Is this the best science fiction show ever?

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[OscarCP]

This is Wavy’s fault ( #2013698 ), because he wrote elsewhere (and way off topic, I must add) that the best science fiction EVER is ‘The Expanse’, that one can watch right now in Amazon Prime.

I disagree, most bitterly: The best science fiction show, ever, was “Firefly”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

And, although it is harder to classify as such, the best SF show that lasted longer than one season was, unquestionably, ‘Futurama’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama

Feel free to dissent here.

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• This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by OscarCP.

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Well, not having seen every SF series that’s ever gone on the air, I feel unqualified to state what may or may not be the best SF show ever.  🙂

However, what I can say confidently is that my personal all-time favorite SF series is the original “Star Trek.” Sure, the production values were hokey and the acting a bit lacking, but the show just soared (so to speak) on the story lines.

I can also tell you the worst SF series I’ve ever seen.

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Cybertooth: I feel somewhat disappointed with your choice of the original Star Trek. I would have thought that ST the Next Generation was much superior: among others, it had both Spock AND Data, Patrick Stewart’s Captain Piccard (who was, unquestionably, so much superior and more interesting than William Shatner’s C. Kirk), Commander Worf, Klingons, plus, as a bonus, Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi, the well-rounded Betazoid Counselor AND Lwaxana Troi (played by Roddeberry’s wife Majel) as her very interesting mother! The original ST just couldn’t compete. It didn’t had Scotty, but Levar Burton’s Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge was no slouch as Chief Engineer, even when he was blind and the dilithium crystals were always such a big problem for him.

But, good as that was, I still maintain that “Firefly” was the best.

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Cannot compare a sequel to the original.  If not for the original there would be nothing.  TNG had stiff actors, no story lines, no continuity and non canon.

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I think I watch a half an episode , but I guess I fell into the trap of the superlative myself with my ‘best’. Such that look good and prove aweful, such disappointment..

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I should have said my above reply was in response to Cybertooths worst :Another Life !

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After the Star Trek drought of the ’70s and most of the ’80s, I eagerly watched TNG when it came out, as well as Voyager and Deep Space 9. While TNG was a welcome return of the franchise, IMO the stories were of inconsistent quality, certainly less consistent from week to week than those of the original series. Some episodes I found rather sophomoric (sorry, couldn’t tell you any more what those episodes were, only my recollections from the time).

And in my view, the major characters didn’t mesh together as well as those of the original series. It was more of a hodgepodge of moderately interesting characters. By contrast, the interplay between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was almost Freudian in nature, where McCoy represented the id (emotional), Spock the ego (rational), and Kirk the superego balancing  their respective considerations. To quote a certain Vulcan, I found that interplay “fascinating.”  🙂

Not that TNG was devoid of memorable moments. My favorite episode, because of its startling nature, was one where Beverly Crusher wandered about the Enterprise while chunks of the ship kept disappearing into nothingness.

Don’t get me wrong: I did enjoy watching TNG. But the original ST provided more consistent enjoyment/enlightenment for me. As a friend once put it, the stories were morality plays, which had us thinking afterward. Much (most?) of the time after the end of a TNG episode, that  was the end of my engagement with the story.

 

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Elly

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Yup, the original Star Trek for me. Unless you’re counting Red Dwarf  of course.

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Can’t say I have heard of that one, it on Netflix DVDS so maybe…

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Wavy: ‘Red Dwarf’ is known in the USA just to the “most seriously into British TV” audiences. I used to watch it, now and again, on my local PBS station, that also replayed, every year until some years ago, (when SyFy bought the rights, but never did anything besides sitting on them) the whole of what was kept by the thrifty people at the BBC (after wiping out several tapes to reuse them for something else) of the old ‘Doctor Who’ in a double header with RD.

RD was not too bad, but a step down from ‘Doctor Who’, in my opinion. I did not know it is now on Netflix. So you may watch it there and make up your own mind about it.

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Erm…it’s a sitcom. Plenty available on YouTube if you want a quick taster.

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[OscarCP]

Well, at least I can be very slightly happy that, so far, nobody has mentioned “Battlestar Galactica (reimagined)”. Because the less said about that one, the better. I actually liked the original Battlestar, the one created by a Mormon and with several hints (or so say those who have read it) to passages in the Book of Mormon. At least it was fun in a goofy sort of way, unpretentious, obviously low budget and using technology in their (presumably, with enough suspension of disbelief) super duper, tremendously advanced battle starships that was NOT mid-Twentieth Century, such as retro land-line chunky phones with rotary dials and wall clocks “to confuse the enemy” (and to save money on props?), according to the second version fans. The only consolation, in the middle of all the disappointments with the “reimagined” one, was President Roslin. But she was not enough. No, not even near enough.

But I can’t imagine people, as boldly as you please, declaring that anything is better than Firefly. Is it possible that there are no Browncoats here at all? Oh, the humanity! And what about Futurama, huh? How about it?

And I also liked “Supernova”, in BBC two; I saw a few episodes when I was staying in Newcastle for a while. Maybe I was the only one who enjoyed it? I really enjoyed the episode where they thought that they had seen God with one of their advanced telescopes (it was interference from a microwave  or something kike that) and wrote a paper about it, then all of them pressed on the “Return” key together to email it to  prestigious astronomical journal. I can really sympatize.

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• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by OscarCP.

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Mr. Austin

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I agree on Firefly!!! 🙂 Probably the saddest ever experience when that came to an end! 🙁

But I have to admit that I did binge watch the new “Battlestar Galactica” (2004), with Katee Sackhoff, Edward Jmaes Olmos, & Tricia Helfer, etc. Guilty pleasure! 🙂

 

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[OscarCP]

JohnW: I do appreciate you bravely coming out and expressing a wisely favorable opinion about the most magnificent  glory that was ‘Firefly’. Sadly to good for this world, shone so brightly but briefly in the clumsy hands of Fox producers. Much as befell Matt Groening’s amazing Futurama: more about the latter… later.

As to your guilty feelings about liking ‘Battleship Galactic (reimagined)’, I have this to say: don’t be too hard on yourself — nobody is perfect! And do not forget that the way to repentance is always mercifully open to the fallen sinner. Who can always atone by watching ‘Futurama’, thus enriching the mind and enlarging the soul (Stephen Hawking himself participated in a couple of episodes, his robotic computer-generated voice most in agreement with the élan of the show)  And to those unfortunate few who do not know already about ‘Futurama’, please have peek here, and weep:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/10/futurama-where-to-start-watching-nixon-head-episode.html

https://nerdist.com/article/the-11-best-futurama-episodes/

Presently available on DVD and, streaming, at Hulu, or so I’m told.

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• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by OscarCP.

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Mr. Austin

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JohnW wrote:

I agree on Firefly!!! 🙂 Probably the saddest ever experience when that came to an end! 🙁

I’ve got DVD’s of the complete series of Firefly and also Serenity.  I too was very disappointed that it was cancelled, I wanted to see more of what the girl played by Summer Glau could do with her powers.  They really could have gone places with this show!

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I vote for Black Mirror (not Netflix), Firefly, The 4400.

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Alex5723 wrote:

I vote for Black Mirror (not Netflix), Firefly, The 4400.

I thought I was going to like this one (on Netflix) but the first episode just turned me off, there is such a thing as a second chance however.

Let me throw in not a “best” but a “worth it” : Dark. Its a time travel mystery type that you need ( at least for me) a score card to keep track, there are a few sires that help keep the characters straight in your head. New season (3rd) being filmed so it passes the one season wonder test of Ascaris!

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I agree with @Alex5723 here – Black Mirror is the best and most interesting recently, although Red Dwarf and Futurama are funnier. I feel, that Black Mirror is not funny, but it is very “mindblowing” and original. Startrek was revolutionary, but its over the hill now.

Aaand STARGATE! SG1 and Atlantis. I didnt watch Horizon, cuase I grew up 🙂

PS – Futurama is funny for certain people, cause its mostly written by mathematicians and physicist (Groening and his coleagues).

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I like DS9 and have been quite interested in the new ST Discovery. Another favourite of mine is Farscape. Firefly is quite good – however it suffered from being cancelled too soon. I’ve just started watching Serenity – no plot spoilers please.

I like the fact that ST (pretty much all series) doesn’t take itself to seriously, with little asides taking the rise out of themselves. Tubes marked GNDN*, Jefferies Tubes after the set designer.

David Ogden Stiers (Charles Winchester MASH 4077), appearing as Timcin, with 4077 appearing in the display in front of him. And there’s Q’s comments in All good things – ‘seven years of La Forge’s techno bubble”! The list is endless.

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Defiance, now on Amazon, deserves mention here.

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wavy

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Defiance was another excellent one!

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[Vincenzo]

My favorite TNG episode was the one where a young Famke Janssen played an empathic metamorph who could seduce any man (“The Perfect Mate”).

https://www.google.com/search?q=tng+the+perfect+mate&client=firefox-b-1-d&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=G6ohmrce3hRSOM%253A%252Cju4RULvxME8VAM%252C%252Fm%252F09x4ky&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRjIS7e7s0j7-8FZJrRwuEq8KilFQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjorI7kiprmAhW1PH0KHVcMDgwQ_B0wbnoECF4QAw#imgrc=G6ohmrce3hRSOM:

 

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Zeus36

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Yep, and how could you not love Minuet in 0101.

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TNG’s “The Inner Light” – hand’s down the all-time winner for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)

 

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Charlie

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I was on night shift at that time so missed it, it does sound very good.

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“The City at the Edge of Forever”, based on a script draft of science fiction great Harlan Ellison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfhAV77u7YU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever

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Charlie

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The original Twilight Zone is certainly in the upper part of the list. It opened the door for the later series, and a lot of it holds up well even today.

I liked all of the Star Trek series and movies from the original series to the end of Voyager and Nemesis.  I never really got into Enterprise or any of the newer movies, though.

I never saw Firefly, having never heard of it until long after it was canceled, and given how everyone says it was such a disappointment that it ended too soon, I don’t plan on seeing it or its movie spinoff, Serenity.  I’ve really come to loathe getting started on a series, finding I really like it, only to find that it was canceled.  Netflix is littered with one-season works in progress that will never be finished, and now I tend to avoid starting any series that hasn’t already run to completion.  The one-season ones don’t stand a chance… when I see they’ve only got one season, I just pass right by.

 

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If The Twilight Zone counts as science fiction, then it zooms right to the top of my list of favorite SF series. Right up there along with it go The Outer Limits and my personal favorite among “creepy TV” series, the underrated and largely forgotten One Step Beyond.

Regarding single-season cancelled series, we were recently caught by this trap with the Canadian series Endgame. We greatly enjoyed it but were left dangling by the cliffhanger in what turned out to be the final episode, as the series got cancelled after the first season.

 

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Twilight Zone ranks high with me, I have the entire collection. My cousin was in one or two episodes, then she went over to Mr Ed series, go figure. At least her Alfred Hitchcock appearance was a closer match with SciFi. Star Trek original series was great too.

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[OscarCP]

OscarCP wrote:

This is Wavy’s fault ( #2013698 ), because he wrote elsewhere (and way off topic, I must add) that the best science fiction EVER is ‘The Expanse’, that one can watch right now in Amazon Prime.

I disagree, most bitterly: The best science fiction show, ever, was “Firefly”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

And, although it is harder to classify as such, the best SF show that lasted longer than one season was, unquestionably, ‘Futurama’:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama

Feel free to dissent here.

• This topic was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by OscarCP.

Well I will say that is a very strong contender for #2, just a little weak in the S part of SF. I will say it has my favorite theme music.

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[Seattle27]

Doctor Who ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwHcV0-uzGc

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Seattle27.

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In answer to various misguided comments and some spot on ones: Yes! Doctor Who! Particularly, in my preferences, the old episodes from the 60’s and 70’s (which I religiously followed in Australia’s ABC when TV in Oz was still in marvelous black and white), that then was a show with the low-budget look and feel of having been filmed in “someone’s backyard” as a fellow Who fan once put it (I’ve liked Eccleston’s Who the most, in the current decently funded series.) Not to say it is best than ‘Firefly’, I would put it not too far behind ‘Futurama’…

And in answer to Wavy’s contentious remark that “Well I will say that is a very strong contender for #2, just a little weak in the S part of SF. I will say it has my favorite theme music. ”

Well, sure, the music and particularly the song are great (both performed by the genius that is Joss Wheedon (Buffy, Dollhouse) in his own guitar). But “a little weak in the S part of SF”? Seriously? It is the only TV SF series ever, as far as I can remember, where the spacecraft don’t make loud rumbling engine noises as they race by in the vacuum of space (OK: this show and ST). And have another look at the series’ pilot episode, where they go and plunder a derelict spaceship. Tell me, if you dare, that that is not as realistic as it can be (OK: except the part where they have some kind of artificial gravity aboard their own, Firefly-class ship, but the use of “rubber science” has been acceptable since its very beginning in SF as a plot device — e.g. H.G. Wells’ cavorite.)

And, while ‘Firefly’ ended way to soon, the individual episodes are, each, among the best ever in their genre and the last one DOES NOT END IN A CLIFF-HANGER!.

And ‘Farscape’ is definitely well up there. The ‘Twilight Zone’ is, properly speaking, more in the dark-fantasy and horror side of the plain fiction spectrum.

I must also add that the very honorably third place in the “best SF shows ever” category unquestionably belongs to “Babylon V”.

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Kenneth Stephens

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I recently stumbled upon the website pluto.tv , which has a ‘Classic Doctor Who’ channel (370), which shows nothing but that 24/7. (It’s free, and there a few repetitive advertisements, but not tons of ads.) Apparently they have about 200 episodes. It seems to be mostly Tom Baker episodes, Pertwee next most often, along with a few of the 1st doctor, some Peter Davison, and a couple Colin Baker & Sylvester McCoy episodes.

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OscarCP

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Seattle27: Thanks for the tip about Pluto TV and classic Dr. Who. Looking into it I could not help being reminded of earlier-days Hulu,that was also for free and largely without ads, with a good collection of movies and shows available online. I wonder how extensive the movies’ collection is. But 200 shows of classical “Who” sounds like a promise of many good things.

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Seattle27

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And, lest we forget, a big shout out for the ‘Outer Limits’. With one of the best ever SF episodes shown on TV: ‘Inconstant Moon’, that was based on a short story of the same name by Larry Niven (in his “All the Myriad Ways” anthology).

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Charlie

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I did not remember that one Oscar so I wikipediaed, it sounds like a good one. Those solar flares have a lot of potential to do great damage, I read that one in the 1800s knocked out Telegraph lines. There is much speculation what a direct hit would mean. Looks like a fast track to the Second Stone Age, for the few who survive the famine and resulting conflicts. I don’t think the highrise would help, a farm at least a hundred miles from a city, maybe.

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It seems we’ve touched on most of the good ones and I liked most of them.  The early SF shows were really hokey compared to later shows, but the first show I really got into was Outer Limits in the late 50’s and 60’s.  After that the next show I really liked a lot was Star Trek TOS (the original series).

It’s a bit hard to pick one show as the “best ever”, but I’d have to say all of the Star Trek series.  Most were very well written (with exceptions of course) and entertaining.  I also must give an “honorable mention” to “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” which also ended too soon.  I’m a Terminator fan too.

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An honorable mention for the sadly truncated ‘Flashforward’. In my opinion its creators sin was to be burdened with too many plot twists: it would have been even better if they had stayed closer to the original story by Robert J. Sawyer.

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I put “Farscape” way up there on the list! Lots of favorites, though! 🙂

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OscarCP

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Also worth an honorable mention: “The Orville” – TV series (2017-2020)

“The Orville” is an American science fiction comedy-drama television series created by and starring Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5691552/

A comedy-drama send up of Star Trek. Good times!!! 🙂

Set 400 years in the future, the show follows the adventures of the Orville, a not-so-top-of-the-line exploratory ship in Earth’s interstellar Fleet. Facing cosmic challenges from without and within, this motley crew of space explorers will boldly go where no comedic drama has gone before.

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Firefly, hands down. May the boneheads who cancelled it broil in Date’s Level of Those Who Have Sinned Against Art.

 

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I love “The orville”!  

It makes me feel like the 30 years younger that I was when watching ST:TNG.

It recaptures my mood like ST:TNG did, but with much better graphics, CGI and 16:9.

One aspect is copied from Star Wars though: the “keep-your-hands-where-I-can-see-them” stance of Isaac is a straight copy of C3PO.

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Kenneth Stephens

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And to include here some SF novels-almost-ready-for-their-TV-versions that I would like to watch on the small screen: Neil Stephenson’s ‘The Diamond Age’ and ‘Snow Crash’, as well as his recently published ‘Seveneves’, that is long enough to get the prequel, main show and sequel out of it. Many of Sawyer’s books. Several of Scalzi’s books, including the soon to be completed ‘Collapsing Empire’ trilogy, with the third book out next April. (And with certain words blipped out, as I would expect in this weirdly so-permissive-but-oh-so-straightlaced age we live in.)

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Æon Flux by a country mile.

cheers, Paul

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Mr. Austin

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Whats your opinion on the film version?

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Didn’t watch the film version. Part of the appeal was the manga style of cartoon.

cheers, Paul

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Paul_T: Oh, thank you so very much! That was the one I was trying to remember the name of and failed to do so! A splendid show, indeed!

But not better than No. 1: ‘Firefly’; No. 2: Futurama, or even No. 3: ‘Babylon 5’…

An outstandingly good candidate for No. 4, though!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86on_Flux

(The link looks funny (why?), but it is a good one — just hover the cursor on it and then you’ll see it in the clear. And, gentle reader, don’t you go and “look the other way” when you see the cry for help in the black bar on top of this — or any other — Wikipedia page these days.)

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wavy

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My vote goes to Babylon 5 from J. Michael Straczynski.

I has 110 episodes in 5 seasons.

(A quote:  If you go to Z’ha’dum, you will die.)

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No one is voting for Doctor Who ?

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Alex 5723: ‘Doctor Who’ would have been a good candidate for No. 3, after the absolutely indisputable leaders, ‘Firefly’ and ‘Futurama’, had it not been for the overly-long tenure of the appropriately named David Tennant as the 10th Doctor. I never much cared for his (and Moffat’s) take on ‘Who’, although most of the show’s fans were always salivating (so to speak) so rapturously about him and those way too many episodes where he appeared.

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Kenneth Stephens

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For me, the John Pertwee era was the best of Dr Who (viewing from behind the couch at times) 😮
‘lost in space’ could be last or could it? Where did Dr smith get all his stuff from..sneaky sabateur

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor) , Tom Baker (4th Doctor), Chris Eccleston (9th Doctor) and Matt Smith (11th Doctor) rank about equally as the best of all Doctors, for me. Pertwee, that as I remember it, played the suavest (least cranky/wacky) Doctor and the first one shown in color TV, was pretty good, too.

Now, when it comes to companions, the field is wide open for controversy.

My vote, in no particular order of precedence, goes to: Romana I, Tegan, Rose Tylor, Amy Pond and Riversong. And K9, of course.

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ah, for us that would be a wooden PYE color CRT TV with 6 channel buttons and 3 terrestrial TV channels..
this was one of the longest visuals I’d seen on the BBC, often thought the sound was broken

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[tonyl]

Her face is beginning to ache from holding that smile…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by tonyl.

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[tonyl]

Hmm…tried to attach a picture to that but couldn’t get it to work. Try googling “Carole Hersee”.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by tonyl.

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Speaking of StarWars Disney plus now has The Mandalorian streaming. I think I will wait for one season to be complete and binge watch on my free trial.

BTW reading the Privacy statement I am surprised I will not have to submit a cheek swab and retinal scan..🤬

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About ‘The Mandalorian’: I have been reading some good things about it, but from doing that, have found no indication, so far, that there is anything really humorous in it. If there is, and plenty, I might wait to buy the DVDs, if Disney ever decides to start releasing them. Otherwise I have no interest in yet another dark, grubby and depressing story (with plenty of jumping around, shooting, blasting and gory killings) that is what, way too often, passes, these days, as profound and serious drama.

So, Wavy, please, let me know what you make of it, if you go ahead and start watching.

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Gonna be a month or so but Much of the social media reaction has been to the show's breakout character, a 50-year old "infant" of Yoda's species that The Mandalorian initially takes for a bounty but ends up becoming its de facto guardian in order to protect it after it has shown to have the powers of The Force. The character has been nicknamed "Baby Yoda",[11] a misnomer since Yoda himself died of old age in Return of the Jedi before the events of the series. The unexpected popularity of "Baby Yoda" led to an explosion of merchandise for the Christmas and holiday season, which quickly sold out.[75][76][77] from Wikipedia
😏

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OscarCP

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Question: Does anyone here know if there is some place on the Web where one can find either the script, or some decent animation based on the (script by Douglas Adams of one episode of Doctor Who to be called ‘Shada’ that, of course, never got to be aired, first, because of labor strikes and, afterwards, because of why not? There were in circulation, back in 2017, rumors that a new partially animated version (with the few “live” parts that got to be filmed with the actual actors and with parts that were pure animation filling in the gaps) was going to be released on DVD and one-time digital download.

There was also, many years ago, an animated version that was, I’m sorry to say, unwatchable, because it was on a BBC’s server that must have been actually a Commodore PC pressed into service for this purpose. Download rate was something like one bit per month, more or less — in a really good month, that is.

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Well, surprise, surprise. The video of “Shada” is available from Amazon Prime, for $ 2.99! I’ve bought and watched it and is, as expected, a combination of live action (the parts that were actually filmed) and as animation the ones that were in the script but never got to be actually shot. Both live action and animation blend very nicely, the voices of the animated parts are those of the actual actors, and the animation is OK, not terrific but serviceable. As it was always in Doctor Who in its “classic” epoch, so the style of the animation fits well with the very slow moving alien monsters, the basic pyrotechnic effects, the obvious fade outs when someone disappears into another dimension and the rest of it.

And the whole thing bears the unmistakable imprint of Douglas Adams’ deadpan wit throughout all 2 hours and twenty seven minutes of it.

 

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wavy wrote:

Whats your opinion on the film version?

i liked the film version and have it saved in my movie collection.

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‘Aeon Flux’, the movie, was panned by the critics, getting 9% out 100% from them in Tomatometer and a 39% “d***ing with faint praise” from the viewers, but I did not see it myself, so I don’t have a personal opinion.

The original animated  TV show was, from a graphical point of view, very nicely done; shown on MTV in the early through mid 90s, the series came as a shock to audiences that had never seen something quite like it on TV before. It was a trailblazer for adult-themed TV shows, such as those playing, years later, on the Cartoon Network progrm “Adult Swim”. How ‘Aeon Flux’ may impress someone watching the TV show these days is probably going to be probably rather different from what it was when first seen on MTV, as plenty of water has flowed under the bridge since those days.

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If you have Adult Swim it is worth checking out Rick and Morty. It reminds me of Quads in that it goes places most would consider too far.

cheers, Paul

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In reference to Paul_T  ( #2015046 ) who wrote “If you have Adult Swim it is worth checking out Rick and Morty. It reminds me of Quads in that it goes places most would consider too far.”

First things first: Thanks!

Now, three things I feel must write here:

(1) First of all: apologies all around for misplacing my entry on ‘Aeon Flux’ in the middle of an exchange on the ‘Mandalorian’. (Also, I’m not really sure that AF was science fiction, it could be equally well described as belonging to a genre all its own.)

(2) ‘Adult Swim’ is a jewel and a shining light of indie rebelliousness in a world swamped with pretentious, pompous and toxic arrant nonsense both on TV and pretty much everywhere that, these days, with the amazingly widespread use of cell phones, is used by probably most people, even in the poorest and, or most backward places, to get their news, catch a show, or to communicate among themselves.

(3) As per (2) above, ‘Adult Swim’ was the place where Matt Groening’s slyly subversive science fiction show ‘Futurama’ took refuge during its long exile and where it was replayed in its entirety, for years and years, after the Fox ‘suits’ cancelled it one star-crossed day that shall forever live in infamy, because they could, having failed to kill it less obviously already, poisoning its Nielsen ratings by scheduling it at the most unwatchable times, or right after some big championship game where the follow-up commentary was likely to run overtime. That worked a treat for them, so they did the same thing again when they decided to get rid of ‘Firefly’.

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OscarCP wrote:

About ‘The Mandalorian’

I am watching ‘The Mandalorian’ and think it is just OK, nothing special.

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OscarCP

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Ahh, Douglas Adams – therefore let’s not forget Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. First the brilliant radio show, the great TV series and the film, which was good. To those of us who listened to the radio series, the following attempts were a bit lacking. This was because of those who played the parts were indelibly marked on our memories (well it was for me!)

Peter Jones as the guide was just too good. Was it really 1978 it was broadcast? And 1981 the TV series? Wow!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Kenneth Stephens

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For many years, I only knew of Adams’ ‘Hitchhiker’ books, which I read one after the other as they came out. They were very popular and I had a number of conversations about them with perfect strangers that had read them and now saw me reading one, or else were reading one themselves, while on a train, ferry, or in other situations that bring together people that do not know each other and have nothing much else to do but wait for long stretches of time.

The movie was something of a disappointment, but later on I concluded that this was inevitable, because much of the books’ charm is in the observations and comments of the author, rather than in the action. The dialog is also part of that charm, but the only part of it that can be readily put in a movie.

I haven’t seen the TV show, but I imagine that my comment on the movie applies also to it, for the same reason.

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The movie was so-so. The books were good, I still remember the game on my first computer, I think I still have the ‘Don’t Panic’ pin that came with it. I think I was only able to listen to one radio episode.
Thanks for all the fish! 🐟🐬

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OscarCP

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I just found out about the new “Next Generation” follow-on series that premiers next month in “CBS All Access”. Judging by the highly refined and therefore expensive looks of it, this show is being produced by CBS in the hope that it will become a “tent pole” show that might prop up the so far indifferent success of their several-years-old streaming service. To me, the main question, given that CBS offers only a one-week of free streaming for people to make up their minds about subscribing or not, is whether the show could be worth the around $120 a year subscribing to “All Access” at about $10 a month, primarily to follow the show for as long as it keeps going (I already subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime and get from these two as much or more of entertainment that I am able to consume). Something that, according to Patrick Stewart, is envisaged to be up to six seasons.

In this reboot, besides some new characters, Picard, Data, Riker, Deana Troy and Seven of Nine are coming back and are going to be played by the original actors, now considerably older. But aging is something both inevitable and, according to this stylish teaser, something that will be handled so is not a problem that will get in the way of enjoying the show:

https://www.cbs.com/shows/star-trek-picard/video/Fxa2ERi0Lo0gytFEWAzYTrbRndYqXrEj/star-trek-picard-nycc-trailer-cbs-all-access/

Waning: To watch the teaser one has to turn the add-blocker off for that page. However,  after I did that, no ads appeared. So it is possible that this is a site-wide policy of “All Access” that is not relevant to this teaser but the pop up comes up  anyway.

Some pre-review of the show, here:

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/star-trek-picard-trailer-1202179130/

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OscarCP wrote:

whether the show could be worth the around $120 a year subscribing to “All Access” at about $10 a month, primarily to follow the show for as long as it keeps going

Considering Star Trek: Discovery & Star Trek: Picard seem to be the only remotely interesting things offered I will not be jumping, HULU and Prime both offer more. I am getting tired of the junk on Netflix so I may have to make the decision to add one soon. Free trials would be good for a ‘network’ with only two shows.

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“War of the Worlds”  w/ Orson wells

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DriftyDonN: Welles “War of the Worlds” was a radio broadcast, not a TV show.

It is a tribute to Welles’ genius that he knew so spectacularly well how to push the buttons of such credulous folk as inhabited the great USA in the distant past of 1938. And it is a tribute to how much we have matured and improved ourselves since then that these days… Oh, scratch that!

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Kenneth Stephens, Mr. Austin, wavy

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Not precisely TV show, but once opened the debate and topic, I propose this two remarkable films as the best Science Fiction movies ever. Do you agree? Then enjoy ’em:

1.- Metropolis (Fritz Lang – 1927)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8huGJO7po_A

2.- Soylent Green (Richard Fleischer – 1973)

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dq3ef

 

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I am of two minds about “Metropolis”. It is now a classic and, in many ways, it was a breakthrough, bringing science fiction from the swamp of pulp-fiction to the movies in a memorable way (cities with very high skyscrapers connected by sky-ways and so forth that became staples of the genre) and dealing with a philosophical serious issue: the ultimate consequences of entrenched social inequality (by the way, that was best done by H.G. Wells in his novel “The Time Machine”, but this thread is, by default, about movies and TV shows.) “Metropolis” (Fritz Lang’s, not the much more recent anime movie) was panned by the critics when it first came out, and I tend to agree with them, for having some twists and turns that are, quite frankly, rather silly. I subscribe to Netflix DVD’s service and asked for it and watched this movie again, recently. This did not resolve my doubts.

Although I have heard many times about “Soylent Green”, I have not had the opportunity to watch it.

So, to have a go at this myself:

How about “Moon”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twuScTcDP_Q

and “GATTACA”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpzVFdDeWyo

 

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Wheel_D, Charlie

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I have to say that one of the movies that made a huge impact on me was the very first Star Trek Movie.  I was already hooked on Star Trek TOS, and the movie at that time was a real treat to watch for me.  I was awed by the 12 minute tour Admiral Kirk was given by Scotty in a shuttle craft of the entire newly “refitted” Enterprise NCC 1701.  The gantry, lights, welding sparks, workers doing somersaults, and the close up views the that enormous ship.  It was breathtaking in 1978!

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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I remember in particular the sequence when the Enterprise moves slowly along the huge alien spacecraft with its seemingly endless series of strange, mysterious and impressive sights. In fact, everything that was shown near, at the entrance and within this spacecraft was both remarkable and dramatically surprising. A real imaginative tour de force.

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not the best Sci-Fi but the movie worth a mention in these current times:
cocoon
I’m sure we’d all like to take a dip in that swimming pool now, if only eh..
If you haven’t seen it, watch it, was a very underated film directed by Ron Howard (Happy Days) from 1985.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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Myst, wavy, Charlie, OscarCP

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Oh my yes!  Get rid of my aches and pains and have youthful energy again.  That was a very enjoyable movie indeed.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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As Cybertooth said:  “Regarding single-season cancelled series, we were recently caught by this trap with the Canadian series Endgame. We greatly enjoyed it but were left dangling by the cliffhanger in what turned out to be the final episode, as the series got cancelled after the first season.”

This has become more and more widespread, and it seems to always happen to the really good Science Fiction TV shows!  I’ve lost track of how many SF shows I’ve gotten interested in and liked very much only to have them cancelled.  I remember when a TV season was 20 to 26 episodes (or more for the older shows).  Nowadays you’re lucky to get 10!

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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wavy

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Charlie, This cancellation issue you discuss is, sadly, intrinsic to how the making of these shows is funded. Many Science Fiction shows, to be worth watching, have to rely on a good deal of expensive special effects.

Those making the decisions in Commercial TV judge the likely future profitability of keeping a show going for another season on the number of viewers that have been following it during the current one, as a large number is, naturally, a good basis for selling ads to paying businesses that may want to have them placed in that show.

Besides one-season shows, there are those, such as “Futurama”, that have a decrease of the number of viewers below what seems financially acceptable to the network deciders. If the show has been going already for several seasons and has acquired a solid core of devoted (and probably very vocal) viewers, but not one numerous enough to justify continuing the show, as in the case of “Futurama”, the way it is terminated could be more subtle: scheduling the show broadcast at a really bad time of day on a bad day of the week. For example just before a game of baseball or of some other sport that is likely to run overtime and cause the broadcast of the weekly episode to be cancelled:

https://www.wired.com/2013/04/futurama-cancelled-again/

On the other hand, subscription streaming sites such as Netflix have to recover the cost of making the shows from their paid subscribers’ money. That places a limit on what the executives responsible to make the decision to keep a show going are willing to accept to decide to renew it for another season.

In the case of cancellations in non-commercial TV, the reasons tend to be related to reshuffles of the executives running the show and, or to internal network politics.

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Charlie

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Netflix seems to cancel after 2 ‘seasons’. They want to see binge watchers complete a season to finance the next. For them the contracts they write give the producers much more $$ the longer the show continues, right up to the point of “well we can’t make $$ off of that!!”. Sad but true.
I was hoping that improved/cheaper CGI would change metrics. Does not seem to be there yet.

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Yeah, it’s always about money these days.  I remember when Star Trek TNG went for seven seasons and each season had 20 some episodes.  Same can be said for Star Trek Voyager, Stargate SG1, and Stargate Atlantis.  All these shows had high tech special effects and were aired in the 80’s and 90’s.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Charlie, “money” is pretty important for commercial TV and also streaming services such as Netflix. The profitability of a show to the broadcaster matters a good deal to the business that makes the shows possible, so making sure that really profitable shows are kept and those not profitable enough are not, is part of what I think of as doing “due diligence.”

But money sometimes is a mere excuse for someone higher ups disliking a show for their own reasons and sabotaging it, as was the  case with “Firefly.” While there was an arc or overall story spanning most episodes, although each could be watched enjoyably on their own, but with some confusion to reduce the pleasure, the invisible hand of someone whose name only recently has been revealed, shuffled the episodes like a pack of cards and had them shown in the resulting disorder. No wonder the ratings stayed low enough to justify cancellation.

But I am not here to bury Fox TV, but to praise (sort of) some new shows on TV and streaming:

(1) “Away”, on Netflix, is about the first imaginary crew to make the first imaginary journey to Mars.

It has some jaw-dropping special effects, with people moving in free fall, or zero g, for most of the episodes already shown. At least when it comes to the action in outer space. Otherwise, the show goes on and on about problems between the crew and the captain and between the captain and his family back on Earth.

Now I understand that, since a trip to Mars using, as in this show, a conventional rocket-ship to get there, is supposed to take months and months and, therefore, episodes and episodes to be told before the crew actually lands on our next biggish neighbor away from the Sun. And that filling those episodes with the crew’s technical work and the occasional emergency is going to get old pretty fast. But why should it be so much about interpersonal issues? I invariably find these in any show both boring and annoying, because they are invariable the result of fairly banal peeves.

The show is a recent one and there is some hope that, as it keeps going, it will find its legs one of these days. That couldn’t happen soon enough for me, but I am willing to wait, for now.

“Piccard” on Apple TV + : I have not seen it, so you tell me. It’s like a “postquel” to “Star Trek, The Next Generation”, with the same main actors now no better for wear after some thirty years since the very last episode. STTNG was my favorite “Star Trek” reimagining, and the main actors were all pretty good, so maybe they still are: you tell me.

As to books — and why not?, some books even get made into TV shows, movies and streaming video series, as the ones I am about to mention here have been.

I have been reading, after “His Dark Materials” the next, still unfinished trilogy with only two books out already: “The Book of Dust.” Phillip Pullman’s ongoing saga has a sprinkle of “quantum” dust (pun intended) and parallel universes, but it is mostly a fantasy story with some very light science fictional touches. And with an underlying, if lightly sprinkled throughout the first trilogy, allegory of Milton’s “Paradise Lost.” I mention all this here so, if you did not know about this work already (as I didn’t until PK and some others brought them to my attention during a discussion started by Charlie), all I can say is that you could do worse than to read one of these novels, preferably the first one: “The Golden Compass” (a.k.a “Northern Lights” in the  UK and in Oz.) Now I am going to state clearly and unambiguously here that, for something written in Oxford by an Oxford man, it is a lot more fun to read than another series of very popular (for reasons that escape me entirely) fantasy novels written by another Oxford man…  Now, come at me, all ye Ringers, if you dare. On the other hand, you have  had all your adored novels made into movies, Pullman’s only just the first one: “The Golden Compass,” that many who read the book first did not like. Having not read the book at the time, I liked it. So, there you have it.

Now, it’s your move.

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I know this is going to sound like a very simple answer but I always thought the sponsors whose commercials we’re forced to endure provided the money for a TV show.  Sponsors should make more money nowadays since most people now have and pay for cable. Then in addition that, they still make cable subscribers watch commercials! This is why I refuse to pay for cable.

I used to be able to stream video for awhile, but now everything is HD and I don’t have a high enough bandwidth to do HD without waiting every 7 seconds for buffering.  I am planning to get a fiber optic Internet & phone connection soon.

I saw “The Golden Compass” movie and liked it, and then read the books.  The books do take you into a much “darker” story toward the end.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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OscarCP

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Best Science Fiction Series:

1. Lost in Space
2. Space 1999
3. Twilight Zone
4. STTOS
5. STTNG

Best Science Fiction Movies:

1. Star Wars
2. The Martian
3. Gravity
4. 2001 A Space Odyssey
5. Logan’s Run

Best Science Fiction Movie Yet to be Made:

1. The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov

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OscarCP

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“Destination Moon.”

“Forbidden Planet.”

“The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

“The War of the Worlds.”

In my opinion,these movies, back in the 50’s, set the standard for science fiction worth watching, because they were about things strongly felt, feared or longed for by most people in our own planet. I can say that “Destination Moon”, which I saw when I was a little boy, got me, eventually, to NASA.

And lest we forget:

“The Planet of the Apes.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Planet

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Charlie, RamRod

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These are all good, “The day the Earth Stood Still” and the original “War of the Worlds” are two of my favorites.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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And now for my list of science fiction shows and movies I wished someone made (and made well) based on these books:

Edgar Poe: “The Narrative of Gordon Pym of Connecticut.”

H. P. Lovecraft: “In the Mountains of Madness.” (*)

Ray Bradbury’s “Martian Chronicles.” (**)

Arthur C Clarke: “Childhoods’ End.”

Isaac Asimov’s: “Foundation and Empire” (The two-part novel with the “Mule” in the second one.) (***)

The first four, in particular, are about the enigma of time and the vastness of space and who  or what may lurk out there and what their designs, beneficent or otherwise, for us might be; with the first two emphasizing the strange and incomprehensible grandeur and cosmic terror of a purely material and, towards us, utterly indifferent and pitiless universe.

(*) Guillermo del Toro has been making noises for several years now that he is going to make a movie out of this Lovecraft’s novel, one so terrifyingly subversive of our illusions of what the  material world around us is really like, that it seems made just for someone like him to take successfully to the big screen.

(**) Many years ago there was a TV show with episodes based on Bradbury’s book. Not a bad one, in my opinion.

(***) Asimov’s story is about a shift-changing genius of an imp whose ultimate goals are nothing like what his engaging persona makes them appear to be. And it carries also a not-so subtle warning of the dangers presented by crowd-pleasing politicians that cleverly disguise their despotic aspirations, waiting for the main chance to make their move — something of a “thing” with Asimov.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

And now for my list of science fiction shows and movies I wished someone made (and made well) based on these books:

Arthur C Clarke: “Childhoods’ End.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4146128/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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OscarCP, wavy

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I am not sure many will categorize this movie as SF, but I do and in my movie collection this movie is at the top with 10/10.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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OscarCP, wavy, Myst

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Alex, please add a description to your links.

cheers, Paul

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Alex, I haven’t seen or heard of this movie before, but the article in Wikipedia is interesting enough to see if I can see t, perhaps Netflix has it in its DVD collection, or it might be available for free from Amazon Prime:

“The Man from Earth is a 2007 American drama sicence fiction film written by Jerome Bixbi and directed by Richard Schenkman. It stars David Lee Smitth as John Oldman, the protagonist. The screenplay was conceived by Jerome Bixby in the early 1960s and completed on his deathbed in April 1998.

The screenplay mirrors similar concepts of longevity which Bixby had introduced in “Requiem for Methuselah”, a Star Trek episode he wrote which originally aired in 1969. The film gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks, which raised its profile. The film was later adapted by Schenkman into a stage play of the same name.”

The plot focuses on “John Oldman”, a departing university professor, who claims to be a “Cro-Magnon” (or “Magdalenian”, a caveman) who has secretly survived for more than 14,000 years. The entire film is set in and around Oldman’s house during his farewell party and is composed almost entirely of dialogue. The plot advances through intellectual arguments between Oldman and his fellow faculty members.“

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wavy

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Yes, I’ve checked and the DVD of “The Man From Earth” is available from Netflix, and I already have added it to my queue of the movie DVDs that I’ll be watching.

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The Quatermass Experiment from 1953 beats all the above.
It had me hiding behind the couch, even the theme music (Mars from Holst’s Planets Suite)
was frightening.

A1ex

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doriel

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Movie:  The Thing (1982)

TV series: Dr Who  (Pertwee, Baker era)

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OscarCP

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[NaNoNyMouse]

I know Douglas Adams has already been mentioned here, and I know it’s parody rather than straight sci-fi (although the same could be said about Futurama and Red Dwarf too), but I haven’t seen Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on any lists yet

The 1978 Radio Series, of course, not the TV version (so-so), the film (abominable), the game (a game), or the books (books). Our younger audience probably doesn’t even know what a radio series even IS. What, you just sit there and listen to it? No special effects or nuffink?

Yeah, it’s all a rather dated lifetime away now, but the radio series has some special memories for me personally. No special effects or nuffink, but it made you use your imagination…

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by NaNoNyMouse.

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access-mdb

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NaNoNyMouse: I’ve just looked around and found out that there is an “audible” version that, it says here, can be downloaded for free:

https://www.audible.com/ep/title/?asin=B002VA9SWS&source_code=GO1GBSH09091690EI&device=d&cvosrc=ppc.google.%2Bhitchhiker%27s%20%2Bguide&cvo_campaign=250471929&cvo_crid=259947793600&Matchtype=b&ds_rl=1262685&ds_rl=1263561&ds_rl=1260658&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIu6vvhofJ7AIVhI3ICh0RxAISEAAYASAAEgLldPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

I had a cassette tape recording published by the BBC, years and years ago, that I used to listen to in my car. I still have that car, but not the cassette.

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NaNoNyMouse

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“The Thing” is another excellent example of “horror + science fiction.” Really, really scary, particularly because it takes place in an isolated base in Antarctica, from where no safe escape is possible. Same as in a spaceship in outer space, in the middle of nowhere, as in “Alien.”

The Baker years of “Dr. Who” are most memorable to me because:

(1) I watched some of the episodes in a black and white TV, before color TV came to Australia.

(2) The production values were really bad, with supposedly horrible monsters that looked like they were made of papier mache and moved really, really slowly their evil works to commit. Someone once told me that, in her opinion, the studio sets were somebody’s back yard.

(3) Tom Baker was really good in his own interpretation of a sort of mature but wacky Doctor.

(4) It had some really good looking companions (and some good-at-acting ones too).

(5) It had Daleks.

(6) It had K-9

 

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Matador

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Wasn’t Davros just great and not to mention Lynx (the spud-head villian)

Good memories.

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OscarCP

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? says:

loads of excellent sci-fi here, i also enjoyed Andromeda with Kevin Sorbo as Captain Dylan Hunt in reruns on Comet channel, and Alien with Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The X-Fles.)

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OscarCP

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I liked the first Andromeda seasons.
But when the Avatar turned into a ninja………

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? says:

ah, Rommie she has a certain jenna se quoi, no?

 

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Charlie

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I liked her better before she was “upgraded.”

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OscarCP

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bit like windows then eh 🙂

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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OscarCP

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Yes!

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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? says:

well, yes and no. Rommie played by actress Lexa Doig (insert stock photo here) and her husband Michael Shanks (Stargate-SG1) met on set while filming “Star Crossed.”  She became with child at the start of season 5 and was written out for two-thirds of the season, hence her “upgrade.” nothing beats life imitating art.

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She also played the doctor on Stargate SG1.  I was glad to see her pretty face there too.  I didn’t know she was married to Micheal Shanks.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Now, my memory, who knows, might be slowing down, but it still retains the really important facts. And when it comes to who is the best ever looking actress in a TV series, I have absolutely no doubt that prize goes to: Morena Baccarin as Inara Serra, the high class courtesan in “Firefly.”

(I hope this picture comes out here looking right…)

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Mr. Austin

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Yes indeed Oscar, I agree.  She was also in Stargate SG1.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Charlie: SG1, yes, she was there too, thanks for reminding me.

Unfortunately for her, the only important role on TV she ever got beside the one in SG1, was in the high production values, one-season-and-then-gone remake of “V” that, just like the original “V”, although it might have looked much better, it was still a dog of a science fiction TV show. And her role was like a sort of nasty alien queen that looked human when she wished to, but was really a hideous reptile-like creature. To put Baccarin in such a role was a true sacrilege.

After that, as far as I know, her next important role was, a few years back, as the frazzled girlfriend of Deadpool in the movie of the same name (which I really liked, by the way). And she went and got killed, way too early, in Deadpool II (that I also really liked) …

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Charlie

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Was Alien, and its successors, a Science Fiction movie or a Horror movie set in space?

Was The Blob a Science Fiction movie or a Horror movie with the antagonist from off world?

What is Science Fiction?

Cheers!

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The Alien series was IMO 35% science fiction and 65% Horror.  The Blob was again IMO a 50’s teen drive-in movie. It had Steve McQueen in it though.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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RamRod

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RamRod: “Alien” and “Aliens” were horror science fiction movies set in space. Many science fiction movies and stories are also horror ones, because what happens in the darkness of outer space can be scary enough without even trying. This melding of genres goes back to well before the “Alien” publicity statement, in the late 70’s, that “In space, nobody can hear you scream.” And the idea of “horror science fiction” is still going on strong, as “Strange Things”, etc. show quite clearly.

Now, in my opinion, “The Blob” and others of similar artistic achievement, such as “The Invasion of the Killer Tomatoes”, belong among the most famous sort-of science fiction B-Movies ever, not so much among the best Science Fiction movies ever.

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RamRod

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Matador #2306209 : I forgot to mention in my comments on “The Thing” and on the “Doctor Who” of the Baker years that I was replying to one of yours where you mentioned those two examples of memorable science fiction TV shows and movies.

Sorry, Matador. And thanks.

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Matador

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And here is a big shout out for “Battlestar Galactica.”

To be clear, not the 2004 TV series, a “reimagined” version of the original 1978 one, but the original 1978 one, credited primarily to Glen A. Larson. Who was a Mormon, and so people have over the years commented on certain Mormon-themed elements of this TV series. No big deal, in my opinion. I had to have them pointed out to notice.

Which, unlike the 2004 follow-on, while it was also about a mass journey, or migration, or escape, to nowhere in particular and that also ended getting nowhere in particular, was in fact fun, in a goofy sort of way. Without the pretensions of high drama and minus the completely gratuitous soft p**n the follow-on was so generously sprinkled with. Not to mention all that retro, ca. 1960’s tech in the follow-on. The plot never made much sense, anyway, so why double down on its silliness?

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Charlie

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? says:

wait oscar before we go, you gotta check out Dust
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7sDT8jZ76VLV1u__krUutA

and thanks for yet another exciting topic!

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Thanks, anonymous: “Dust” looks very interesting: a streaming  channel with a collection of 10 – 15 minute short films on a variety of science fictional topics, some that look worthy of having a look at.

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OscarCP wrote:

And here is a big shout out for “Battlestar Galactica.”

Yes indeed. I was 29 going on 30 in 1978 and this show was one I really looked forward to watching.  The camaraderie of the Galactica crew, the neat voices of Cylon Centarians, and of course the beautiful women which included Jane Seymour and Anne Lockhart.  It was a very entertaining space show, and though they didn’t show them finally getting to Earth, the sequel show to it did.  I enjoyed the sequel too, but not as much as the original.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Now the melding of Science Fiction and Horror has been discussed here and brought to an, at least, amicable conclusion.

But the melding of Science Fiction and other artistic forms should also be given serious consideration. In particular the melding of Science Fiction and Grand Opera, especially when it is an alien work performed by actual aliens.

Such is the case of the very famous  “Klingon Opera”, sang here in Klingon in a justly renowned performance by Klingon artists of both Federation and Klingon Empire renown that now I am very happy and deeply honored to bring to you for your enjoyment, spiritual uplift and personal refinement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmQGO5U2n6s

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RamRod

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RamRod has listed the, as he sees it, best science fiction movies, and put “Gravity” there.

I agree that, in general, this is a pretty good science fiction movie. But when it comes to the understanding of gravity shown by those responsible for it … not so much.

You see, as it says in  my profile, I work (among other things) “on satellite orbits” or, more precisely, on the very accurate calculation of satellite orbits: to find, within less than a couple of inches, the true position of the satellite at any time. This is necessary, for example, when taking very precise measurements of the shape of the surface below with a radar or laser altimeter on a satellite, bouncing its radio or light beam off the surface and measuring the time it takes to come back. That, multiplied by the speed of light and divided by two gives the distance to the surface, but the distance from where? Here is where knowing the position of the satellite to better than the precision of the measurement comes in. And where I come in. The main force that shapes an orbit is gravity, so I have had to learn and get to understand reasonably well how gravity works.

So what is the problem I see with gravity in “Gravity”? In an interview with Phil Plait (I think it was) in “Bad Astronomy”, Neil deGrasse Tyson explained what he thought was wrong with “Gravity’s” gravity and so brought that to my attention.

You see, the most dramatic moment in the movie is when George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are hanging together, but only one can make the final jump back to the crippled space station and for that to be possible, the other must let go. And this other has to be the Clooney character. But, as presented in the movie, letting go also means falling down and down towards Earth, to burn down to a shiny cloud of very hot plasma when finally hitting the atmosphere.

So Clooney lets go, heroically, and starts to fall, very slowly at first. But with enough time before his fiery reentry to make a fine farewell speech.

Except that not only such a fall is not possible, but a thing much more interesting and dramatic as well should have happened, making the movie even more arresting — but with the theater’s personnel only allowing entrance to members of the public if they first agreed to being carded.

What should have happened is this: both Bullock and Clooney, before they separated were in exactly the same orbit around the Earth. When they did separate, Clooney got a little push and went into a slightly different orbit. But was still in orbit and not falling down to Earth. Also the effect of residual air around would have pushed him, ever so slightly, into a very slowly more and more different orbit. The difference would be that he would be sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower, sometimes a bit to the right, sometimes a bit to the left of Bullock, now safely inside, for the moment, of the space station after reaching it when Clooney let go of her. In other words: he would have been going in slowly changing circles around Bullock, never out of sight but also never out of radio contact. So, instead of just moving quickly away, as in the movie, soon to be so far as to loose radio contact and not be heard anymore by Bullock, he would have been always present to her and being heard by her: first his heroic words, then, increasingly, his heavy breathing, then his gasping, then his desperately gulping for air, then silence at last. But the corpse will still be in plain sight, going around and around in a sort of endless danse macabre around and in sight of Bullock.

Much more interesting than what happens in the movie, don’t you think?

 

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[AlexEiffel]

Movies : Solaris (1976) and Stalker (1979) from Tarkovski, those are on top for me.

Clockwork Orange and 2001 from Kubrick.

The Thing (1982) from Carpenter.

Maybe Blade Runner and Back to the future + The fly and other Cronenberg work.

On the more popular side, Madmax (2015), terminator 1 and 2, the first Star Wars IV, Robocop, Ex Machina, The Matrix and Alien(s), although they are not on the same artistic level, I find.

There is a special place in my heart for Dune, even if has big flaws.

The not that good but still memorable Idiocracy too.

Shows : I enjoyed Babylon V as a teenager and young adult. Star-Trek to a certain extent although I never found it great. I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica a bit more, but still didn’t find it as good as the best series I watched. Never saw Firefly or Dr Who, I should.

I find there isn’t that many great sci-fi movies and series, unfortunately. I hope the new foundation show will be good.

And to answer Ramrod’s question, in my book, science-fiction should have a link to an apparently plausible universe, parallel or future, unlike fantasy which doesn’t have this requirement. The fact that it is not scientifically possible doesn’t bother me as long as it is not grossly obvious, but some purists might want this criteria met more strictly. I suppose the more of a scientist you are too, the more some problems are obvious and annoying to you. Themes of space, technology, alternate plausible realities are in. Elves are out because they don’t have a come from another planet explanation.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by AlexEiffel.

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Alex Eiffel, I agree with your choices of the first movies you mentioned as being among the great classics, not just of science fiction, but of the cinema, period. But I also think that “The Matrix” (the first movie in the series by the Wachowski sisters) is a great action movie full of interesting ideas. Or, to be more precise, it is the greatest and the best Cyberpunk science fiction movie ever made, in my opinion. Lilly Wachowski has said that it is also a transgender movie, but she got me there, because I can’t see how that might be. Too subtly laid down for me? Still, if she says it, who, with her sister, is both the movie’s creator and co-director, who am I to doubt her?

This is such a strange world; in fact, as J.B.S. Haldane once wrote of the universe: it is not just stranger than we imagine, but it is even stranger than we can imagine.

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AlexEiffel

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Now I want to bring to your attention the work of the most remarkable director Brad Bird, who has made both very good animation and action movies, namely:

The Iron Giant.

The Incredibles.

The Incredibles 2.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol.

Tomorrowland.

The first three are all animation movies that I think that is fair to count as science fiction of the rather vague kind that is the most frequently encountered in movies. But they are all, in my view, true masterpieces, Brad Bird being one of the best creative movie makers around today.

The fourth is the live action movie where Tom Cruise hangs around the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubay. Where to ‘hangs around’ one mentally should add ‘for dear life at 2,722 feet, or 845 m above the ground.’

Roger Ebert had this review of the Iron Giant that strongly recommend people read:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-iron-giant-1999

Now about “Tomorrowland”:

While the first four movies listed at the beginning were very successful, or at least have got and kept a substantially dedicated following throughout the years, another, more recent one of Bird’s movies and probably his most ambitious one until now, has not fared very well: it was very expensive to make and ended up costing Disney that produced it more than $120,000,000. It was also roundly panned by several critics from top publications.

Quite frankly, I think that this is an excellent movie, truly worth watching. Also not all critics have deprecated it. According to Wikipedia:

“David Edelstein of New York magazine gave the film a positive review, stating that “Tomorrowland is the most enchanting reactionary cultural diatribe ever made. It’s so smart, so winsome, so utterly rejuvenating that you’ll have to wait until your eyes have dried and your buzz has worn off before you can begin to argue with it.”

Now “reactionary” is not my preferred adjective to use in front of any noun, but here has a rather positive meaning: it is a reaction against the dark side of advanced technology and its potential for making possible the establishment of some both stifling and permanent forms of autocracy and oligarchy.

But it is even more about seeing some astounding special effects to illustrate time-traveling from the humdrum present to an extraordinarily exciting and cheering vision of the future … much like the  “Tomorrowland” in Disney parks. That turns out to be also an elaborate commercial for a certain kind of optimistic and sunny expectation of where things are going, except that it is actually shown in the future and one has to time-travel there to go and see it. And it is a vision that turns out to have little to do with the actual future, as it will be seen later on. But that is not all: there is a lot more to this movie, including (but  not limited to) good dialog and some good acting. Roger Ebert, again, gave this movie what I think it is fair to describe as “an admiring mixed review”:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tomorrowland-2015

“The film is a personal work of art that seems born of stubborn passion. It’s definitely not an assembly-line product, despite the way that some sequences evoke (deliberately, would seem) actual assembly lines. If it’s a bit irritating or dull at times, it’s because it seems clear that Bird knows why he’s showing us these things, and what he hoped to achieve by visualizing them in this manner, but he and his co-writers (including co-scenarist Jeff Jensen) can’t find a graceful way to communicate it.”

“No matter. The “message” of “Metropolis”—a parable of labor and capital which concludes that society needs the heart to mediate between the head and the hands—was a mess, too.”

“But if you had to make a list of reasons why that film is still remembered, discussed, and raided for inspiration by films like Bird’s, “message” wouldn’t be on it. “Metropolis” is remembered because watching it is as close as many of us will get to being able to have another person’s dream.”

Hear, hear!

It is available for streaming from Amazon. I have not been able to find it in any place I am familiar with that sells movie DVDs.

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Alex5723 wrote:

I am not sure many will categorize this movie as SF, but I do and in my movie collection this movie is at the top with 10/10.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Thanks for bumping “The Man From Earth”.

I had heard of it, but never had the opportunity to watch it before.

Just added it to my Amazon Prime watchlist. It’s included now for free streaming! 🙂

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One of the latest SF TV shows is “Emergence”.  I really liked it but again it was cancelled after only one “season” in 2019.  Go to Google or you preferred search engine and you’ll see it under “Emergence TV Show – ABC”.  They are still showing the trailer and there’s a lot of info. about it too.  It was another show that had good ratings, good story, but still got cancelled.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Anyone for Altered States ??

marked the film debut of William Hurt and Drew Barrymore

😵😇👿👪🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_States

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OscarCP

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Here is a list of shows and movies some people here might like and, or like to give their opinions on them (*):

Movies:

Inception

Interstellar

Minority Report

Solaris  ( The 2002 Hollywood remake of the 1972 Tarkovsky’s classic based on the hallucinating novel by Stanislaw Lem (**))

The Shape of Water

TV Shows:

Twilight Zone

Outer Limits

The Man in the High Castle (from Amazon, streaming)

Mystery Science Theater 3000  (***)  (Both the 1990’s old TV show and the more recent Netflix pick up.)

Now, which are your own favorites still not discussed here?

(*) That I have put them in this list does not mean I like them, just that I believe they are both out there and are at least somewhat popular and worth discussing.

(**) Lem, a Polish science fiction writer, author of the most compelling stories about alien worlds with completely alien, creepy and coherently incomprehensible life forms that I have ever read. They are ideal for being made into high-end TV, streaming and big screen science fiction movies; it is a shame that only “Solaris” has been made into a movie, as far as I know.)

(***) Actually an ironic running commentary on bad movies, but taking place in a space station with robots, so…)

 

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I liked Interstellar and Minority report, but I would add them to the list of more popular movies with less artistic value.

I found Inception overrated. Sort of a fancy James Bond. Maybe because I read critics that shouted genius. I didn’t find it very deep or anything, although technically competent. I prefer the trick movie Memento from Nolan and found him less interesting after. I wasn’t crazy about Dunkirk too. I guess I am just not much of a fan of Nolan.

What about the serie The prisoner? Not sure, I watched a few episodes a long time ago.

Melancholia? Who is the crazy one? The one that can’t live a normal life pretending it is not absurd that is more adapted to the second part of the movie or the normal ones that can’t face absurdity later and kill themselves or go crazy? Interesting, Although I find Lars Von Trier movies often a bit artificial or too closely inspired from masters, I still enjoy them. My favorite is Dogville, that I find truly original, deep and believable even with its particular setting. Oh, I just realized I described Stalker. In Antichrist, you clearly see Stalker just with the grass scenes, too. Lars, you will still need to find your own way. Maybe Breaking the wave is original or I just didn’t see the inspiration?

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AlexEiffel: I agree with you, particularly on “Inception.” My objections amount to this:

(1) The movie maker took several years to make this movie and, in the interim, the computer imaging tricks kept getting better and better for making truly amazing special effects. So those special effects kept on getting piled up on this movie, until (in my opinion) it burst at the seams.

(2) The philosophical existential ambiguity question of whether this is reality and one just woke up from a dream, or is it the other way around? A dream within a dream? Was much better posed by Zhuang Zhou, or Zwangzi, in the Chinese Taoist classic book of the same name some 2500 years ago. From Wikipedia:

” The well-known image of Zhuangzi wondering if he was a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man is so striking that whole dramas have been written on its theme. In it Zhuangzi “[plays] with the theme of transformation”, illustrating that “the distinction between waking and dreaming is another false dichotomy. If [one] distinguishes them, how can [one] tell if [one] is now dreaming or awake?”  ”

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Let me add one I am currently watching: Carnival Row.
It is an Amazon thing, included in Prime (free month sub!! ) Season 1 showing 2 shot and likely in post. Steampunk, winged fae that fly, some lessons on prejudice, winged fae that fly whilst ….

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Thunderbirds – then we had Joe 90 were watched regularly as a kid, that I found (then) absolutely brilliant.
so did my parents, as it was the only times I was quiet lol

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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OscarCP

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The new (Netflix) Russian series ‘To The Lake \ Epidemiya’ (done in 2019 before Covid-19) is quite good.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9151230/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

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On the subject of the philosophical problem of distinguishing dreams and reality raised by me and AlexEiffel when he commented on “Inception” that I had put in a list, the 2016 movie full of amazing CGI special effects (but also way too many for my taste) and I answered with my own comment, has reminded me of a great science fiction animated movie by the brilliant Satoshi Kon, too soon to die of pancreatic cancer (that seems to be around a lot these days.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paprika_(2006_film).

And also of the last lines of the play “La Vida Es Sueño” (Life Is a Dream) by Pedro Calderón de La Barca, a poet and playwriter of the so-called Golden Century of the Spanish arts, during the Renaissance;

“Que todo afán es pequeño” / Pues toda la vida es sueño/ Y los sueños sueños son.”

(That all ambitious effort is worth little / because all of life is a dream / and dreams are just dreams.)

Or these lines in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”:

“You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.“

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And now, one more Zhuangzi (the dreaming butterfly/man) inspired science fiction movie, here:

The Lathe of Heaven, a 1980 film produced by National Public Radio in the USA based on a book from Ursula K. Leguin. According to this very interesting Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven

” The title is taken from the writings of Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhou) — specifically a passage from Book XXIII, paragraph 7, quoted as an epigraph to Chapter 3 of the novel. ”

“To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. ”

The movie (according to the corresponding Wikipedia article) had a fairly adventurous after life itself, and was finally recovered and remastered into DVD from a VCR tape found in someone’s house. Now it is available for streaming YouTube. Those who enjoy strange and philosophical science fiction will be well served by watching it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA

 

One more thing about the surrealistic and philosophical animation science-fiction film “Paprika” mentioned in my previous comment. According to the Wikipedia article I gave a link to in that comment:

” Time magazine included it in its top 25 animated films of all time, while Time Out also included the film in its list of top 50 animated films of all time. Rotten Tomatoes included it in its list of fifty best animated films of all time. Newsweek Japan included Paprika in its list of the 100 best films of all time, while the American edition of Newsweek included it among its top twenty films of 2007. Metacritic has listed the film among the top 25 highest-rated science fiction films of all time, and the top 30 highest-rated animations of all time. ”

Not bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBrUhQ0_qYA

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“La Jetée” (meaning the jetty, or embarkation platform at the old Orli airport near Paris), is a short (28 minutes) avant garde science-fiction 1962 French film, directed by Chris Marker. Along with the expressionist silent-film era “Metropolis” (1927), directed by Fritz Lang, and already commented here #2188798 , it is considered to be one the most influential science fiction films ever made:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jetée

The story takes place in Paris after a nuclear war, where a group of scientists are trying to create a device to send people to the past and the future, hoping they might be able to bring back help for rebuilding their ruined world. They have trouble finding volunteers that do not go mad because of the shock of time travel on the nervous system. They find a man, a prisoner, that may foot the bill and send him to the past, years before the nuclear catastrophe, at a time when he was still a child and saw a disturbing thing at the airport he cannot remember what it was. His experience as time-traveller begins then and there, in the airport. The story is told mostly with a series of still shots.

The complete movie (voice over narration in French) is available on YouTube; even those not able to follow the voice over are likely to get get a memorable impression of why this film is considered such a science fiction landmark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU99W-ZrIHQ

This is a version with the vice over in Engish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTdW6IrwIw

In 1995 a Hollywood movie called “Twelve Monkeys” with Bruce Willis in the role of the time-traveling prisoner, was based on “La Jetée” and was well-received by critics and public. Robert Ebert wrote a very positive review:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Monkeys

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Colony.  Genuinely interesting characters, and a plot you needed to pay attention to.  Often something would happen or be said, and its significance would not become apparent until several episodes later.  It is hard to do a completely fresh invasion story, but they came very close.  Of course it was cancelled just as the Big Reveal was coming about which of the aliens were the Good Guys, if either.

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It will be due to my age (I’m 64 now) but when I was a pre-teen the German TV had a show called ‘Raumschiff Orion’. All in Black and white because color TV wasn’t available by then. You can find it on Youtube but they had splendid ideas. Filming it was a lot more difficult in the early sixties but they impressed me everytime back then.

Later I was totally into the Starship Enterprise

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Anonymous, thanks for bringing this to my attention!

“Raumpatrouille Orion” (“Space Patrol Orion”) was a 1966 black and white TV show produced by ARD (a working group of public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany) An exact contemporary of  the original series of Star Trek, it was made, it would seem, with substantially better funding and therefore less spartan ship interiors, the ship exterior resembling a big and sleek flying soccer and a crew with some futuristic beehive hairdos in evidence. And, in my opinion, some slight touches of  Fritz Lang’s “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” in some of the creepier sequences in some weird outer space installations. Also in this series, at least, in space everybody can hear you cry. Judging by how many “hits” one gets when googling it, this series has gained the status of  a”cult” TV show, somewhat like the “Dr Who” of the Baker years, with a faithful fans’ following over the decades.

The videos of some of the episodes, roughly one hour long each, are available in YouTube. They are, of course, in German without English dubbing or subtitles. Here is the first episode, so those who don’t know German can get a feeling for what this series was like and those who know German can enjoy it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftDXbIDfce8

Prost!

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“Raumpatrouille Orion” (Space Patrol Orion) is also available on Usenet.
Indexers https://nzbgeek.info/ and https://www.usenet-crawler.com/ have all 7 episodes.

https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/ssearch/sublanguageid-eng/idmovie-36151 provides English subtitles, that are well synchronised.

For background information about the series, see the quite thorough Wikipedia article (in English):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille_%E2%80%93_Die_phantastischen_Abenteuer_des_Raumschiffes_Orion

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Mixing movies & TV, a big boost for “Star Trek-TOS”. It was the first SF space-based serious video effort since the movie “Forbidden Planet”, and brought serious SF to popularity for both TV and movies. The third season was inferior to the first two, however, and showed the fact that NBC gave the series little support that year, having renewed it only after a massive fan protest.

As for Star Trek movies pre-J. J. Abrams, my favorite is one of the least mentioned- “Insurrection”. It breaks the mold of the “follow-the-herd of Starfleet” mode, to show members of the Establishment rebelling against their unjust policies, and highlights the plight of the small minorities, and points out the wide prevalence of greed as one of the primary motivators of human behavior. For the Abrams movies, however, although the third is similar to “Insurrection” in that it focuses more on character motivation than SF and CGI whiz-bang, it seems to me less interesting than his first two.

For original concepts in SF video productions, it’s hard to beat “The Matrix” and “Inception”.

“Dune”, of course, has two productions- the movie, and the 6-part TV series (far less known). The latter is much truer to Frank Herbert’s novel, but lacks the in-your-face punch of David Lynch’s typical approach that the movie has, making it my favorite of the two. It’s one of the dozen or so favorite movies I’ve watched a number of times.

A special mention to “Ender’s Game”. An avid SF reader in my youth and early middle age, I essentially gave it up in my mid-to-lat 30’s. I saw a strong recommendation for the book in a blog completely unrelated to SF, and decided to give it a read on one of my travels. It had quite an unexpected denouement, but also such brilliant introspection given to the characters, enough to make me read almost all of Orson Scott Card’s other books in the Ender series. The movie was relatively true to the book, but, again, the book goes so much deeper. I’d recommend you read the book before seeing the movie, but that’s not really imperative.

Just some personal musings. As to what’s the best- quien sabe?

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Babylon 5 was a very ambitious project constrained by a very low budget, but groundbreaking in many ways with it’s five year story arc outlined from the very beginning.  A favorite.

However, as a youth I enjoyed a series not yet mentioned, a British sci-fi TV series (also broadcast in the US and Canada) called UFO.  It was shown in 1970 with 26 episodes.  It’s setting was a more contemporary 1980 about a threatening and mysterious alien race infiltrating and exploiting Earth and it’s residents and the secret organization SHADO established to counter the threat.  It included a moon base, space interceptors packing a single large nuclear missile, SkyDiver – a submarine with detachable interceptor aircraft, and many other “futuristic” vehicles and props with special effects quite advanced for 1969 when it was filmed, which covered underwater, land, air, space and moon.

It did have some notable details that I was impressed with at the time such as no sound in space, unlike other shows with jet/rocket sounds of the spacecraft, etc.  The space scenes merely had subtle mood music that was not at all intrusive.

 

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I was and am a fan of Babylon V (now available for free if one subscribes through Amazon Prime.) I have the DVDs of all five seasons. It was my first purchase of all the DVDs of a TV show, back in the late 1990’s.

I think it was probably the most imaginative science-fiction TV series I’ve seen, except for the one-season and much lamented “Firefly” and for “Futurama”, also a casualty of an untimely termination.

In fact, Babylon V also run against network opposition and was nearly cancelled, then got a one-year reprieve to wrap things up. The uncertainty caused Claudia Christian, as Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova, to quit at the end of the fourth season and go to seek her fortune elsewhere (she didn’t really succeed at that and was also deeply resented by the rest of the cast, Straczynski in particular, for leaving.)

Straczynski tried to continue the project (and the jobs of some members of the cast) in the form of a series of TV movies, but only the first two were really much good, in my opinion. The whole thing continued in the usual form of graphic novels, some of which are considered to be “cannon” and some of which are not.

Not all were actors with acting experience. A remarkable case of one who was not, was Jerry Doyle, as Michael Garibaldi, who in real life was first a stock broker and then a libertarian talk-radio political commentator.

Two members of the regular cast died just a few years after the show ended: Biggs, as Dr. Franklin and Katsulas, as G’Kar.

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AlexEiffel

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Unfortunately, Babylon V is no longer available for free from Amazon: now it can be purchased for online streaming at the rate of one dollar per episode.

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Now I want to mention here some movies that belong to the more fanciful genre of “Steampunk” science fiction and one that appeals to my funny taste in weird movies that have a heart and a sense of humor:

There is a list of them here:

https://www.rebelsmarket.com/blog/posts/top-10-steampunk-movies-of-all-time-ranked-in-order

But I have my doubts about some of the entries in the article: for example “The Golden Compass”, to my mind, is fantasy with a sprinkle of “quantum” and “parallel universes.” And “Hugo” is no science fiction movie: just a sort of period one that distorts the facts about the life of the great pioneer of moving pictures, Georges Meliès, in what I consider to be an absolutely shameful way. Otherwise, it’s not too bad.

On the other hand , I believe that these totally qualify as science fiction, steampunk sub-genre:

Wild Wild West

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

 

“Wild Wild West” is a favorite of mine, by the way.

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“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was one of the first SF movies to make a big impression on me as a youngster.  As long as we’re talking about Disney movies, I really liked the original “Absent Minded Professor” with Fred MacMurray mixing chemicals, and tweaking his calculations on the blackboard in his garage.

This movie was both funny and inspiring to me.  Once he invented and got the Flubber under his control, the sky was not the limit.  I very much enjoyed watching him “fly” his Model T around.  These movies appealed to my early interest in science.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Another steampunk movie that I fully recommend seeing to those interested not just in steampunk but on good, wacky science fiction and alternative story:

“Avril et le Monde Truqué”, the English version called “April and the Extraordinary World”, is an animated French-Belgian-Canadian co-production, made in 2015.

The premise is that, if in France Napoleon III had died in an accident he himself brought about when trying to have scientists create an army of supermen to fight against the Prussians and have been succeeded by a pacifist son, so the Franco-Prussian War 0f 1870-71 never happened, but then, after a while, all prominent scientists were to start disappearing mysteriously, so the world wold never have been able to move from the age of steam, powered by coal and charcoal, to electricity and oil. And if the government then decided to jail all those remaining scientists that did not want to join secret projects to arm France with advanced super weapons in order to have a go at North America, as Europe had already run out of mineable coal (making the air hard to breath in) and had burned all its trees to use them as fuel, but there were still plenty of trees on the other side of the Atlantic, what then?

The answer is that what happens is even less likely than the premise, but brilliantly thought out and shown in a great animated movie that has won a raft of prizes in Europe and America.

The trailer of the English version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utn3AuutXVk

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Here, for your consideration, six box office blockbuster movies:

The Abyss

James Cameron  1989 movie that takes place on a submarine oil drilling installation where strange apparitions, a sunken soviet sub with live nukes on board, an unpleasant special ops. team and a catastrophic accident have everybody seriously spooked, including me, watching it.

Avatar

What can I say? A 2009 James Cameron movie.

Independence Day

A mixed of the sublime in special effects and, at times, story telling, with the really silly, particularly the ending, where dire planet-wide problems are resolved by hacking a super advanced alien computer with a completely unknown operating system system to plant a virus with a Mac ca. 1996. Best part, in my opinion: Will Smith kicking alien butt. Literally. Across the desert.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

A Steve Spielberg 1977 film:

Aliens are weird but not bad and like really short melodies.

ET  The Extra-Terrestrial.

Another Steve Spielberg film made in 1982. I haven’t seen it.

Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro 2013 monster movie with giant robots, or rather anime-like “mecha” with people inside that battle at sea giant trans-dimensional marine monsters that are trying to conquer, or maybe destroy everybody and everything on land. Because who knows what trans-dimensional marine monsters may really have in mind? If they have minds, that is.

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Mr. Austin, Charlie, wavy

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I interpreted “show” in the OP to mean television series, but if movies are included Avatar (3D) is certainly at or near the top.

Sadly, the sequels are all being postponed yet another year to Dec. 2022 for Avatar2, even though it’s production is 100% complete and ready to be released.  Avatar3 isn’t until Dec. 2024 even though it’s now 95% complete. The delay is due to COVID with the studios not wanting profits to be impacted by theater restrictions.  They are milking it for maximum $$.

If they were to release this year on schedule they’d have very little competition for the Academy Awards.  It’s a sparse year for movies.  That’s not where the money is though.

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OscarCP, Mr. Austin

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Avatar 2 and 3 are on top in my bucket list!

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Seriously? The best SF Series ever is Cleopatra 2525.

{runs from the lounge, giggling}

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looking at the wikipedia article there maybe something interesting there.

🍻

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Check out the “Cleopatra in Space” TV-show.

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“Cleopatra 2525” Gina Torres is one of the actresses: enough said, I need to see it.

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[Mr. Austin]

You’re all shameless time-wasters 😉 – and I’d never deign to be involved in such a frivolous discussion 😉

I’d vote for Babylon 5. This from a sci-fi fan from way back, who remembers the days when people actually read, and grew up amid printed books. I’ve signed copies of books from Robert Silverberg (To Open the Sky), Larry Niven (Integral Trees), and David Brin (The Postman). I’m geeky enough to have visited a WorldCon, which had around 7K fans in attendance, and maybe five of them were women. Also a Los Angeles convention at which J. Michael Straczynski spoke on a panel. Before Babylon 5 he was a story editor for the TV series, “Murder, She Wrote”.

During one of our private WorldCon parties I became impromptu director of a live internet video link with Santa Monica’s Internet Cafe, San Francisco’s Nikko hotel. Everclear with capiscum was served – among other libations. I began hollering over our din to our partiers for tattoos and body piercings from our audience.

Our two judges in Santa Monica would hold up placards with numerical scores ranging between 1 and 10. Both judges were women. The day after that party, one of them drove to the Bay area to visit me 😉

Once upon a time I’d met and worked a little with LeVar Barton on promotions of a concert event and he was a very nice man in person. About Babylon 5:  It had among the most fascinating and engaging character development and story lines I’ve ever seen in any sci-fi series. It also featured episodes with Walter Koenig as head of Babylon 5’s heinously subversive and chilling Psi Corps.

I’d a feminine friend who grew up with Babylon 5 actor Stephen Furst, and  he was kind enough to invite my friend’s husband and me its active set. We talked with him (in costume), Bill Mumy, and Mira Furlan. I was smitten and almost reserved with Furlan 😉

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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AlexEiffel

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Hey! That’s creds bragging enough for the rest of the year!

And I am sick of envy, too. Babylon 5… Well, I wrote about it already, so no need to repeat myself. Too bad one cannot stream it for free from Amazon anymore. Or, that I know, without an ad every five minutes, or even that. But at least I have all five seasons’ DVDs.

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Farscape
Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars

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OscarCP

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Not sticking with best, instead doing really good that you folks  aren’t mentioning:

Comedy:

Robocop – This is a hilarious satire which couldn’t find an audience.

Braindead

Better off Ted

Middleman

dead like me

Anime

cowboy bebop

Ghost in a shell (whole series of series)

Full metal Alchemist

Noir

General SciFi

Orphan Black, at least the  first 3 seasons. Incredible. Might be best ever.

Travelers

Dark Angel

Life  on  Mars

 

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OscarCP

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sshank: Writing what follows based on my own recollections, I am of the impression that “Robocop”, the movie, did very well and was quite popular in its day. Moreover, going just by the box office performance, according to Wikipedia:

“RoboCop was released in American theaters on July 17, 1987. The film opened no. 1 at the US box office and grossed over $8 million in its opening weekend and another $6 million in its second weekend, again regaining the top spot at the box office. It topped rival films released at the same time, including “Full Metal Jacket” “Superman IV”. In total, it grossed $53.4 million during its North American run, making it the 16th most successful film that year. It also grossed an additional $24,036,000 from video rentals in the United States.”

I must confess that, while I am keen on the amazing work of the late Satoshi Kon (Paprika, Millennium Actress) and also of Katsushiro Otomo’s “Akira”, the movie, both in my own short list of science-fiction anime, that is about as far as my liking for science-fiction anime goes. On the other hand, when it comes to fantasy anime, I am in awe of the work that came out of Studio Ghibli and, more recently, started to come out of Studio Ponoc. Also of Makoto Shinkai’s “Children Who Chase Lost Voices.” But that is another story, for another place.

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“RoboCop was released in American theaters on July 17, 1987

The reason the tv show did nothing, was that it was a political and social satire that didn’t particularly appeal to some of the viewers expecting a violent action series. While those who would  appreciate it didn’t watch because they thought it was a violent action flick.

The TV show always showed at least once, the characters watching a tv advertisement which was just like our dumbest worst ads, but a little more so. Just enough beyond what we had then to make you wonder if they really were advertising that drug or was it part of the show. Also, thinking back to the clinton presidency, when they left an overcrowded health clinic, with dying people in the hallways unable to get treatment, the sign at the door said, “Hillary Clinton Health Clinic” if you were paying enough attention to catch it.

The Robocop in the tv show, never hurt humans. When fired upon by “bad guys”, he would shoot into a corner, which would ricochet to a chain holding an overhead light which would fall down knocking the gun from his hand. Then Robo would gently cuff him and take him in.

 

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OscarCP

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Thank you sshank for being the second person to mention “Dark Angel”, myself being the first in another thread.  This was IMO a great TV show set in the near future, and was based on the dangers of genetically engineering humans to be super soldiers.  I liked it so much that I bought the DVD’s for each of all two seasons.  Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly were the two main characters.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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charlie thanks for this one I think I missed the second season, probably a consequence of working a night shift 🙁

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[Vincenzo]

12 Monkeys the movie has been mentioned, but I didn’t see 12 Monkeys tv series.
I enjoyed it, even though I could never follow the overall plot.

Also Caprica was good.

And the Blade Runner sequel.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Vincenzo.

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Vincenzo wrote:

Also Caprica was good.

Yes but ended early IIRC.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Vincenzo: To understand “12 Monkeys” you could first have a look at “La Jetée” (here #2307018  ).

It is the original movie on which the one with Bruce Willis was based.

So, was “12 Monkeys” a ripoff of a famous movie? Yes Sir! Just as “The Magnificent Seven” was a ripoff of “The Seven Samurai” and the  first Star Wars  movie,”Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was a ripoff of another Kurosawa movie: “The Hidden Fortress”:

https://film.avclub.com/an-influence-on-star-wars-the-hidden-fortress-is-kuros-1798179895

As I think it was Roger Ebert who once observed: “If you are going to ripoff from someone, you better ripoff from the best.”

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AlexEiffel, Mr. Austin

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Joss Whedon “Dollhouse” was (no big surprise) a  2009 one season TV show that, as excerpted from its Wikipedia article:

” … revolves around a corporation running numerous underground establishments (known as “Dollhouses”) around the globe that program individuals referred to as Actives (or Dolls) with temporary personalities and skills. Wealthy clients hire Actives from Dollhouses at great expense for various purposes, including heists, sexual encounters, assassinations, expert counsel, and all manner of unique experiences.”

It was a combination of science fiction action thriller and horror story, much as its Whedon’s predecessors “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” were of fantasy, and “Firefly” was of science fiction, but without the light touches of comedy and snappy dialog those others were sprinkled with. The Dolls didn’t say that much. If one likes scary science fiction shows, this is one to see.

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[Geo]

Lets get in Mr. Peabody and Sherman’s way back machine from the “Rocky and Bullwinkle show,”  and return to the beginning of TV.   “Space Patrol”  1950.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Geo.

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RamRod, Mr. Austin, OscarCP

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I’d be a bit more modest and go back just to the time, 1979 – 81, of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

Beep!, beep!

 

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Charlie, Mr. Austin

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[Alex5723]

Has anyone mentioned Westworld ?

ps. Second season of the The Mandalorian will air today.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Alex5723.

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RamRod, Mr. Austin

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Alex: Your two links are to IMDb Web pages; as it happens, that is not a very good place to find out about a streaming show. It takes a lot of digging around to find a very important and useful fact: where one can stream it from? In fact I had to spend close to half an hour to discover that Westworld is an HBO show and The Mandalorian is on Disney +, neither of which I subscribe to.

Wikipedia is a lot more informative and has articles on both shows, including such details as the prizes they have won. Showing that the Mandalorian, for example has been doing OK in this respect for cinematography and special effects.

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wavy, Alex5723

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OscarCP wrote:

Alex: Your two links are to IMDb Web pages; as it happens, that is not a very good place to find out about a streaming show. It takes a lot of digging around to find a very important and useful fact: where one can stream it from? In fact I had to spend close to half an hour to discover that Westworld is an HBO show and The Mandalorian is on Disney +, neither of which I subscribe to.

It was good of @Alex5723 to share shows he was interested in. It really isn’t essential to provides links to streaming options which any one Lounger may or may not be subscribed to. For one thing, many of us may not be in the same location you are…
😉

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Alex5723

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check out https://www.justwatch.com/

for where things are streaming.

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I don’t care about Wikipedia in regard to Movies, Tv..or prizes …
I care about viewers reviews on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes..

🙂

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One posts comments here to inform others. So please, try to give links to more informative sites that IMDb:  IMDb reviews are usually very short, some without explaining what the show is about but concentrating in some details of it without providing the necessary background to those not familiar with the show, and sometimes there are no reviews at all, because they are posted by subscribers on a voluntary basis. Issues such as the one I had mentioned, trying to figure out from where to stream those shows Alex listed in his comment, are important.

Rotten tomatoes usually has informed reviews, both from professional critics and from selected members of the audience, but it has become harder to access: now it requires turning off the adblocker before one can look at the reviews. This is an unfortunate and recent development.

As to Wikipedia: most recent movies and shows reviewed there are, at least initially, before getting edited, written by the makers of those shows or movies. So one always gets a summary of the plot enough to get an idea of what the work is about. I wouldn’t emphasize the reliability of the information any stronger than that… unless is about older acknowledged classics, more likely to have been edited by the usual Wiki process.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

trying to figure out from where to stream those shows … are important.

It appears we don’t agree. Some old shows are not available by streaming.

It is not essential for something to be streamed for it to be someone’s opinion…

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Another informative source about TV shows, streaming shows and movies is Metacritic. I had not paid much attention to it until now.So I decided to have a closer look.

For example, here is its assessment of the “Mandalorian” and include, same as Rotten Tomatoes, a number of reviews from critics (76 in this example) of a number of well-known publications and of others less so:

https://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-mandalorian/season-2?ref=hp

But, unlike Rotten Tomatoes (RT), it does not carry advertisement, or forces people to watch them by making it turn off their adblockers; also it can be browsed with most browsers, unlike RT that recently has become one of those very picky sites that only allow the use of a selected few.

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Ghost in the Shell movies and TV series.

Ghost In The Shell S.A.C The Laughing Man 2003
Ghost In The Shell S.A.C Individual Eleven 2005
Ghost in the Shell 2.0 2008
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 1 Ghost Pain 2013
Ghost In The Shell Arise Border 2 Ghost Whisper 2013
Ghost In The Shell Arise Border 3 Ghost Tears 2014
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 4 Ghost Stands Alone 2014
Ghost in the Shell Arise Border 5 Pyrophoric Cult 2015
Ghost in the Shell The New Movie 2015
Ghost in the Shell 2017

Ghost In the Shell SAC_2045 2020 (tv)

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sshank, OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

I’d be a bit more modest and go back just to the time, 1979 – 81, of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.”

Beep!, beep!

‘BeeGee BeeGee’ is more like it 😛
‘Beep Beep’ was roadrunner (cartoon)

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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Hey, Microfix, you are describing the cute little robot, same one I am referring to? You might well be quite right about that, but my memory of the sounds it made are as I wrote, except it was two longer tones, not the two brief “bips” of the road-runner. Well, what do you know? Memory: what a mystery! Still, I stand for my recommendation to those interested in checking out old shows to look into this particular one. This is a trailer of the series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAadQv-AL0Q

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OscarCP wrote:

Hey, Microfix, you are describing the cute little robot, same one I am referring to?

No, I’m describing ‘Twiki’ 🙂

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created IT- AE

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[PKCano]

Historically and even gnow I’m a movies guy. Simple stories, well told. Get in. Do the story. Get out. Yes, I enjoy a good small-screen series but my tastes are like neckties – they suit me grandly or they don’t without much in between. The discussion here has sparked many fabulous memories of fabulous, feature-length sci-fi/sci-fantasy moofies. A partial memory dump:

Mr. Rice’s Secret

Death Becomes Her

District 9

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Tank Girl

Johnny Mnemonic

The Fifth Element

Soylent Green

Idiocracy

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Gandahar

I, Robot

And anything and everything the Wachowski sibs do, including Sense8 and Cloud Atlas. Yes, the Matrix series is also very good yet it also gets plenty of traction on its own.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by PKCano.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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OscarCP

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Michael Austin: There are a few entries in your list I have not come across or had a chance to see before, but those I recognize are also favorites of mine. For example “Cloud Atlas” and “The Fifth Element.” I strongly recommend those two to anyone who has not seen them.

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I am still hoping buckeroo bonzai come to netflix!! It is on my list!
Oh and the fifth element is one of my favorites. The floating noodle shop !!!

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I Robot was a movie I enjoyed a lot.  Will Smith was good and the new story was done well and kept the robotic laws of the original book by Isaac Asimov.

Being 20 something in the 70's was much more fun than being 70 something in the 20's.

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Mr. Austin

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I particularly enjoyed ‘Childhood’s End’ by  A.C. Clarke.  I read the book overnight – could not put it down.  At first I did not understand why Clarke chose such a shocking form for the alien overlords.   Later my mind clicked in to the significance of it.  Very disturbing!

 

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Not paranoid enough already? Then you need to watch “Cube”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GHCMiiAJg

This is a science fiction&Horror Canadian movie. If, by the end, it still does not make sense to you, that is precisely the idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_(film)

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Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Never Say Never Again (1983)

And so much more.

Vale, Sean Connery

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54761824

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See https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/00-heaven/

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OscarCP

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Now it is Halloween and I have the consequent urgent need to find some appropriately hair-rising sci-fi horror B movie to recommend here. So I remembered one called “Pitch Black” that came out in 2000. (Now available from Amazon Prime.)

“Pitch Black”, that I saw on TV, a long-ago dark and rainy night, alone, in a largely empty apartment building, was really …. scary (add mentally a Woody’s unsuitable expletive or two in front of “scary”, please.)

It cost a very frugal 25 millions, had a small principal cast. In the story, most of those in a passenger-carrying space ship, including a very dangerous criminal being transported under some serious restraints that break when the ship hits some space rocks and crashes on a deserted planet (‘deserted’, well…), most of them, die during this crash. So the criminal is now out and about on this planet, where some insanely nasty alien lifeforms come out of underground caves during the darkest part of long-lasting if rare triple-sun eclipses. One of which is now, as it happens, imminent, to kill and eat whatever happens to be edible around there. Shipwrecked people, for example. So the spaceship  crashes at the start of the movie, most of the crew and passengers on board die even before the main story begins and more keep dying through it, all the way to the end, so there are only a few actors in main roles to be paid decent wages.

Although several critics scoffed noisily at it, it has become a cult movie. So, there. People remember the movie and keep watching it, but who remembers those smirking critics, huh? And, over the years, there have been one or two follow-on movies, to prove the above statements are entirely true.

Here is a clip to get a taste of the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luuYRrPaEpM

Here is more on this movie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_Black_(film)

One might try to make sense of “Pitch Black”, but making sense was never its real point. Its real point was to scare people ….less. Well, it did to me, back in 2000. Probably it still would.

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Mr. Austin

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Pitch Black is the first of Reddick series :

Pitch Black (2000)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Riddick (2013)

I would add to the list the Resident Evil series :

Resident Evil (2002)
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

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Pitch Black is/was/will be a very good movie.

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OscarCP

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[Alex5723]

Solaris (1972) Solyaris (original title)

* The remake with George Clooney from 2002 is bad.

There are also Solaris (1968) TV movie and a Japanese remake from 2007.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Alex5723.

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Solaris, the novel, that I read sometime back in the eighties, truly bowled me over, as did the Tarkovsky movie with the unforgettable scene of an intimate little party for two, with those floating candle sticks. I also saw the 2002 version with George Clooney in the leading role, directed by Steve Soderbergh and produced by James Cameron (of “Avatar” fame) and was well impressed. It seemed closer to the original novel. But Stanislaw Lem, the Polish author of the novel and one of the true geniuses of science fiction, did not like either movie because they were mostly about the relationship of the two main characters: that between the main protagonist and his wife and, later, between him and her ghostly simulacrum created by the incomprehensible living ocean of the planet Solaris that their space station was orbiting. While Lem’s book was mostly about the ocean and its disturbing effect on the members of the space station:

“…to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space… As Solaris’ author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled “Solaris” and not “Love in Outer Space”.
— Stanislaw Lem, The Solaris Station (December 8, 2002) ”

Roger Ebert liked both movies and gave the 2002 version three and a half stars out of four, meaning: a very good movie, just not quite a great one. He wrote:

“When I saw Tarkovsky’s original film, I felt absorbed in it, as if it were a sponge. It was slow, mysterious, confusing, and I have never forgotten it. Soderbergh’s version is more clean and spare, more easily readable, but it pays full attention to the ideas and doesn’t compromise. Tarkovsky was a genius, but one who demanded great patience from his audience as he ponderously marched toward his goals. The Soderbergh version is like the same story freed from the weight of Tarkovsky’s solemnity. And it evokes one of the rarest of movie emotions, ironic regret”

These excerpts are taken from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(2002_film)

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When youse guys mention these screened entertainments I take your mention of them sincerely and use my own judgement for my own tastes. You’ve mentioned shows I haven’t heard about and I thank you! I very much dislike poorly-made screened entertainment of any sort, and until the last few years didn’t like most sci-fi or sci-fantasy series.

And, since we we’re willingly and gratefully meandering to and fro about ‘shows’ and ‘movies’ two other movies just came to mind:

I’d suggest the movie, The Men Who Stare at Goats, as a candidate in the sci-fantasy category. Not only did I find it to be a fabulously-entertaining, very funny and at turns cloak-and-dagger bit of film making with spectacular acting, but I know a fair bit about the real-life adventures which preceded its making. George Clooney’s portrayal of “sparkly eyes” for Ewan McGregor made me guffaw and still makes me smile. The characters in the movie are aggregations of several real-life people, a couple of whom I know.

For aficionados of things which also play as other-worldly, Russell Targ’s and Lance Mungia’s documentary, Third Eye Spies, plays well for someone who hasn’t heard much about the now-shuttered Stargate espionage projects. I know Russell well, and I’d gotten to know Lance. I’m acquainted with three or so people in that seemingly fictional documentary.

And another one you don’t often see on movie lists is the genre-transcendent Suspect Zero with Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart, and Carrie-Ann Moss. Suspect Zero is a ‘Who-Done-It’ chiller about Ben Kingsley’s gifted but twisted character, being chased by Eckhart’s and Moss’s characters. And which lover of tough and tender femininity doesn’t love watching Carrie-Ann Moss (like in the Matrix series)? Russell was a technical advisor for Suspect Zero.

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“Men Who Stare At Goats”: More than in the science-fiction category, it belongs in the the “off-the-wall real-life stories that look and feel like off-the-wall science fiction” category.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Men_Who_Stare_at_Goats

“Just covering all the bases, because one never knows …”

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[Alex5723]

2081 (2009)

After Vonnegut’s original story

“In 2081, American society is a dystopia, in which all individual inequality has been erased by the fictional 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution and the “unceasing vigilance of the United States Handicapper General”, after that cabinet office was created to ensure a “golden age of equality” in the United States. Exceptionalness in the world is destroyed in the name of equality, achieved through the use of “handicaps”—physical devices used to nullify every inborn advantage any person might have over another: “The strong wear weights, the beautiful wear masks, and the intelligent wear earpieces that fire off loud noises to keep them from taking unfair advantage of their brains.”[1]”

Mad Max series :

Mad Max (1979)
The Road Warrior (1981)
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Night Watch (2004) / Day Watch (2006)

Stalker (1979) (Tarkovsky. A Masterpiece)

“The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the “Stalker” (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who takes his two clients—a melancholic writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) seeking inspiration, and a professor (Nikolai Grinko) seeking scientific discovery—to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the “Zone”, where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person’s innermost desires.”

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Alex5723.

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Alex, Thanks for bringing people’s attentions to those great movies. (I have the DVDs of all the Mad Max movies.)

I am delighted to learn that one of the very addictive Kurt Vonnegut’s great stories has been made into a what, by the looks of it, is a very good movie. His novel “Slaughterhouse Five”, was made (in 1972) into another movie that was very well received and had an amazing sound track: renditions of some of J.S. Bach keyboard instrument works by none other than Glen Gould, as well as a the last movement of JSB’s Brandenburg concerto No. 4 at the height of its most dramatic part, the one about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII (a movement that if I had my way, would be played at my funeral, as to me at least, it sounds like the summation of someone’s life). But how about “The Sirens of Titan” (“Titan”, as in the biggest moon in the Solar System) and also “Cat’s Cradle” (the one with the science fiction-ish “ice 9” macguffin and also the preserver for eternity of the final act of cosmic defiance of the point-of-view protagonist: good and ambitious film makers, please, take a hint.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five_(film)

And so it goes.

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Alex5723

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I’d not heard about 2081 and now wanna look it up, thanks.

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OscarCP, I have ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ in my movie library (and all the others in my posts).
‘The Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’ didn’t make it to the cinema. 🙁

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Mr. Austin

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Alex, you wrote:”‘The Sirens of Titan’ and ‘Cat’s Cradle’ didn’t make it to the cinema.” Too sadly true. Hence my call for “good and ambitious movie makers [to] take a hint” … because why not?

By the way: Kurt Vonnegut’s praises for Céline’s “Journey to the End of the Night” — about the attempt to escape by train from the advancing allied troops by a group of collaborationist members of  the Petain’s Vichy regime, still barely controlling the occupied part of France, towards the end of WWII — resulted in my reading this very dark and semi-autobiographic masterwork, for which I am forever thankful to KV: it reads almost like a dystopian science fiction story. (There is a movie either Brazilian, or with a Brazilian setting, by the same name, but it has nothing to do with the Céline novel, or with science fiction.)

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Alex5723

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I just found out, visiting Roger Ebert’s site, that Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Mother Night” was made into a movie in 1996. But it is not a science fiction story:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mother-night-1996

Ebert’s review is tentative, somewhat ambiguous… about a movie that is all about the ambiguities of human life presented at their most extreme in this movie, because they are so presented in the novel.

And so it goes.

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Alex5723

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Mother Night:  I remember seeing it and liking it. Yes, zero sci-fi content.

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OscarCP

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Why isnt enybody mentioning TENET? I was in cinema three times to see this movie (when the world was still normal, *SIGH*). Its awesome!

I love movies, where you have to watch multiple times to understand all of it. Like Cloud Atlas, The Illusionist, Detour (2016), …

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Doriel, TENET is still being shown on actual movie theaters, at least here, in the USA. As most of us are not going out to see movies because of COVID-19, this movie has not had any effect here on many of us, yet. If you have more information, having seen it already and being enthusiastic about it, maybe you could add a comment, perhaps with some links to trailers and, or informative clips and review articles on the Web?

I encourage to do that to anyone who brings our attention to some movie or show not mentioned here already. One can check if it has been mentioned or not by using the Ctrl+F or equivalent shortcut and entering in the search field some appropriate word(s).

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I would definatelly recommend TENET movie. Its true, that its only in theatres now. And in Europe theatres are closed in most of the countries, so.. Its maybe impossible to watch it right now, but it is definatelly worth waiting.
Its revolutionary for me as Matrix was, I was stunned by its music and story also. Simply love that movie already.
IMdB trailer HERE

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OscarCP

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Tenet is brilliant, really clever concept well executed.

cheers, Paul

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doriel

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Very disappointed with ‘Tenet’ movie. I was hoping for more from Christopher Nolan, something at the level of ‘Inception’, ‘The Dark Knight’…
The ‘Tenet’ movie is just boring…

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Alex5723 wrote:

Very disappointed with ‘Tenet’ movie. I was hoping for more from Christopher Nolan, something at the level of ‘Inception’, ‘The Dark Knight’…
The ‘Tenet’ movie is just boring…

I read the writer spent 10 years trying to get the script right, he should have spent 30 IMHO. A clever idea that never came together. Maybe getting people to spend money in theaters a few times to understand it was the idea. Even after understanding it as well as could be, I still am annoyed at watching it once.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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One word: “Contact”

Two more words: “Jody Foster”

Another two words: “Carl Sagan”

Well, if there is a science-fiction movie with 95 – 99% actual hard science and a tiny bit of stretching the known facts to just before where they snap, this movie is “Contact” (1997), based on Carl Sagan’s (an actual scientist) eponymous novel.

I am not going to describe it beyond saying that, if there is a technologically advanced enough alien civilization out there, somewhere in the Milky Way, that actually uses radio to communicate or try to communicate with other civilizations advanced enough to have a bunch of telescopes arranged in “Y” formation in the middle of the New Mexico semi-desert, near Socorro, population 8407 when they are all in town, then this is the story of Judy Foster finding out about them aliens by listening with her AirPods to what is coming through the telescopes and, eventually, having a huge machine built to alien specifications and using it to go visit the aliens, then coming back and nobody believes Jody, but …

Well, I better let the late Roger Ebert tell you all about it and why you really should watch this movie, if you have not already. Or watch it again, anyway, because it is that good (it can be streamed from Amazon, for a price). It has to be, for Ebert to give the highest of his accolades, pronouncing it “a great movie” and in the company of things like “The Seven Samurai” and “Citizen Kane” and giving it four stars out of four.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-contact-1997

One disappointing thing about this otherwise fantastically good movie, is that it is missing that thing at the end of the novel, about an encrypted message consisting of a sequence of numbers spread among the infinite digits of the number pi. Now pi is a fundamental constant that can be said, with a high degree of confidence, that it has been discovered, not invented, because it is a property of reality itself. So, how could that message be there? WHO put it there? Well … could it be G..?

 

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[Mr. Austin]

Yes, sir, Oscar! Contact is a fabulous flick in so many ways! The movie’s story and all its performances are exceptional 😉

At a Planetary Society meeting in a Los Angeles theater, conducting a live broadcast of a NASA mission (for Cassini–Huygens?) a friend and I watched as Sagan talked from the stage. He wistfully mentioned SETI, and how his team had found a 7-second, non-random signal they couldn’t find again. Long ago my work computers at our animation gallery gleefully crunched data units for SETI@Home.

Might you have heard about To the Stars Academy? I don’t follow their stuff but I do find it interesting, and a couple of years ago I got acquainted with co-founder Hal Puthoff through a mutual friend.

It was also in 2018 that I met Jacques Vallée, upon whose work the wonderful sci-fi movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is said to have been based. Vallée is one of the most intelligent, present-in-the-moment people I’ve ever talked with. I asked him what his research plans were for the next several years, and he said the study of extra-terrestrial metals and materials were at the top of his list.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Mr. Austin.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by Mr. Austin.

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OscarCP

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OscarCP wrote:

“The Man from Earth is a 2007 American drama sicence fiction film written by Jerome Bixbi and directed by Richard Schenkman

Nice one Oscar! I just watched on Prime last night! There is a sequel :The Man from Earth: Holocene
Doubt it will be as good as the original but worth a try!

🍻

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OscarCP

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November the third, AD 2020: while we are all waiting for what we are all waiting for, here is all I am going to tell you:

Men in Black.

Now, please watch at this thing in my hand. It will be just a brief shiny light.

Thank you. We are done here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_in_Black_(film_series)

Disclaimer: I’ve only seen the first two of this series. If you have seen them already, please, feel free to inform me with your opinions on the other two as well.

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Mr. Austin

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MIB 4th episode is amazing, saw it recently. You dont even need to se the prequels. Its funny, its interesting and I had wonderful time watching that movie.

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Far from being even close to ‘the best’ but way before COVID-19.
Mimic movie series.

“In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly “Strickler’s disease” that is claiming hundreds of the city’s children. Dr. Peter Mann, Deputy Director of the CDC, recruits entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who uses genetic engineering to create what she calls the Judas breed, a hybrid between a mantis and a termite that releases an enzyme which accelerates the roaches’ metabolism, thus causing them to starve to death faster than they can nourish themselves. The disease is successfully eradicated….”

Mimic (1997)
Mimic 2 (2001)
Mimic: Sentinel (2003)

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One of the best movies sci-fi/none sci-fi :
Donnie Darko

On October 2, 1988, in the small town of Middlesex, Virginia, troubled teenager Donald J. “Donnie” Darko, led by a mysterious voice, sleepwalks out of his home. Once outside, he meets a figure in a monstrous rabbit costume who introduces himself as Frank and tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin….

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working link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko

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OscarCP

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I tend to agree with Alex: From the plot summary in the Wikipedia article, this looks to me as a time-bending ghost story, not a science fiction one, as there is no “science” in it.

I have not seen this movie, but genre aside, it seems to have a really interesting idea behind, and I am sucker for time-bending ghost stories. So: thanks Alex and Wavy for bringing it to my attention.

On the topic of time-bending ghost stories: if you have HBO, have a look at “When Marnie was there”, the very last animation movie to come out of the illustrious Studio Ghibli before it finally closed up shop a couple of years ago. It is about two young women from different epochs that, somehow, meet, become friends, and where each is a ghost to the other.

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Alex5723

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[Alex5723]

OscarCP wrote:

this looks to me as a time-bending ghost story, not a science fiction one

Donnie Darko is cataloged as “science fiction psychological thriller ” in Wiki and IMDB…
and has no elements of a ghost story.

If you are looking for some witchcraft, ghosts, demons, unearthly creatures, time travel… look no further then the excellent ‘Lovecraft Country‘ series (on HBO).

Another very good sci-fi time travel series ‘The Umbrella Academy‘ (Netflix).

“The Umbrella Academy is set in a universe where 43 women around the world give birth simultaneously on October 1, 1989, despite none of them showing any sign of pregnancy until labor began. Seven of the children are adopted by eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves and turned into a superhero team that he calls “The Umbrella Academy.” Hargreeves gives the children numbers rather than names, but they eventually are named by their robot-mother, Grace, as Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben, and Vanya.[2] While putting six of his children to work fighting crime, Reginald keeps Vanya apart from her siblings’ activities, as she supposedly demonstrates no powers of her own.”

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Alex5723.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Alex5723.

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The “ghost story with time bending” elements are, at the very least, present at the end of the movie, according to my one source of information already mentioned. Going by that single, but usually reliable source, and regardless of who is saying what elsewhere, I am pretty sure that a mysterious story with time bending without some rubber-science mechanism explicitly mentioned to explain it, is not science fiction, but fantasy.

I am expressing in this way my firm opinion that too many things are classified as science fiction that are most definitely not that. Stories so misclassified are not necessarily bad and some I know of by having read or watched them are quite good. “When Marney Was There” being one excellent example of this. Some stories are a mix of science fiction and fantasy. For example, some novels by the late Terry Pratchett could be an example of this, if one accepts that a flat. disk-shaped world where magic is a thing, suspended on the backs of elephants standing on the shell of a giant turtle that stands on the shell of another giant turtle so, recursively, it is giant turtles all the way down, is science fictional enough, it being scientific in a Middle Ages sort of of way.

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There is only one turtle, flying through space – as turtles do.

cheers, Paul

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OscarCP

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On the subject of “is this science fiction or is it fantasy?” you might want to have a look at this before going any further:

https://www.hbomax.com/series/urn:hbo:series:GXYUhuQ6aq6nCVgEAAAlR/?utm_id=sa%7c71700000066889514%7c58700005930499206%7cp54264334887&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6LDjkKOB7QIV58uGCh1rtwnjEAAYASAAEgLHb_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Some say it is science fiction, because of the “parallel universes” and some mention of fundamental particles unknown to science so far, constituting the so-called “Dust” and with a fundamental role in the workings of the Universe somehow or other explained by quantum mechanics. I, on the other hand, would argue that it is fantasy with a sprinkle of quantum physics dust. (Pun intended.)

Be as it may, Lyra Silvertongue, nee Bellacqua,  and friends are all in this show. And her cute demon Pantalaimon is in it, too.

But to see this, you need to be on HBO or BBC, depending on which side of the Pond you happen to be. If not, in the USA, you can take the “Free trial” of HBO and see what you see. In the UK you better pay the BBC tax.

The general commentary, so far, has been favorable. At least the consensus seems to be that is better than the movie.

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Alex5723

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Not a helpful link, unless you’re in US, sorry 😥

HBO Max is currently only supported in the U.S. and certain U.S. territories.

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Kirsty, As I have mentioned in my previous comment, it can be watched in HBO for those in the USA, in the BBC for those in the UK.

For further clarification, it’s co-produced by the BBC and HBO and distributed in the US by HBO. The link I have given is helpful to those in the USA. Those in the UK all they have to do is turn on the TV. As long as they are current with their BBC tax (a.k.a “TV license”), as I have also already mentioned. Moreover, it is also shown in Australia and in New Zealand, maybe in other countries as well.

One more thing: there is going to be one season for each book in the trilogy. The first season, along the lines of “The Golden Compass” started late last year and now the premiere of the second season, based on “The Subtle Knife”, is scheduled to start in the UK on November 8th and in the USA on November 16th. For all the details I am omitting, including a summary of the episodes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_(TV_series)

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Kirsty

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Now I wonder just when season 2 will be on netflix or prime.

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OscarCP

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Wavy: “Now I wonder just when season 2 will be on netflix or prime”

Unlikely, as HBO co-owns this show with the BBC. The best thing to hope for is that they’ll eventually release the seasons in DVD so one can buy them. Alternatively, in the USA, one could subscribe to HBO.

For my part, I already subscribe to Netflix and Amazon Prime, and stream video rather sparingly, as I am not usually free to watch movies and shows more than three or four hours a day max, so adding HBO is not going to do that much for me. So I just hope they release this show as DVD.

The next season, sometime next year, is going to be the last one, following the other two along the lines of “The Amber Spyglass”, the last book in the trilogy.

By the way, Pullman has been writing another trilogy called “The Book of Dust” that is a sequel to this first one, with two books already out and one more (I understand) still to be written. The two books now on sale are “La Belle Sauvage” (*) and “The Secret Commonwealth.” Having read them, I recommend them to those who enjoyed reading the first trilogy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Dust

(*) Actually the first novel is a prequel to the first trilogy, with Lyra as a baby, while the second novel is a follow on to the first trilogy, with Lyra all grown-up and having demon issues. So “The Book of Dust”, at this point, is more of a sandwichlogy than a trilogy in the making.

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Season one is on Netflix dvd , which is where I saw it. So maybe ….

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News Flash: “His Dark Materials” season 1 is out on DVD as well as streaming from Amazon, for a price. Both options cost around US$10.

Season 2 starts this month but one has to subscribe to the HBO channel on Amazon Prime, and that costs US$14.99 a month for access to the HBO channel with all its content. I hope there will be a DVD coming out after the season is over.

One odd thing about this DVD is that there is no DVD region mentioned in the item’s description. Only that the format is NTSC, the USA TV format; also the product reviews are from people who bought the DVD in Canada or the USA.

So it looks like “region 1” is implicit in the preceding paragraph.

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Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985).

“The film centres on Sam Lowry, a low ranking bureaucrat trying to find a woman who appears in his dreams while he is working in a mind-numbing job and living in a small apartment, set in a dystopian world in which there is an over-reliance on poorly maintained (and rather whimsical) machines. Brazil’s satire of bureaucratic, technocratic, terrorism, and an hyper-surveillance, state capitalist like totalitarian government is reminiscent of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four[11][12][13] and has been called Kafkaesque[14] and absurdist.[13]”

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Terry Gilliam is one of the most creative movie makers and all-around artists of our times: besides designing the wacky, surreal and very funny cartons in “Monty Python Flying Circus”, the famous British comedy show where he also acted in some of the sketches, or conducting to substantial acclaim operas such as “The Damnation of Faust” by Berlioz, he has made, among others, such movies as:

“Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen” that I recommend watching, as these are as great a pair of fantasy movies as one is likely to see.

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus”, another great fantasy movie and the last one with the late Heath Ledger, who had a very important part, playing a manifestation of the Devil, and who died while the movie was still in production and had to be replaced with great difficulty. (Something, by the way, of a theme in Gilliam’s career: great difficulties, many frustrations, due to sheer bad luck — and to his predilection for attempting movies that are both technically difficult and very expensive to make.)

And the dark science fiction/psychological/political drama aptly described by Alex: “Brazil.”

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[Alex5723]

After 15 seasons, the longest running sci fi series in the US is coming to an end. Baby, it’s the final ride for saving people and hunting things.

Supernatural (on TVmaze)

“Supernatural is an American television series created by Eric Kripke. It was first broadcast on September 13, 2005, on The WB, and subsequently became part of successor The CW’s lineup. Starring Jared Padalecki as Sam Winchester and Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester, the series follows the two brothers as they hunt demons, ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural beings..”

I have followed all 15 seasons. Will watch the last S15E20 tonight.
I was a great ride.
The series has much more the just hunting monsters and season 15 was extraordinary (don’t want to spoil the punch of the last episodes, and oh, there was an earth shattering blow).

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Alex5723.

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First of all, I have been trying to figure out which famous science fiction TV show might not have been mentioned, showcased and recommended here already, but could not think of any. So, instead, I decided to farm this out to Rolling Stone, where they reacted most enthusiastically to my request and came up with this article listing, with pictures and comments, the 50 best science fiction TV shows of all time:

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists/best-science-fiction-tv-shows-of-all-time-65434/the-100-2014-present-150368/

Now, to Alex’s positive comment on “Supernatural”:

Stories of the supernatural, mostly meaning things that go bump in the night, are really fantasy/horror: ghost or poltergeist stories, for example. But since you liked “Supernatural”, I wonder if you might have seen already “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (included in the Rolling Stones list, by the way.) Monsters galore there (the town is built on one of the gates of hell), so monsters and all manner of demons — vampires too, of course — infest the place whose citizens seem strangely unconcerned… Maybe that is because they are extra-laid-back Californians? It run for seven seasons between 1998 and 2005 and that was, I think, the right length for this show.

Now, some real-life spooky things I personally know about: Near Naples, in Italy, there is a lake called Lago d’Averno. I had read in Virgil’s “Aeneida” that the entrance to hell is around there, hence the name. So, one day when I was in the area, went to this lake and walked all the way around it, but found no such gate, not even a little puff of sulfur. Then I climbed a nearby hill in Cumae, that overlooks the Tyrrenian sea and used to have a small temple on top, some of the stones are still there, and then went down a bit to the cave where the Sybil used to prophesize the future. It was quite empty at the time.

But in Sunnydale, Buffy’s town, they had the real thing. There is another of those gates in Cleveland, according to Buffy’s mentor, Giles.

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Mr. Austin

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OscarCP wrote:

I wonder if you might have seen already “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

I have seem and have “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in my Tv series collection.

There are gates to other worlds, H***.. in “Supernatural”.

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OscarCP

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“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? I thought its about the best sci-fi show ever, not soap opera 🙂

I apologize, that was just rude from me. Its your opinion and I must respect it.

And I have to admit, that I watched “Charmed”, but sipmly because I “was in love” with Holly Marie Combs, I watched that because of her.

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OscarCP

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A brief note on what is “science fiction”: it is speculative fiction that deals with the possibilities open by our present scientific understanding of the workings of the Universe (a.k.a. the “physical sciences”) and perhaps such extensions to it as the possibility of faster that light travel and time travel (the latter not impossible according to relativity theory, just requiring immense amounts of energy, but opened to question by quantum theory). And a literary form that also deals with the possible consequences of the use of technology based on our very understanding of physics.

So it is mostly a way to package serious philosophical concerns into page-turning novels and shorter stories. Except for a few books, such as  Olaf Stapledon’s  “Star Maker”, that is pure speculation as to how life and conscience has and still might evolve in the Cosmos over future aeons.

Anything else is something else. But, please, do not let this statement of mine make anyone here hesitate to post comments on what is now days broadly called “science fiction” when it comes to movies and TV shows. As far as I am concerned, nearly everything there is grist for this thread’s mill.

After all, how much is about the real old “Far West” in “Western” films? Mark Twain, in “Roughing It”, long ago made it clear that it was not all that was pictured to be. Still, I love to watch “Winchester 73.”

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OscarCP wrote:

So, instead, I decided to farm this out to Rolling Stone,

You got in touch with Rolling Stone? Your very self?

I’ve been looking over the list and I’m liking it. I don’t know many of the shows and will graze through it for some gnew ones, thanks 🙂

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OscarCP wrote:

“Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen” that I recommend watching, as these are as great a pair of fantasy movies as one is likely to see. “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus”,

I dug/dig all of those. I might include Gilliam’s Brazil because of its steam-punkish fantasy tech. Robert De Niro as an outlaw, “Robin Hood” plumber is one of my favorite sequences.

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Alex5723 wrote:

Far from being even close to ‘the best’ but way before COVID-19.
Mimic movie series.

“In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading the deadly “Strickler’s disease” that is claiming hundreds of the city’s children. Dr. Peter Mann, Deputy Director of the CDC, recruits entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who uses genetic engineering to create what she calls the Judas breed, a hybrid between a mantis and a termite that releases an enzyme which accelerates the roaches’ metabolism, thus causing them to starve to death faster than they can nourish themselves. The disease is successfully eradicated….”

Mimic (1997)
Mimic 2 (2001)
Mimic: Sentinel (2003)

Good movies! Plus, I’ll watch anything with Mira Sorvino in it 😉

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you all so lame. Philbrook in “I led three lives”

be well, breathe and honor wabi sabi

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John Carter of Mars. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. And the Disney movie.

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OscarCP

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I read “John Carter” (and enjoyed it) as I read several others of ERB’s books (the Tarzan ones, the hollow Earth ones) as a teenager. I have not seen the movie. The movie did not get good reviews, whatever that means. The trailer looks quite impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-iW_LrpY6c

Looking around, I’ve found that the movie can be rented or bought in Amazon Prime and the DVD is available in Netflix.

The book was a life-long inspiration to Carl Sagan, having read it as a child, that motivated him as a grown up, even while recognizing that the novel was a fantasy, to push hard to NASA the idea of sending people to Mars, with significant, if less than complete success so far. The present attempts to find life there with dedicated robotic missions is one of the consequences of his efforts. His, by then, ex-wife Professor Lynn Margulis, a distinguished biologist whom I once met, worked with him in his late years and popularized the idea of exploring Mars, looking for life there.

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