Planet of the Apes and 70s Sci-Fi

I'm surprised to see some of the best of 70's sci-fi has yet to be mentioned here. How about:

Close Encounters?

Mad Max?

Sleeper?

engineer Al wrote: I'm surprised to see some of the best of 70's sci-fi has yet to be mentioned here. How about:

Close Encounters?

Mad Max?

Sleeper?

I mentioned Mad Max as a personal favorite upthread. I was unimpressed by Sleeper because I just don't appreciate Woody Allen's sense of humor. I found Close Encounters to be incredibly annoying because I couldn't stand the main character. Roy was just an incredibly irresponsible parent who ditched his family to be with aliens.

Superman is way better than Man Of Steel.

Shellhead wrote:

engineer Al wrote: I'm surprised to see some of the best of 70's sci-fi has yet to be mentioned here. How about:

Close Encounters?

Mad Max?

Sleeper?

I mentioned Mad Max as a personal favorite upthread.

Yes, you did. My bad.

Yah Mad Max that slipped my mind but I think the reason why is that the sci-fi aspect of it is so very subtle. I'm talking the first Mad Max, the one with Toe Cutter and the Night Rider.

Yah they say the world is going to hell because of the exhaustion of fossil fuels but there are still cops, there is still civilization, there are still villages and country stores.

It's only out in the wasteland that anarchy is starting to take hold.

I think that is one of the great things about the Mad Max trilogy. It starts with society still pretty much intact in Mad Max, then society completely collapses and it's utter anarchy in The Road Warrior, and then in Beyond the Thunderdome society is starting to make a come back. It's still pretty brutal and it's different but Bartertown is the beginning of a new society.

Speaking of Australia and post apocalyptic sci-fi, I would be remiss to not mention On the Beach which is a much under appreciated film. It's not wiz-bang enough for most people, it tells its story in a leisurely way but, boy, is it powerful. (see my 5 second review for further thoughts)

Gregarius wrote: I was talking with a friend about Forbidden Planet the other day, as he had recently rewatched it. He had the revelation that the original Star Trek basically stole its whole premise from that movie. He listed all the similarities (he's a big ST fan), which I can't remember but I'm sure you can imagine.

Interesting, especially as Forbidden Planet is effectively The Tempest in spaaaaaace.

Gregarius wrote: I like your notion that science was secondary to story, but at least back then it was based on actual science.

Yeah, and in the days of Astounding Magazine it was mostly short stories, where the science was an antagonist or a lynchpin in the story somehow. The characters and story were primary, but the science wasn't just window dressing. It was interesting enough to play a part in the greater whole. A lot of modern science fiction has a car that flies instead of drives, but it's still just a car. They hide behind "it's so common we don't need to describe it!" to cover that fact that it's still just a car and still just drives the same way as a car on the road today when, frankly, it could fly in many different ways.

The most recent I Robot was a nice blend of action story, mystery story and science fiction and I enjoyed that one. The science played a pivotal role, but the story was still about the characters, their motivations, and figuring out whodunit.

Star Trek lifted stories directly out of Astounding, the most easily recognized being Arena. It wasn't about theft so much as politely utilizing the rich number of hour-long stories that had been written in the prior 25 years. Arena was part of the required reading for my course with Klass.

S.

Arena is an outstanding short story. The Star Trek version was fun enough, but nowhere near as good.

I haven't seen Westworld in years and never straight through, and I haven't seen Rollerball at all. I need to watch both of those soon.

Cronenberg's Shivers hasn't been mentioned yet, nor has Carpenter's Dark Star. Neither is amazing, but they're both worth a look. Another one I like is The Boys from Brazil. It's trashy but it at least makes an attempt to approach cloning intelligently.

The Stepford Wives is another one that I haven't seen, mainly because I'm already familiar with the big twist so I've never bothered.

repoman wrote: Speaking of Australia and post apocalyptic sci-fi, I would be remiss to not mention On the Beach which is a much under appreciated film. It's not wiz-bang enough for most people, it tells its story in a leisurely way but, boy, is it powerful. (see my 5 second review for further thoughts)

On the Beach is a forgotten gem. I really like it. It stays very true to the book, too, which is rare in any genre.

I like Mad Max a lot, too, but I always thought it was an 80s film. Turns out it makes it under the wire at 1979.

Another recurring theme that I'm noticing from a lot of the titles mentioned is that the 70s weren't afraid of having a downer ending. Many of the films we've talked about end in a depressing, if not plain nihilistic way. Good luck doing that these days.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0080010/reference
its a pretty good movie based on story by Lem.
when i watched it as a kid one scene scared the shit out of me

Turek wrote: www.imdb.com/title/tt0080010/reference
its a pretty good movie based on story by Lem.
when i watched it as a kid one scene scared the shit out of me

Wow! As a big fan of Lem I am flabbergasted that I've never even heard of this movie. I'll be watching this one soon. Thanks!

Then check this out: if you haven't seen it before.
Made by Germans (and as everyone knows they have no sense of humour), but funny.

"I'm starting to feel a lot like Charlton Heston, stranded on a primate planet..." ~Fat Mike

Gregarius wrote: The Omega Man
Soylent Green
Silent Running
Logan's Run
Colossus: The Forbin Project
THX-1138
West World

Omega Man was awesome, but it wasn't as good as "Last Man On Earth". Can't really trump Vince Price.
Soylent Green was good, but the best part was the trailer. Hilarious.
The rest are classic, aside from Colossus, which I can't comment on.

5 pages in and no one has mentioned 2001, the greatest FILM of all time. YOu all lose.

2001, the book ideology by Clarke is brilliantly envisioned by Kubricks genius, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME KUBRICK WAS MAKING A FILM ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE AND FUCK ALL TO DO WITH THE AWESOME SCI FI BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING STORY THAT CLARKE WAS.

Kubricks film, with his ideas in parallel and completely separately and externally to Clarkes interpretation put down in literature is about the awakening of mankind through media, and specifically film. I had the pleasure of discussing a truly brilliant PHD done at Liverpool which demonstrated that in almost every single scene Kubrick had signposted his intent in ways that are (totally, and kind of embarrassingly in some ways) obvious in retrospect but fucking mindblowing when pointed out for the first time.

That his film on its own merits is a candidate for the best film of all time beggars belief when added to the fact that it flawlessly and without any inconsistency mirrors precisely the vision of Clarkes non Hollywood version of how we might fit into a universe of limitless size and scope is just staggering. (Solaris was also great in this regard)

If you ever get the chance to get hold of the PhD (I will try to find the online link) just do yourselves a favour and read it

2001 is the greatest film of all time. You don't need to justify that shit with any genre label.




here was an interesting article but not the one I was thinking of, but gets your appetite going
www.collativelearning.com/2001%20analysis%20new.html


heres another interesting clip


www.youtube.com/user/robag88/search?query=monolith

(cant find part 1, only 2 and 3, weird)
pt 1