There really wasn’t much before SW either. I was never a huge fan of 2001 (on topic with overrated), arguably the biggest previous serious SF film, even though I was a Clarke fan. It seemed a thin story serving groundbreaking production values. In some ways Silent Running is a better film with more humanity. Or even Forbidden Planet. Adapting The Tempest as SF is a great example of my thesis of SF as modifier not genre. Just about any classic work could be redone as SF and be better than the crap being pushed out there. Which is more or less what Lucas did anyway, making a pastiche of mythology.
Looking at a list of the “best SF films” is mostly depressing. Tell me again how humans powered the Matrix? ANSWER: “Who cares, they looked great in black leather!!” Can someone explain what they like about Children of Men? It seemed as much about SF as The Maltese Falcon was about sculpture.
I like 2001 quite a bit. It’s like Kubrick and Clarke channeled through Pavel Klushantsev. There is a story, but I like that what appears to be a thin human narrative is revealed to be a cosmic narrative, implying that humanity as a whole is but one character in it.
As for “big”, I am not so sure about that. Scale seems to me to be more about the concepts and craft involved in a work moreso than anything else.
I have always had a sore spot for Silent Running. I think that it is an utterly gorgeous spectacle of the melding of production design, sets, models, and other effects. But I think that it is one of the most hamfisted SF polemics I have ever seen. Which I think is unfortunate, because as an enthusiast of both space migration as well as deep ecology, it seems like the sort of thing I would really love. There are so many great components which don’t gel that I can’t help but to be really critical of it.
The argument that people can and do use science fiction as a mere aesthetic window dressing in attempts to inject novelty into existing drama I think is not much of an argument for the practice. It is a superficial practice, but hardly necessary. Prior to Star Wars there was I think a ten-year or so golden age of US science fiction movies. The new wave literature of the 1960s demonstrated that the space battles, robots, and monsters were less interesting and had less to do with science than extrapolations of societal trends and their influence over time. Such as: Seconds, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Andromeda Strain, The Omega Man, THX 1138, Soylent Green, Phase IV, Logan’s Run Demon Seed - as well as productions abroad such as: A Clockwork Orange, World on a Wire, Zardoz, The Man who Fell to Earth - and I am sure others which will occur to me. Perhaps not great movies by your estimation, but arguably a movement in the genre.
The lack of science is a self-fulfilling prophecy when people write it off and refuse to engage with the ideas. It is not difficult to find examples in literature which is explicitly scientific as well as decently written, so this demonstrates that it not at all impossible.
Thanks for reminding me of those, though Omega Man was a bit of a mess. I think we all agree the less spectacle the better. I love touting Moon, such a great example of small movie-big idea.
Yes, Silent Running wielded it’s message with a sledgehammer, but 45 years later we have an anti-environmental administration in power, so I don’t think the message got through even so. Gotta remember the EPA was created while the film was in production! Strange to remember that it was created by Nixon, something a modern Republican would never consider.
2001 is a beautiful, groundbreaking film that, compared to the sci-fi of today, feels like it belongs in a separate category altogether. It’s slow, lyrical, thoughtful, and is to sci-fi what Barry Lyndon is to costume dramas. A huge Kubrickian statement.
I have to admit my fondness for 2010. It’s not a great movie by any means, and as a followup to 2001 doesn’t even approach its depths, but it’s pure nostalgia for me; everything about the film is a capsule snapshot of the year 1984. From the USSR paranoia to the vintage chunky computers to his awesome house filled with dolphins and acrylic furniture, it’s pure 80s.
That movie was a lot of fun, I want to thank @TobinL for taking us there.
“The Ghost” was slow in places, but the various motivations of the characters and the playing up of the constant jarring indications of the presence of the dead guy kept it going.
No problem. Can’t beat the price. I am sad the espresso place/snack stand that used to be in there is now gone as that was the source of the beer. On the other hand I can take the kid to evening films now. Well provided he trusts my taste in movies.
Hugely enjoyable and i was surprised how funny it is but it does turn into a bit of horror as the warehouse becomes a stand-in for hell. Waiting for the precise moment the deal goes south has a lot of tension. I don’t think i’ll be able to listen to annie’s song in quite the same way again.
Has anyone seen Ghost in the Shell? Hollywood Reporter says that it didn’t have a great opening weekend, but that the negative reviews have more to do with the whitewashing controversy as opposed to the quality of the movie. The Rotten Tomatoes rating went from 70 on opening night, down to the 30s as the print reviews started coming in.
I have not seen it, so I’m keeping an open mind, but quite honestly, every negative review I saw focused mostly on how surprisingly dull and empty the movie felt – all style and no emotion – rather than the races of the people acting in it.
I can’t argue with that, except I found Barry Lyndon painfully, glacially, unendurably slow and pompous. I thought I’d have more patience for Kubrick as I got older, but that turns out not to be the case.
It is most definitely glacially slow and pompous, but also very beautiful. While it’d be lovely to see on a big screen, I’m happier to watch it at home where my butt isn’t falling asleep in a theater seat.
