I thought Expelled was an awful concept, but now there’s another movie that’s come out that is even worse: The Day the Earth Stood Still. I haven’t seen it, and I don’t plan to, since I was horrified by the trailers … and now Gary Farber has collected the key points of many reviews. There ought to be a law that no remakes can be released that are worse than the originals, just to discourage this kind of abomination.
The original movie was a wonderful SF classic. I’ve got it on DVD here, and I think just to spite the hacks who ripped it off, I’m going to watch Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal sometime this weekend. It has some great lines in it: “It isn’t faith that makes good science, Mr. Klaatu, it’s curiosity” and “I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason”, and of course, “klaatu barada nikto”. And the theremin! I’d watch it right now if I didn’t have a lot of work to do tomorrow…
I just came home from watching the remake.. it was not very great however i was quite impressed with the many depictions of strong and smart women.
It’s hard to top these classics. When “War of the Worlds” came out a few years back, I showed my kids the old Gene Barry version after they save Spielberg’s take. I was surprised they were so wrapped up in it. They liked it more than the one with Tom Cruise, and it was 52 years old at the time. The best part was that the hero was … a scientist! Second best? The minister got his! :-)
Oh my science! I’ve not seen the film but as soon as I saw those quotes, I realised that I should.
The original movie was a wonderful SF classic.
Piffle. It was a barely disguised Jesus analogy. Ed North, the screenwriter, even admits this. Honestly, I have *never* understood why my fellow SF fans worship this film to the extent that they do. The Day The Earth Stood Still is Forbidden Planet’s bitch.
And if you were really “horrified” by the new trailer, I suggest it’s because you wanted to be.
LOL. Whatever… I rather like the original TDTESS, and I have a DVD copy here.
Still, I’d be interested to hear your (and anybody else’s) list of top classic sci-fi recs. How about it? What would be your top three (say)?
They liked it more than the one with Tom Cruise
I suppose I have to agree in this case. The new one wasn’t bad, and it was a bit more faithful to the book, and the bellowing tripods were nine shades of awesome, but it was missing something. The older version feels more epic for some reason.
And I didn’t like the idea that the machines were already here on Earth. It would have been better if, say, the lightning storm was a nanoassembler delivery system that constructed the tripods on site.
Come on, a remake of an old SF can’t possible be worse than Expelled.
P.S. What happened to the Tangled Bank?
But it’s got Keanu Reeves, so you know there’s some stellar thespianism coming down the pipes.
Woah.
Dude.
It’s like, totally Shakespeare.
I just picked up a remastered copy of “Metropolis”. I think I will watch that instead (another classic that never grows old).
There’s a theremin somewhere in the new film as well, but I was too busy being unimpressed to notice it. The original feature is my favorite so a part of me really wanted to root for this remake, but when the last frame flickered to black I was left completely unmoved. Stood up I should say.
I rather like the original TDTESS, and I have a DVD copy here.
It the first genre film I ripped apart critically when I caught an airing on a local station. When Klaatu gets shot at the beginning, I said, well what did he expect walking up to a line of soldiers, and pointing a tube at them that popped out spines without warning? Later he says they’ve studies Earth and its people. And he was still stupid enough to pull such a stunt? The whole scene was so contrived.
And the threat to burn the Earth to “a cinder” because some world leaders can’t get their act together, for me, evaporated any moral high ground Klaatu’s people claimed to occupy. They’re a bunch of interstellar thugs. He even admits they use their super-robots to keep their own peace. Hypocrites! If they really see us as a threat, a cordon of sentry ships won’t work? They have to wipe out every living entity in a multi-billion year old biosphere? Our little popgun nukes are that big of a horror to those with robots that shoot disintegration rays? Huh?
I was 13 years old at the time. :) And my judgments still stand.
If I were to do a remake, I’d have the clever little monkeys of Earth, using 1950’s tech, take out Gort and send Klaatu and his bully boys packing. Maybe even capture his ship intact and reverse engineer it.
For a lovely example of such a theme, see “The High Crusade” by Poul Anderson. Englishmen from the 12th century conquer the galaxy. Trust me, he makes it work. :) Hugo nominated.
I forgot to add (spoiler alert) the remake does have a cephalopod.
i was a bit miffed to learn that a remake of the day the earth stood still was being filmed. hollywood would rather reuse ideas than try to come up with new ones. some movies should be left alone.
i recently worked in the props industry. the shop i worked at has the original gort helmet, of which only one was made. i definitely took pics of it, inside and out.
i learned that forbidden planet is currently in preproduction, with j. michael straczynski as the scriptwriter. he might actually be able to pull of an update if anyone can.
as for metropolis there is an interesting anime version directed by rintaro released in 2001 i highly recommend. this is another property which is in preproduction to be remade.
i am waiting for the newly discovered footage to be incorporated into a remaster of the original before i watch it again.
as for metropolis there is an interesting anime version directed by rintaro released in 2001 i highly recommend.
It’s based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka, although that in turn is loosely based on the original film. The theme of a highly stratified society is very present. It was OK, but I love Tezuka’s character designs, so I enjoyed it quite a bit on an artistic level.
They are also doing a new Astro Boy, another Tezuka creation and the first anime TV series ever produced.
Stracynski is awesome! Never heard of The Day The Earth Stood Still before, and yes I do live in a cave. With blind fish, no less!
` In my cave, ‘Klaatu baranda nicto’ is from that fake horror movie with the chainsaw hand guy. I’ll have to rent the original TDTESS!
That is, sometime after filming this weekend.
As part of a production company, my dream is to make an amazing science fiction film that is extra sciency and has aliens and at least one parallel universe where evolution went more awesomer and also a civilation of people who travel through space and need science or they will die from being without an Earth!
I want to make you proud, if you can get behind such a poorly-presented list of important features!
Nice Poul Anderson shoutout Q_D, LotR is The Broken Sword‘s bitch (commence flaming in 3, 2, 1). I love reading SF, but most recent SF movies leave me cold. At least nobody has messed up any of Jack Vance’s works with a crappy movie, and Gene Wolfe’s stuff is unfilmable.
The Best TDTESS homage is in Army of Darkness when Ash messes up the magic words… “Klaatu Barada NECKTIE!”
I saw it today, here is my review:
The Day the Earth Stood Still
-by scooter
If you’re looking for a good plot, lots of twists, character development, great dialog and a compelling script, save your money. As a story this thing never finds its way.
It stumbles awkwardly back and forth between Terminator, and It’s a Wonderful Life
Don’t worry about spoilers, this movie could not be more predictable. In fact it was so predictable, I was sure I was being sucked in for a big plot twist, no such luck, that was the surprise.
This time, Klaatu the alien has cloned himself into human form from DNA collected right after the credits. Keanu Reeves is perfect for this role, the same way Ahnold was perfect for Terminator. Stiffness and dead pan are required, and nobody can play a man as uncomfortable in his own skin as Keanu Reeves, it comes naturally.
As you can tell from the trailer, Klaatu is no Mr. Nice guy this time around, however he’s neither villainous nor virtuous, just sort of….
confused.
Several pieces of the 60’s movie plot are retained, and a special treat is John Cleese, who plays the mathematician/scientist portrayed by Sam Jaffee in the original.
But overall this film suffers from uber cliche, and bad writing. You will say to yourself, “Oh, this is the part where I’m supposed to choke up”, or “I guess I’m supposed to move to the edge of my seat, now”
The part where Klaatu temporarily disables all machinery on earth, the central theme of the movie, and the fucking title for crissakes, is just thrown in like an afterthought toward the end. It just dangles there, completely unexplained.
The poor Earthlings are so frazzled by a series of Mars Attack-like space man inflicted cataclysms, they don’t even notice the lights going out. There are a few establishing shots of power failing, and cars stalling, the drivers get out, shamble around, look up at the sky, and THATs IT!! I thought a zombie movie was going to break out at any second. There’s not even one throwaway line of dialog referring to the fact that the Earth is suddenly….
….Standing STILL!!!
THEN
The movie ends and the power is still off, you don’t know if our machinery ever starts back up or not, which is somewhat significant to the story line, one would assume.
It’s hilarious, it seemed like the movie ended when they ran out of money. I’m glad I didn’t get stoned for this, or I would have been laughing so hard, they’d have carried me out.
I did LOL once for obvious reasons, when this particular line of dialog was spoken:
“Look, inside the globe, cephalopods”
“Huh?'”
“Squids, inside the globe.”
Roger Corman wouldn’t have produced this birdcage bottom liner they called a screenplay, it was that bad.
BUT
It was REALLY well directed, very well-paced, it had a strong direction with which it marched mindlessly and relentlessly with few lulls
As a piece of Cinematography, it actually qualifies as art.
Also state of the art, and generations ahead of ANYTHING I’ve seen in any Batman, Iron Man, Space Movie special effects spectacle. There’s apparently a lot of old fashioned modeling and camera optics that flow seamlessly into CGI, which is never cartoon-ish, this movie is REALLY cool to watch.
It’s shot beautifully , it’s stunning, every live action, close up, or big bang scene is meticulous.
The sound mixing is perfect, the score is great, it’s a technical masterpiece.
This is worth the price of matinée admission. I doubt it is worth renting if you have a regular square Tube TV, it’ll never come off. It’s a theater only flick.
There are a few quirky sciencey things that are clever, the genetically engineered locust thingies are original.
There was one subtle subtext I found amusing, it had to be intentional. Not a president nor vice-president is seen in the entire film, they are all apparently cowering in undisclosed secret underground locations, the entire executive branch is represented by a Madeline Albright type character who is the Secretary of Defense, I think. She and Cleese are the only characters in the film doing any acting, she does some great headpalms.
I suggest you avoid the dialog, eat some mushrooms and load up a really freaky Dark Star on your iPod and settle in at a local matinee, could be fun.
Hey! Sciam liked it!
It looks to be more scientifically plausible, and it’s lost a lot of the religious references…
And I just noticed who wrote the review…
It was a fifties movie.
But the rule of remakes still applies. Don’t remake a good movie. Remake a bad one. All you end up doing is making a worse movie.
The original story it was based on should have been the story to use. In that one, Gort was the master, Klaatu was his servant.
I never really had a problem with the religious references, I guess I did not view it as trying to push anything, simply to use the well known Jesus myth, hell, maybe even to subvert it.
Apparently not everyone liked it, the MPPDA censor made them change part of the movie because they did not like the resurrection theme as well as his power.
Uh, I was sure at one point I was watching a remake of Cecil B. DeMille’s ‘The Ten Commandments’ with regards to religious references.
People are too nostalgic over so called “classics”
I saw it Thursday. John Cleese got a Nobel for “altruistic biology” and there are, I’m told, realistic physics equations, something to do with event horizons. But there was no ending. The beginning and middle weren’t bad, but I’m glad I got a free ticket. The original story by Harry Bates hasn’t held up either http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/bates.html
I’m not going to defend the remake, but I do have to wonder about people’s attachment to the original. I just watched it a week ago for the first time and I found the whole thing to be rather ridiculous.
I understand the importance of the message at the time it came out, but there was so much about it that would be and should be considered absurd nowadays.
And “Klaatu barada nikto”? I really hope that you guys like that phrase because of how ridiculously corny it is (and how clear it is that that actor for Klaatu doesn’t speak many languages with proficiency), because I don’t see anything particularly redeeming about it.
In fact, contrary to the criticism of the remake that it’s bad to remake a good movie, I think that the problem is that the framework of ideas used in the the original “The Day the Earth Stood Still” is so shallow that the narrative only really usable once, because its not actually that good. The fact that someone thought it was worthy of a remake and that the basic narrative would be an effective way to convey an idea suggests a severe creativity deficit.
Perhaps you older SF fans are not as annoyed by the ridiculously backwards 1950s society as I, a 21 year-old, was, or the overly simple narrative and are perhaps insulted by my attack on the sacred, but I think that sanctity is a corrosive concept, so I don’t care if you’re offended. I think people should move on from ideas that have only a tainted half-resonance with today’s society and move toward more relevant topics and media to convey them.
AMC just showed the original the other night. Michael Rennie is a god.
Maybe I’m confusing this site with Pajiba?
“Don’t remake a good movie. Remake a bad one.”
This is why the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead worked. *ducks*
Always odd how people get so passionate about these things. It’s a movie. Got it? A movie.
Enjoy each on their own merits.
I saw the new TDTESS tonight and you know what? It’s not that bad. KR was born to play the role of emotionally detached alien.
It’s not supposed to replace the original. It’s just a retelling. Get over yourselves.
One Eyed Jack, thanks so much for your passionate appeal not to be passionate about movies. ‘Twas funny.
Can’t resist a follow-up to
“Don’t remake a good movie. Remake a bad one.”
I can see the logic behind it, but not the economics. Who would see “Plan 9 from Outer Space” with a decent script and production values?
Has this worked anywhere? (Battlestar Galactica excepted)
Meng Bomin #25
As a positively ancient Scifi fan (I’m 60) I couldn’t agree with you more!
I get so fed up with the ‘classic’ movies being heralded as the watermark of achievement. I also get weary of endless remakes of the same old stuff, brought to us by the Hollywood accountants.
Take for instance Creature from the Black Lagoon, dreadful film, When Worlds Collide, very bad, or They Live, all scheduled for remakes as cynical money spinners – half the audience will probably be suckered into going to see if they’ve ‘improved’ on the original.
There are so many good, NEW Scifi novels out there begging to be made into movies and with the technical advances available to the film industry we should be awash with them.
Instead it’s the same old crap regurgitated by unimaginative bean counters who’ve probably never read an entire novel in their impoverished lives and wouldn’t recognise an original plot if it smacked them in the face.
OK, better go lie down now, doesn’t do to get so agitated at my age, and I wouldn’t want One Eyed Jack to think I was still capable of passion now would I? :).
“Always odd how people get so passionate about these things. It’s a movie. Got it? A movie.”- Jack
Sorry, but that’s what passes for culture in this country lol. Uh oh, i can hear the villagers beating on my front door having said that.
“They are also doing a new Astro Boy, another Tezuka creation and the first anime TV series ever produced.” Q_D
Hmmm, i’ve heard about the new remakes of Akira and the lot of others. I can’t help but feel i’ll be manically disapointed. Can’t beat the classics.
So that means Gigantor is second huh?
Kitty and Meng: yes. I’m lucky enought to not have been born in that era. I still hated the Remake of War of the Worlds, disregard that i never saw the original. It was just BAD.
But if you want current, i seriously doubt that this country is the place to look, except in terms of Marvel comics movies and the like. Butsomeone please proove me wrong.
hmm, what about Journey to the Center of the Earth, now that we are on the subject of remakes?
interesting coincidence, I just finished watching the original TDTESS. being a 50’s movie it was corny, but other than that I thought it was very good.
there’s no way in hell i’ll watch the new one. this sounds like merely an excuse to have shit blow up. didn’t watch war of the worlds either, and I don’t know the original.
TDTESS is, of course, allegorical. However, that wasn’t the primary intent. It’s a political movie about the early Cold War, McCarthy, xenophobia, religious/right-wing nuts, etc.
yup – too true. Here’s more info about watch movies online
srsly though – “worse than expelled”?
Keanu was okay in A Scanner Darkly, because he was called on to play somebody who was mildly confused and an unkind person might say this was the perfect part.
I’ve found him irritating in other films. He’s a kind of Guybrush Threepwood of acting, seeming to be perennially awaiting direction.
I won’t be going to see this film because I want to retain my memory of Michael Rennie in the part of Klaatu. The film is now a period piece, which is to say that it has dated a little but still retains its original charm, and the message has if anything become stronger.
@ Kitty:
I’m glad there are a few of us old-timers left. I’m 56 years old, and have been an SF fan for at least 50 of them.
I’m probably going to get unmercifully flamed, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a really good SF movie. Some are better than others, but the limitations of the medium, the necessity to explain everything, and the lack of even the standards of believability that good written SF calls for create too many obstacles to creating a really good film.
The Day the Earth Stood Still was pretty good for 1951, though. When you compare it with other SF films of the 50s and 60s, it still stands up pretty well; and at least it wasn’t the piece of Cold War anti-scientific sputum that The Thing was.
I’ll add as a disclaimer: I said to somebody a while back that I don’t have the attention span for movies any more, and it got a laugh, so I stuck with it; but what I really mean is that I don’t have the patience for movies any more. Staring slack-jawed at a screen while the amount of actual information in maybe three pages of text slowly drips into my brain is like Chinese water torture. (And no, explosions don’t count as information; or only one bit apiece!)
All that said, I always thought David Brin’s Sundiver would make a pretty good SF/Mystery movie. The rest of the Uplift novels are probably unfilmable.
I have to agree with Q_D too; I like the original but I don’t see it as a “great” movie. Forbidden Planet on the other hand is my favourite of the early SF genre by a mile. Plus of course it inspired Gene Roddenberry to invent Star Trek of which I am an unashamed long-time fan (even if I do cringe at all the scientific inaccuracies in every episode!)
Surprised nobody’s mentioned the other “Day the Earth…” movie yet – the first movie to take on Global Warming – and it’s British! The rest of the title is of course Caught Fire. Made decades before Day after Tomorrow and in my opinion, far superior (apart from the special effects, of course, which is all DaT really has going for it).
They ruined the best movie evah!???/ Why am I not surprised? Aliens should come and destroy the earth.
At the risk of revealing my age, I saw the original in a theater on its release. I liked it then and will stop and watch it if I run across it while channel surfing.
This came out when we were beginning to understand our ability to destroy the planet with nuclear weapons and was meant to convey the message that we need to change our ways.
Alas, they are trying to promote it as a pro-science movie:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,3417,Keanu-Barada-Nikto,Pasadena-Weekly
Can someone think of a SINGLE really good SF movie that was made in the 21st century ? The last one I can think of is the fifth element and that’s 97.
Seems to me that genre peaked in the 80s, and the trend of having special effects completely overshadow the story is a dead end because special effects don’t have this wow factor anymore.
I would!!! Then again, I’m probably not the typical movie goer.
That would however be like the ultimate test of a filmmaker’s abilities. Can they remake “Plan 9” to actually be good? I would like to have seen Stanley Kubrick give it a try. Rumor has it also wanted to make a porn film. Hmmmm, getting a REALLY bad idea now…..
Damn looks like someone beat me to it .
neg,
I think Serenity was really good.
You are right however that most recent SF movies focus way too much on special effects.
Serenity, ok, was entertaining, but really good ? Ok, that might be the only one I’d put in a list of top 20 SF movies that’s from the 21st century.
really good SF movie
Heh, pass. I have no desire to get into a debate where nobody can even agree on how to define, much less measure, the quantities being discussed.
As another super annuated sci fi reader (much like Kitty) I have a bookcase full of stories that could make good flicks. What makes it to the screen is all about money, not taking risks. Hence the rise of indi cine.
Anderson, Asimov, Aspirin, Bova, … Varley. You get the drift.
Now – let’s not be too harsh on actors such as Reeves. Who can forget Arnold’s delivery of what had to be a total of two pages of dialog in Conan the Barbarian? Memorable, simply grand. Kind of sets a mark for Reeves to aspire to.
I just cannot get my head around John Cleese in any serious role,it just doesnt work for me…..
Salon review of the movie here..
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2008/12/12/day_the_earth/index.html?source=rss&aim=/ent/movies/review
Another particularly bad remake was ” The Andromeda Strain” IMO.
I didnt mind ” I am Legend” and “Serenity” was so-so,but a really good one? Cant think of any.And Im absolutely dreading the new Star Trek movie.
To all who complain about the lack of good scifi movies, I remind you of Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap.
I saw the first The Day the Earth Stood Still sometime in the early 1960s, when I was an early teenager, and I was unimpressed. It was too preachy. Everyone knew that nucular bombs were bad. Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sun Is Burning” had the same message packed in only 2 minutes 49 seconds.
I agree with Kitty:
I’d love to see Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon or Iain Banks’Excession made into movies. However after what William Gibson did to his screenplay of his own short story, “Johnny Mnemonic”, I doubt that Hollywood would make watchable movies out of those books.
There are so many good, NEW Scifi novels out there begging to be made into movies
I’d like to see Greg Egan’s “Diaspora” made into a movie.
Hah, just kidding. That would be a disaster. Hollywood should just continue adapting comic books to the big screen. They seem halfway competent at that.
#13 Rowan – many thanks for the anime ref re rintaro’s version of metropolis.
#14 Quiet Desperation – The extra info re Tezuka appreciated, and astroboy was a favourite – a manga version could be interesting
#39 Lurkbot – I fully agree re Brin’s work being great, but sundiver was the least of the uplift series. Despite the difficulties, the quest of the Streaker is just made for movies.
#50 clinteas – I cannot agree. I must have read “I am Legend” 30 years ago. It was excellent. This movie was a total mess. And there was some God haven to escape to and everyone lived happily ever after? kinda missed the whole point (and name of the movie). My kids even warned me (they too loved the book) – Dad, they screwed the ending, you won’t like it…….
#51 Tis Himself – I don’t really know Stephenson’s latest work, despite my love of steampunk, but snowcrash and diamond age would both be great.
I will cast a vote for serenity as the only qualifier for the 21stC but only if it includes firefly and is rated for entertainment rather than sciency value.
Does anyone think the “God/OMG/Thank the Diety” count has skyrocketed on all US produced TV the last few years, but SG-Atlantis especially?
(probably going to bed soon, but will revisit the thread tomorrow)
Naked Bunny with a Whip,
It doesn’t matter how you define “a really good SF movie”, each one will have his own entirely subjective definition, but in the end, if each one makes a list (I’m talking of people who’ve consumed a sufficient quantity of SF movies to be able to make such a list) and then one puts them alltogether, look at various lists of the top 20 or top 50 SF movies that have been made, and there’s many available on the net, they all show the same pattern, this genre has peaked in the 80s, and there’s hardly any SF movie from this decade that stands out.
The message is : this focus on special effects that overshadows the story is not going anywhere, if SF movie makers don’t change strategy, that genre is doomed.
I forgot to include Vernor Vinge and Iain M. Banks (all the culture stuff). Much of Vinge’s stuff is near future and should be easy to film (eg Rainbows End)
The story, as stated by other’s, must be good. Serenity may be fun, but it isn’t 2001 or Blade Runner…..
I promise I will go now ;)
Negen @ 44 Can someone think of a SINGLE really good SF movie that was made in the 21st century ?
I thought A.I. was pretty good
————————–
Trivia on the TDTESS from 1951. It introduced the ‘flying saucer’ to popular culture. Prior to this film, there were no flying saucer UFO reports EVAR, after the Movie, people saw flying saucers all over the skies, and they still do.
The comics I’d like to see adapted are the ones who’d never find directors and screenwriters ballsy enough to do the job: Sandman, Preacher and above all Transmetropolitan.
About the original TDTESS. . . .
The first time I watched it, I was impressed with how little “correction” I had to do — you know, the process which kicks in when you think, “I should make allowances, since this was made in the 1950s” (or wherever). Yes, I was a little bemused by the idea that Earth could be a threat to an interstellar civilization — right up until the moment they shot and killed Klaatu. Then, I thought, “Damn. We are pretty good at what we do best.”
I imagine David “wow you with my optimism” Brin’s take on the movie would be that to dismiss the threat of Earth is, in a twisted way, to underestimate the potential of the human species. Check out his novel Earth for a similar situation — “Damn straight those dots and dashes represented a threat”.
And as for the “Christ allegory” thing: that may have been what the writer intended, but he fucked it up, and in the fucking-it-up, conceived a clever little brainchild. Notice how Klaatu doesn’t actually die for anyone’s sins? He just gets shot. Advanced medicine brings him back. He would have delivered the same message to the same audience had he never been inconvenienced along the way. His temporary death provides a point of drama for the audience, it has emotional meaning for a few other characters, and (I argued above) it has some thematic content in illustrating what Earth people are capable of. But it does not make Klaatu a redemptive sacrifice.
It is the (seriously fucked up) idea of dying for everybody else’s sins which separates the Christ story from the other famous stories of death and rebirth: Orpheus/Eurydice, Osiris, even Lazarus. One could argue that Klaatu is a better analogue of Osiris than he is of Jesus: he was killed, brought back by female intercession, and went about his business.
My old film professor liked to say that after seeing Buster Keaton’s The General, nobody could take Birth of a Nation seriously. I have a similar attitude with regard to TDTESS. “You have a story about a guy who died and came back to life? OK. Check out this one from a couple thousand years later, when they figured out how to do it right.”
If I recall correctly, it was Robert Moog himself playing that theremin …
I don’t know if Children of Men counts, but I thought it was very good.
One thing I enjoyed in the original film was the attempt to make the events “contemporary” to 1951 audiences. The use of influential, real-life journalists of the day such as H.V Kaltenborn, Gabriel Heatter and Drew Pearson reporting/commenting on the landing was a very nice touch. Then there was Bernard Herrmann’s excellent score and the very “buff” robot Gort…still sinister after all these years.
For a film made 57 years ago, I think the original holds up quite nicely. I have seen it many times and still enjoy the occasional viewing. Haven’t seen the remake, however, I can but imagine, based on the reviews.
BTW, the War of the Worlds remake by Spielberg did really bite except that the fighting machines and the invaders’ attempt at terraforming were spot-on with the H.G. Wells novel, which after a century, is still a good read.
they all show the same pattern, this genre has peaked in the 80s
Nah, I don’t buy it. Too many people tend to believe that popular culture “peaked” about the same time they were growing up, and “the 80s” is just about in that window right now for established internet pundits. If you want to pull together lists like this, I request that you include some biographical information about the person compiling the list as well to compensate for this effect.
Code 46, though flawed, wasn’t bad, either.
The message is : this focus on special effects that overshadows the story is not going anywhere
This message opposes your thesis that SF movies peaked in the 80s. By far the largest complaint about 80s science fiction movies is that they were all spectacle and little story, due to being influenced (badly) by Star Wars. This criticism hasn’t changed at all in 25+ years.
There are exceptions in the intervening decades, of course, but the exceptions back then were often made by the same people that make the exceptions nowadays, too (e.g. Spielberg).
Keep in mind that my personal bias actually supports what you say. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, I’m a child of Star Wars and E.T. But I also do my damndest to not get into the “everything was better when I was young” rut, so I go out of my way to avoid falling for confirmation bias.
“Altruistic biology”, huh? So they’ve changed Barnhardt from an Einstein-clone to a Dawkins-clone?
Dammit, I let myself get sucked in. Grr.
Naked Bunny with a Whip,
I can’t think of any “peak” in drama, comedy, thrillers, etc… there’s at least a few movies each year in those genres that I’d consider “really good”, but in SF ? All I’ve seen recently is average or below average. I consume about 150 movies per year in all genres, and in SF there’s nothing that stands out. It’s all the same brain dead special effects weak storyboard stuff. As someone said earlier it seems the beancounters and marketing execs are in charge and they’ve decided that people who like SF want to see good special effects and that’s all that matters.
I have enjoyed the original TDTESS, and will probably catch it the next time it is on TV and I am not collapsing from tiredness (it was on the other night, but I did not make it past the first 5 minutes).
I enjoyed and took humor in the look back into 1950’s life – “traditional” family life (strong man, weak woman, innocent child), Red Scare (or any scare of “they’re unknown and scary, and are going to take our way of life away!”), cheesy effects…
As to whether they should have remade it, or any other “great” movie – why not? Some hit, some miss. The 70’s King Kong was weak, but the recent one worked. Maybe in 20 years they’ll try TDTESS and get it right again.
Thanks for the reviews – you’ve saved me $10. I’ll wait for it to hit cable, or buy the DVD for $1.97 from the used DVD store’s “Crappy Used Movie Bargain Bin”.
Naked Bunny with a Whip,
No, because in the 80s there was at least a wow factor for special effects, which is fading away nowadays, especially taking into account that games have become so good and powerful. I’m not suggesting that SF should do the same as in the 80s, but that good special effects isn’t sufficient anymore, we need to see new really good stories, and not poor remakes.
The post is already getting ahead of me, so I don’t know if this has been mentioned.
I loved the remake of Solaris.
Tear me up if you like.
The Andromeda Strain remake was simply awful. Didn’t even make it to the end.
There is a remake of Barbarella in the works. That has to be good, right?
Scooter
A.I.???
I hated that!
I must admit that I was angry with that one going in.
There was a rumour floating around for years that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick were going to join forces again for a movie called A.I.
I waited years and got nothing.
Then, not long after Kubrick’s death, that glossy turd hit the theaters. I don’t know if there was any connection, but I’ve been angry about it ever since.
I don’t think it was as bad as some of you guys think. It was entertaining and I didn’t get bored at least. Also PZ if you’re talking about the original how could you miss the part where Klaatu gets “resurrected” but then explains “that power is reserved for god’s son only!” implying the aliens were Christian… That has always made me laugh.
Stuff I thought was stupid in the new remake:
-Astrobiologist, speaks for itself.
-Humanoid alien which the scientists don’t immediately realize is a alien trying to look human. They even talk about its DNA which is very implausible.
-NANOS! aka grey goop/little bugs They could’ve done so much more with this.
-Collecting specimens in “arks.” It’s kind of cliched to cram biblical stories/prophesies into sci-fi but it also doesn’t make sense in this case. The aliens have the ability to clone a man from scratch, why don’t they just grab some DNA and be done with it? They could’ve even used their nanos and no one would’ve noticed them.
-Fake math on the chalkboard (at least I think it was fake, I didn’t get a good look at it but I don’t think biologists have any equations with trig functions.) In the original they had a similar scene but with real math.
-Biological Altruist. I think this is the last person you should take an alien to if you’re trying to convince him not to destroy humanity. “Well humans are more altruistic towards those who are more closely related to each other which ensures the altruistic genes survival,” isn’t going to impress an alien, in fact aliens probably surely know about evolution and have probably seen similar strategies.
And then finally possible my biggest complaint…
SPOILERS
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At the end the alien decides not to destroy humanity because of our art and love and the mom hugs her stepson and bleh. This alien was willing to commit genocide (speciecide?) a few hours/days ago and then he sees a female with paternal instincts, listens to some humans pounding on noise machines (classical music), and basically gets called a hypocrite by some idiot who can’t do math and now he wants to save us. Come on.
*
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END SPOILERS
If I made the movie I would’ve kept the original plot more or less where the whole story is about Klaatu trying to deliver a message to Earth. For action the humans do something to send Mort on a killing rampage.
#29
If you think that was passionate, John, then you don’t know me. Not that I would expect you to. :)
At least you can watch that movie over there. Twilight’s still showing here in Manila, and the local theaters don’t seem to intend airing Milk (Sean Penn). *Sigh*
My criteria for “good” and “SF” may be looser than some, but here’s a few I’d select:
Primer
A fantastic, befuddling, low-budget film, with essentially no special effects, but which will keep you thinking for days. Very cool to see a solid SF story done in present day without really any visual trickery — it’s all in the plot. I highly recommend this one.
Sunshine
Perhaps a loopy premise (the sun is dying, and needs to be reignited), but the film is visually beautiful and lyrical and melancholy. By Danny Boyle, who did (among other things) Trainspotting.
Unbreakable
Yeah, M. Night, and yeah, it has sort of a twist ending, but in the end it is a genre movie that pretends it isn’t about that genre.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
If Total Recall counts as an SF film, this one does too. May be too funny or surreal for some purists, but it has great acting performances. (Kate Winslet has never looked nummier).
39: All that said, I always thought David Brin’s Sundiver would make a pretty good SF/Mystery movie. The rest of the Uplift novels are probably unfilmable.
Yeah, but Kevin Costner would be cast as the lead, and we all know how that decision turned out in The Postman. Costner thinks he’s an alpha male. (Got news for you, Kevin…) Brin’s first “trilogy” Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War all might be filmable, but I agree with you about the later ones.
For “good” SF movies, Fahrenheit 451 is hard to beat, IMO, but it isn’t quite perfect either. Also, I am completely aware of the truly massive problems with the “eco-hippies in space” movie Silent Running, but it affected me deeply when it first came out (I was 17), and I’ll watch it anytime. Plot holes you could fly a starship through.
#4 Posted by Quiet_Desperation on December 13, 2008 at 2:31 AM
Perhaps, as Joeseph Campbell might note, that’s because the Jesus tale is one of the archetype hero tales. It is a hard story to top… in fact, few even try. A great many of the great works of fiction, just like the Bible, follow that exact archetype. So it should be no wonder that many great Sci-Fi stories do too.
I’ve seen the trailers. It’s easy to be horrified by the remake even if you don’t want to be (I wanted to like the new movie).
JBS
I liked that one, too. While we’re stretching our definitions here, I also really enjoyed Stranger than Fiction, though it’s probably not for everyone (what is?).
My fondness for TDTESS comes from my youth – it was the first sci-fi movie I was allowed to stay up and watch as a kid, so my enjoyment is mostly sentimental.
I’d put 2001 and Blade Runner in a class by themselves, and maybe even add Dark City. For character development, I love Firefly, the original TV series. Not since Star Trek TOS have I enjoyed the interaction of the core of central characters as much. Guess that dates me, but…
There are so many great sci-fi novels out there waiting – Pohl’s Gateway series, or Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love or Stranger in a Strange Land. I was saddened to hear recently that Morgan Freeman’s effort to bring Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama to the screen has been abandoned due to Freeman’s poor health.
Sunshine
I think that if they had concentrated a little more on characters and a little less on special effects, it would have been stronger. Just a little really.
The biggest problem though was that the last ten minutes should be scrapped all together. That ending was clunky and ridiculous. Really horrible, in my opinion.
As far as Unbreakable goes, I can’t imagine what you liked about that. I don’t even know where to begin.
The basic premise could be interesting, but it’s treatment was almost criminal.
Good timing.
I bought the Blu-ray and was going to watch it instead of the new one tonight.
The remake was sort of okay up to the last 20 minutes or so. But I get that with most Hollywood productions lately. Great action and story telling, but the film’s ending is usually so predictable and formalistic I leave the cinema disappointed every single time. I re-watched the original version 30 minutes before seeing the remake, and yes, the remake is quite pointless. Of course, it shows the big budget, but the story telling was very sloppy. The Robert Wise version is great though! Did anybody read the 1940 short story?
Trivia from the original:
“with an eight-foot (2.4-meter) humanoid robot named Gort (played by the 7-foot, 7-inch Lock Martin, who was working as a doorman at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood when discovered).”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=review-day-the-earth-stood-still
Can someone think of a SINGLE really good SF movie that was made in the 21st century ?
Primer.
Seriously. Primer is awesome.
Even bad science fiction is better than any movie made by members of the Religious Reich…
Since the subject is remakes, I’ll stick my neck out and say I really really liked the redux of “War of the Worlds”. Why? It gave me nightmares, the real kind, the kind you last had when you were 5 years old.
I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying I really liked it. I have this wild, unproven theory that the whole thing is a really bad dream the Cruise character is having, revolving around anxieties and insecurities he has about parental responsibility. He even lies down for a nap just before the storm.
So, as an example of total nightmare logic, the aimless plot works pretty well. Even the symbolism almost works. The machinery of death doesn’t come from above, it comes from beneath and within, buried. I especially liked that the first structure to fall in the attack is a church.
Of course my theory explodes 5 minutes before the credits roll, but I always shut the DVD off before that abomination.
I think it fits better in the horror category rather than scifi. Sort of like “Alien”. Even though he struggles with his stoopider, more immature instincts as a storyteller, I still maintain that nobody makes better scary movies than Spielberg does. “Jaws”, the T-Rex attack sequence in the first “Jurassic Park”, and almost all of “WotW”. I just wish he had-
1) the balls to do it more often, and
2) had better scripts.
He’s real in touch with his fear.
*runs and hides*
#44
Yes, A Scanner Darkly. Probably the best Philip K. Dick adaptation I’ve ever seen, and yes I’m including Blade Runner in that line up. I believe Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was made in the 21st century, and while it usually isn’t considered SF I for one can’t see why not.
Yes, there was a connection. Spielberg followed the outline of Kubrick’s treatments, but there is little doubt that Kubrick would have made a very different film, probably a darker and less emotional one.
There are some nice articles of Kubrick’s A.I. over at Kubrick Films.
#61 Posted by Naked Bunny with a Whip on December 13, 2008 at 9:49 AM
I personally feel the genre peaked in the 1880…. ;-).
JBS
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) and ” Forbidden Planet” (1956) – were nothing compared to other Red Scare (better dead than red) sci-fi movies of the 1950’s. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956); “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” 1958 and “Invaders from Mars” (1958)were far superior.
TEFL is a collection of short stories with a connecting framework. Some of the stories are weaker than others but none of them are Heinlein’s best work. The “Notebooks of Lazarus Long” is probably the best thing in the book.
The last story has the immortal Lazarus Long feeling suicidal because he’s bored. So his friends invent and manufacture a time machine so Long can go back to 1916 and screw his mother. The part where Mommy Dearest gives her son a lock of her pubic hair is one of the more disturbing images I’ve come across.
This book was nominated for a Nebula. I’m glad SFWA members showed more taste than to give that award to this piece of softcore porn.
Haven’t seen A Scanner Darkly, thx for the recommendation.
Primer had a great plot, but it’s not enough IMHO to make it a “really good SF movie”.
I really liked Eternal Sunshine, but it’s not because it uses some elements of Science Fiction that it’s an SF movie, it’s clearly in the comedy genre.
Sci Fi movies.
A single good SF movie made in the 21st century:
This is a tough one, and I realize this is stretching a bit as it’s not a movie, but has anyone seen the 21st century re-make of Battlestar Galactica? This is the best SF I have seen in recent memory. If we stick strictly with movies then Code 54 which was a low-key and understated film that failed to receive much play in theaters.
Top 10 SciFi movies (in no particular order)
A Boy and his dog. Classic movie version of the Harlan Ellison short story.
Blade Runner: The Director’s cut. Do not rent the original U.S. release. The studio, evidently unable to fathom the film, brought back star Harrison Ford to do a voice-over narration after taking the film from Director Ridley Scott.
Aliens. The second but best of the series of movies. Try to ignore the fact that the other movies in the franchise even exist. This is one of the few instances of a sequel better than the original. This one works on a number of levels and not just as a space-opera and shoot-em-up. I like Paul Reiser cast against type as a corporate shill.
The Monitors. A science fiction comedy and a parody of TDTESS. Well meaning alien “missionaries” take control of Earth and impose peace and order. An “underground” with such notable members as Avery Schreiber and Larry Storch bungle the resistance movement. I’m one of those people who think comedy movies should not be excluded because they’re not “serious” movies. That’s my bias and I’m sticking to it.
Stalker. Russian SF movie directed by Tarkovsky. You want serious, here you go. Usually fails to make anyone’s top any number list due to its being in Russian with subtitles and difficult to find. American audiences tend to find Russian movies a bit wordy. You have been warned.
Soylent Green. Another one based on a book by Harry Harrison (more of my bias showing). Charleton Heston manages not to ruin this film.
A Clockwork Orange. Classic dystopian view of the future. Borderline choice as it takes place in the not-too-distant future.
They Live. Aliens who resemble rotting corpses who can only be seen for what they really are through special sunglasses symbolize the Reagan Adminstration and its yuppie/fascist adherents. If the songs of Bruce Springsteen were a movie, this would be it. Very goofy and low-tech with some over-acting, but Reaganites portrayed as rotting corpses is too good to leave off. My bias again – bad, bias, naughty!
The Lathe of Heaven. This Ursula K. LeGuin novel has been made into a TV movie twice. I have only seen the 1987 version. She belongs in the same league as Asimov, Ellison, Heinlein and Harrison.
The original War of the Worlds for all the reasons others have already mentioned.
I watched it last night. I’ve never seen the original, but I enjoyed this one for what it was. I try not to compare remakes to originals anyway. It is like comparing movies to the books they are based on…you’re just going to piss yourself off.
SC, OM #77 re: Stranger than fiction.
Yes! I saw this a couple of nights ago and it’s hilarious.
In an earlier thread someone wrote that s/he never saw a decent documentary about science and I replied with a few suggestions. But Dustin Hoffman’s character in Stranger than fiction does an excellent job of demonstrating the scientific approach to problem solving. I recommend it for that more than anything else.
#92: sa54d@earthlink.net
Oh, yes, the Lathe of Heaven. I like both versions, but prefer the 1979 release – possibly because I saw it first. I think i’ve read the book – but at the moment I can’t find it in my library.
JBS
I saw the movie yesterday at the first showing and I thought that the first part was very good.
I’m 55 and I always considered the original to be one of the best SciFi movies ever made (then again, I like “Dark Star”). When Gort stepped out of the ship and melted all the weapons, you knew it was a different than the usual 50’s BEM (bug eyed monster) movie which seemed to dominate the theaters. In the end the message was clear.
The remake lacked the message. It went along looking like it would be a really good movie and then it just fell apart. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone but just suffice it to say a great deal was left unresolved and human kind was left in a situation that was almost as bad as being destroyed. There were about 30 people in the theater and I heard several people say “huh?”. Usually you hear the geeks talking it up but there was mostly silence.
I do recommend you see this movie (and any SciFi movie) in an IMAX theater. It was so stunning in IMAX it almost made you forget the lousy ending.
They ran a trailer for the upcoming Star Trek movie and it looks like it will come out in IMAX as well. The trailer was very good.
Naked Bunny @ 61
BWAHAHAHA, I loved your post, you are so right. This is something I’ve been talking about for years in reference to musical tastes. You want to start hearing some very intelligent people say some really stupid things, start talking about music.
Most people seem totally unable to grok any major paradigm shift in popular music after the age of 22yrs old at the latest. It’s almost like the language acquisition window closing after certain ages.
Anyway, the poster is correct about sci-fi films peaking in the 80’s as long as the reference is to volume. As fas a quality, for every Terminator or Alien produced, there were bucketloads of Star Trek movies and worse.
Kinda like music in the 60’s. Sure, there is a lot of great music from the sixties, there was a lot of music, but most of it was just awful. It’s like today with the hip-hop explosion. Hip hop is a great genre, but EVERYBODY thinks they are a rapper.
Woe unto you if you get stuck listening to your nephew rap to some beats on his way to being the next Eminem.
Thanks for all the scifi book recommends — I’ve been looking for a Christmas present for my BF and have been coming up short. :D
I think peoples’ attachments to the old movies come in part BECAUSE they are corny. I know that’s why I love watching the old Dr. Who series. It’s cheezy, and low budget, and it knows it and so doesn’t take itself too seriously. Not too many low-budget shows today do that. Or movies.
That’s why I have no patience for movies. Because 90% of them suck and take themselves seriously when they have no right to do so.
As far as good Sci-Fi goes, I would put Serenity in any top 5 list. I have a hard time coming up with more than 10 good sci-fi movies ever, anyway. 2001, Aliens, Alien, The first half of Event Horizon (please don’t flame me), Fifth Element, Serenity, the Original Starwars, Bladerunner, Maybe Minority Report (I don’t think I’d see it again, though, so maybe not).
I’d want them to make movies of China Meivile’s Perdido Street Station and Joan D. Vinge’s Snow/Summer Queen.
But then, I don’t want them to crap on my favourite novels.
sa54d, that’s a great list, with many of my faves on it as well. I’m delighted to see that someone else has actually seen Stalker — a brilliant film, and another that doesn’t use any special effects (except at the very end).
If you liked that film, you should definitely see Tarkovsky’s Solaris, which is (in my opinion) a much better film that the recent version (and sticks far closer to the intent of the original Stanislaw Lem book, which is also brilliant).
And Hairy Doctor Professor, I too have a deep love for Silent Running, however problematic it is. It’s such a wonderfully emotional film, and heck, it gave us droids!
Oh crap! How did I miss Dark City and Clockwork Orange. That makes 10 1/2 scifi movies that didn’t suck! Ever!
another piece of trivia about the original TDTESS is that there were two costumes made for gort. the reason was he was supposed to be encased in a seamless “metal” suit. therefore one was made with a zipper in the front for scenes showing his back, and one with a zipper in the back for scenes showing his front.
however, there is an editing oversight in a scene where you can see the zipper.
as for a decent SF movie, i personally enjoyed the director’s cut of the abyss.
Negen @ 66 I can’t think of any “peak” in drama, comedy, thrillers, etc… there’s at least a few movies each year in those genres that I’d consider “really good”, but in SF
Negen your argument is flawed. Drama and Comedy aren’t genres, they are very broad theatrical terms. A Western is a genre, it can be a comedy or a drama, same with Sci Fi. A genre is a sub category of Drama or Comedy (formerly known as Comedies or Tragedies)
Film Noir, Westerns, Gangster movies, Pirate Movies, Fantasy, Sci-fi, War Movies. Those are genres.
You must turn in your Frenchman card now for making such a cinematic blunder, certainly an Italian would never make that mistake.
Where is your PRIDE !!
I’m going to slice my eye open now.
I was kinda disappointed in TDTESS, despite having low expectations. For many of us (me included), the biggest source of sci-fi-film enjoyment seems to be complaining about them afterwards. So, perhaps we’ve gotten our money out of this one after all!
I find it hard to enjoy films that require one to be making a constant conscious effort to suspend disbelief. O.K., here are some of my beefs:
Why — instead of waiting for his human body to be fully developed — does Klaatu first emerge from the sphere while he’s still forming inside a blob of placenta-like material?
Klaatu’s community of aliens supposedly is committed to preserving the all-too-rare planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life. Presumably intelligent life is even rarer, so it seems odd that they would be so ready to commit genocide against such a species.
If the filmmakers want to impress us with how smart Klaatu is, why don’t they try harder to make it believable?
For example, I would rather have heard “Klaatu barada nikto” again than Keanu speaking Mandarin. The contrast with James Hong’s speech kinda broke any spell of verisimilitude.
Another example: I just caught a glimpse of the equations Klaatu erased from John Cleese’s blackboard, but they looked more impressive (and more neatly written) than what Keanu scrawled over it … which looked like some basic stuff including a short PDE with a sine function in it.
And … what was that gibberish from Klaatu about his species deciding to evolve because their sun was going out (or whatever)? Sounds like giraffes developing long necks because they want to reach those tasty high-up leaves. OTOH, maybe he meant they decided to genetically engineer themselves?
I think that there’s been some decent SF on television. Battlestar Galactica is probably the best of the recent stuff but there are others which are quite entertaining: I rather like Eureka.
Of C21 movies, I think Dark Knight was really very good, if you can count that as SF.
One of the problems of course is that SF movies have tended to place action and special effects above plot and characterisation. Part of that is due to lack of time: it’s difficult to make a moview of a novel because there’s simply too much information involved. Short stories are much more amenable.
That’s perhaps one reason it does better on TV. There’s much more time available.
I was thinking about remakes recently. I’ve not been a fan of them in general – and not just SF films. But is that reasonable? We don’t complain about “remakes” in the theatre. Is it so different?
ggab I must admit that I was angry with that one going in.
There was a rumour floating around for years that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick were going to join forces again for a movie called A.I.
I can see why you would be disappointed. I caught it on late night TV, I stopped channel surfing when I saw William Hurt, and really got sucked in. It was a strange mix of elements, and I sure couldn’t guess where it was going, which is a plus for me. I can usually predict an ending from the first five minutes of a Hollywood production.
I did like it, and there were some good performances IMO. If I were expecting Kubrick I would have been going WTF??
I found out later that Kubrick had struggled with it for years. He gifted it to Spielburg and stated it was more his cup of tea, then Spielburg re-wrote it.
It had Spielburg stamped all over it, but it had some really dark and twisted moments, I think he was consciously trying to channel Ridley Scott.
It thought it might have been an attempt to adopt a Philip K Dick story, which is why I looked it up.
sa54d@earthlink.net
“Aliens. The second but best of the series of movies. Try to ignore the fact that the other movies in the franchise even exist. This is one of the few instances of a sequel better than the original.”
I don’t even know what to say to this.
Partly because I loved Aliens. It’s not like I disagree with what a quality film that it was but…really?
To each his own I guess.
The first installment will always be a favorite of mine.
“You misunderstand,” said Gnut, “I am the master.”
Maybe the best plot twist ever?
I have to say that BSG was a very pleasant surprise to me. I think that is in part because it’s one of those rare TV sci-fi series in which the individual episodes (usually) contribute to the overarching story line of the series. (Well, for those series that even have one!)
I usually don’t enjoy series that consist of episodes that could easily be discarded w/o affecting the overall story. Stargate Atlantis comes to mind as one of those.
QED @ 78
If you want to see Heinlien humilliated, check out Starship Troopers.
What a gawd-awful piece of shit, it was like Logans Run with large insects, explosions, and worse acting.
It was one of those movies where you actually cheered as the heroes were being wiped out, they deserved to die for participating in such an atrocity, I was hoping somebody’s head would spontaneously combust from all the hairspray.
I have to disagree, scooter — I thought Starship Troopers was a brilliant political satire (but then again, I think Heinlein is hugely over-rated, and that the book was a plodding polemic).
Scooter
I’m with you on Starship Troopers.
I thought that there were a couple of clever devices, but over all it was pretty damn poor.
Besides Battlestar Galactica (much better than the original Battlestar Stupidica). I’ve enjoyed Babylon Five, Deep Space Nine, and Firefly. Star Trek: Voyager started off well but then sank lower and lower until it became the “Seven of Boobs” show. I could never get into Star Trek: Enterprise. Farscape was rather uneven, but I’ve never forgiven the SciFi Channel for cancelling it in favor of Tremors (which either sucked or blew, I’m not sure which).
…
…Admit how much I loved Logan’s Run?…
…
Nah.
Interesting. I hadn’t focused on that aspect, but it’s true. Good point.
ggab @ 106
I’m with you. Alien re-defined the Horror SciFi Genre with the sets by Giger, and the creepiness. Also, it was great how they killed the most famous actor first, then the hero guy gets it next. Alien was very unpredictable, great plot. Aliens is one of the most predictable movies ever made.
Who did not know at the beginning that the jar heads were all going to be slaughtered like Star Trek Beam-down Red shirt extras, that Ridley and the little girl would escape, right before the big explosion.
It was worth seeing as a good shoot-em-up adventure flick. Not that scary though, I don’t think it qualified for /horror status.
One of my favorite movies from the black and white Friday Night Frights era was “It came from Outer Space”.
Alien was a remake of that flick.
If you love corny old sci-fi flicks with Subgenius passion, you’ll love ‘It Came from Outer Space’.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned Men in Black, not a lot of great sci-fi comedies around.
Scooter,
Examples of film genre :
drama, comedy, SF, …
Can I have my PRIDE back ? ;-)
The SF novel I would most like to see made into a movie is Greg Bear’s “Forge of God”.
Because, just once, I’d like to see a blockbuster alien invasion movie where the humans actually lose.
I agree. I read Heinlein when I was very young, some of my first SF. Fortunately, I skipped Troopers in print, only to be astonished at the campiness of the film. Heinlein was influential to me because he pushed the envelope with social issues – he did often make me “uncomfortable” with the subject matter, but more importantly, as a teenager, he made me think about why it was disturbing, rationally examining taboos that were issued by society at large. He reinforced my already liberal social position of “live and let live”, concerning both sex and religion. As a born skeptic of religion, the Notebooks of Lazarus Long in TEFL were oxygen to my budding religious doubts with quotes like:
“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has an rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.”
But that was a long time ago. These days, my favorite SF author by far is Varley. His gender-bending Steel Beach and The Golden Globe were his best IMO, with more recent works like Red Thunder and Mammoth more mundane but still entertaining. Red Thunder would probably do very well as a film.
I agree with Tulse: Starship Troopers was a fantastic political satire, even more potent today with our newly-neverending war on terrorism. Scooter, I think you should revisit it, and try to keep Heinlein out of mind [I find this quite easy, as I again agree with Tulse: his writing is leaden at best, tho’ some of his ideas are pretty cool]: a film should be taken on its own merits, as a standalone work of art.
As to the original “Day the Earth Stood Still,” whatever you think of the film, it has, IMHO, one of the 3 greatest film scores ever recorded, and not just for its pioneering & excellent use of the Theremin. Music for film really doesn’t get any better than Bernard Hermann. If it does, I’d love to hear it.
Speaking of the Theremin, if you’ve not seen the documentary “Theremin,” run, don’t walk, to Netflix & see it immediately. In addition to being an extremely well-made film about an utterly fascinating man [and a titan of bridging 20th century science with art], it has one the most emotionally devastating scenes I’ve ever seen on film, when Lev Theremin is reunited, after forty some-odd years apart, with Clara Rockmore, his muse/protege/lover. Fire & electricity erupt from their eyes & off the screen. Beautiful & fantastic both.
The Arrival
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115571/
Not creepy or scary, but original, compelling and highly effective.
However, whomever conceived the sequel should have received a lifetime ban from Hollywood.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder BUT…
Alien(s), 1 and 2, were both good flicks IMO with the first being an up to date “10 Little Indians”. Blade Runner, while far from the original story, was enjoyable as a story and visually.
On the wee tube, I’d have to vote for STNG and DS 9. As in all series, they win some, lose some but “Far Beyond the Stars” from DS9 and “The Inner Light” from STNG were quite good stories.
Finally, “Galaxy Quest” was just fun.
I’m on my first Pratchett novel, trying to get back into reading, and drag my kids along. We’re doing the library to get out of the house.
Got Dragon Riders of Pern for my 10 year old boy, trying to suck him into sci-fi with a Harry Potter interface like Dargon Riders.
He sucked up those Harry Potter books like candy, learned to read on them. Actually he learned to read when he discovered my Calvin And Hobbes collection, then straight to Harry Potter. This was after resisting his teachers all the way through second grade.
I’m a sucker for Sci-Fi, and Osment is the best child actor I can remember seeing, but I hated A.I. It’s essentially Pinnochio, but drowned in such an excess of maudlin sentimentality, it makes Disney look like film noir. I’m amazed the first reel made it through a projector, dripping that much syrupy schmaltz. It’s thoroughly nauseating.
Scooter
I just followed your link and…well…
I seem to have stumbled upon a photo of your family performing some sort of anti-hurricane pagan ritual.
You appear to be lighting blood-red candles and swinging a ferret around.
1)Does that work?
2)How does the ferret feel about it?
Miklos Rozsa’s score for Spellbound is unquestionably the theremin movie score. If you haven’t seen Pamelia Kurstin’s TED performance, you really should.
I’m a huge fan of Kubrick (and Osment as well), so I tried to like AI in spite of the hand-off to Spielberg. Unfortunately, your description is on-target. I didn’t hate the entire film, but the ending must have had Stanley spinning in his grave.
I would really, really like to see Iain M. Bank’s culture and something from Timothy Zahn’s Those are my fav writers as far as I’m concerned. I think they’re doing rendevouz with rama which of course, I wouldn’t miss even if Ken Ham was in the cast… but what I would really like to see, is a cinema version of ringworld. That would undoubtely put a challenge for CGI artists and screenplayers.
Thanks, Emmet! Although, I have to say that I’m less than impressed by Ms. Kurstin’s intonation [if yer gonna be a pro, be a pro, I say]…
Whatever you do, don’t start with his first few novels — they are nowhere near the level of humour and thoughtfulness of his later works, which are brilliant. For those interested in religion and atheism, I’d suggest Small Gods, as it is relatively unconnected to the other stories in his world, but definitely showcases his intensely clever yet humane writing style. I’m also a huge fan of his “City Watch” novels, such as Guards! Guards! and Men at Arms.
And of course, at this time of year, there’s the wonderful Hogfather.
amphiox @116
funny… i was thinking of this story earlier. i particularly enjoyed it because i have lived in the places where it takes place and could picture the events. who says there always has to be a happy ending?
though, the sequel anvil of stars had me lost. i don’t think it would make a good followup.
I’ll have to agree to disagree with Tulse and HOW on Starship Troopers.
I’m not sure if I can express this but I’ll try.
It did not seem satirical to me at all, but the facsistic overtones were not lost on me.
I would describe it as another futuristic dystopia set in outer space. The reason I wouldn’t call it satire is because there was nothing allegorical about it, it’s message hit you in the teeth with a baseball bat, like Road Warrior or Clockwork Orange, which I would not classify as satirical.
The acting was terrible, and it looked like it was shot on videotape.
But I just saw it last year for the first time.
I also find Heinlien ponderous, and of all the well-known sci-fi authors, his novels were among few I could not finish, but he did write some good stuff, too. Very inconsistent, sometimes he wrote as if he were being paid by the word.
I forgot about Red Dwarf for sci-fi comedy, great series.
I’ll probably get flamed for this, but I liked Soldier with Kurt Russel as long as we’re talking about futuristic fascism and sci-fi interplanetery shock troops. Written by David Peoples who co-wrote the Blade Runner screen play.
It is WAAAY dark, with a little bit of corniness to keep it rolling.
The hippies on the garbage dump planet crack me up, it has a decent plot.
Zardoz.
Zontar.
#127 how,
For someone described as a virtuoso, I don’t think she starts off particularly well, but her talk leaves me with the impression that she’s a shy character and may have been a bit nervous. She’s playing it well beyond the normal “wuuuuh-ooooh” sound-effect or slow, melancholy style stuff that you usually hear, and the plucked bass simulation toward the end of Autumn Leaves is pretty amazing. If you know of a better performance on a theremin, I’d love to hear it.
ggab You appear to be lighting blood-red candles and swinging a ferret around.
1)Does that work?
2)How does the ferret feel about it?
The ferret was photographed in mid-escape from the clutches of my evil wife.
That’s what ferrets do when you pick them up, ESCAPE!!
They don’t seem to mind that they often land on their faces.
Check out my Christmas tree in the home page link.
http://acksisofevil.org
We couldn’t find the Angel tree topper which represents the ‘I am a moron’ meaning of Santa Claus Day.
I’m glad Eternal Sunshine came up. That’s one of my favorites.
Another I can recommend is Dark City. For the longest time I avoided watching it, and assumed it was garbage, but then I finally saw it on TV and got sucked in. It’s like a darker, much better version of the original Matrix.
Watching it again recently, I found the effects to be dated, but that’s inevitable in SF, so I don’t see that as something to complain about.
Oh, and then there’s Paprika. It’s worth it just for the music. Who says no good SF is made anymore?
Mytho @ 126
I think they’re doing rendevouz with rama which of course, I wouldn’t miss even if Ken Ham was in the cast
OMIGOD I loved that book. I always thought it would be a great movie, think of all the satirical consumer society in retrograde sub-texts.
I can’t wait.
Pitch Black is a surprisingly good sci-fi film. It’s nearly the opposite of its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick.
I saw this movie last night, and yeah, it mostly sucked. The predictability was incredible. I kept waiting for a major plot twist, but alas nothing came. I was mildly entertained, but not impressed overall. I think the best part was when the light bulb on the projector burnt out, and since it was off for 20 minutes and they didn’t bother to rewind the movie as they said they would when the light was fixed,w e got free movie passes. So not a total waste of money, in the end.
PZ, I am really intrigued though about what horrified you so much about the trailers to this movie that you would call its concept worse than Expelled? That intense juxtaposition I just can’t figure out.
Mytho @ 126
I think they’re doing rendevouz with rama which of course, I wouldn’t miss even if Ken Ham was in the cast
OMIGOD I loved that book. I always thought it would be a great movie, think of all the satirical consumer society in retrograde sub-texts.
I can’t wait.
It’s sort of a Forbidden Macy’s Planet storyline
I never watched tremors, but the sudden vacuum caused by the removal of Farscape sure sucked.
What the hell is the matter with the Sci-Fi channel these days, anyway? Wrestling, the idiotic Ghost Hunters, even the little cartoony in-between-commercial vignettes are lame.
I think it’s been taken over by pod-people. In suits.
David Fincher’s Rendezvous with Rama Officially Dead
Can someone think of a SINGLE really good SF movie that was made in the 21st century ?
Wall-E
Serenity
And if you get away from the realm of big budgets:
Rent “Primer”. A time travel film so complicated it needs a flow chart. Filmed on a budget of $7000. Yes, seven *thousand*.
http://www.primermovie.com/
Others:
Idiocracy
Equilibrium. This is the film that made me suggest, before *ANYONE* else, that Christian Bale might make a good Batman. Or a good Bruce Wayne, rather. Smart superhero filmmakers cast for the alter ego, *not* the hero.
Not to mention a bevy of decent superhero flicks, plenty of TeeVee series (BSG, Dr. Who, etc.) and the ever present supply of anime (Ghost In the Shell series, Cowboy Bebop movie).
Starship Troopers — “gawd-awful piece of shit” or “brilliant political satire”? Neither, I think. The movie is essentially an enjoyable action romp, with some amusing satirical vignettes of a totalitarian future, and the special effects were impressive at the time. IIRC, the main criticism of the film at the time was that it essentially omitted the political commentary of the novel. Altogether: enjoyable but forgettable. The only reason to remember this film is the style of the newsflashes, which has been copied in a few computer games.
It’s a good flick, but a bit too Picasso for my taste.
lol
Well Scooter, it should have been a great flick, too bad that apparently it’s a dead proyect :(
I’ve never seen the movie Starship Troopers but I’ll make one comment about the book. Heinlein makes it obvious that while he knew a lot about the military, he knew very little about war. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 but was medically discharged from the Navy in 1935. He spent World War II working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard (along with L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov) and never was involved in combat. Like many non-combat veterans, he had a glorified idea about combat which shows in many of his works, particularly Starship Troopers.
If someone gave *me* the budget, I’d do Roger Zelazny’s “Creatures Of Light And Darkness” simply because some of the imagery to be had there could make film history.
Other books I’d film:
Harry Harrison’s “One Step From Earth”
John Varley’s “Red Thunder”
John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War”
Movies I would remake.
“The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen” – They deviated from the Alan Moore comic so much, it would hardly count as a remake.
“Barbarella” (Actually being remade, I think)
Maybe one of the Quatermass films.
Zombies Of The Stratosphere :-) Seriously. I think many of those old B-movies could be reworked into awsome SF action adventures.
Fifth Element? Science-fiction? With the twelve-stranded DNA? <wallowing on the floor laughing> I’d call it “fantasy”. Or just simply “fairytale”.
As such, it wasn’t bad, though (as far as I remember).
#143 Mytho
actually forbidden planet is in fact in preproduction with j. michael straczynski writing the script. it is rendezvous with rama which is no longer.
I assume you’re kidding. If not, I beg to differ. Equilibrium opened in the US sometime in late 2002/early 2003. The “Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne” casting rumors began well before that. In fact, I believe Darren Aronofosky offered the role to him sometime in 2000 or 2001 when he was attempting to adapt Frank Miller’s Year One. It didn’t take much of a genius to see that the guy who nailed the role of Patrick Bateman, a playboy with a dark side, could make a good Bruce Wayne.
I agree, with only a single exception. 2001: A Space Odyssey was brilliant.
As several have said already – people’s taste in fiction and particularly science fiction is as varied as people are. I kind of come from the Frank Zappa school of sci-fi fans: I like the escapism of it and if it isn’t trying too hard, I’m not too critical; the harder they try to be “real” the more critical I get.
I just saw the remake of TDTESS and thought it was okay. The visual aspects of it were quite good. Some of the acting was pretty good. There were aspects of the plot that were good and some that did make you go “huh?” (I am so spoiled by being able to scan back with DVDs and DVRs I constantly want to “rewind” and run through things again). I’m in my mid-50s too and really liked the original TDTESS – I understand the criticism but it works for me with the sole exception of the “only god” blurb at the end. The new movie had none of that. The thing that puzzled me most was having seen the original film, I could fill in some of the gaps, but what about those who hadn’t? I think the ending is up for interpretation and maybe not as bad as most see it. But there is a LOT that isn’t really clear. They could really have chosen a MUCH better Klaatu though.
One movie I’d like to see made if they could do it right is Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land”. It has great skeptical overtones to it as well as counter culture. I have to second a number of folks who loved the Firefly/Serenity series/movie. I was not impressed when my son told me it was by the Buffy creator but I loved the way Whedon does “Space” and the not too distant future – seems more realistic than Star Trek or most other Space Operas. The cast is outstanding as well.
Doesn’t anyone read anything new? Anything that actually discusses the technology or concerns of our age and our future? How about filming Accelerando (Charlie Stross), Eastern Standard Tribe (Cory Doctorow) or even some more recent Clarke collaborations like Light of Future Days (Clarke and Baxter). How about getting out of the straitjacket of 120 minute adaptations by a return to serialization
It isn’t just the bean counters who have no imagination.
And just for the record as it seems to be important here I am 53 and have been reading science fiction of various kinds for as long as I can remember including many of the supposed greats and all of them can be surpassed (yes, even Wells, Clarke, Asimov, Aldiss, Wyndham, Heinlein, Pohl, Anderson, Kuttner, etc., etc.), we should learn from the masters not imitate them.
In the spirit of the season, bah humbug!
P.s. Still I’m glad to see A Clockwork Orange included in the SF genre.
Someone should film Stanislaw Lem’s Fiasco–a book that had my nerves jangling for days after reading it (and Hollywood surely needs to atone for the mess that was made of Solaris.)
I’ll second The Monitors, not least because of the climactic use of a Zero-Point Energy weapon…and the frighteningly realistic aftermath…
Okay, I’ll jump in with my faves in movie and TV science fiction over the last couple of decades –
Stargate: SG1. A series that spent ten years treating science in ways that ranged from passable to magnificent (the episode with the newly-formed black hole was very well-researched and terrifying), and consistently delivered the anti-theistic message “ALL gods are false gods”.
Babylon 5. Yes, JMS played around with various layers of religious symbolism, but his own atheism still showed through. It was smart, political, well-written and well-acted. He also gave us space battle sequences that were unrivaled until –
Battlestar Galactica. I eagerly watched the original as an adolescent and despised it as a young adult and beyond. Ron Moore’s reboot is one of the greatest pieces of television ever done.
Firefly and Serenity. Whedon is a gorram genius and a brilliant storyteller. I still cry over Wash.
Mass Effect. It’s not a movie or TV show, it’s a video game. And it’s one of the most brilliant and compelling pieces of SCIENCE fiction I’ve ever encountered in a visual medium. Short take – imagine that Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczinski loosely adapted David Brin’s Uplift novels as a television series with a handful of material from Moore’s Galactica and you’ve got Mass Effect. Full review here at my blog.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was uneven, but its best moments were both great television and great science fiction. I believe I saw someone earlier mention the episode “The Inner Light”; I think it was the finest moment Star Trek ever had.
2010. Most people prefer the original, I know. I found the relationship between HAL 9000 and Doctor Chandra to be the most important part of the film.
The Abyss. The best damn piece of film James Cameron ever shot, or ever will.
Eureka. Yes, it’s light-hearted and sometimes just cutesy, but it’s surprisingly smart and often throws back its head to roar “SCIENCE!!!” with contagious enthusiasm.
The new Doctor Who. Unashamedly atheistic and, though it applies science with several winks and nods, it clearly articulates the notion that science is our greatest tool. A good companion to Eureka.
The Sci-Fi Channel version of Dune from about eight years ago. Almost enough to cleanse the name David Lynch from your brain…
The Last Starfighter. It’s purely a guilty pleasure, and I won’t try to pretend otherwise. :-)
Star Trek movies Two and Four. I’d also add that I liked the much-reviled Insurrection, because it was a film about standing up for your stated principles even when others deem them inconvenient. Seems quite relevant the last few years…
That’s just off the top of my head. I could come up with more if I dug through my library, I’m sure…
Oh! Two more – Pitch Black and its sequel, Chronicles of Riddick. The first was a film that many people didn’t realize was hard-science fiction unless they paid close attention, and the second was a brilliant and scathing indictment of Bush Administration foreign policy.
Yikes! Improper closure of italics tags! Danger, Will Robinson!
I was really sleepy when I wrote my last post, so I probably sounded too dogmatic. There are a lot of SF films that I like. I’ve watched Blade Runner over and over, for example.
Since I was heavily influenced by him growing up, I just wanted to chime in with a defense of Heinlein. If your only impression of him is through the movie Starship Troopers, you’re seriously misled. (The Puppet Masters was terrible, too.)
I know that the critics now have painted him as some kind of crazed right-winger, but you can’t get much more left-wing than me, and Heinlein has to take a large share of the responsibility for that. That said, anything he wrote after his stroke (that is, anything after The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) would have been considered unpublishable had anyone else’s name been on it.
I would love to see someone make a movie of Stranger in a Strange Land just to see the fundies’ heads explode. I’d probably want to burn down the theater on the way out, though: like with Dune.
Somebody accused him of writing like he was being paid by the word. They recently published the original version of Stranger in a Strange Land before the publisher made him cut it down. The degree of compression he achieved without sacrificing anything is amazing, and he supposedly helped Niven and Pournelle do the same thing with The Mote in God’s Eye.
Speaking of which, TMGE would make an interesting movie, too. Somehow N & P fascist meanderings are less objectionable in the Second Empire universe than they are closer to home. But then again, Footfall might be actually filmable….
I didn’t like either of them. The former was a horror movie bulldog with Sci-Fi lipstick, and the latter, in particular, a lame self-promotional piece for Vin Diesel, who seems to be a latter-day Jean-Claude Van Damme, but without the acting talent ;o)
Eric Saveau, you praise the science in Stargate: SG1?
I found it appalling – it was riddled with mysticism, science was portrayed as indistinguishable from magic, psionics were a recurring theme, and evolution was given a teleological slant (leading to “higher beings”) and applied to individuals. Oh yeah, and everyone in both galaxies and the (ahem) various planes of existence/dimensions conveniently speaks English (a stupidity that at least the source movie avoided), except when the plot dictates otherwise.
I gave it up when RDA left the series, at least he made it amusing.
Man, what a crappy movie. Really corny! Wow. Don’t see it, people.
I like 2010 as well. It’s extremely dated (the USSR is no more) but had good acting, good special effects, and a decent story. Just yesterday I quoted the bit with Floyd and Curnow discussing hot dogs:
“I’d love a hot dog.”
“Astrodome, good hot dogs.”
“You can’t grow a good hot dog indoors. Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been boiling since opening day in April. Now that’s a hot dog.”
“The yellow mustard or the darker kind?”
“The darker kind.”
“Very important.”
David Lynch is talented in portraying pathological twisted psyches. There has never been a Lynch film with a believeable protagonist, even Elephant Man was a horror story about someone horribly abused.
Since Dune is one of them Hero Journey tales, it was destined to be a disaster. He did have some right nasty Harkonnens though, didn’t he?
Totally agree with 2010.
It didn’t try to be 2001 at all (thank goodness).
The relationship between Chandra and Hal was great. Their last scene together made me tear up.
Keir Dullea hadn’t aged since 2001.
Everyone in that movie was fantastic.
A real gem of a film.
I’m devastated by Roy Schieder’s death. I was hoping he’d have a big comeback.
#64 No, he was also doing the physics equations on the chalkboard – I don’t know what field(s) he was in.
#71 -Fake math on the chalkboard (at least I think it was fake,
Nope, it is supposed to be real. Sean Caroll (the other one) consulted.
Best film adaptation: The Martian Chronicles with Rock Hudson
Best 21st century: The Returner
Book I’d like to see adapted to film: Herbert’s The Dosadi Experiment
Most unknown movie: Mimsy
As far the movie the remake of TDTESS, it’s from Fox so I don’t expect them to go out of thier way to promote a flick that portrays science in a positive light.
Emmet,
#s 132&157
For theremin virtuosity, go to the source: Clara Rockmore. Astonishing on every level.
As to Vin Diesel, don’t sell the man short: while his choices of films are nothing to write home about, I thought he was terrific in “Find Me Guilty,” especially considering he carried the entire movie.
He was also the voice talent for the title role in “The Iron Giant,” an excellent animated feature.
What bothers me isn’t remakes (that’s just irritating), but that there are plenty of books that could easily be adapted without a gargantuan budget if they’re going to insist on adapting works from one medium to another.
Sure, it’d be nice to see a nice 7 hour movie of something like “Hyperion,” but why?
You could easily do something like “Kirinyaga” without the need for too much money. There are plenty of unknown books that would work well. I’m not going to make a list as it would be far too long.
Only a few have mention the most recent Dr Who – and no one the spin-off Torchwood (brilliant also).
Larry Niven, despite some pretty right-wing views has written some great stories – not just Ringworld, but the whole Known Space including the guest authors for the Man Kzin Wars. Both Known Space and Man Kzin I figure would make a great outer limits style series or two (with ringworld movies for further spin-offs)
Of recent movies, the one standout this century that even I overlooked must be AeonFlux (not the animation, I don’t really know that). This is surely the only quantum level, nanotech aware movie produced. I must admit to some flaws, but few movies made have managed to capture this level of tech, transhumanist body sculpting etc and done it mostly right.
I will cast a vote for Pitch Black (and a 2nd pref for Riddick) but Claudia Black is the consistent best feature of these, Farscape and the later SG1s.
I really hated the old BSG and barely tolerate the new one – that hand-held camera approach really pisses me off. Its got old since Hill Street Blues.
Star Trek is just a little sterile for my liking these days, and at fear of flaming, I liked the whole Voyager series over the others, but I like them all except DS9 (which went all religious and seemed more like General Hospital). Only a couple of episodes (with Quark) were worth watching imnsho.
With mention of Silent Running, what about Dark Star?
For a comedy scifi – Galaxy Quest and whilst I have mentioned Iain M. Banks before – The Use Of Weapons still chills me as a horror story, and barely a day goes by when I don’t cringe at the sight of an upholstered chair ;) It would be great as a movie.
As a general ask to the group – does anyone know where I can get a copy of the BBC remake of Day of the Triffids as a mini-series? It was done around the 1980s I think. The movie (50s) may be a classic but destroyed the story, the mini-series was almost identical to the book.
Eureka is brilliant, but its only up to 2nd episode here on cable in oz.
Emmet @ 142
That is probably the main reason I liked it. It was very strange and surreal. It reminded me of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” in some ways. Which is, come to think of it, another awesome SF movie.
Hyperion? Of course. Instead of a 7 hour movie, the Canterbury Tales style lends itself to a series with movie-length episodes – more like piorot than a mini-series.
The Dosadi Experiment would also be one I would like to see as a movie, but the prequel, The Whipping Star is a bit of an embarrassment.
The Stainless Steel Rat would make a great comedy series.
Roy Schieder is dead!!!!???? I just told my wife, she asked if it was a shark attack
Matt @168. Brazil was a little too dystopian for my tastes, but a classic all the same. As a bizarre real life example of that guerrila repair guy from the movie:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/top-secret-repair-job-was-no-windup/2007/11/26/1196036817455.html
The original is superior in many ways, but there is that one glaring line about how only the “great spirit” can ultimately decide how long someone will live.
*minor spoiler*
The new one makes much more sense in that the threat of extermination is specifically aimed at humans… the aliens want to protect the earth from humans who are doing too much damage to one of only a handful of life-capable planets. But then the military is portrayed as even more buffoonish than in the original and the whole premise seems flawed in that the idea of giving humans a stern warning is quickly abandoned in favor of a total cleansing. This makes the superior aliens just seem like impatient assholes.
It needed way more Gort too, I kept wanting them to cut back to him standing in the park with people trying to work out what to do with him.
The 80s gave us a lot of great sf, written and visual.
A good chunk of my favorite guilty pleasure novels are from that era.
Steve Perry – The Man Who Never Missed
Richard S. McEnroe – Skinner
Karl Hansen – War Games
Christopher Hinz – Liege-Killer
Alan Dean Foster – Midworld
Among others.
Why couldn’t new wave stuff be adapted. Something like “Dying Inside” could be made for next to nothing.
Peter McKellar@170
That is awesome! A real life secret repair team. I think I might have to get into that business.
I mean, I’ve been interested in draining, and exploring abandoned buildings for a while, but actually fixing something under someone’s nose would be a rush.
Though the lawsuits would be annoying.
Matt,
After I first read that link I wanted to pry the grate off the stormwater outside and start setting up a secret hideout.
Since reading that I have spent way too much time looking at the backgrounds (eg walls) of fringe french sites. A surprising number have curved walls like the underground, so I suspect the network the police discovered must be quite extensive. I guess the underground made life difficult for the Nazis and there was no reason to forget it all once they left.
I know that a few homeless live in Sydney’s stormwater drains, and flash floods often drown or flush out teenagers, but I don’t think anything like the french underground exists here, if anywhere else in the world (but I could be very, very wrong)
If I remember correctly, the original story, Farewell to the Master had Gort as the master, a robot, who creates Klaatu in man’s image to spread peace on earth. The fact that Gort is the master is the surprise twist.
In the movie, they originally had Gort resurrect Klaatu using the same advanced technology that created him. That was changed to refer to a higher power of some sort. Of course, any magic sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from technology.
ggab #106 Re: Alien vs. Aliens
If you consider the first one, Alien, as a horror movie then the two should not even be compared to each other. But as Science Fiction the first movie has little to offer – only the crew picked off one by one. No social/political/moral/economic dimension at all. Thus it fails as good Science Fiction. To understand the difference between the more thoughtful and interesting on the one hand and the space-opera shoot-’em-up on the other, I like to use Isaac Asimov’s limerick:
What is the difference between SF and sci-fi?
Well, you see, there’s a fine line
between Robert Heinlein
and “Son of the Two-Headed Fly
A bit of additional clarification about my comments regarding the “Alien” movies:
The first one was a fantastic movie, but my mind (which works in mysterious ways sometimes) classified it as “horror.” The predictability of the outcome of the second one did not concern me as much. Comparisons between “the other” species and ours, especially in the Paul Reiser character, made the second one more interesting to me.
The third and fourth ones sucked beyond the telling of it.
I haven’t seen it yet, but my son liked it.
You might be interested to learn that at least the film had a good science advisor- Seth Shostak of the SETI institute.
Steve,
SF is the good stuff with literary ambitions that concerns itself with extrapolating ideas into a society.
Sci-fi is the cliched stuff: aliens, space-ships, time travel, laser guns.
Most visual stuff is sci-fi.
Not a fan of Forrest J. Ackerman, I take it? ;-)
I enjoyed the movie. It’s good entertainment, fun cgi, a moral lesson. My family grew into atheism through my grandfather’s love of Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Science/Speculative Fiction is an huge part of my cultural heritage.
I met Michael Rennie, in a sort of Polynesian restaurant, in Rome. I was there on my way to medical research in Yugoslavia, while in medical school, a few decades back. A family friend, a Jesuit priest and president of the University of Portland, was in Rome at the time and took me on a tour of the town, the Vatican, catacombs. He offered to take me to dinner and asked if I had a preference. Having walked by this strange place, I suggested it. As we sat in a booth looking at a few live parrots behind glass, the waiter brought us drinks, proffered by the owner, he said. No doubt amused and/or surprised at having a priest on the premises. (Paul enjoyed a drink now and then, and a cigarette, and the occasional profane remark. A great guy, actually, and the only man of the cloth my dad could ever tolerate.) Eventually the owner came over, accompanied by Mr Rennie, to whom he introduced us. Kaatu himself. Looking no more animated, but equally as elegant, as in the movie.
@Peter McKellar
Don’t you also have the Sydney branch of the Cave Clan? That might be fun to join for a while, if I lived there.
http://www.caveclan.org/nsw.html
As far as breadth and depth, I really don’t think that anything rivals the French Underground. Maybe Rome’s, though I doubt it.
#178 Seth Shostak
& Sean Carroll
& Joel Burdick
although I didn’t see any reference in credits to any
I actually loved this remake. In some ways, it’s message became clearer than the original classic movie, which I have of course, seen, and love. :)
Hell I even loved Keanu Reeves’ portrayal of Klatuu.
Hollywood is bereft of creativity. Why remake something that was definitive the first time around? Especially after how long it’s been definitive.
Be prepared for lots more remakes, lame movies based on TV, and comic book heroes.
Alan (off to read a book) Macdonald
PS I hope this helps the band Klaatu (Calling Occupants)
I agree with Ridley Scott : ‘Sci-fi films are as dead as Westerns’
Apologies for the long post.
#104 SimonG – I refuse to classify Eureka as science fiction. That puppy is pure science fantasy (and yes, there is a difference).
The comment about limited time is, imo, one the major reasons most of these adaptations stink so badly. The LoTR and Harry Potter movies both came off as unsatisfying to me because they had to cut so much to fit in their limited time frames.
#109 Starship Troopers was mostly pathetic, but the fake public service announcements about the war were great. Especially the shredded cow with the giant censor bar over it. What always got me about the bugs was their ability to beat advanced tech in the form of power armor with nothing but biology. Putting the characters in dinky flak jackets ruined that.
#141 – Idiocracy was amusing, but failed to do any justice whatsoever to Pohl & Kornbluth’s “Marching Morons”, which it may or may not have been based on. That said, I do own a copy for days when I need to shut down as many of my neurons as possible and just laugh.
#164 – Was the Returner you’re referring to the asian market time travel/terminator meets transformers meets war of the worlds one? That sounded terrible, but it’s pretty good. Come to think of it, I’m enjoying the films coming out of hong kong far more than the ones from hollywood these days.
#167 – careful what you wish for – Wing Commander was based off a video game that ripped off its antagonists from the Man-Kzin wars. That said, Known Space would make a great playground for film makers. How about Gift From Earth? Could be done on a fairly low budget, got some social commentary, all the ingredients are there.
Primer was great. Took a few watchings to actually catch most of the little recursive bits.
Forge of God would be awesome, but hollywood won’t bite unless they can stick in a “happy ending”.
Recent guilty pleasure: SciFi Channel ran a movie version of Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder”. Not terribly true to the story, but still fun. Low production values, bad acting, and a worthy expenditure of popcorn nonetheless.
Some more that I think would be good for adaptation:
Octavia Butler’s Dawn for movie adaptation. There’s enough need for CGI to convince the studio heads it would be good (since that seems to be their metric these days), and there’s some wonderful chances for a good actress to show off her range (Lilith goes through some serious mental stress).
Sheri S Tepper has a couple that would work. Grass & Raising the Stones could work, but Gate To Women’s Country has some amazing potential, if only in the way the religious right would have a collective coronary over the theme of the book and produce loads of free publicity.
C.J. Cherryh’s Alliance-Union universe. Political intrigue, a few aliens, cloning, mind control/programming. Spaceship battles, stations blowing up, etc. If you want more people in costumes, head over to the Chanur section, or use the Foreigner series for star trek style humanoids.
Ian McDonald’s Chaga books. Towards the end they start to have a similar feel to Rendezvous with Rama. Terminal Cafe comes to mind, but it’s been forever since I’ve read it.
I’d love to see some of Cordwainer Smith’s short stories adapted – The Ballad of Lost C’Mell, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard, maybe The Dead Lady of Clown Town. Not much special effects in most of them, and I think a smaller, maybe indie, studio that got the rights could turn out something really good from them. The other film I’d love to see done well would be The Stars My Destination, but I have no idea how you’d even start to put the synaesthesia sequence on film.
Definitely seconding the Iain M Banks and Charlie Stross ideas, although I think Consider Phlebas might be more accessible as a starting point for Banks even though Use of Weapons and Excession would be great ones to see. The Player of Games would work too. And Stross… Accelerando would definitely not be my first choice. It’s good speculative fiction, but I think things like Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise, and the Laundry stories would do better on film.
Eric Saveau, you praise the science in Stargate: SG1?
John Morales, I do indeed praise the way that series advocated science and managed to depict it within the limitations of television.
I found it appalling – it was riddled with mysticism,
Many of the low-tech civilizations had a lot of mysticism going on, sometimes with clues embedded in lore that wasn’t what the locals thought it was. The notion of myriad clues left behind by an ancient star-spanning civilization was one the the central conceits of the series, and a good one, at that – it’s certainly a classic plot element for science fiction in general. The two practicing scientists in the character roster managed to be reasonably convincing. The importance of science and scientific inquiry was frequently brought up, as was the grave danger of religion. And in their constant warring with “false gods”, there was never a hint that there might be such a thing as a “true” god; at best, there might be civilizations or being more powerful than you, but that didn’t make them “gods”. I find Staragte: SG1 to be an admirable series.
science was portrayed as indistinguishable from magic,
No. Super-advanced technologies were portrayed as seeming like magic before close investigation. Clarke’s Law.
psionics were a recurring theme,
And? I myself would not have made that choice, but the producers of SG1 did and handled it no worse than Star Trek or Babylon 5 – in fact I would say they did a better job.
and evolution was given a teleological slant (leading to “higher beings”) and applied to individuals.
False. The Ascended Ancients were explicitly stated to have altered their nature by choice and with the use of advanced technologies. The opposite of evolution.
Oh yeah, and everyone in both galaxies and the (ahem) various planes of existence/dimensions conveniently speaks English (a stupidity that at least the source movie avoided), except when the plot dictates otherwise.
And? Babylon 5, every Star Trek series, and many others did the same due to the constraints of serial television. Encountering an alien species and learning to communicate with and relate to them could easily take up a several-years run of a series with no other primary story arc. And could be a compelling show. But it would be, of necessity and by nature, completely and utterly unlike any of the aforementioned series. That those series were not the hypothetical one described above is neither a flaw nor a failure on their part.
I gave it up when RDA left the series, at least he made it amusing.
I loved Richard Dean Anderson, but I also thoroughly enjoyed Ben Browder.
Rowan #129:
I actually read “Anvil of Stars” before I read “Forge of God,” on a friend’s recommendation. I liked it a lot, but I had to read it several times, at different points in my life, before I really understood most of it. I agree it would be very difficult to make that book into a movie. A multi-episode tv series, though, could be pretty cool.
B5 is one of my all-time favorite SF tv series. The portrayal of religious belief may be sympathetic, by the sympathy is directed towards the characters holding the beliefs and not to the beliefs themselves. Otherwise, god-like entities may have incredible powers, but are always fully natural, and fanaticism is properly excoriated. Even instances which overtly seem to praise religion are subversion on deeper examination. In the episode “Passing through Gethsemane” Brother Edward’s self-sacrifice seems to be praised as noble, and is the tear-jerker climax of the episode, but then you realize that he chose to die solely because of his religious belief, and that he was a good person who should not have died, and you realize that religion is in fact culpable in his death.
@amphiox –
Good catch above about the point of Brother Edward’s death. I adore Babylon 5, and was alternately amused by and annoyed at people who reacted only to the surface of JMS’ narrative without looking at the more subtle stuff beneath.
A friend of mine invites me to the movies every other week. This week, it was ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still.’ Well, he was paying.
I went in with a very negative expectation, but I must admit, it was pretty good. Taken on its own merits, it held together, had great cinematography, and, for a dead-pan, emotionless delivery, who better than Keanu Reeves? Plus, Prof Barnhard was played by John Cleese. He did an outstanding job there.
Of course, there were plot holes (why round up all that expertise, when there was only an hour until impact? and then nothing was done with them), and, of course, it comes nowhere near its namesake. But it was a good thrill ride.
“Klaatu… Berata… Necktie!!!”
Much better movie than that awful remake.
I always thought Agent Smith wiped up the floor with Neo in those “Matrix” movies anyway. ;)
“Klaatu… Berata… Necktie!!!”
Much better movie than that awful remake.
I always thought Agent Smith wiped up the floor with Neo in those “Matrix” movies anyway. ;)
Make movies from sf books? Hell, no: TV series. That’s the only way to get all the plot included.
Short stories, now…
From wiki: In a 1995 interview, producer Julian Blaustein explained that Joseph I. Breen, the film censor installed by the Motion Picture Association of America at the 20th Century Fox studios, balked at the portrayal of Klaatu’s resurrection and limitless power. At the behest of the MPPDA, a line was inserted into the film: When Helen asks Klaatu if Gort has unlimited power over life and death, Klaatu explains that he has only been revived temporarily by advanced medical science and states that the power of resurrection is “reserved to the Almighty Spirit”.
It’s probably best to simply read the original short story:
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/bates.html
Re: #71 and #171
The line referred to “the Almighty Spirit,” and, according to IMDB, was stuck in there at the insistence of some gummint film overview board, and neither the director nor the writer cared for it. Ignore that line, and the whole “religious” tone disappears.
Re: #196
Yeah, okay, you beat me to it. Good call.
Elsewhere: If SciFi channel didn’t waste money on those excreble “SciFi Original Movies,” I’ll bet they could have resurrected “Firefly.”
When I first saw “Alien,” my first thought was A. E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” and “Discord in Scarlet” stories.
I understand that “The Forever War” may make it to the screen. They’d better not screw that up!
CortxVortx,
That depends about how you feel about Ridley Scott’s work for the past 10 years or so.
Of course, Darabont is adapting Fahrenheit 451.
1. Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
2. GITS: Solid State Society
It’s already on brewster:
http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit
The original short story:
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/bates.html
Eric Saveau @819,
If by super-advanced you mean using unobtanium (e.g. Naqahdah) to create super-science (e.g. time travel) based on unknown principles, then I suppose so. Follow the the links for many other examples of the like. I still say it’s magic being called science.
Really. From the episode 314 (Tao of Rodney) transcript:
What did a fan in the forums make of the episode? Here’s his spoilers:
Rodney gets hit by this machine that makes him evolve, he gets smarter and gets some cool powers. (healing, telekinesis, telepathy) Then they find out the machine is not working properly, he won’t stop evolving and will eventually have to learn how to ascend or he’ll die.
Clearly, evolution produces super-powers (cf. Heroes).
It’s elsewhere made clear that individuals can be evolved/devolved and, if evolved enough, gain Ascension.
Oh yeah, and it’s more than hinted that humanity was seeded on Earth, rather than evolving here.
Bah.
Sorta. But Teal’c was always going on about how they it was wrong to worship false gods. And to be honest, the Ascended apparently have Godlike powers – very mystical and certainly dualist.
Sorry, I stand by my assessment.
There’s always this adaptation of TDTESS:
@Jon Morales-
Really. From the episode 314 (Tao of Rodney) transcript:
That example is from Stargate: Atlantis, which I conspicuously did NOT mention because it’s a rather different beast than SG-1, and nowhere to be found on my personal list of favorites.
Sorta. But Teal’c was always going on about how they it was wrong to worship false gods.
Name an example of a “true” god, or being or race who are declared to be worthy of being worshiped as gods, depicted or spoken of in Stargate: SG-1. Just one.
Oh yeah, and it’s more than hinted that humanity was seeded on Earth, rather than evolving here. Bah.
I must have missed that; I distinctly remember it being *constantly* noted that the most significant thing about Earth was that it was where the Tau’ri (us; the root stock of all humans who were seeded throughout space by the Goa’uld) evolved.
If by super-advanced you mean using unobtanium (e.g. Naqahdah) to create super-science (e.g. time travel) based on unknown principles, then I suppose so.
So it got pulpy sometimes. So has every other science fiction series ever made, and to a much greater degree than Stargate: SG-1. The positives outweigh the negatives.
And to be honest, the Ascended apparently have Godlike powers – very mystical and certainly dualist.
But the characters are always very careful to *never refer to them as gods*, merely as almost inconceivably advanced. No God or gods were ever given place in that series. Perhaps that seems a subtle trick to some viewers.
Sorry, I stand by my assessment.
No need to apologize. How you feel about the show is your business.
I hardly found Stargate: SG-1 to be perfect, but I certainly found it to be easily good enough. Its science treatment was an improvement over Babylon 5 which was an improvement over the Star Trek spinoffs which were (often) an improvement over the original Star Trek. Sci-fi nirvana for me would be a faithful TV adapation of David Brin’s multi-volume Startide Rising/Uplift saga (or just about anything else by Brin), or perhaps Niven’s Known Space cycle. Or the works of Alistair Reynolds. But I know what my chances are. In the meantime, the series about which we are going to have to agree to disagree did a surprisingly good job of tacitly promoting atheism and a good job of overtly showcasing the value of science through heroic characters who were working scientists, and whose expertise was indispensable to the rest of their team.
Gah. Bad italics tag.
“Light hurts them” is hard SF? Hey, why not Signs then. Or Gremlins ;)
The “alien” look of the planet surface in PB was well done, though.
@windy
“Light hurts them” is hard SF?
No. Many people dismiss as simply a horror film “in SPAAAACE!”, but there was a background story conveyed by the planet itself – it was dry, all but lifeless, and had an atmosphere low in oxygen… yet the bones the survivors found pointed toward a planet once teeming with life. What killed the planet? The sightless animals that hunted the crash survivors in the dark, whom I’m quite certain were not indigenous to that planet. They struck me as an exaggerated version of the “rabbits in Australia” cautionary tale; that planet’s ecology was wrecked by the introduction of an alien species with no natural predators on that world to counter them. The world was gradually stripped bare until it barely supported life, and then, enter our doomed survivors (and the lost expedition that long preceded them). At least, that was what I was struck by as I first watched the film. And it was very well-written and well-acted.
Very little discussion of other counries films. OH well. I have to say that twin-skies was right about GITS 2, but the SAC movie was simply an amalgamation of the other two and a structure that emulated the series. Not to say that i didn’t find it to be very succesful for what they wanted, but it wasn’t the best. Clearly. The show was simply SUPerb.
Also, i guess Sciene fiction would include Samurai 7 (yes, a series based on That movie), which came replete with mecha Nobuseri. And cyborgs. And much political intrigue. And well, everything that was in the original. A worthy title to look into.
SF (which i now assume to be “Science Fantasy”)- Neon Genesis Evangelion. It does not get better then that from before SAC- though I’d be happy to add more titles underneath and such. I include the True ending to the show- The End of Evangelion in this. I hope someone has an opinion besides just me.
Noein- interesting discussion of Many Worlds Interpretation. Very original actually. That was probly the single greatest feature.
Gurren Lagann- over the top, bad, bad cosmology mecha show. Just for fun. Clearly
Also many, many others. Shame i have so little to say about this particular subject, though no one ever bothered to comment on the Journey to the Center ogf the Earth movies, which certainly fall into this catagory as well. Ah well.
Eric @204,
That much I can agree with (though I have a soft spot for the technomages in B5 ;)
John,
I have a soft spot for the technomages in B5
Oh, yes; Michael Ansara was riveting as Elric, and chilling in his final warning to Londo. And I thoroughly enjoyed Peter Woodward as Galen in Crusade – and got to meet and briefly hang out with him at MarsCon a few years ago. He was a very engaging and enthusiastic speaker, and a passionate amateur archaeologist (he did a couple of specials for the History Channel).
Ok, I saw “The Day” remake over the weekend. On an IMAX screen. It was ok. The FX were pretty cool. Keanu did what he was expected to do, Jennifer Connelly – incidentally, I am shocked, and yet oddly pleased, that even after 210 comments her name has yet to be mentioned – Jennifer Connelly was her usual winsome self in a role that was less than fully challenging. The “message” was updated to a much more eco-conscious theme (surprise, surprise) and the resolution was thoroughly predictable.
It was fun to watch, but not a very inspiring experience. I agree with earlier comments that suggest that the resources expended on the making of this remake could have been far better spent on a new and more compelling story. But we all know how pathetically conservative Hollywood has become, and how hesitant it is to commit large sums of money to an untested idea.