experience, she never made another movie again. Dreyer went to his grave thinking all copies of the film were lost, but one was rediscovered and so the world retains a masterpiece. Can't wait to see it.

Has anyone here seen Abel Gance's (1927) "Napoleon" in its entirely. Whatta flick!

I'm with you on "Shawshank Redemption", by the way. It's one of those "People's Choice" favorites. I didn't much care for the original novella either.

I've been watching Louis Feuillade's 1917 serial "Judex" (over 5 hours) and, man, lemme tell you, I see A LOT of resemblances to "Batman". Millionaire with secret chambers under his castle, all sorts of neat gadgets, a vigilante who ruthlessly fights crime--sound familiar, anyone?

Long weekend here up in Canada--not that it matters to me, the last day I took off from writing was...was...(?)

Nonetheless, I'll wish you all happy Victoria Day (Christ, I wish they'd change that name, this anti-monarchist cringes when I see it on the calendar). Have a good one...

222> "Has anyone here seen Abel Gance's (1927) "Napoleon" in its entirely. Whatta flick!"

Saw the restored print at it's premiere at Radio City with the tryptich screen and with Coppola's pop conducting his original score. An impressive presentation of the restored classic. Truly ahead of it's time.

BTW since you're into silent films it seems, we saw a really good one on TCM a little while back that you might want to see if you haven't already - King Vidor's "The Crowd". Pretty powerful film. Up for several Oscars at the time...

222>I've been watching Louis Feuillade's 1917 serial "Judex" (over 5 hours) and, man, lemme tell you, I see A LOT of resemblances to "Batman". Millionaire with secret chambers under his castle, all sorts of neat gadgets, a vigilante who ruthlessly fights crime--sound familiar, anyone?

All these characters can trace back to a pulp lineage and before. Batman first appeared on the stands around the time a character The Black Bat appeared.

More on that here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Bat

Dear God, Arthur, you actually saw the performance at Radio City, Carmine Coppola, the orchestra, the whole bit? You lucky, lucky...

And Gance was at the premiere too, as I recall, and he pissed off Kevin Brownlow (I think it was), the chap who painstakingly restored the film with a typically heartless and pompous remark. Over 90 years old and still capable of being an arse.

I'll add the Vidor film to my list. Many thanks for the suggestion.

Kevin Brownlow was the bloke. What Gance failed to appreciate was that if it wasn't for Brownlow he would have a been a curiosity footnote for film scholars. Brownlow deserves a lot of credit for his work on the silent cinema era - his The Parade's Gone By is worth reading for an insight into this era, a collection of interviews with all manner of people who worked during this era.

Re - silent films. I don't understand why film scholars spend all the effort on restoring a print and yet fail to restore the hand tinting to them. (in most cases). A classic example of this is Nosferatu, the scenes where we see Count Orlak running in daylight originally saw him running across a blood-red tinted skyline.

The adventure serial/superhero comic can be traced back to the dime novel in the US & the penny dreadful in the UK. These were the 19th century equivalent of the pulp magazines. The character of Frank Reade is a good example.

"How can a film that's trying to cram in too much story in be overlong?"

I was perhaps unclear in what I meant, I apologise.

What I meant was, if they'd been really vicious with the scissors, and hacked away at the books, they could have emerged with a story that could have been told in a two-hour film.

Instead, a large degree of fidelity to the source meant they were putting at much of the books as they could in the films, so you ended up with a story that was way more than six hours long in total.

That's what I meant by saying that by cramming in too much of the story they made the films overlong.

*awaits the lynching for his heretical views*

Jargoneer:

They've certainly done a great job with the tinting in the copy of "Judex" I saw. Question: did they actually run the film through a dye or were filters sometimes used?

I think the "Lord of the Rings" films--in particular the latter two--are overlong and could be whittled down. That said, I bought my sons the "special" edition of the third film and it's something like four years long with every scrap of footage included. Couldn't watch it myself but the hairy-toed little bastards seem to love it so who am I to judge?

#227 - Holden Carver,

Instead, a large degree of fidelity to the source meant they were putting at much of the books as they could in the films, so you ended up with a story that was way more than six hours long in total.

Try looking into the silent film Greed (based on the Frank Norris novel McTeague) some time. Not every film can or should have the story told in under two hours. Lord of the Rings is not The Transporter.

Cliff,

Have you seen the 'talkie' remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (not the one from the fifties)?

I know what a potential train-wreck a remake sounds like, but these guys filmed their actors against a green screen ala Sin City or Sky Captain and then digitally added in the original backgrounds, preserving the original look at much as possible. I'd recommend giving it a rent for the curiousity factor at least.

Here's a youtube link to the trailer: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Haven't seen it but...why remake it? I'd rather have the original restored/remastered. The newer version sounds like a technical feat but...was it really necessary? Or just a curio?

A think a few others were forgotten.

Time bandits. Although maybe just having a time map doesn't qualify it for scifi. too low tech? But we're talking Terry G. and time bandits is just fun.

Appleseed (2004). I just love the characters. I don't know how close it is to the manga, but i'm getting the books to find out.

Also I went to rent Brazil and there are two versions. Regular and the "love conquers all" version. What's the difference?

I think the "love conquers all" version was the studio-hacked take on the film Universal intended to release until Gilliam stole his copy and it won two major critics choice awards (see message #107 for details).

Cliff,

It was just a curio, not necessary. But why not test it out? It's worth an hour and a half of your time either way.

Sassy,

The 'love conquers all' version of Brazil is the one the studio messed with. It's worth a look just to see what a difference editing can make, but make sure you see the 'regular' version first.

>228 CliffBurns: - before Technicolor (which remains the best colour system) the three main methods of colour in films were:
(1) hand-tinting - were colours were painstakingly painted onto the negative, not unlike the process for cartoons.
(2) dye - certain scenes would be dyed a specific colour to enhance the effect.
(3) two-tone, or strip, colour - this colour process was invented early on (Technicolor had a process in 1915) but was never used that much, probably because it looks slightly off - the colour has a washed-out look. You don't see many two-colour movies now (in some cases, the colour has faded away completely) but occasionally TCM used to show Roman Scandals, starring Eddie Cantor.
The use of colour in silent films was widespread, especially the dyeing process - hand-tinting can look incredible: see the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera - the most famous colour sequence in this is the unveiling of the phantom but there is another sequence where the phantom is on top of the opera house that is absolutely beautiful.

Thanks for that, mate, I've always been curious. I've got an old Super 8 camera kit and I'd like to shoot some footage this summer, just to experiment. Wonder what would happen if I took coloured marker or something like that to tint some black and white strips of film.

Perhaps we shall see...

Back in 211 TeenAuthor brought up Wings of Honneamise. What about some other anime masterpieces? The first two that come to mind are Akira and Ghost in the Shell.

237>

Yeah, I forgot about those... they're making a live action Ghost in the Shell apparently, I haven't seen the Anime version so I wouldn't know if it would be any good. I've heard Akira is one of the groundbreakers that brought Anime out of Japan and into the world focus, and it got a pretty high rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Spirited Away, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence... But there are also live action films such as Avalon, Casshern, Returner, Natural City, which are definitely worth seeing.

(Um, I just looked back over my DVD rental history for more examples, and realised I have no memory of half the films I've watched...)

"Spirited Away" is fun--our family are big Miyazaki fans. Think we either own or have seen all of his films.

Miyazaki is the first name that popped into my head when anime came up. However, while he is undoubtably a genius his movies are not sci-fi. (Well, maybe Nausicaa, but even that is fantasy to me.)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is very pretty, but not a good sci-fi movie (or even a good movie as far as I remember) to me. Maybe I'm being too harsh on that one. 'll have to watch it again.

Returner, that one has been in my queue for a while. I've heard good things about it.

Think my boys liked the "Final Fantasy" movie. The animation was pretty good, I recollect walking through the room while it was playing. Looked an awful lot like a video game to me.

I've seen "Akira" and it didn't do much for me. There was also an anime film called "Metropolis" or something like that too...pretty grim in places.

Metropolis I watched that one and got lost somewhere along the way. I probably shouldn't have started it at one in the morning.

Beautiful movie from what I remember.

I love Miyazaki - but agree he's a fantasist.
A LOT of the anime/"sci-fi" are variants on the giant robots vs the universe (or verse vice)...but as mentioned above, i think both Cowboy Bebop (space cowboys) and Serial Experiments Lain are among the best sci-fi movies, period, not just best anime. They require a time commitment..esp. Lain as it takes it's time unfolding and beginning to make sense. Bebop is episodic so is much easier to handle intermittently.

#244, Bob,

Cowboy Bebop and Serial Experiments Lain are series rather than movies aren't they? Not sure if they count.

Still, looks like I'll have to add Lain to my Netflix queue what with your raves about it. I wasn't sure what to make of that one because when I've seen the box, all I seem to remember is a mopey girl on the cover.

Well, there's a Cowboy Bebop movie. But it probably wouldn't make too much sense to those who haven't seen the series.

The Final Fantasy movie was terrible, and the first Ghost in the Shell movie, while not terrible, finished *just* when I thought it was getting started! Which was annoying.

Off the top of my head, other good sf anime movies are: Patlabor, and Wind of Amnesia.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within made no sense whatsoever, and I love Final Fantasy. Excellent animation, though. Pity it didn't have the story to back it up, and that's usually the strong point of their games.

I always thought that A Wind Named Amnesia was a good idea not executed very well. I can't remember the details now, but I just remember there being a lot of wild improbabilities and stuff that plain didn't make sense.

That's one problem that I have with a lot (not all) anime. They have some excellent ideas, but the writing just isn't up to par or the ideas aren't handled very well. I've mentioned A Wind Named Amnesia. Black Magic M-66 is another. Vampire Hunter D (the original. I haven't seen the follow-up) is a third. What I've seen of The Big O follows this pattern too.

Appleseed has the potential to make a great sci-fi movie. I liked the 2004 movie but thought they tried to include too much. Like watching the Cliff's Notes version of the story or something. I remember really liking the '80's version, but it's been so long since I've seen it I can't say it hold up.

Paprika is really worth a watch. I'd suggest that one as a great sci-fi movie, though you really have to stick with it or it'll just be nonsensical.

final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a little incoherent, but Final Fantasy: Advent Children was incomprehensible. Looked beautiful, though.

I'm going to take a page from Cliff and say that I haven't seen Final Fantasy: Advent Children because I don't want to watch a movie that is a sequel to a video game.

But Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a sequel to a video game...

Which one was it a sequel to?

I haven't played any of the Final Fantasy games, but my understanding is that most of them are completely stand-alone, related only by their designer and certain quirky things like having a character named Dr. Cid. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is an independent story, not tied to the games any more than the games are tied to each other.

Final Fantasy: Advent Children on the other hand is intended to be the sequel to the Final Fantasy VII video game, picking up where the game left off. (If you didn't play the game that may be why the movie was incomprehensible to you. I haven't played the game and am guessing that it would be equally impenetrable to me.)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was marketed as Final Fantasy 5, and it was always my understanding that the story followed on from the games. It was mostly understandable, although some of the ending relied on knowledge not given in the film and was a little confusing.

Ian,

I'd never heard that and went digging around. According to Wikipedia, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is an original story written by the game series' creator. It is not related to any of the games.

Also, I looked at Final Fantasy V and it seems completely unrelated in look, world, story and feel to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

There was a straight to video cartoon series called Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals that was a continuation of FF5. Maybe that's where your info came from?

Sorry, just catching up with this thread. Here are a few movies that felt to me like good science fiction writing feels (mind-boggling ideas and/or otherworldly mood, not just fun adventure romps like Star Wars or Serenity or Men In Black, all of which I love):

Solaris (the 2002 Soderbergh version; I'm embarrassed that I haven't seen Tarkovsky's, or read the novel)

Blade Runner, The Minority Report, & A Scanner Darkly. Total Recall also had some good Dickian moments, but was too violent for my taste.

Serial Experiments Lain (a spooky, cyberpunk anime series; consider it a long movie)

The Truman Show

The Brother From Another Planet

Repo Man

"The Brother From Another Planet" is a movie to keep an eye on.

"Repo Man" needs a six pack of Beer and Pizza.

I have "The Brother From Another Planet" DVD in a box set of three early films by John Sayles. And I have a limited edition DVD of "Repo Man", which includes a CD of the soundtrack.

Repo Man has been on my 'must watch again' list for ever.

The only things I definately remember are all the generic products in the store, Emilio Estevez tossing a plastic Virgin Mary out the window as he repos a car and that Black Flag's 'T.V. Party' was in the soundtrack. Those three things are enough to warrant a second look in my opinion.

Alex Cox did another movie called Straight to Hell that I remember I really wanted to like, though I never really did.

"The only things I definately remember are all the generic products in the store".

Hence the comment that "Repo Man" requires Beer and Pizza.

"Repo Man", "Brother From Another Planet". Very odd films but I have warm memories of them. What else is on the "Repo Man" soundtrack, other than Black Flag?

One of Cox later films is an adaptation of Borges' Death and the Compass. He may not be the best director in the world but he is one of the most interesting when talking - check out his website, he discusses each of his films.

This was his idea for a quasi-sequel to Repo-Man:

WHAT IS WALDO'S HAWAIIAN HOLIDAY ABOUT?

It is the story of a young man, recently returned from Mars, who is forced to choose where his allegiance lies -- his boss, Duke Mantee, or the sex goddess, Velma; money or knowledge; the past or the future; paper or plastic; cash or charge; Earth - or Mars?

"Straight to Hell"--was that the punk western, starring some of the lads from the Clash?

(We still miss ya, Joe Strummer.)

It was. It was also pants. I have a DVD of it which was given away free with some magazine.

"Straight to Hell"--was that the punk western, starring some of the lads from the Clash?

Yeah, and Courtney Love was in it as well. As Ian said 'It's pants' (though I am going off of very hazy memories. I saw it a decade+ ago).

They drank tea a lot in the film - in fact, tea was used as a substitute for booze... which was odd because they were quite clearly pissed as farts.

#255 !! I've been touting Lain hard here for a while - thanks for the reinforcement!

What a strange image - pissed as farts. I never associated the two until after my prostate was removed, now I fart when I piss and piss when I fart. Is that what they were doing? I know tea will contribute to that process.

There's a film to be a publicist for--imagine hanging around the set with the boys, very strange Cox directing. Trying to get some semblance of order so some usable footage will result.

#267 - another colourful UK euphemism for being drunk is "rat-arsed". I've no idea why...

#269 Because it's AWESOME.

Sales, your stores of fascinating wisdom and insight when it comes to the British character never cease to amaze...

Watched Gattaca yesterday, quite liked it. Saw 6th Day a few days ago, didn't like it. Got A Scanner Darkly on to Record on my Sky+ on friday, I'll see how that is.

You'll love "A Scanner Darkly"--gonna grab my own copy of that one next time I get the chance.

Nearly nodded off during "Monster from Green Hell" this weekend. Even the giant wasps couldn't keep my eyelids from fluttering. It was a long day and "Green Hell" doesn't boast the best production values. At various points I could hear my sons sniggering. No respect for crap. I thought I'd raised them better than that...

i'd guess the latest Indy Jones is quasi-sci-fi, what with aliens and dimensions and all..still it was pretty sucky...the worst of spielberg meets the worst of the x-files. The super matinee was only $5.25 so....
Really glad musereader liked Gattaca - it's one of the ones we own rather than rent.

Hmm...274 messages before mine and no one has mentioned one of my favs, "Last Night"....low budget, indie, Canadian flick about, just what the title says, the Last Night of earth (the last 6 hours of the last night, to be more specific). A fascinating character study. I love this movie.

BTW, I had to send away to Canada to get a wide-screen version of this movie.

>274 bobmcconnaughey: You've ruined the Indy flick for me now.

I liked Starman, though suspect that might get me laughed out of the thread.

Gattaca is attrocious, but then I saw it with a bunch of molecular biologists.

I saw Alien when I was six (parents don't do this to your children). Good movie though.

I think I saw Last Night on TV. Sounds familiar. If it's the one I remember I agree with you jsdelia.

"Gattaca is attrocious, but then I saw it with a bunch of molecular biologists"

In all fairness, you might have to go into details before anyone would feel compelled to accept this. That was a fairly literate, intelligent film, so I'd have to hear just how bad the inaccurate science was before I felt obliged to concede it made the film "atrocious".

No, I dont think he had anything wrong with his heart, it just wasn't quite as strong as a Valid, and he had a 90% genetic probability that his heart would fail before he was 30 or something like that, but he outlived that already - a probability isn't a certainty. I found that Suit uniform a bit strange too. I liked it because it was a sort of warning and extreme illustration of the way things could be if that sort of discrimination was allowed. An extropolation of the way that insurance companies already discriminate because of genetic screening.

#276 - Anysia,

>274 bobmcconnaughey: You've ruined the Indy flick for me now.

I thought the same thing when I read that post. But then I'm not planning on seeing that movie anyway. I liked the original three, but man, leave it alone already!

Anyway, the reason I responded to your post was to help defend Starman. I love John Carpenter movies anyway and Jeff Bridges is so good in that one.

I DID see the Indy flick and loved it. One of the first things one has to understand is that while it is a fourth Indiana Jones movie, and what Indy movie could stand up to Raiders, it's moreso an homage to Indy. Bits and pieces of the other three movies crop up, not as rip-offs, or lazy writing, or lack of original imagination, but as loving reminders of good times at the flickers. I thought it was a wonderful movie, incredibly self-referential (a good thing, to me) and just plain fun, as a good Indiana Jones movie should be. The interplay between Indy and Shia LeBouf was excellent, I look forward to the next one.

#277 - arthurfryan

I only saw Gattaca once, so I would have to go back and watch it again to give you a dissection (which is not out of the question, just not on the immediate horizon). I remember the science being awful (even taking into account that it was future, projected science). The premise wasn't bad though, which is why I was disappointed.

#281 - geneg

I'll probably still go see the Indy film. I have free movie tickets to use up anyway and for once the other half and I can agree on a movie to see.

#278, "Part of what I didn't like about Gattaca (among other things) was that it supposedly was SO UNFAIR that because the guy had a heart murmur, or whatever, that they thus wouldn't let him fly. But that restriction seemed perfectly reasonable to me. Doesn't NASA do somewhat the same thing?"

You raise a good point. I don't know about NASA, but the military sure does (and NASA uses a ton of military folks so even if they don't have rules themselves, the transitive rule applies). Used to be to be a pilot you had to have 20/20 vision uncorrected. I think laser surgery may be allowed these days. Also, to be a Coast Guard or Naval officer you cannot be color blind. Stuff like that.

I thought Gattaca was quite good, and is certainly better than most of the dreck that passes for modern SF movies.

The reason he was not admitted (my perception of the movie, feel free to argue with me) was because the main character was born through natural means, rather than through genetic manipulation. The possible heart condition was the excuse given to him so that he could not work there, because genetic discrimination was not officially legal.

I don't recall any "atrocious" science in Gattaca, although certainly some suspension of belief was necessary. The science-y premise (global and constant DNA testing) was simple enough. The story proceeded from there as a meditation on bioethics, IMO. Of course, it's been ten years, but I'm sensitive to scientific howlers, especially when it comes to "my" science.

The worst thing about Gattaca is that it has Ethan Hawke--and even he is tolerable in it, really. It's certainly one of my top sf recommendations.

Going on to others, not mentioned so far, in 2006 I saw a bunch of Russian sf/fantasy/unclassifiable movies at the Cinematheque in Toronto. (Links to individual film descriptions at the link below.)

FROM THE TSARS TO THE STARS: A JOURNEY THROUGH RUSSIAN FANTASTIK CINEMA

It was one of the most enjoyable and consistently cinematically great series ever. "To the stars by hard ways" (awful translation of the Latin dictum "per aspera ad astra"), made in 1981, but with an uncannily "timeless" feel to it (I thought it was a recent, 2000's product), stars the most convincingly alien-looking actress I ever saw (great story too). I loved "The amphibian man", "Zero City" (not sf, strictly speaking, a metaphysical trip), and the kitsch of "Planet of storms", "First on the moon" etc. Note that "The cameraman's revenge" is a 1911 animated short by Vladislav Starevich. He used stop-motion to animate costumed cockroaches and other beetles.

Seen Scanner Darkly this morning, at first I thought it looked too cartoonty but you eventually get used to that. it got quite engrossing even though I figured out the conspiracy straight away. The thing I always notice about Philips writing is he never puts a resolution at the end which can sometimes make it bleak and sometimes hopeful or a mix. It's like he missed the class where they explain about endings, but it's ok because it's his style and he stops in the right place.

Lola: That Russian film series sounds GREAT. That's but one of the advantages of living in a city capable of supporting programs like that.

We have one of Starevitch's animated efforts and it's STUNNING. This guy definitely had to be an inspiration for the Quay Brothers and Jan Svankmajer.

Musereader: Make sure you see the other animated feature Linklater did--"Waking Life". One of those films you can chat/argue about for hours afterward. Phil Dick is cited in that one, as well.

I realise that this is a discussion about SF films, but Star Trek has been mentioned, so I thought I'd throw in Babylon 5. I never watched it very much when it first aired, but I'm halfway through the second season on DVD now, and I must say, it's not only good science fiction, it's just a good show, period. Aside from some bad episodes here and there and a bit of hokiness every so often, it seems to maintain quality or even improve as the episodes go by. Of course, I've not seen half of it, so I can't attest to the quality of the entire series.

I'll add that I love the fact that it was meant to have a continuing story for five years and then actually end. It's a refreshing change from the wrap-it-up-in-the-last-ten-minute-act formula.

I got curious about what others think is wrong with Gattaca, I found only this in its IMDB Goofs section:

"Factual errors: Several of the items used in the film to check DNA (urine, hair and eyelashes) in fact have no DNA. A sample of hair or eyelash will have DNA if the hair follicle is still attached, but the DNA is not actually in the hair--and hair samples often have no follicle attached. Urine may contain a few cells, but they would be few and many more cells can be obtained much more easily."

See, this is exactly where my remark about suspension of disbelief comes in. You simply have to assume every hair contains the folicle, every urine sample viable cells or undegraded DNA, and continue to watch happily. Nor were any gross "factual errors" committed: it is possible for hair and urine to render DNA (the number of cells in urine is immaterial even in this day and age, with single-cell PCR--how much more so in the ultra-efficient future:)). The comments like the one quoted strike me as mere missing-the-point pedantry.

My favourite example of "unrealistic realism", where science is concerned, is CSI, whose forensic super-scientists never stumble over any technical glitch: the samples are never contaminated or insufficient, the results are always unambiguous, the signals strong, everything works on first try, even weird instruments and methodologies never tested before. I wish. But so it goes... in the movies.

Cliff, I love the Quays and Svankmajer (and other Czech puppet-masters, Jiri Barta and Jiri Trnka). I think there's a natural connection between the imagination of the experimental cinema, animation and sf. I'd pay a lot for a brothers Quay feature-length sf movie...

I agree with the previous poster. It's also something that can be reasonably allowed for the sake of the story. It's more humanly accessible and emotionally effective to have Uma Thurman offer Ethan Hawke a strand of hair and for him to let it blow away than it would be for her to, say, hand him a vial of blood and have him drop it. I think that one of the intentions in having urine be used for testing is to illustrate how omnipresent this technology has become in the world of the film.

289>
"I got curious about what others think is wrong with Gattaca, I found only this in its IMDB Goofs section:

"Factual errors: Several of the items used in the film to check DNA (urine, hair and eyelashes) in fact have no DNA. A sample of hair or eyelash will have DNA if the hair follicle is still attached, but the DNA is not actually in the hair--and hair samples often have no follicle attached. Urine may contain a few cells, but they would be few and many more cells can be obtained much more easily."

See, this is exactly where my remark about suspension of disbelief comes in. You simply have to assume every hair contains the folicle, every urine sample viable cells or undegraded DNA, and continue to watch happily. Nor were any gross "factual errors" committed: it is possible for hair and urine to render DNA (the number of cells in urine is immaterial even in this day and age, with single-cell PCR--how much more so in the ultra-efficient future:)). The comments like the one quoted strike me as mere missing-the-point pedantry.

My favourite example of "unrealistic realism", where science is concerned, is CSI, whose forensic super-scientists never stumble over any technical glitch: the samples are never contaminated or insufficient, the results are always unambiguous, the signals strong, everything works on first try, even weird instruments and methodologies never tested before. I wish. But so it goes... in the movies."

I agree absolutely. To me the term Science Fiction does not mean "fiction for scientists". ;)
I remember I used to be on a Pretender board a while back, and in an episode where Jarod is a surgeon, he removes this bad guy's kidney -I don't know -in a bathroom, or the back of a van. And there was someone in the medical field on the board who said "everyone knows you can't perform a nephrectomy unassisted without killing the patient."

C'mon.

"I agree absolutely. To me the term Science Fiction does not mean "fiction for scientists". ;)"

By that logic, depending on where you set the bar, science fiction doesn't need to be based on any science at all--course the name for that genre is fantasy (which is a perfectly wonderful genre on its own merits).

Science fiction fails when it proposes things that are not only impossible now (technologically), but not possible in the future either because a fundamental rule of science is broken or ignored.

If there are no cells in something, then it doesn't matter how nifty your DNA sequencing apparatus is--there isn't going to be a retrievable sequence there. Also, there are certain things that DNA can't tell you, no matter how much you have or how completely you sequence the genome.

The particular instances mentioned in #289 don't ring a bell. I think what we found outrageous were tihngs more along the lines of confusing genotype with phenotype, but like I said I haven't seen the movie since it came out (once was plenty).

If there are no cells in something, then it doesn't matter how nifty your DNA sequencing apparatus is--there isn't going to be a retrievable sequence there.

True, of course, but the thing is, as far as plausibility of Gattaca's premises goes, there CAN be cells in urine, and not only in pathological conditions--epithelial cells of the bladder and the urethra turn over regularly, as do epithelial tissues in general. Saliva doesn't "produce" cells either, and yet it's another favourite source of suspect DNA.

Science fiction fails when it proposes things that are not only impossible now (technologically), but not possible in the future either because a fundamental rule of science is broken or ignored.

I think you'll find this isn't a categorical truth, but a subjective opinion. I for one disagree with this completely. Science fiction is a narrative genre whose poetic license and internal rules have nothing to do with science, nor does it have any duty to perform in regard to it.

292>My point would be,that I've found it's not unusual ( although definitely not universal) for scientists and science professionals to not really like most Science Fiction, for the reasons that you state, and it's perfectly understandable. It's also likely that about 90% of written and filmed SF since it began, might not meet your above criteria.
Don't see a lot of Science Fiction books in your library. Is it because you haven't loaded them up yet?

293> "Science fiction is a narrative genre whose poetic license and internal rules have nothing to do with science, nor does it have any duty to perform in regard to it."
Thankyou. I love this.
The sociological purpose of Science Fiction is to soften the blow of "future shock" brought on by science advancement ,the accompanying technological developments, and the social changes that might result.

Arthur, you're welcome. I never considered the sociological role of sf, I'm afraid I'm more of a simple hedonist consumer when it comes to it (or most of literature, really).

Btw--(I can be as pedantic as anyone!)--googling brings up immediately tests and even commercial kits for genotyping DNA from urine.

I'm not saying that's not part of it-part of the fun, even. But if something is being dismissed as essentially atrocious crap because of it's inaccuracy with regard to particulars, then the particulars have to be given first, and the dismissive judgement second. Right? Not-"you'll have to take my professional word for it -it stinks". I mean that's the point, right? That the particulars are important?!

My point about SF is that it organically arises at the time of the industrial revolution out of a specific social need. That need isn't -exclusive entertainment for scientists and science professionals.

To add to what you said earlier, a science fiction novel is neither a thesis, nor a work of journalism.
And, in truth, Science Fiction is fantasy fiction.

well..this one can go here too..after putting it in the long discussion about "what is SF"
.i thought about giving this bit of dialogue from Lisa Mason's "The Golden 90s" (1995) it's own thread..BUT..in 1895 SFransisco a high end madam is discussing art nouveau literature and HG Wells is brought up:
"The world can be such a cold, gray place. Look how life has changed Romance is gone....No one knows what to believe in. Everything a jumble. Maybe strange writers give us back the romance and the wonder. Maybe they can tell us what the world is like, or used to be like, or will be like, better than the newspapers. Maybe they tell us things no one else will, whether it's pretty as pink or black as death. What do you think of that Mr. Watkins?"
I'm in the generalist set of fans...eg..SF is, essentially, postulating "What if" - and then working out what the consequences might be. It's NOT fiction about science; that's a genre of its own - though the two sets are by no means self-exclusive.

That need isn't -exclusive entertainment for scientists.

Oh, I agree. And I don't know many scientists who read sf--or at least admit to it. :)

I lost my previously rather high appetite for sf during, hmmm, second year at the Uni. Never truly recovered it either, although I began rereading some classics of late.

I find I can take any amount of make-believe (not counting mythological-medieval fantasy, not my cup of tea), and have no problem accepting any breach of real-life science, as long as the story's internal logic is respected, and the said breach undertaken consciously, not out of ignorance.

What I find jarring, most irritating, are missteps in fiction that's supposed to be uber-realistic, because I speak the language, and any falling off from the idiom (and therefore the underlying logic of the concepts) ruins the spell for me. The most recent example was Michel Houellebecq's "Elementary particles", in which one of the heroes is a hugely talented biochemist, actually a mathematical genius who deigned to take on a lesser science and by the light of his superior intellectual ability stamp a gigantic "SOLVED!" on all its problems, over the weekend. This paragon decides the source of human unhappiness lies, basically, in human biology, so he sets out to change it and so subvert destiny.

Fine and dandy, except we're asked to buy him as an actual (life, haha) scientist--and he doesn't know the first thing about biology. (Won't say what that is! :)) To compound this weakness, the glimpses of the world of science we get are strangely distorted, unconvincing, stereotypical--a literary Potemkin's village, as it were.

Well, I'm sure most people, even those who hated the book (and I gather there are many), hardly noticed these clumsy and inept "scientific" trappings, and yet for me they were the biggest obstacle to taking it seriously.

In a book, I am much happier within a well-controlled, well-written impossible-science system, than within one incompetently, falsely "realistic".

298>
"I lost my previously rather high appetite for sf during, hmmm, second year at the Uni. Never truly recovered it either, although I began rereading some classics of late."
Well I'm not a scientist ( that may be self evident), nor have I played one on TV, but I've recently maybe come to an end of a fairly long -for me anyway- reindulgence in SF- about 3 years. After a time, as with most genre things, the "rules of the game" become well known, and you find yourself daydreaming or skimming instead of engaging in involved reading. I suppose it's at that time, you can assume you've gotten what you were looking for. At least for the time being.
The silly thing is I bought so many of them that have yet to be read . It's like having a lifetime supply of pastrami sandwiches at the ready, and you start noticing a funny aftertaste you never noticed before.

I've enjoyed this exchange. Just read the previous ten or twelve messages to get caught up. Starts out on "Gattaca" then does a lovely segue into scientific plausibility/accuracy. Very nice.

To me, likely half the great concepts in SF (FTL anyone?) are unlikely or next to impossible. Everyone likes to trumpet on about the prescient nature of SF and trot out that tired anecdote about Arthur C. Clarke predicting the invention of earth satellites. But I don''t think SF is especially good at anticipating the future. The genre's track record just ain't that great on that front. "Science fiction is fantasy fiction"--I like that, Arthur. Is it important that the science be right, correct down to the last tachyon? Not if the last hundred years of SF is taken into account...

I just recently read a short story by Clarke called "Jupiter V" which is about exploring one of the moons of Jupiter in search of alien artifacts. In the intro to the story Clarke talks about filling pages figuring out the orbital calculations for the punchline of the story. Now, that means that Clarke "got it right" in terms of how some think you are to approach SF, but what if it was found that he had gotten the math wrong: would it have ruined the story?
It might have lost some of it's shine, but I personally don't think it would have made the story "atrocious".
Because if the story wasn't entertaining to begin with, it wouldn't matter a jot whether the orbital calculations were correct.

#293 "I think you'll find this isn't a categorical truth, but a subjective opinion. I for one disagree with this completely. Science fiction is a narrative genre whose poetic license and internal rules have nothing to do with science, nor does it have any duty to perform in regard to it."

What I was trying to paraphrase (because I didn't have the book handy) was Orson Scott Card's definition from How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy:

/If the story is set in a universe that follows the same rules as ours, it's science fiction. If it's set in a universe that doesn't follow our rules, it's fantasy./

He does make the point that that is a publishing industry distinction that actual readers and writers don't pay much attention to (let alone movie watchers). So maybe not relevant now that I look at the source, but that's were I was going/coming from with that.

#294 "Don't see a lot of Science Fiction books in your library. Is it because you haven't loaded them up yet?"

I'm not anywhere near finished uploading my entire library. Most of the modern SF I read comes from Asimov's, Analog, and NeoOpsis.

#296 "I'm not saying that's not part of it-part of the fun, even. But if something is being dismissed as essentially atrocious crap because of it's inaccuracy with regard to particulars, then the particulars have to be given first, and the dismissive judgement second. Right? Not-"you'll have to take my professional word for it -it stinks". I mean that's the point, right? That the particulars are important?!"

I didn't see much in the way of particulars for many of the movies that are praised as wonderful so I didn't realize that I would have to have watched the movie 6 or 7 times and know the scenes by heart in order to disagree.

#298 "What I find jarring, most irritating, are missteps in fiction that's supposed to be uber-realistic, because I speak the language, and any falling off from the idiom (and therefore the underlying logic of the concepts) ruins the spell for me."

This is exactly it. As I said above, the technology wasn't the issue. As I remember it, the movie confuses genotype (your DNA sequence) with phenotype (your characteristics). Just because you know a person has a gene or a DNA sequence doesn't mean you can know what a person's characteristics are or will be because DNA is not the only player that decides that.

Okay, Gattaca isn't supposed to be "uber-realistic", but it is a what-if extrapolation. I at least expect it to get the basis for the what-if scenario right.

>289 LolaWalser: - I read an article recently that said CSI and it's ilk were creating problems with juries - people now expect the real forensic scientists to solve the crime in the same manner as their fictional counterparts.

Re the Brothers Quay - very good visually but they still need to master narrative structure: their two feature films so far manage to be both stunning and a little boring.

Actually talking to one gentleman who I knew who was in police forensics, said that the average forensic unit could never afford all the testing that's done in those shows.
There's a stone cold reality for you.

302>
"I didn't see much in the way of particulars for many of the movies that are praised as wonderful so I didn't realize that I would have to have watched the movie 6 or 7 times and know the scenes by heart in order to disagree."

If someone who said they were in the professional science community, stated that they found a SF film wonderful BECAUSE of it's exceptional scientific accuracy, I could see people asking for some elaboration on that, just out of plain curiosity.

"But if something is being dismissed as essentially atrocious crap because of it's inaccuracy with regard to particulars, then the particulars have to be given first, and the dismissive judgement second. Right? Not-"you'll have to take my professional word for it -it stinks". I mean that's the point, right? That the particulars are important?!"

I don't decide that I have to like a movie just because someone here says it was great, nor does anyone have to not like a movie because someone says it was bad. I didn't tell anyone to take my judgement for it, just as I didn't take anyone else's opinion as a substitution for my own. It is just as flippant to call a movie good without giving particulars, yet that seems to be perfectly acceptable.

I said I didn't like it because I went with a bunch of molecular biologists. The point was that they were pointing out every inaccuracy or flaw all through the movie. It's like seeing a movie set in outer space with a bunch of physicists--chances are you're going to have a hard time appreciating the artistry or character development.

"If someone who said they were in the professional science community, stated that they found a SF film wonderful because of it's exceptional scientific accuracy, I could see people asking for some elaboration on that, just out of plain curiosity."

IF someone said that. I find it hard to like MacGyver reruns if I watch them with an engineer, but that doesn't mean I'm an engineer.

I see now that I should have just said that Gattaca was awful and left it at that. I had no intention of dissecting the movie, and I'm certainly not going to watch it again just to continue this debate.

#302

Just because you know a person has a gene or a DNA sequence doesn't mean you can know what a person's characteristics are or will be because DNA is not the only player that decides that.

I don't recall the movie well enough to place this comment in its context, but in general: depends on what genes and what characteristics we consider. Some traits or medical conditions depend for expression on environment (genetic, cellular or external) or epigenetic mechanisms, and arise only with some probability (may or may not happen, at some odds) but many exhibit a simple, direct genotype-->phenotype causality.

Of course, it's not only the highly-penetrant mutations that would be a problem in a eugenicist society, but also the whole range of probabilistic outcomes for everything else. So, if Hawke's character even only had some chance of developing the condition, that could have been enough for the gene police. In this scenario, one could theoretically quibble only with whether the writers assigned the correct probability to whatever disease they saddled the character with. I don't remember these details.

Going back to films, I think no one mentioned this one, and it's true it may not be science-fiction by all standards (no aliens or spaceships), but it is by mine:

Joseph Losey's 1963 wonderfully weird and creepy These Are the Damned, with a young Oliver Reed playing a sinister "teddy boy" gang leader.

The story's too easily "spoilable" by almost any description, and it would be a shame to do so, so here are only a few keywords, from IMDB:

Political Satire | Radioactive Material | Juvenile Delinquent | Anti Social | Experiment Gone Wrong

Joseph Losey's 1963 wonderfully weird and creepy These Are the Damned, with a young Oliver Reed playing a sinister "teddy boy" gang leader.

I'm really looking forward to catching that one. Big Joseph Losey, and Oliver Reed fan. :)

Oh, tarry not then, get it, get it. Mind you--1963--there are some possibly goofy moments, in the eyes of 21st century--mostly of the sartorial and musical kind.

But the science is appropriately evil & apocalyptic. And what can ever go wrong with Experiment Gone Wrong?

308>"Oh, tarry not then, get it, get it. Mind you--1963--there are some possibly goofy moments, in the eyes of 21st century--mostly of the sartorial and musical kind."

The 1963 film experience could not be faced if it weren't for the promise of possibly goofy moments. Alas, the film is not available in the states currently, but I believe there's some talk of it coming out on DVD soon...

#115-

You can actually read the entire text from the instructions for the toilet on IMDB.com in the trivia section for 2001. The film also has on of the longest trivia sections I've seen.

Watched "Deep Star Six" over the weekend. It's a monster movie set at the bottom of the ocean, and starring Greg Evigan. Which probably tells you all you need to know about it...

Between Saturday and Sunday, I watched "Zathura". I blubbered my way through the last hour of this and thought it was a very good movie. Spaceships straight out of the forties, and all.

Last night I watched "20 Milïion Miles to Earth, a Ray Harryhausen masterpiece with William Hopper and a cast of B Movie legends.

This afternoon I have "First Men in the Moon" (1965) to watch. I'm expecting good things here.

I've been saving last Friday's "Battlestar Galactica" to watch sometime today or tomorrow.

Isn't "Deepstar" directed by the guy who did the first "Friday the 13th" movie?

Gene: those are good picks--I've wanted to see "Zathura" for just the reason you describe but my kids have (so far) talked me out of it.

"20 Million Miles" and "First Men"--lovely stuff. Both get the Burns family stamp of approval.

It's exactly why your kids don't want to see it that the whole family needs to watch it. It has one of the strongest children's messages of any movie I've seen in years, and it's very well handled, IMO. Get it. Watch it. Enjoy it. Aside from all the messages, it's a pretty fast paced, exciting, Space Opera thriller to boot.

Gotcha. I'll keep an eye out for "Zathura".

Sometimes my lads are even more cynical than their dad...

I just saw Primer a couple of nights ago. I didn't even remember why I had rented it so I went into seeing it rather blind. I'm glad I did though, as I didn't know where it was going for awhile, but it was very compelling. Not a traditional sci fi as it is sort of present day and filmed in a very realistic style. It opens with a narrator talking about what a group of guys, software techy tinkerer types, discovered by accident. I recommend it.

Just out of curiosity, what's the group consensus on Ralph Bakshi's Wizards? Animated, I know, but I saw it at a young age and have a special fondness for it....

Ralph Bakshi's Wizards?

I was fairly young when I saw it. About all I remember is that I saw it at the Esquire theater downtown Cincinnati and all I could think about was that the Playboy Club was one floor away.

i remember being pretty disappointed with Wizards. So i haven't checked it since.

#316 - glad you enjoyed Primer. It's a fascinating look at start-ups among other things. I have a couple of friends who've been involved w/ high tech/garage based start ups and they've vouched for the veracity of the interpersonal side of the movie. (Since they're physicists, they also enjoyed the movie for it's sci-fi bits too)

I've seen "Wizards" recently and it doesn't hold up well. The animation is very crude, Ralph Bakshi best known for "Fritz the Cat" (which R. Crumb hated and rightfully so) and the old "Spiderman" animated series. Not exactly vintage, top-o-the-line credits.

I own "Primer" but haven't watched all of it--for some reason I was called away halfway through and never saw the tie-up. Will give it another crack later this summer. We've talked about this flick previously on another thread and I seem to recall Ian or jargoneer not liking it but don't remember the critique...

I agree that serious SF movies should get the details right, and Gattaca could have been better, in terms of scientific plausibility, had they got a biologist or two to go over the script for glaring scientific errors.

But the producers also need to make a movie that does not just appeal to learned biologists, but also to general SF enthusiasts and the general public, in order to produce a movie that makes money, and perhaps allows them to produce more reasonable-quality SF movies in the future. The ideas presented in Gattaca are still relevant, in spite of some scientifically impossible scenes.

Well, I'll stand corrected if someone who's seen it recently can step up and detail a scientifically impossible scene, or a glaring scientific error, but I thought I made the point that likely nothing in Gattaca was scientifically impossible, or glaringly erroneous (as far as biology's concerned). Improbable, perhaps, yes. ("HOW improbable" is important too.)

#322

Have seen Gattaca within the last month. The scientific errors for Gattac have been discussed before:

"Factual errors: Several of the items used in the film to check DNA (urine, hair and eyelashes) in fact have no DNA. A sample of hair or eyelash will have DNA if the hair follicle is still attached, but the DNA is not actually in the hair--and hair samples often have no follicle attached. Urine may contain a few cells, but they would be few and many more cells can be obtained much more easily."

Hence, the scene where they examine hair for possible genetic defects, and for personal identification, are scientifically impossible. Ditto for mouth swabs for saliva.

Still, scientific impossibility aside, I still thought it was a good movie, and the story could easily have been adjusted to be scientifically realistic.

But LolaW answered that back in post 289.

"But Gattaca didn't really show these."

Actually for me this is exactly what I liked about Gattaca. I just shows quiet sad story of being a part of the race to the future, or being left behind.

There's been written SF that's dealt with this theme, and in a similar low key fashion. The Star Pit by Samuel R Delany comes to mind.

"Hence, the scene where they examine hair for possible genetic defects, and for personal identification, are scientifically impossible. Ditto for mouth swabs for saliva."

I respectfully disagree, the hair samples in the film given to each other were specifically plucked out, and there would be folicles of a percentage of hair that is combed though the eyelash probably wouldn't have had the tag.

The fact that there is little DNA in urine makes no difference, since people can and do detect it there now, that is also explained by more sensitive machines.

Mouth swabs are not performed to collect saliva. They are performed to collect cells from the inside of the cheek, as any grade school student who has played with a microscope should know.

Yeah, rojse, you seem to have missed some posts. And that comment on IMDB is misleading and incompetent.

Re Gattaca - what they should have done is taken a finger from everyone, that way there would be no trickery.

#328 - they're used for both purposes. We had a refrigerator full of saliva from buccal swabs that were intended to be analyzed for cortisol levels at diff points along a sicko psych experiment ...this WAS a long time ago..30yrs. Why they didn't have the subjects just spit into the test tube...i dunno. Too afraid of missing or something.

Now our buccal swabs are subs for when we can't get cord blood from infants or draws from older kids and parents So they are sent off to the labs for DNA extraction.

My apologies.

I remember complaints about the scientific accuracy of the movie from several posters, and that was what I found in the thread that actually went into the details of what was wrong. As I know very little about biology I am taking what I read here at face value.

I watched "Stardust" last night. I didn't want to like it - it's by Neil Gaiman and I've never subscribed to, or understood, the Cult of Neil Gaiman. But. Well, Robert Deniro was rubbish in it, and Michelle Pfeiffer wasn't much better. And it had a sort of inexorable predictability about it. But it also had an appealing charm and found myself liking it despite my best intentions.

My wife and kids liked it ("Stardust").

Count me out of the cult of Gaiman too--like some of his kids/YA stuff (CORALINE and WOLVES IN THE WALLS) but thought AMERICAN GODS was Steve King lite. And let's not forget, he was one of the contributors to that "Beowulf" piece of shite.

Michele Pfeiffer LOOKS great in everything. It's when she actually opens her mouth and tries to emote that, er...

I'm actually a Gaiman fan (though not as rabid as some), and didn't like Stardust at all. What I like about his writing is his sense of humor, and that didn't seem to translate to the movie very well. When added to the inevitable plot deviations that come with any movie adaptation, it was just too frustrating.

we're pretty big Gaiman fans - beowulf was going to be a obvious disaster - the trailer should have put anyone off - and really enjoyed Stardust. The performance i think both my wife and I enjoyed the most was Clare Danes as Yvaine - the performance that most often was dissed by critics. However her slightly raised eyebrow and intonation when she says "But of course! Nothing says "romance" like a kidnapped injured woman! " just tickles me. "Strings" is the Gaiman production we couldn't sit through; his poetry is lame...But all in all there's a lot more that I like a lot than the bits i dislike. (I also skip over the interminable lays/ballads in LoTR; we have a tape of JJRT reading from LoTR and i guess he was proudest of the poems..that's at least most of what he reaeds, sigh.)

And another movie that may come to this area (RTP) - i hope so. "Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic (2007)" - which is a movie about art that is about science!~
http://tinyurl.com/6dooa7
A documentary of making of the John Adams/Peter Sellars opera about Robert Openheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. "Freeman Dyson explains that science and art express the same urge to 'take the watch apart to see how it works.' " SF might take the watch apart and try to put it back together so that it works - but differently.

..But yeah..i like the Sandman uber alles - though I also like some of the novels, esp. Neverwhere and Stardust, a lot. Neverwhere was reverse engineered into a good graphic novel a while back. And there's a lovely illustrated edition of Stardust too.

But what's this? References to Gaiman's relative merit without mentioning Sandman? That makes no sense to me. I don't know about his fiction, never read it. He was a graphic novelist first, and I have always loved the Sandman series. Season of Mists and The Kindly Ones stand out but there are several others that I've also read, and reread, and reread.

Re Stardust - I would go with Ian's appraisal that it has charm, and that's increasingly rare nowadays where everything has to bigger and louder. As for Robert De Niro; of course, he's rubbish in it, De Niro is rubbish in the majority of his films, i.e., the ones not made by Scorsese or in the style of Scorsese (even then as he can be disappointing - his performance in Cape Fear is the third best performance in that role; after Robert Mitchum and Sideshow Bob).

I don't really understand Gaiman's popularity as a novelist - he's a good writer of comics but that's a different skill to novels, and it's not an easy bridge to cross: Alan Moore, arguably the best of all the comic writers never really managed it either.

"Good" is a hard one. It means different things to different people. I like different movies for different reasons. Almost anything Terry Gilliam does is excellent just because of the artistic detail. (For the record, since we're weighing in, I thought Depp was not great, but Del Toro was fabulous.) I like a lot of movies for the visuals alone. Movies that are not inherently great. Like MIB. I think the creativity is valuable. It's the reason I liked the very first Star Wars movie. It was something I'd never seen before. By the third movie the whole thing was boring. Ambiance and great special effects definitely win points with me, even if the movie is less than great: Escape from New York, Dark City, the first Matrix (sorry had to include that one).

Personally, I don't think any director listed here has done anything more beautiful than the work of Jeunet et Caro. I eagerly await another one by them and hope that Children of the Lost City is not the end of it. Metropolis might compete there.

Some movies are great because of the premise or message: Fahrenheit 451; Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, The Handmaid's Tale, Gattaca.

Some movies are great because of their respect for the science: 2001, Andromeda Strain.

Then there's the movies that deserve no mention in any category at all but are so much fabulous fun, I feel the need to cheerlead:

TANK GIRL! TANK GIRL! TANK GIRL! RAH, RAH, RAH!

I had the opportunity to watch that great Mars invasion movie "Pajama Party" starring Tommy Kirk, Annette Funicello, Jesse White, Buster Keaton, Don Rickles, Elsa Lanchester, Dorothy Lamour,and of course who can forget the great Harvey Lembeck as Eric Von Zipper! But, I only watched about fifteen minutes of it. It would have been better if the music hadn't been from Mars, also.

I love your comment about "believability" -- that, to me, is the key to good fiction, since it encompasses much more than just a fictional world, but also characterization, and in a sense, plot as well. Asking readers to make one gross imaginative leap is fine, but heaping one unbelievable or unrealistic premise on top of another strains my ability to swallow the whole story.

As for your comment on CGI -- couldn't agree more. Take Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy as a case in point. Terrific background and special effects, lousy acting and casting, particularly in the major roles. My family and I are long-term LOTR fans -- the books, not the various attempts at translating the novels onto film. We eagerly awaited the release of Jackson's epic, particularly when we read about the enormous sums spent to establish versimilitude and accuracy. We were horrified to find what we considered the most egregious casting goofs in film history blatantly polluting what was otherwise a superb effort. My son muttered to me that if he saw Frodo oozing those large, slow, gelatinous tears one more time he was going to burn down the theater. And though I admit Vigo Mortenson has some strengths as an actor, casting this physically slight, and less than commanding presence as Aragorn made me wonder whether anyone involved with this production had even read the novels!

On the other hand, my family is unanimous in feeling that the translation of Gollum onto film was brilliant (both in terms of the actor cast to portray him, and the effects that went into creating the final persona).

Responding to message 302/anysia: I loved your comments. Let me add a few, if I may. I'm a well-educated layman (who has not even begun to load my science fiction and fantasy works onto my library page yet, so don't metaphorically shoot me down!). But I've been reading science fiction (both hard and soft) for well-over 30 years now, and though I'm no scientist, I do find it offensive when writers, producers, and directors assume the viewing and reading public are mostly morons. Perhaps that's why I like Battlestar Galactica so much -- there are some real science folks who advise on the scripts.

I agree with anysia -- "hard" science fiction may postulate future technological and scientific developments from the current state of knowledge, but the basis for reader & viewer belief, & the basis for any good fiction of any genre, is getting the bedrock facts right.

As a neophyte to these chats, I would second the notion that any good review (of a book or a film) is dependent on the reviewer giving a few details -- I'm a high school teacher, so forgive my digression into pedagogy, please. I tell my own students that they are completely entitled to their own opinions in my classroom, but in order to share those opinions, they must support them with specific details. If you don't like something, tell me why -- give me one or two or three reasons, so that I can determine whether or not your opinion is worth listening to. Same thing for a book or play or film that one likes -- give me a few specific reasons why. Otherwise, the opinion expressed is less of a communication with others and more an internal examination of one's belly button lint.

I just joined this group, but I find the appeal of LibraryThing in general, as opposed to other book groups I joined and resigned from, is in the often literate and frequently interesting in-depth comments posted by members. Too many other sites have users who may read but are totally unable to write engaging and reasoned comments on what they've read. So I value the chattier and more descriptive entries on this group's blog very much.

About good s-f films: I enjoy the film FREQUENCY enormously. Of course, it may not qualify as science fiction, but it doesn't seem to fit in the fantasy genre neatly either. Aside from the need to swallow enormous temporal anomalies, I found the plot engaging and the characterizations and acting very fine. Of course, as a survivor of a very troubled childhood, I find the film's theme, of being able to redress the errors of the past, incredibly appealing. That is probably the reason I also love the film THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT (and in that film too, I found the exploration of each character's personality and motivations entirely compelling and believable). And I'm still a huge fan of the orginal THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. I saw it when it first came out (yes, I'm THAT old!), and found it frightening and compelling.

Well, I've enjoyed putting in my two cents worth of opinion. We just heard the shuttle land, half an hour ago. My windows shook with the sonic boom. I'm old enough that I find that wondrous and thrilling!

And I still enjoy watching the original STARGATE film (I never cared much for the series, though).

>341 RachelfromSarasota: - re Gollum: I watched the 1935 version of Great Expectations this week, and finally realised that Gollum is a minor variation on Uriah Heep.

in re #341 - whereas in our household - i think everyone got tired of Frodo/Sam as cast and portrayed..but then i get tired of them in the books too. Poor Cate Blanchett who's a great actor was defn. mishandled. But on the other hand, i did like Viggo (you wouldn't expect a hulking gladiator type to be able to go stealthily thru the woods), and both Saruman and Gandalf were well served. A little tired of Gimli being used for comic relief - the dwarves certainly didn't see themselves as comic! But all in all, here, parents and (adult)child alike, overall, really liked LoTR. The best actors/characters set was Boromir/Faramir and their daddy. (ALL comments -it should be obvious -"IN MY OPINION"). I liked Bilbo a lot, esp. since Ian Holm was Frodo in the BBC radio adaptation (i'm the only one in our family who likes that adaptation, but i like it a lot)
But for Viggo at his best, i guess you need Cronenberg...Eastern Promises, History of Violence..

But for Viggo at his best, i guess you need Cronenberg...Eastern Promises, History of Violence.

Oh man, I haven't seen Eastern Promises yet (it's in my Netflix queue somewhere) but History of Violence was great!

I liked the LOTR films myself, but then I'm not the world's biggest Tolkien fan.

#340 - Gene,

I thought "Gene must be off base. How can you have a movie that mixes a Martian invasion with the 'Beach Party' movies and Don Rickles and not have a winner?"

Then I went to Netflix and watched the preview. Man, I was getting impatient waiting for the preview to be over!

#339
I thought the first Matrix movie was pretty good - intelligent ideas made accessible to most people, great special effects, great story and setting. It is a shame about everything that happened afterwards - particularly the two movie sequels, which were absolute rubbish. But that doesn't affect the quality of the first movie.

#342
The Butterfly Effect was a really good movie. The second was rubbish, though - it went away from "I need to change time to help everyone else" to "I need to change time to help myself", which didn't work for me. Have you watched it yet?

When it comes to The Butterfly Effect, stick to the director's cut. You'll either like it or you won't, but I saw the director's cut first and I liked it. Then I watched the theatrical release (not all the way through, as I recall, just the key differences,) and I hated it. The main difference between the two versions is the ending. I'll try not to give anything away, but I love the ending of the director's cut, and I hate the 'Hollywood' ending they tacked onto the theatrical release. It just completely invalidated what the entire movie was building up to.

The Butterfly Effect. I went into that one with a chip on my shoulder named Ashton Kutcher. But the movie won me over. And yeah, you have to see the directors cut. I never watched the theatrical version, but from what I've read if I saw that version I wouldn't have liked the movie.

I happen to be rewatching LOTR right now, and am on Fellowship. This is of course debateable, but when the films came out, I thought Fellowship so bad, I almost didn't watch the rest. Now I own them. I have to agree with the general comments here about poor casting, except I think Astin did a good job, and Viggo as well. But Elijah Wood, that performance was painful. I actually think the directing/editing/story was the biggest issue was Fellowship. If the story had had any flow, the bad casting may have been tolerable. In comparison, the second film I found to be a story with great flow, and even though you still had some bad acting, the film was much more successful. The second did have the actress playing Eowyn and the actors playing Eomer & Wormtongue, though, as well as more of Boromir, who was ok, and Faramir, who was better, and their father, who was great.

Watched "The Right Stuff" with the family tonight. A big hit with all concerned. Terrific cast, production values. Lovely film...

One of my favourites... although having now read more on the subject, I find bits of it less satisfying than I did. The astronauts are reduced to a set of characteristics which aren't really them - Cooper's "do you know who's the best test pilot I ever saw?", for example, or Shepard's gurning...

This is about the fourth or fifth time I've seen "The Right Stuff" (not bad when you consider it's over 3 hours long) and it still gives me a charge. Sam Shepard's performance as Chuck Yeager, the recreations of the aerial test flights...lovely. I read the book too--my favorite Wolfe offering (although ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST is fun).

What did you think of Norman Mailer's A FIRE ON THE MOON, Ian? Worth seeking out for my space reading?

I've not read Of A Fire on the Moon yet; not even managed to get hold of a decent copy. I can certainly recommend you avoid James Michener's Space, however.

For your inner space geek, the miniseries "From The Earth To The Moon" is definitely worth seeing. And Stephen Baxter's Voyage is a good fictional treatment of an alternate Nasa mission to Mars during the 1980s.

Have you seen the "For All Mankind" docu? It was produced with the assistance and cooperation of some of the astronauts and I read a few pieces that gave it kudos...

I just missed winning a copy on eBay - it went for about £15.

I did see "In the Shadow of the Moon" last week. That's a good documentary too.

Yeah, it seems a bit pricey on this side of the pond too. But I'll add it to my wishlist--hint about it around my birthday or Christmas, get that watery, Tiny Tim look in my eyes when I mention it...

Discovery Channel has a new series on the NASA missions: When We Left Earth.

I haven't yet seen it myself, so I can't give it a personal endorsement, but the commercials looked great.

#358 - So far it's pretty good, but there is nothing new for space geeks. Sp far, it's all been out there before.

"The Right Stuff": that's the one with the bass player from Spinal Tap, right, you know, Abu, Mr. Burns, et al?

If I had the money, I'd have every frame of footage NASA ever shot on Mercury, Gemini & Apollo. It's a weird addiction...

we used to have classes stopped in grade school for each of the launches and one of the big, old B&W tvs would be wheeled into the classroom. But easily the most memorable was the first moon landing; haven't followed the flights nearly as closely ever since.

Alan Shepard impatient, growling: "Let's light this candle."

Just sends shivers down my spine.

These guys really did have the right stuff.

Starship Troopers would have been a sort of decent film if it had been a standalone film, but it came loaded down with all the expectations of the book, which would have been bad enough, but then totaly whackooed the book anyway. No way was that film going to get a good press :-)

My top films:
Dune by David Lynch - it gave a good sense of scale and the book
Forbidden Planet - this was just so cool, despite Robbie
The Day the Earth Stood Still - this turned over the expectations of the times
The Lord of the Rings trilogy - just for shear wow factor and even managing a decent adaption (mostly).

Hmmm, not too many recent science fiction films in there... No.

I'd like to find out what people think about Sunshine, Danny Boyle's recent offering. I'm still not sure what I think about it as a science fiction film. I'm more sure what I think of it as a film in general, which I'll keep to myself for now. I'd like to find out what other sci-fi fans thought of it.

Re: "Sunshine"--it has been discussed on one or two of these threads...maybe someone else can point you to the right one, I'm too addle-pated this morning.

As for me, I thought it similar to just about every SF movie over the past 10-20 years: visually quite stunning but basically dumb. Dumb in concept, clumsy in execution. The last third of the movie in particular, a real mess...

Sunshine is a big dumb mess, window dressed with some nice visuals - it make Event Horizon look good. You have to ask if the physicist hired as a consultant actually bothered to read Garland's script? Perhaps he was enjoying his jolly so much that he would say yes to anything. Perhaps being around film types reduces your IQ by 40-50 points.

I watched The Beast of Hollow Mountain a couple of days ago - that's the kind of cross genre movie we want: cowboys & dinosaurs (although preferably better than this one).

I mostly agree with the previous two posters about Sunshine, but it is actually interesting to watch the DVD with the physicist's commentary (I forget the man's name at the moment.) He points out many of the inaccuracies that the filmmakers didn't care to alter, and there are many of them. Although I generaly enjoy Danny Boyle's directing, what little I've seen of it, his movies seem to be hit-or-miss.

As far as Event Horizon goes, however, that movie would make almost anything look like a masterpiece by comparison.

Man, physics aside I thought 'Sunshine' was okay until the last third. I don't expect movies to get the science right I guess. If I can swallow that a bomb will restart the sun I'm along for anything else they do I guess.

I don't want to spoil it for those that haven't seen it, but from the point where there is an extra passenger onwards the movie just took a nosedive. It just seemd like all of a sudden everything took a left turn.

I am about ten minutes into "A Sound of Thunder' and I am convinced it is an episode from the old 'X-1' radio show. Anybody else get that impression? The name of the company in the movie could even be the name of the episode, 'Time Safari'.

I'll have to go check my iPod, but I'm pretty sure Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder was adapted to either a Dimension X or X Minus One (or both) episode way back when. Those shows loved Ray Bradbury.

Got to agree, I know it's a Bradbury story, and I'm pretty sure they adapted it for some show, although I don't remember which one. I love those old shows. Even the hokier ones. Just good stuff. It just gives me a certain feeling when the music and the intro come on. Radio has the ability to take you into a story in a way television just can't. Maybe some movies, in a dark theatre, but not television.

How is the movie, by the way? I remember reading about it before it came out, but I don't even remember it being in theatres. I like the story, and I was curious to see if they could possibly make a good feature length movie out of it.

Day the Earth Stood Still and Blade Runner would have to be at the top of my list. 2001 is overrated.

2001 is not everybody's cup of tea, but I'd hardly call it overrated.

A Sound of Thunder was a decent film in my opinion.

Ray Bradbury's story was used more as inspiration rather than as a direct progenitor - the film made no attempt to retell the written story. Rather than a political election that was changed, we get a series of time waves (I didn't count, but let's say 7...) that affect increasingly higher forms of life, replacing them with what might have evolved had that butterfly's 'descendants' had a chance to exist.

The film mainly deals with the team's attempts to track down the change then reverse it.

Although the CGI stuff was very obviously CGId, the set designs were reasonable and a rather neat retro feel was given to the present of the film by the men dressing in forties gear (though Our Heroes got cooler gear to wear :-))

Re Sunshine - why do the crew decide to check out the original spaceship? Don't they know that every derelict spaceship in the universe contains either a murderous creature, psychopath, deadly virus, or combination of the three? It's the equivalent of the a group of teenagers deciding to spend the night at a haunted house, abandoned hospital, abbatoir, or whatever.

My recollection is that "Sound of Thunder" was pretty universally panned. The notion of turning a 2,000 word story with a nice hook at the end into a 100+ minute movie was stretching things. Wasn't it directed by Peter Hyams, the guy who did "2010" and "Capricorn One"? I refuse to Google it so you'll have to check for yourselves...

After I decided that the only thing they kept form the radio episode was the walkway and hunting dying dinos, about twenty minutes in, it was a great movie to get homework and house work done with. It was decent background noise but did not rate paying attention to.

That was Bradbury? I guess he had some decent ideas as long as radio script writers cleaned them up. 451 was a great idea but his limited talents treated it shabbily.

There was a certain point at which I decided that Ray Bradbury is a good writer if you don't treat him as a sci-fi writer. He writes much of the time in the realm of science fiction, but he doesn't generally write science fiction stories.

That doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but I just woke up. I might try to elaborate later.

#375 - jargoneer,

Re Sunshine - why do the crew decide to check out the original spaceship? Don't they know that every derelict spaceship in the universe contains either a murderous creature, psychopath, deadly virus, or combination of the three? It's the equivalent of the a group of teenagers deciding to spend the night at a haunted house, abandoned hospital, abbatoir, or whatever.

Ha! That's what I was thinking. I'd suspect that the crew was so busy preparing for the mission, they never got a chance to watch Alien, Lifeforce, Event Horizon, Doom or any of the millions of sequels, spin-offs and clones.

Also, to be fair, they probably thought they were in an okay copy of 2001 and were just taken by surprise when Danny Boyle decided to turn the last third into the hedge-maze scene from The Shining.

Re: "Sunshine" It's the extra person getting on the ship that sent me into a rage. What sort of computer wouldn't tell them...errrgh!...ack!...

(Discussion breaks off into a long, foul-mouthed rant.)

This does not flatter me, but I had been trying to remember the name of the movie that is Event Horizon for the last week, so thanks guys! Why did I want to remember its name? To bash it of course! I walked in on my roommates watching it, and saw what appeared to be something like a Ministry music video mashed with Hellraiser. Oh no, the ship is haunted by masochistic goths!

# 381-- Probably the funniest description of the movie I've ever heard. Masochistic goths.

Dreadful film!

Thanks NightSmoke! (although in retrospect I think the phrase 'masochistic goths' was actually redundant.)

Not all Goths are into BDSM, you know...

Fair enough ;) Naturally I would not put any group in a box - and I enjoy Ministry music videos.

#375

It is a writing law - if writers in any medium are not good enough to write a story, they will temporarily remove everyone's intelligence so that they will do things that an idiot would not even contemplate. This includes hiding in a house with a serial killer lurking inside, investigate abandoned spaceships without a second thought, and other such situations that would be insulting to a normal person's intelligence. And this will only be used when the writers cannot make plot coincidences work.

# 375-- You may be right, and these things do seem sloppy or stupid or otherwise within the context of a story, but to play devil's advocate for just a moment, it's easy to believe that someone would do those things when you see some of the idiotic things people do every day in the real world.

#387,388 - too true, who would've believed a near future story written in 1980 where the Americans had driven the world headfirst into global warming in their giant SUV's?

What happened to the good old days when a character just got amnesia from a good wack on the head whenever something stupid was required?

Do you need to do something to people these days to make them stupid? Surely they start out that way...

#391

Surely in an SF movie, filled with a variety of scientists and NASA-trained astronauts, I could expect a mediocum of intelligence?

Or have NASA lowered their job position requirements?

#392 - rojse,


Or have NASA lowered their job position requirements?

All I can say is Lisa Marie Nowak.

#392
ohh..love conquers all. Gives NASA that human interest that only the Nat. Enquirer can provide.

Just placed an order for the 1974 cult classic "Phase IV" (based on Barry Malzberg classic). Intelligent ants and mad scientists. Haven't seen it in, oh, nigh on 30 years. When I was but a young pup.

Anyone else recollect this dusky gem?

Vaguely, mostly I remember it being slow.

#395-- I do not, but I'll look it up. Just last night I watched an episode of Nova on dvd about ants, the tiny creatures that rule the world. It was fascinating, but I couldn't stop thinking of the Outer Limits episode The Zanti Misfits. It has to be one of the creepiest episodes of that series, if only for the stop motion creatures.

I've seen "Phase IV". Saw it years ago. I vaguely recall it being on British TV in the last couple of years too.

I thought Cypher was a great movie. Definitely worth watching. It was written by Brian King and directed by Vincenzo Natali in 2002

Oh, I saw Cypher. Not overly original but it was enjoyable and I liked the story enough. I thought Northam did a good job.

De-lurking for a moment to point out that the original length copy of Fritz Lang's Metropolis has been "discovered" in a Buenos Aires film museum. More here

Jim

Very cool! Wonder when we'll get to see that...

Oooh. I would love to see that.

I've got about three different versions of "Metropolis", including the latest "restored" version. Now I'll have to wait for them to finish remastering this one as well. But it is an extraordinary film, when you put it in the context of the time it was made. A bleak version of the future by a genius of cinema.

Speaking of Metropolis, saw this in the news today:

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23972253-5014239,00.html

Found this quite interesting, and will now have to find at least one version of Metropolis on DVD to find out what the fuss is about.

Metropolis is probably old enough to be in the public domain (he says without investing the additional twenty seconds to do a google search). If so, you can watch it online for free.

Now if only someone in Buenos Aires would stumble upon the directors cut of The Magnificent Ambersons...

Problem with "Metropolis" is similar to that with "Bladerunner"... Each created a stunning vision of a future city which seemed so real you could imagine walking into it. BUT Each also suffers from pretension and a lack of sense.
"Bladerunner" has inconsistent technology, with it's so-human-you-need-psychological-tests-to-tell-the-difference androids and a lack of apparent high tech communications or computer technology. And it seems to have a confusion between robotics and bio-tech in general. I don't mind the unlikable protagonist - What gets me are the bits of unexplainable info tossed out in the film - "offworld colonies" and implied intersteller travel ("Attack ships burning off Tannhauser Gate...") - By force of SFX and stunning visuals the movie seems real enough that I'm tempted to try and figure out what the world it depicts is really all about, but I know the people who made it didn't care enough to think it through rationally.

Metropolis' main sin is not in inconsistent technology, although the creation of the robot woman is depicted in a context of virtual black magic ... The main problem is having characters who are, in fact, symbols and a story that is tied up at the end by a gesture that apparently resolves instantly what must be a massively complicated dispute between social classes. I bristle a bit when what looks like SF turns out to be a fable... or, possibly, a fairy tale. BUT it does look like SF in a very impressive way. Until "Bladerunner", "Metropolis" was THE film to depict the sort of future cityscape SF readers were familiar with (Only other examples of note were "Things to Come" and a weird musical comedy that I have only seen stock footage and stills from -"Just Imagine".)

"The Woman in the Moon" is another Fritz Lang film that's of great interest. It looks and feels very modern, has characters that seem real, and it's moon ship is a neat three-stage rocket. (Makes you wonder what H.G. Wells was thinking when he used a "Space Gun" in the otherwise fascinating "Things to Come"). If it wasn't for the needless notion that reaching the moon is important because there must be lots of gold there... the film would be perfect. Very early in the story we are introduced to an old professor who has planned the moon-rocket project in detail. He lives in squalor in a garret room, almost starving because nobody believes in his work. At night he sleeps on the floor under his hand made lunar globe - the size of a beach ball. The professor's yearning to reach the moon is vastly more convincing and more touching than any notion of lunar gold. I was even willing to accept the notion of a breatheable atmosphere in lunar craters - the movie grabbed me that seriously...

"Woman in the Moon" is one I've had my eye on for some time. Lang was a visionary.

"Just Imagine" was a film that Ray Bradbury remembers with affection.

I referred to "Phase IV" in a recent post on this thread--you're a great music fan, oh, Thing, do you recall the rather odd soundtrack or that little beauty? Very funky.

(By the way, Trekkies, "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", like, totally ripped off its ending from "Phase IV".)

You're a clever bugger, Thing. Your remarks re: inconsistencies in "Blade Runner" and "Metropolis" are valid, methinks. This world-building business is a complex affair--even God had His off days, that's how we ended up with fundamentalists and the duck-billed platypus.

> 408 Not entirely fair comments on "Blade Runner". The bits you mention - offworld colonies, etc. - are from the novel on which it was based. I would guess Scott focused his vision on the story and not Dick's incidental world-building. Oh, and there are adverts encouraging people to emigrate offworld appearing throughout the film.

#408

Having watched Blade Runner again quite recently, I would have to disagree with some of your ideas. The idea of going off into the colonies was not widely advertised because the main characters were not heading off into the colonies, and wasn't interested in that sort of stuff.

There was quite a lot of high-tech computers too - the personal cruiser had on-board computers to display information (it was all of those blocky vectors and the like, but I will forgive that), and there were computer databases, too with the escaped robot's profiles on there. There was also a personal computer that were used to scan and expand pictures.

Having also just spent a while revisiting Blade Runner through the medium of the anniversary boxed set, the 'off-world colonies' script device does have some influence on the story, if you pick up the 'Is Deckard a replicant?' debate.

One of the versions - with the Chandler-esque voiceover - implied that Deckard's wife had left him to go to the off-world colonies with another man. I fell to wondering why other cops would put up with a replicant exercising considerable investigative freedom and status within the force if they were under such sanctions as the film suggested - UNLESS the Deckard replicant was a replacement for the original Deckard who was the man his wife had gone to the colonies with...

(Incidentally, one of the 'happy ending' versions is worth seeing because the film ends with Rachel turning to Deckard and saying "We were made for each other". Deckard's face is a picture!)

Have also seen 'Frau im Mond' recently - overlong, but far more characterisation than in 'Metropolis'. Interestingly, the film was banned in Nazi Germany, probably because when the five financiers who want to take over the Moon rocket project are shown, not one of them appears Jewish! (And one of them is a cigar-smoking woman.) The science (apart from that on the Moon) is all pretty good, too, by the standards of the day.

I was at a meeting of the Birmingham SF Group last night, where Christopher Priest talked about the process by which The Prestige turned from book to film. That process was long-winded, did not hold out prospects of generating much in the way of money for a long time, and separated Chris from any influence on the final film at a very early stage. 'The Prestige' spent a long time in production hell, and the last thing the producers wanted was a writer meddling in the thing - so he was effectively frozen out of the film early on. Priest was quite philosophical about this - 'it wasn't my book any longer' - but he also came to realise that a book is a book, whilst a film is a film, and it really makes no sense to try and rejoin the two.

He reported the complete disdain that writers are held in by the film industry - especially telling was the way he was cold-shouldered by Michael Caine at the premiere (though he also commented that Andy Serkis, in contrast, was a nice guy). And he gave us foreknowledge of other projects connected to his works that are in pre-production or production right now - from the sublime(?) (an independent film treatment of Fugue for a darkening island being made in Australia, set around Perth, which Chris thought to be a story that had struck especial resonance with Australians right now) (though he didn't say whether the title would have to be changed to the more geographically accurate 'Fugue for a darkening continent'!) - to the ridiculous (a stage musical version of 'the Prestige'....) (!!!!!)

In "Bladerunner" we see a world that is a bit hard to explain. I would like to look at it without much reference to the source novel, since the film is an independent entity.
Let's ignore the onscreen date of 2019. That made no sense back in 1982. (Offworld colonies, androids and a virtually unrecognizable world.)

The world may be overpopulated, or there may simply be too many people of lower social class that the government and or upper classes are trying to send away. The streets are packed with crowds to whom the ads for off-world colonies appear pitched. Let's assume overpopulation of the "non corporate classes" is a problem.

Offworld colonies. I remember Dick was fond of stories involving colonies on Mars and throughout the solar system and I thought that might be what was intended in the movie. But bits of dialog like Batty speaking of "Attack ships burning off Tannhauser gate..." suggest intersteller travel. OK. I can accept that.

What about resources? We see great blasts of flame which suggest flaring of natural gas from refineries... That makes little sense though, as it is a waste of usable hydrocarbons and if oil is scarce you would expect it to be more thouroughly exploited since it also provides plastics... Maybe it only looks like refineries flaring. Maybe it's related to something like fusion power plants - venting superheated gases... OK.
And then there's the brightly lit city. That suggests that there's a lot of energy. Those massive buildings (archologies for a vast corporate workforce?) have zillions of glowing windows. And, somewhere, vast... starships... are being built or at least fueled and launched. They must be VAST if they can actually carry away enough population to make an impact on that probable overpopulation problem. Such things also argue a lot of energy being used.

What about the ecology of planet earth? Is it terminally deteriorating? Is the local climate of LA just worse than the rest of the planet? (I suppose we could accept the ending of the original theatrical version, which shows pristine country outside the city - but I know that clashes with the directors intent). Anyway, animals are rare. The film makes that a significant plot point. If the world ecology really is shot, presumably food is artificial. More evidence of a lot of energy being available. Our food is grown largely by turning sunlight into edible material. Plants grow. Critters eat them. We eat the plants or the critters. Planting, fertilizing, harvesting and transport of the product do cost energy but If the natural growth isn't happening, the whole process requires artificial energy plus structures, tanks or whatever as well as fertilizing harvesting and transport.

So. An energy rich world with a ruined ecology and a lot of surplus population that can be shipped to other planets.

Androids. What is an android in the film? Why is a delicate and uncertain psych test the best way to tell them from a human? They are shown to be extremely fit human specimens... Or are they a bit superhuman? Maybe they are really just highly motivated, which could explain their strength and speed. Does Brion James really reach into a fluid that's supercold without damaging his hand in the eyeball lab? Maybe. Is the lab too cold for normal humans? Maybe not. After all the replicants are active young people and the scientist is an elderly guy... BUT the suggestion is that the replicants are pretty extraordinary specimens. Yet they are indistinguishable from ordinary humans.
AND, (dammit!) that eyeball lab... The parts are grown seperately? Or is the genetic code simply designed by subcontractors? The lab, therefore, does not actually produce eyes - but rather it produces tweaked data for insertion in the android genome.
Are the artificial animals also android creations? We see a lady in an artificial animal shop with a device that seems to be a powerful microscope reading serial numbers on an artificial snake scale... So, are humanoid androids not provided with serial numbers so they can pass for human? Are they actually intended to pass for human? That's the only explanation I can come up with. But not all the replicants in the movie are supposed to be military assasins. We are told that one or more are laborers and one is an artificial whore. This makes no sense.

I was unfair about the computer technology and communications. There is a complex air-traffic-control system with onboard guidance on the (energy expensive) air cars. There are also a few other nifty devices seen. Sometimes I forget about the rapid growth of cell phones and teensy computers in the real world. Technology is advanced in these areas but poverty of the lower classes restricts a lot of the goodies to government workers, and the corporate elite. That seems to fit.

We must also asume that J.R. Sebastion's, apparently robotic, toys are not directly related to his work in androids. They must be something like a bunch of pinball machines in the apartment of a computer game designer today. Any other assumption leads to a confusion between robotics and androids.

Ultimately I can find explanations for most of what we see in the movie. It's kinda fun to try and make sense of a world that the film makers didn't think through. The only problem that seems insoluble is central to the story, however. The androids. Undetectably human for no apparent reason.

Robert:

I can only concur with Chris Priest's comments on how writers are treated by the film people. When I was negotiating rights (without the benefit of a lawyer) for one of my novellas with the Hollywood crowd, I was treated like an idiot cousin because I questioned clauses, demanded clarification of anything that looked dodgy.

Negotiations were discontinued for six months because I told an L.A. entertainment lawyer to tell the producers to "Go f--- their mothers" if they thought I would sign the contract in its present form. He kept spluttering "You can't talk to me like that!", to which I responded with another stream of profanities. When they came back, timidly, with another proposal, I counter-proposed and, in the meantime, downloaded a sample contract from the Writers Guild of America site to use as my guide.

In the end, I did pretty well, considering I did all the dickering myself. But it took a firm stand and I wouldn't be rushed or bullied into doing what THEY thought was smart.

One example: an early draft of the contract had me paid a "minimum" amount (based on the budget of the film), whereas a later draft substituted "maximum" (thus capping how much I would be paid, regardless of the budget). No mention was made of the change, the contract was sent by courier to make an impression, accompanied by the message "sign this and get it back to us as quick as you can so we can make this terrific movie based on your great book". I tore up the contract and told them, "not a fucking chance".

Anyone who deals with movie folk should never, EVER think for an instant they want what's best for you. They're capitalists, films are "product" and writers are the shit on the bottom of their shoes...

Let's ignore the onscreen date of 2019. That made no sense back in 1982.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is set in 1992.

...and written in 1968...

I think the point of having the Voigt-Kampf test is to determine whether or not somebody is a replicant without the need to invade their privacy or obtain a physical sample of their body's flesh or fluids. A person who is suspected of being a replicant has not necessarily been charged with a crime, and it would be easier to justify subjecting an individual to a predetermined line of questioning than it would be to justify examining somebody with a high-powered microscope or taking a blood sample or some other invasive method. We can probably assume that they would have to obtain a warrant of some kind (or at least the person's permission) to use such methods, and administering the test may very well be easier and faster, especially if they have no crimes with which to charge the person. The police in the film don't seem particularly corrupt.

The replicants are very likely not physically indistinguishable from humans, but this is presumably a world in which civil liberties have not been completely destroyed, and plenty of people aren't simply going to fork over that blood sample, or lift their shirt for the microscope, etc. I know I wouldn't.

I've never really agreed with the opinion that if you've got nothing to hide, you should have no problem with an invasion of your privacy. It's not necessarily that I've got anything to hide, it's just none of your business.

#413
"Ultimately I can find explanations for most of what we see in the movie. It's kinda fun to try and make sense of a world that the film makers didn't think through. The only problem that seems insoluble is central to the story, however. The androids. Undetectably human for no apparent reason"

The robots looked human because that was what the customers demanded. The manufacturers with more humanoid robots got more business. I believe that the secretary told Derek that when they had their first encounter.

#414
Did your book eventually get turned into a movie or not? (I am assuming not, from what you have written.)

Hellboy 2
Well...if excellent visuals and special effects are what you're after
- then this IS the movie. Unfortunately (to my mind) some good
acting, characterizations and dialog disappeared into a movie in which
-- it seemed like 70% of the time spent involved fight scenes on on
scale or another. Not gory nor graphically violent..just very
repetitive after a while.
Good matinée fare - B-.

I have to agree with you on Hellboy II. I love the first movie, and I love the comics, but the second one could have used a little more in the plot/characterization department. The plot was fine, there just wasn't much to it, and it was fairly predictable. That being said, I did enjoy it, and visually it is incredible. I would recommend seeing it at a cheap second run theatre. If you want to be sure of seeing a good quality print, however, maybe go ahead and see a matinee.

The film based on my novella is in "pre-production" with an announced release date of 2009. Whether it will ever come to anything is another thing. The option money got us through a tough time, helped pay off a few things but it was months of aggravation and by the time everything was signed, there was no good will between the parties, just a prickly peace. I recall the guy who wrote the screenplay peevishly telling me: "You're legally obliged to sign a final deal, you know."

"Yes," I snapped, "but not the shit contracts they're sending me." He was not impressed.

My friends and colleagues were horrified by my attitude. It's a MOVIE DEAL, they'd intone breathlessly.

I couldn't have cared less...

#421

Just to play Devil's advocate for a moment, wouldn't a movie (providing it was done reasonably well) help you out in terms of publicity for your writing, provided that the people whom watch the movie based on your novella be somewhat interested in reading books of a similar idea?

And if it is a terrible movie, you can always say your book was more evocative, intelligent, and better-presented than the movie.

Have started a new thread as this one was getting too long. See here.

To answer your question "rojse", the film might provide some measure of promo for my work but the whole process was tainted by the fact that I really felt like a poor idiot cousin. The attitude of the producers and lawyers was, "you should be glad we're doing your book" and MY attitude was "you should feel priviliged to be making a film based on my work". I take exactly the same stance with publishers, editors and agents: not that I'm beholden to them, somehow in their thrall, but that they should be thrilled and excited to be working with an author of my caliber.

I don't like an imbalanced relationship, where one side has all the power. That's what drew me to indie writing, the sense that I control all aspects of my work and need kowtow and cater to none.

I admit, this attitude is not a popular one, either with the big boys or even my fellow authors, most of whom would peddle their grandmother if it meant some kind of writing credit or crack at "fame". I mind that mindset despicable...