Wait, where the fuck is Dark Star? Love that film.
― chap, Friday, 25 January 2008 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
Not sure if I understand the rationale for leaving out Star Wars. Looking at this list, I realize that I've seen a lot more '80s sci-fi than '70s.
― o. nate, Friday, 25 January 2008 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Star Wars is space opera, ie really an Arthurian / Western / samurai film. Just like Alien is a (boring) haunted-house film set in space.
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:00 (sixteen years ago) link
^ controversial
― DG, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:01 (sixteen years ago) link
But isn't "Mad Max" just a Jacobean revenge play then?
xpost
― o. nate, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
Han Solo doesn't even know a parsec is a unit of space, lol
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
I thought Alien was pretty boring, too.
― Abbott, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Alien is awesome, U R all mad. But it's perhaps not so awesome as hard science-fiction, if that's Morbius's point.
― o. nate, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:04 (sixteen years ago) link
Most storytelling theory doesn't count sci-fi as a genre. It's a setting or framework occupied by a variety of different genres.
― chap, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
I think the test should be whether any major plot point hangs on a scientific concept. That determines whether the sci-fi elements are merely stage dressing or a determining factor of the tale.
― o. nate, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:07 (sixteen years ago) link
like, where's Young Frankenstein?
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link
I think the test should be whether any major plot point hangs on a scientific concept
In SF movies, though, the scientific concept is generally a McGuffin which a thriller/war movie/detective movie or whatever revolves around, structurally speaking.
― chap, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:09 (sixteen years ago) link
Impossible to pick one, but a top 11 would read something like :
The Andromeda Strain Solaris THX-1138 Slaughterhouse-Five A Boy and His Dog Zardoz God Told Me To Phase IV Demon Seed Stalker Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I really need to see the Planet Of The Apes sequels.
― Matt #2, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:13 (sixteen years ago) link
There are many exceptions to that. The question of what constitutes human identity is central to the themes of "Solaris" for instance - which is a scientific question with philosophical implications.
― o. nate, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
That's thematic rather than structural, though. I do freelance script editing, so I tend to look at issues of genre as being to do with structure (which isn't neccessarily correct, but it's how I've been trained).
― chap, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah but in a lot of these films it's the other way round I think. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers seems like a thriller but it's really about "the question of what constitutes human identity" too. I guess you could say this about a lot of films...
― Matt #2, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link
'Dark Star' -- horrible omission, such a great film 'Capricorn One' -- this is sort of more of a political thriller, though part of me definitely wanted to throw things like 'The Parallax View' in there which definitely belongs with these films in mood 'Young Frankenstein' -- I love this, but it doesn't completely belong, I was tracing a line with this poll
Though I decided against made-for-TV films like 'The Martian Chronicles', 'The Quatermass Conclusion' definitely belongs on the list.
I also forgot 'Laserblast'! The only one on my list I haven't seen is 'Parts: The Clonus Horror', and I'm definitely going to have to hunt down 'No Blade of Grass' & 'The Final Programme', I knew Elvis would throw in something I'd never heard of
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
I just watched Invasion of the Bodysnatchers this morning. I had sort of forgotten how unironically creepy it is. Solid A movie.
― remy bean, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Voted for The Andromeda Strain, although who knows what I'd think if I watched it now.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:26 (sixteen years ago) link
My Top 5 (though this is impossible and I had to remove the two Tarkovsky films)
Phase IV God Told Me To Rollerball Beneath the Planet of the Apes THX-1138
5 for over the top Camp:
The Omega Man Silent Running Zardoz The Stepford Wives Demon Seed
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:29 (sixteen years ago) link
I guess I need to see God Told Me To, it's the only one up here I'm not familiar with. I voted STALKER because it feels like a staring contest with God.
― Trip Maker, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:37 (sixteen years ago) link
haha to go along with the debate above between Morbs and o.nate, I've begun thinking of JAWS as a sci-fi flick
― El Tomboto, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Demon Seed is really a screwball comedy
― sexyDancer, Friday, 25 January 2008 20:46 (sixteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Demonseed11.jpg
Proteus IV: I can't touch you, Susan. I can't touch you as a man could. But I can show you things that I alone have seen. I can't touch, but I can see. They've constructed eyes for me, to watch the show. And ears, so that I can listen in to the galactic dialogue.
(cut to: computer graphic freakout sequence representing the galactic dialogue)
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:16 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.scifimoviepage.com/images/beneath.jpg
Traumatic hypnosis is a weapon of peace
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Maybe it's finally time for me to post this link and see how many familiar faces you guys recognize.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:28 (sixteen years ago) link
Colossus: The Forbin Project is pretty excellent, a movie I haven't seen in over 20 years but still remember parts of pretty vividly. All of these movies are pretty great and i saw most of them on TV at some point in the mid 80's so they're kind of cemented in my head along with the time I began getting into interesting speculative fiction.
ST:TMP deserves some props for being the outright weirdest Star Trek film; it has a grand vision, something they never again attempted, I don't think.
― akm, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:35 (sixteen years ago) link
In its agglomerated way, it's the only one of the Trek films to embrace the whole breathless wonder idea that the original series aimed for, however inadvertantly. The fact that there were long stretches where nobody said anything got understandably slammed on a dramatic standpoint but in terms of trying to portray what a bunch of professionals at work being confronted by something indescribable would react like, seems spot on!
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:40 (sixteen years ago) link
It's a bloated remake of the episode "The Changeling."
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:41 (sixteen years ago) link
And in its bloat it is truly Trek at heart.
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:42 (sixteen years ago) link
the influence of THC on 70s sci-fi movie-pacing cannot be ignored
― sexyDancer, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
It's a wonder they don't have Elinor Donahue on the talent agent roster.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:45 (sixteen years ago) link
OK, I just took my link and started a spinoff thread How many of these actors at this sci-fi-centric talent agency do you recognize?
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:47 (sixteen years ago) link
The theatrical release of ST:TMP trimmed down Douglas Trumbull's abstract effects for fear of losing the audience, so it ended up keeping all the ambitious pretentions with none of the psychedelic payoffs, then they retrenched to camp for the rest of the ST films. The scene in the director's cut where they take eight minutes to pilot to the center of V'GER's magnetic field is right up there with the Star Gate sequence he shot for 2001, it's just as Out
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:49 (sixteen years ago) link
that's the sort of stuff I was talking about w/r/t that film. what I mainly like about it is that it's so drastically different in feel from any of the series, both in design (set design and costuming) and presentation/pacing.
― akm, Friday, 25 January 2008 21:55 (sixteen years ago) link
http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/Rollerball%201975%20pic%20.jpg
The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. And the game must do its work. The Energy Corporation has done all it can, and if a champion defeats the meaning for which the game was designed, then he must lose. I hope you agree with my reasoning.
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 22:25 (sixteen years ago) link
-- Abbott, Friday, 25 January 2008 17:03 (5 hours ago) Link
ban Abbot
― latebloomer, Friday, 25 January 2008 22:47 (sixteen years ago) link
The great thing about a lot of these is that they couldn't have been made in any time except the 70's.
Especially Zardoz (which I would've voted for if Alien hadn't been on the poll).
― latebloomer, Friday, 25 January 2008 22:50 (sixteen years ago) link
-- remy bean, Friday, January 25, 2008 8:15 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link
"it's a rat turd."
that movie rules.
― latebloomer, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:00 (sixteen years ago) link
God Told Me To is weird
― latebloomer, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:01 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.aullidos.com/imagenes/articulos/larrycohen/larrycohen-12.jpg
God Told Me To is incredible. If you haven't seen it, don't even look up a single additional word on it, it's one of the most baffling and intense films of the 70's. The genre-flips and plot turns are so bizarre that even just listing it as a science fiction film is a kind of a spoiler.
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:38 (sixteen years ago) link
in any case, the gun is good, the penis is evil
http://www.dennishollingsworth.us/archives/images/Zardoz040205.jpg
http://pharyngula.org/images/zardoz_damnhippies.jpg
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/4481/zardoz1api4.jpg
― Milton Parker, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:39 (sixteen years ago) link
I voted for Solaris but I feel bad for not voting Silent Running, and if I'd seen that film since I was an adult I think I might've. It seems like the purest SF film up there to me, or at least the closest to the experience of reading SF.
― Noodle Vague, Friday, 25 January 2008 23:42 (sixteen years ago) link
I don't think "Alien" is bad, just boring. Almost the entire reason I love "Meet Joe Black" is because it is daringly boring (other part: excellent van accident scene). I think "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is boring, and it's one of my favorite movies. And my favorite books are 65% boring.
― Abbott, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Alien wouldn't have any tension if it wasn't so goddamn boring! I mean, wouldn't it be boring to be on a spaceship?
― Abbott, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:33 (sixteen years ago) link
ha, that's what DARK STAR is all about
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:37 (sixteen years ago) link
I racked up like 35 dollars of late fees on "Dark Star" and never even watched it.
― Abbott, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Ha. I read the novelization of that one and was disappointed when I finally saw the actual film.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:40 (sixteen years ago) link
I think they got the idea for some of those Zardoz costumes from Pasolini's Gospel According To St. Matthew.
― James Redd and the Blecchs, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:41 (sixteen years ago) link
I have the Playboy from when it came out that has like 8 pages of all the nudie screenshots.
― Abbott, Saturday, 26 January 2008 00:43 (sixteen years ago) link
http://static.rogerebert.com/uploads/review/primary_image/reviews/dark-star-1980/hero_EB19800311REVIEWS3110301AR.jpg
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dark-star-1980
― dow, Tuesday, 26 July 2016 21:59 (seven years ago) link
Emerged. Haven't watched yet. Will soon if this proto-reality TV trope is in the leagues of 'Death Watch' or 'Year of the Sex Olympics' or just a slightly artier 'Das Millionenspiel' revamp.
Hu-Man, 1975, Terence Stamp, Jeanne Moreau
An actor is placed in dangerous situations and his fear will be broadcast to the television audience. The audience’s emotions will determine whether he is sent into the future or the past.
https://letterboxd.com/film/hu-man/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdvXZAPJkm0
― Milton Parker, Saturday, 12 May 2018 23:40 (five years ago) link
well gosh. odd even for 1970's SF. one wonders what the shooting script could have looked like after the first third. definitely not for the impatient. definitely for people who like to wonder how films like this end up getting made. almost hilariously interminable, but ultimately that is by design. this youtube is a VHS transfer of the 87 minute TV edit, there's a version out there with another 20 minutes, can't even imagine
music credited to Eric Burdon, Tim Blake (of Gong / Hawkwind), David Horowitz, and, somehow, Patrick Vian -- not clear if they're collaborating or swapping off, the ballad at the beginning is clearly Eric Burdon but is that also him doing all the acapella screaming at the end? almost sounds like it could be but whatever it is, it's a riot. sounds like friends in Paris with a lot of gear deciding to record an all night jam session instead of going home after checking out the 1972 Taj Mahal Travellers concert
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 31 May 2018 07:40 (five years ago) link
Capricorn One gets a rec as First Man "counterprogramming"
https://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/10/17/17985708/streaming-movie-recommendation-capricorn-one-first-man
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 October 2018 20:27 (five years ago) link