BS: favorite old sci-fi movie

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 04 May 04 - 11:29 PM

Actually, I hate monkeys.

People who think they are monkeys are not very high on my list, either.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:31 PM

Yeah? You should see how high a howler monkey can jump when you jam a hot roscoe up his keister...

Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:15 PM

I agree. No one can really jump that high. I'd rather watch an old episode of Kung Fu.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Cluin
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:13 PM

The "dark movie" trend doesn't bother me so much as the "dark blue" movie trend. Everything looks like it is shot through an indigo filter in a lot of movies now. Are they trying to sell parkas in the theatres or something? Getting almost as tired of that as I am the of kitchy "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" style fight scenes in just about every action flick coming out these days.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 04 May 04 - 10:01 PM

Chief, I think it was "Soy"lent Green, not "Soil"ent, but I sure did like that one, too. If I am not mistaken, it was Edgar G. Robinson's last movie. Great futuristic story that is not dated.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 May 04 - 09:56 PM

It's part of the "dark movie" sickness that really got started with the Batman films, I think. You've got all these directors that think, "Wow, what if I make everything really dark, dank, rainy, ugly, depraved, depressing, overcast, and horrible! Won't that just be soooooo scary. Ooooo-Wee!"

Then they all keep imitating each other and it just goes on and on and on...movie after movie...

Tedious, tedious.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 04 May 04 - 04:04 PM

Gee,

Nobody mentioned

"Soilent Green" - IT'S PEOPLE!!!

Yeah, Silent Running was a truly interesting movie, I found it a little disturbing to tell the truth.

Blade Runner - Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep?
Scenario: Earth in the reign of Emperor Bush (clone #21).

Again, the story was great, but why is it that our future is portrayed as grim and dark? Whatever happened to the beautiful vistas (which were inhabited by B.E.M.s)? Nowadays it seems to be all dark, dank, scary places (inhabited by B.E.M.s). If you gotta fight an alien I'd rather do it on a beautiful sandy beach!

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: DonMeixner
Date: 04 May 04 - 03:04 PM

Jeremiah

You are correct about the age of the film and about the star and Director but i have seen it as "The Shape of Things To Come" and as "Things To Come" one version is clearly longer and maybe more preachy. I believe ther are a few different releases out there.

" So what do you think about that Mr. Wings Over The World?" "Wings over your wits is more like it."

Don

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 04 May 04 - 01:49 PM

"One film I can't miss is "The Shape of Things To Come"."

Agreed, but specifity (?) is needed. I believe the film you're referring to is just called "Things to Come" (1930's) - the one by Alexander Korda and starring Raymond Massey; a bit preachy, naive & idealistic perhaps, but fascinating. Stunning visual conception - would it be fair to describe it as "Art Deco Science Fiction"?

On the other end of the scale was a Canadian-made film (1970's) which used the full title "The Shape of Things To Come". It had Barry Morse, Yvette Mimieux and Jack Palance, and was a truly wretched exercise in film-making.

Interesting observation: the first film inspired me to buy the H G Wells book, but it took the second - really, really bad one - to get me to actually read it (had to find out if there was anything in the book that was used in the movie - title excepted, there wasn't).

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:43 PM

Our kids grew up watching Mystery Science Theatre on Saturday mornings with dad. Gamara was their fave.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Amergin
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:23 PM

I got it from one of the local shops...there are two of them...the original series and the other one...as they came out about a year or so apart. You can order them from amazon I'm sure they'd have them.

I like Dr. Strangelove too. That movie is a hoot. I also love watching mystery science theatre...as they rip apart all these old low grade movies....lol.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:17 PM

Where did you find that baby on DVD? I would LOVE to get it to give as gift to the ole ball and chain!

I forgot one more, probably at the very top of my list: 'Dr. Strangelove'. Genuis.

Yeah, and time I watch any of the resident's men for long, I start thinking to myself 'rip off his face!'

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Amergin
Date: 03 May 04 - 10:03 PM

I love V...I have it on dvd...and I feel the same when watching a politician....especially the resident...

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:55 PM

I'll second 'Blade Runner'. Philip K Dick is one of my favorite sci fi writers. I wish someone would do 'The Godwhale' as well as they did 'Blade Runner'.

Few more tongue in cheek favorites of mine would include 'Max Headroom'; 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes'; 'Flesh Gordon I' (I too grew up on the Sunday morning serials), and 'Earth Girls are Easy'.

Finally, does anyone remember the cheesy TV series 'V'? The one where the aliens were lizards, but they disguised themselves as humans, until the were exposed when they or a human who was on to them ripped off their faces?

We still watch politicans on TV, and ask "so when is someone going to reveal him as an alien lizard?" :)

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:33 PM

Forbidden Planet was THE best made Sci fi flick until Aliens.

Disney people did the effects Very cool ship, monster and underground machine. Robbie the robot was priceless. And Leslie Neilson as the Young spaceship captain I actually think the plot is quite good.   

My favourite Sci Fi Film Is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Fantastic characters, engaging plot. Eerie alternate reality. Lots of cool effects and great ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:07 PM

My wife cried when Godzilla walked back into the water at the end of the first movie.

She cries at the end of every movie.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:04 PM

Well . . . yeah. . . .

Don (sniff) Firth

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Cluin
Date: 03 May 04 - 08:55 PM

Anybody else cry when little Louie's leg broke off and he tumbled away into space? Hands up! Come on!... I know you cried when Old Yeller got shot too.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:57 PM

Actually, Rapaire (picky, picky picky, but to give proper credit where due), Willy Ley, a science writer and space flight buff was an advisor on "Destination Moon." The scenery was done by Chesley Bonestell (pronounced "BAHN-uh-stell"). I had a copy of his Conquest of Space (1949), a book of paintings he did about eight years before Sputnik (I looked all through my book cases and damned if I can't find it now!! Where is it!??!?). He painted from what was known (or thought to be known) at the time, and interpolated pretty intelligently where he thought necessary. He was off a lot (he had water on Mars, near the polar caps), but considering, in a lot of his paintings, it's amazing how close he came. Some photos from probes like Voyager look a lot like Bonestell paintings.

Back in the days before non-rocket scientists thought much about multi-stage launch vehicles. With "Destination Moon" in mind, this should look real familiar (but Earth seen from the moon turned out to be far more spectacular than even he imagined).

"Silent Running" Some pretty questionable science in spots, but darn good movie. Kinda poignant. He called the three little maintenance robots "Huey, Dewie, and Louey," after Donald Duck's three nephews, probably because of the way they waddled around the ship. Background song sung by Joan Baez.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:31 PM

Little Hawk: Had I died?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST,dinnerlady
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:24 PM

Not that keen on sci-fi films...but there was one I liked....Silent Running with Bruce Dern...made in 1974. Anyone know it? He talks to 3 little walking comp thingies.....think he called then Hughie, Dewie and Lewie....was sweet....!!

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Cluin
Date: 03 May 04 - 06:13 PM

Very Freudian, those. Wasn't there one in Flesh Gordon too?

And, in rebuttal to Little Hawk above, I have to assert that old Peter Cushing was a match for Shatner's best in the freak-out department. All those old Hammer Horror films had the eventually climactic scene with P.C. battling for his eye-popping life, long, greasy, side locks askew and whipping about his sunken cheeked-cranium. I went to pick up a buddy one time to go out to a bar when he was watching a Hammer Horror flick; he made us stick around till the scene where Peter Cushing took his "hairy".

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:50 PM

Ray Harryhausen was a genius.

One of my all time favorites of his was the 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Anyone remember those pink cyclops?

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Cluin
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:43 PM

"The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (for a good classic dose of Harryhousen)

"Jason & the Argonauts" (for the best dose of Harryhousen)

"Forbidden Planet" (the best old sci-fi flick Hollywood ever made, great eerie soundtrack too. The Id Monster rocks!)

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (the second best)

"Them" (James Whitmore and James Arness battle giant mutant papier mache ants, but well done for all that)

"Gargoyles" (a made-for-TV movie with weird camera work that scared the pee out of us as kids)

"Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" (giant T&A in a push-up bra and skimpy outfit... `nuff said)

"This Island Earth" (for the best example of bug-eyed monsters... "Take us to your pharmacy! We require Visine")

"Plan 9 from Outer Space" (for the worst examples of... oh, everything)

"The Three Stooges: Outer Space Jitters" (for a laugh)

"Queen of Outer Space" (for a bigger laugh)

"The Day Time Ended" (the biggest laugh of all... though made in 1980, it harkens back to the old classic style, with lots of stop-motion animated monsters and hokey lines... Rancher grandfather and wide-eyed grandson: "Grandpa, where's Mom and Cindy?" "The Vortex took `em, Jimmy." "What's the Vortex, Grandpa?" "A kind of hole in the Space-Time Continuum, Jimmy." "What's the Space-Time Continuum, Grandpa?" "Well, I reckon nobody knows, Jimmy.")

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: BuckMulligan
Date: 03 May 04 - 02:40 PM

"Them" - classic "giant critters as a result of mankind's messing about with atomic stuff" movie which boasts James Whitmore, James Arness, and Fess Parker battling the bugs.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 03 May 04 - 12:51 PM

The Day the Earth Stood Still
Flash Gordon Series w/ Buster Crab
All the old Twilight Zones

Lots of newer ones, but this seems to be focused on the older ones.

And YES anything that showed what a complete genius Ray Harryhausen was!..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: jacqui.c
Date: 03 May 04 - 12:40 PM

The Thing
The Day the earth stood still
Forbidden Planet

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:33 AM

Not a lot of new films have been mentioned because the subject is favorite old sci-fi movie. There have been a few sci-fi films of this generation that are noteworthy but alot of them, like alien, seem to concetrate on the blood and gore becoming a slasher flick rather than sci-fi.

And they also lose out (from my point of view) by using todays tech for films supposedly about hundreds of years in the near future. Here we have a large ship driven by some sort of pulse generator with technology that allows a humnad mind to interface with a computer generated reality and what are they shooting at the menacing tentacled hunter killer bots and each other with? Shotguns and standard cartridge pistols. No blasters? No Phasers or disruptors?

One of my favorite "newer" films which actually is sci-fi/fantasy is the animated film "Wizards" if you haven't seen it you're really missing out. It won an Ace award (coincidentally the same show that Shatner did his version of Elton John's "Rocket Man").

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Cluin
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:26 AM

Art, see my post above.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:21 AM

I don't know about in space...but people in this society have a fetish about toilet paper, and the damn stuff doesn't even work very well! Native Americans got by fine for 20,000 years without it. So, you know what works way, way better than toilet paper??? Water, that's what. It gets you about ten times cleaner than that stupid toilet paper ever will, and you don't have to cut down trees to make water.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Donuel
Date: 03 May 04 - 11:14 AM

The Abuction of George Bush

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/customviolins/ufonyc3.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 May 04 - 09:35 AM

The great thing about "Destination Moon" was the scenery -- Willy Ley did it, and he was one of the greatest "space painters" ever.

Someone mentioned that early SF films got the physics right (usually) and more recent ones rely on "bigger is better." I quite agree -- seeing the fighters zoom around in "Star Wars" makes for good action, but you can't do such things in reality. Kinda like the person who said about Apollo 13, "Why didn't they just turn right around and come back?"

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: s6k
Date: 03 May 04 - 07:04 AM

more credit should go to DARK STAR.

what exactly does one do when running out of toilet paper in space? and how else should one relieve boredom but by waving a rubber chicken in peoples faces!!!! <--that scene i couldnt stop laughing at for about 20 minutes, my stomach was hurting

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 May 04 - 05:55 AM

Don,

As I've said, 'When one's memory goes, forget it !'

Art

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: DonMeixner
Date: 02 May 04 - 11:56 PM

Art,

Elinor Donohue, Billy Gray, Lauren Chapin.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 May 04 - 05:49 PM

Funny that reading this thread suddenly reveals how poorly science fiction has done on screen. Only one or two of the films mentioned are remotely good as films that an adult could take seriously -- "Minority Report" (until near the end), "Blade Runner". That is about it. Not much for an entire genre. I can only think of a couple more -- "Aliens" and "2001". There must be one or two others that are good films, period, but one is hard pressed. Terminator II is an excellent film. One does sort of run out.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 May 04 - 05:31 PM

Don,

Wasn't Erin Grey in the TV show Father Knows Best??

Art

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 May 04 - 05:24 PM

M.G.---

I pretty much lived at the Field Museum when I was a kid. I fancied myself a photographer and used to go in there with a tripod and a Kodak Bellows camera and my pockets stuffed with Verichrome Pan film (the kind you could develop with a red lightbulb on in the room. I'd take long time-exposures of those dark dioramas of cave men and stuffed man-killer lions. Then I'd contact print from those big negatives. (Couldn't afford an enlarger. I would've given my left arm for the Epson scanner I have now and Photo Shop. ---------Yeah, I loved the Mummys but they were spooky as hell, as you said. And the mummified "CAT" was the strangest. Little pointed ears and all. And the X-ray room where you could view what was inside a female's wrappings.------------And BUSHMAN the gorilla was there somewhere. As a real little tyke I loved him at Lincoln Park Zoo. Seeing his stuffed body at the museum always seemed wrong somehow. Not quite respectful.

And I think Peter Hyams felt close to the museum too. He did THE RELIC with an affection for the place that allowed him to use lingering shots of several places that'd be well known to anyone who roamed those halls and wooden cases of collected artifacts as a kid.

Then the final scenes, when the creature/god/plant collector had fully mutated from eating the exotic drug plants, and the mayor of Chicago ( a Richard J. Daley type guy) has this huge society dinner in the main hall with the elephants and the T-rex skeletons and the fire creature sets the whole damn place alight and burns up the people in their tuxes and evening gowns-----well, it's so strange and bizarre in an off-the-wall way that it's hard to do justice to inwords. Rent it. I hope you like it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: DonMeixner
Date: 02 May 04 - 05:08 PM

No one has yet mentioned "The Giant Behemoth" in New York, New York it was called "The Big Really Big" or "Gorgo" or "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" or the Disney "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" or
"Mighty Joe Young" ( either version is OK with me) or "King Kong" ( Just the 1933 version) or anything at all by Ray Harryhausen.

"Dark Star" was a classic. As I watch it now "2001" is a study in DULL! While Spencer Tracey as "Dr. Jeykle and Mister Hyde" is still great.

One film I can't miss is "The Shape of Things To Come".

Don

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 04 - 01:17 PM

Another in the same genre was "The Beast From Hollow Mountain". Again cowboys meet a dinosaur (a T-Rex, from the look of it). There's a great scene where the dino has a guy trapped in a cleft of rocks and can't quite get at him. The guy stabs the dino in the nose with his bowie knife, and it gets really angry! This scene scared me most thoroughly when I was a kid. The dino also attacks some people in a house and slowly demolishes the roof bit by bit while the people take shelter behind the walls and try to fight it off with long planks from the destroyed roof. Eventually the posse rides up on their horses and takes on the dino with 6 guns. I forget how they finally killed the thing, but I think they may have lured it into quicksand.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: ranger1
Date: 02 May 04 - 01:11 PM

One of my personal favorites is The Valley of Gwangi. Nothing like cowboys and dinosaurs, I always say! Back before AMC went to being a commercial-filled station, they used to have really bad B movies on Friday nights. I would miss that, except that I don't have cable.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Strick
Date: 02 May 04 - 12:30 PM

Robinson Caruso on Mars was a favorite when I was young. The Thing From Outer Space to give "The Thing" it's full movie title was based on a short story written by John W. Campbell, the father of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. He was the editor who "discovered" Heinlein and Asimov and an incredible number of the great writters of the 50s and 60s. The short story, "Who Goes There" was written in the 30s but holds up beautifully even today.

Not quite science fiction, but have you seen the trailers for Disney's new version of Around the World in 80 Days? I have to repeat, what where they thinking? The Wild, Wild West meets Jules Verne and comes of all the worse for it.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: DonMeixner
Date: 02 May 04 - 01:06 AM

Martin,

Years ago on "Buck Rogers in The 25th Century", made watchable only by the woman who played Wilma Deering (Erin Grey) Buster Crabbe made a guest appearance as a retired Rocket Fighter Pilot. In a scene during the battle Buck Rogers asks Crabbes character if he is OK. Buster Crabbe says "Don't worry son I was doing this sort of thing before you were born.". The only part of that series I remember with the exception of Wilma Deering of course.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Once Famous
Date: 02 May 04 - 12:12 AM

Art

I never did get to see The Relic except for previews. One day I do hope to get to check it out. You mention the Field Museum, going there as a boy and visiting the ancient Egypt exhibit in the basement with all the mummies (not Billy Mumy, mentioned earlier) used to give me nightmares as much as any old sci-Fi movie.

Whomever mentioned Flash Gordon, I have seen all three Buster Crabbe serials over and over again. They were broadcast for years on Sunday mornings. Charles Middleton as Ming the Merciless will always be one of the greatest villians in all film history. Years ago, and not too long before his death, I got to meet Buster Crabbe doing a personal appearance at a shopping mall.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: freightdawg
Date: 01 May 04 - 11:53 PM

Art,

Actually, "The Final Countdown" was a theatrical release - I saw it on the big screen years ago. Great fun, and I loved those F-14s coming up behind those piston planes.

And, who could overlook those original "Planet of the Apes" movies. They get better with age - time travel, environmentalism, animal cruelty - the list goes on.

And I agree with HuwG, the special effects often look campy, but the stories of some of these older films far outstrip any modern equivalent. Even the first "Star Wars" is light years (pardon the pun) ahead of those that followed. The last one was barely watchable due to the poor story telling.

I think Alfred Hitchcock had it right. Just give us enough to get the imagination going, and the audience will fill in all the gaps.

Bring on the popcorn!

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 May 04 - 11:34 PM

A question: Is 'Quatermass And The Pit' the same film with a different title as 'Five Million Years To Earth'? The plot sounds very much the same from what I read here.

Otherwise, some of my favorites are:

'Blade Runner' (director's cut)

'Dark City'

'Galaxy Quest'

'Contact'

'Minority Report'

'The Relic'
(M.G.--You've GOT to see this. A creature is killing and running rampant in Chicago's FIELD MUSEUM. Great shots of the museum and the city and LSD before the S curve got straightened. Loosely based on some of Wade Davis's doings with S. American plants. ---Peter Hyams, the old Chicago TV news guy--directed.)


'The Arrival'
(I enjoyed this one much more than the critics did. Lousy ending, but you can't have everything.)

'Starman'

'THX-1138'

'The Final Countdown'
(made for TV--Big strange storm and time travel for U.S. aircraft carrier)

I would include A Mighty Wind ;-) but Martin G. might be upset.


Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: HuwG
Date: 01 May 04 - 10:38 PM

Cluin: It is Quatermass, with one 'R', to rhyme with "Crater". Here is the IMDb Page for the film.

What impresses me is that the producers and directors of so many early sci-fi films seem to have a far better grasp of physics than their later counterparts, who seem to rely on techno-babble, and the "bigger is better" philosophy e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger firing a shotgun at an inert object such as a concrete bunker produces a bigger explosion than an ordinary mortal doing the same.

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 May 04 - 08:50 PM

They should've done one with Flesh Gordon and Buck Naked teaming up to subdue the Planet of the Cannibal Stewardesses...and opposed by the evil genius, Ching the Lascivious!

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: GUEST,Allan S.
Date: 01 May 04 - 08:40 PM

Boy you youngsters are missing the best of them all Flash Gordon and buck Rogers in the saturday serials with Buster Crabbe
Rocketship, Space soldiers conquer the universe made in 1936
12 episodes 4 hours long. Also a take off called FLESH GORDON and Flesh Gordon 2 "Flesh Gordon meets the cosmic cheerleaders The last 2 a bit racy but clever

Subject: RE: BS: favorite old sci-fi movie
From: annamill
Date: 01 May 04 - 02:20 PM

lololololololol!!! That made me laugh!