The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks for reminding me, twbb. It'll be high on my list too.

[colinr0380]

2010: The Year We Make Contact (Hyams 1984). (revisit?) I remember reading the novel for some reason when the film came out, but I’m not sure about the film itself. Three Americans join up on the Soviet mission to reach Discovery One before it orbit decays into Io and to investigate HAL’s malfunction. If you can separate it from its predecessor - this is prose to Kubrick’s poetry is probably the best way of putting it -, it’s a decent and enjoyable film even if all the parts don’t coalesce completely successfully (special effects here are decent for the era, but just demonstrate again how the much superior ones in the ’68 film were ahead of their time). The fact that the story plays up against the background of potential World War III between the two superpowers back on Earth gives it a flavor of its own (a blockade in Honduras), and the acting of Roy Scheider and Helen Mirren (she the Russian Captain) gives it some weight. Interesting how the slingshot maneuver in Interstellar was done here first. (And btw every single space film I see has a ship that has insufficient fuel needed for what it ends up having to do - doesn’t anybody ever think about packing in just a little extra in case of unforeseen developments?)

I would guess that Interstellar was quite influenced by the film of 2010, especially since John Lithgow appears in both films. Lithgow is the central character in probably the best scene of 2010, of the heavy breathing spacewalk across to the spinning, unpowered Discovery spacecraft.

I do agree about the prose compared to poetry comparison between 2001 and 2010, but once expectations are calibrated accordingly I found 2010 quite a good film (but then I have an almost unreasonable soft spot for Peter Hyams' films in general). 2010's message that we all need to work together to get along, both politically to avoid mutual destruction on Earth and more pressingly to combine forces to escape in our fused together spaceship because separately in our segregated vessels neither of us will be able to survive the upcoming disaster is a pretty obvious one (although I actually prefer the metaphor as used in the opening scene of the conversation on the large satellite dish, with Scheider starting at the top and the Russian counterpart at the bottom of the stairs, and they slowly meet in the middle over the course of the discussion. That's almost the equivalent Earthbound scene to the discussion between Kris and his father in Tarkovsky's Solaris. But I also like the rather underplayed way that we get a Russian counterpart going into the stargate to complement the American), but its a nice message so I can live with it! I particularly liked the explosive climax and that the film, despite having to spend most of its time dealing with these warring factions of apes, in the end is more about redeeming HAL than anything else.

There is also that weird thing that the ending is pretty much entirely the same shot and camera movement as the final shot in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan! Only with Spock's coffin replaced by the monolith!

(I keep thinking that I should go back and re-read 3001: The Final Odyssey at some point - the one in which the body of Frank Poole is retrieved from the depths of space and he is resurrected using future technology to have wacky 'caveman woke up in the modern day' style culture clashes - because I can remember little about it other than its initial premise)

[Dr Amicus]

I too have a soft spot for Hyams (which reminds me, I have several viewings to write up, including Outland) who will probably get a film on my final list. And I completely agree with you on 2010, but it's strengths and weaknesses are those of the source material which it is a pretty solid adaptation of. In fact, isn't this the only Clarke book to be filmed as a film? I know there was the miniseries of Childhood's End and Deep Impact owes a lot to Hammer of God (I'm sure Spielberg had bought the rights to it) but there aren't any others that I can think of (yeah - I know 2001 takes the premise of "The Sentinel" as a key part). Incidentally, if you can find a copy, there is a very interesting diary of emails, IIRC, and other correspondence between Clarke and Hyams on the making of 2010 - it's quite slim and is an easy read but if you like the film it's interesting.

I reread the four Odyssey books a couple of years back and the sequels aren't at all bad. 2061 starts off with a visit to Halley's comet before going off to Europa for more monolith related astrophysical shenanigans. 3001 (which at one point was going to be filmed with Tom Hanks!) is much more a tour of the solar system in the future with minimal plotting but much easily digested popularisation of the latest astronomical research. It's typical of late Clarke - even moreso than the other two sequels - with short chapters, minimal characterisation but ideas still popping out. Frankly compared to late Asimov (elephantine length attempts to join two disparate series written in the 40s) and Heinlein (who seems to become a bit of a dirty old man - one of his female characters has nipples that go "spung"!) I know which I'd rather read. I've read all but one of Clarke's novels, and if his best are his 50s and 70s books, all are at the very least extremely readable.

[Maltic]

Peter Hyams' son will have one on my list.

Morgan Freeman and David Fincher had a film project going for Rendezvous with Rama, but it died years ago. I suppose other space habitat films, like Elysium have drawn inspiration.

[bamwc2]

Final Viewing Log:

2046 (Wong Kar-Wai, 2004): Going into this viewing I had always heard that 2046 was Wong Kar-Wai's sci-fi film, so I was surprised to find that it picks up with In the Mood for Love's Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) sometime after the events of that movie, and mostly concerns his experiences with various other women. The film begins with a brief prologue taken from a science fiction story written by Chow. In the distant future, the entire world is connected by high-speed rail, but humans feel more isolated than ever. Many choose to take a train to a land called 2046 where nothing ever changes and visitors are reunited with lost loves, but only a Japanese man named Tak (Takuya Kimura) has ever returned from it. About 2/3 of the way through the film we revisit the story of Tak and learn that he left 2046 because he was the only person to lose a loved one there. He fell in love with a female android played by singer Faye Wong, but found that she loved someone else. The sci-fi interlude--ostensibly written by Chow--allows the author to understand his own romantic problems better. I often find Wong Kar-Wai's work difficult to follow, and this one is no different. It's a lovely looking film (despite being washed out and stretched in the Amazon Prime stream), but I frequently wasn't sure what was going on. This speaks more to my own deficiency as an audience member than it does the director's ability as a story teller, but with the exception of Chungking Express none of his works have really clicked with me.

L'inhumaine (Marcel L'Herbier, 1924): Numerous men at the top of their respective professions seek the attention of famed singer Claire Lescot (Georgette Leblanc). She enjoys their attempts to woo her, but rejects them all. Driven by a mad passion for the irresistible chanteuse, scientist Einar Norsen (Jaque Catelain) vows to kill himself if she rejects him as well. When she does just that, he rushes out of her palace and appears to drive his car off of a steep cliff. After recognizing the error of her ways, Claire embarks on a journey that takes her to Einar's lab full of futuristic inventions that will ultimately prove to be a matter of life and death for her. My knowledge of Marcel L'Herbier was limited to his outstanding L'Argent prior to this viewing. I'm happy to say that this holds up as well as his other silent masterpiece, with some of the most gorgeous set pieces from the silent era. I really look forward to exploring more of his work.

Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020): Following in his father's footsteps of using science fiction technology to explore psychological horror, writer/director Brandon Cronenberg tells the story of a futuristic corporation using mind control technology to carry out stealth murder for hire contracts. Their star assassin Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) plugs into a machine which puts her body in a coma-like state, but gives her access to hapless vessels that had previously been fitted with brain implants. Vos wants to spend more time with her estranged husband Michael (Rossif Sutherland) and their young son, but her boss, Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh), convinces her to carry out one last contract. Vos enters the mind of Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), the fiancée of Ava Parse (Tuppence Middleton), the scion of her father John's (Sean Bean) business. The contract calls for a murder/suicide of all three of them, but after carrying out the killings, Colin accidentally damaged the uplink and struggles for control. What follows is a trippy and mind-bending fight for control of Colin's body that threatens to meld their psyches together. This was Cronenberg's sophomore effort, and although I haven't seen his 2012 Antiviral, I'm ready to declare him one of the freshest voices in the horror genre working today. This is a gory, frightening, psychological thriller that works just as well as his father's best films.

Proxima (Alice Winocour, 2019): Easily the most grounded film in this viewing log, Alice Winocour's third feature continues her focus on women's experiences. This time she follows the life of Sarah Loreau (Eva Green), an astronaut training to spend a year aboard the International Space Station. Sarah's training, however, occurs alongside her attempts to take care of her elementary school aged daughter Stella (Zélie Boulant). The film is split fairly evenly between Sarah's professional and personal life, often focusing on the conflict between the two. Winocour's script does an excellent job highlighting the double bind that working mothers face. It would be easy to turn the film into a love letter to strong women, but Winocour is more interested in exploring the complexity of work-life balances that countless mothers have to face.

Save Yourselves! (Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, 2020): Su (Sunita Mani) and Jack (John Reynolds) are a pair of Brooklyn hipsters who realize that their extremely online personas are getting in the way of their relationship, so when their friend Raph (Ben Sinclair) offers to let them use his grandfather's cabin upstate the two jump at the chance to unplug and enjoy each other. The night they arrive the couple notice a plethora of what they take to be shooting stars. Soon they begin hearing gunshots and seeing hairy "pouffes" around the cabin. A few days into their experiment, Su breaks her promise to abstain from screens when she checks her voice mail, and hears her mother warn her about giant rats attracted to ethanol taking over New York. Eventually both break their vows and learn that the planet is in the midst of a full-blown alien invasion. The bumbling duo then begin a madcap race to survive the pouffes. If you go in not expecting anything heady from the film, then you're liable to have a good time. As someone who recently left his thirties behind without establishing anything meaningful in my life, I identified with Su and Jack's concern that they were wasting their lives. It's ultimately a diversion, but a relatable one that’s well worth taking.

Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020): Christopher Nolan, the master of the big budget spectacle, returns with another blank check from Warner Bros to shoot one of his own scripts. This time we follow the trippy adventures of a government agent known only as the protagonist (John David Washington) who stumbles upon a secret menace of a terror cell using technology capable of traveling backward through time. Bullets reenter guns. Car crashes reverse themselves. After teaming up with the mysterious Neil (Robert Pattinson), the pair track the technology back to Russian arms dealer Sator (Kenneth Branagh) and his wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki). The two then embark on a seemingly impossible mission to save the world from a plot instigated in the future to wipe out humanity in the past. I've got to say that even though I have a PhD and regularly taught on the philosophy of time travel, I understood very little of what was going on. Nolan's explanation of "inverted entropy" is ultimately about as silly as James Cameron's unobtanium, but unlike the messy garbage that was Avatar, Tenet is a lot of fun. Don't try and look for explanations or understand the plot. Check your brain at the door and just enjoy all of the amazing footage of things going backwards.

World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt, 2020): The two previous iterations of Don Hertzfeldt's ingenious World of Tomorrow series focused on the lives of Emily and her clones, but featured allusions to David, a romantic interest of one of her future incarnations. This entry in the trilogy focusses on David's story. As an adult we meet up with David pursuing an online catalog of neural implants while fighting popup ads, when he suddenly has a memory triggered of an interaction he had with one of Emily's time traveling clones. She the leads him on a journey through his future selves as he has to battle time traveling clones and survive a journey to the dangerous hellscapes of his own mind. Every leg of the journey he has to sacrifice a little more of himself to continue on with his quest, but does so with a grand curiosity to comprehend Emily's message. Every bit as engaging and original as the first two episodes, Hertzfeldt's three shorts rank among the great trilogies in the history of cinema. I say that without one ounce of hyperbole.

[bamwc2]

1. Can the three World of Tomorrow entries perhaps be voted for as a single multi-part film?

Was there ever a decision reached on this? As much as I'd like to free up space on my list, I'm torn. They're part of one vision, but separate works that were made independently of another. Unlike something like Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, they weren't shot contemporaneously and aren't from a single script.

[domino harvey]

I haven't seen them, but I trust swo's judgment and will allow him to pitch hit for me and decide whether it makes sense to consider them as one work

[therewillbeblus]

1. Can the three World of Tomorrow entries perhaps be voted for as a single multi-part film?

Was there ever a decision reached on this? As much as I'd like to free up space on my list, I'm torn. They're part of one vision, but separate works that were made independently of another.

I'm equally torn. Hertzfeldt has been clear that he's going to keep making them too so this will be an ongoing series, and he's also stated that they're disconnected and almost released them out of 'order' since there is none in his eyes. The third film is so drastically different from the other two in my opinion as well, beyond the central character shifting, and I could see it converting people who didn't like the first two simply based on silent-film sight gags and noir-ish narrative complexity. But yeah, in bunching them I could squeeze two more films on my list, so whatever.

[swo17]

Well since domino gave me permission, I'm going to make a dual ruling for both this and the 2010s list, and treat it like any other multi-part film: Namely, you can vote for any individual part or for the series as a whole, with all votes competing against each other. However, it is strongly recommended that you vote for the whole thing, unless you legitimately only rate one episode highly and would resent having to include the others along with it in your vote. Also, since the series started in the 2010s, the entire series is eligible for the 2010s list.

[bamwc2]

Well since domino gave me permission, I'm going to make a dual ruling for both this and the 2010s list, and treat it like any other multi-part film: Namely, you can vote for any individual part or for the series as a whole, with all votes competing against each other. However, it is strongly recommended that you vote for the whole thing, unless you legitimately only rate one episode highly and would resent having to include the others along with it in your vote. Also, since the series started in the 2010s, the entire series is eligible for the 2010s list.

Okay. Thanks. Whole thing it is. I'll get you my list later today.

[swo17]

Don't give me your list, give it to domino

[bamwc2]

Oops. My mistake.

[Michael Kerpan]

Remind me -- when is the list due? (I looked on the first page and didn't see any postscript about this).

[therewillbeblus]

It says Feb 28 at the top and bottom of the first post as the due date

[Michael Kerpan]

It says Feb 28 at the top and bottom of the first post as the due date

Ah. I see now. The light green is so pale (on my screen) I didn't notice it. (Hard for me to read it).

[therewillbeblus]

That's how the aliens get you

[Murdoch]

I only submitted 25 because I was really struggling to come up with 50 films I both really liked and felt represented my favorite aspects of the genre.

Top Ten:
End of Evangelion (1997)
The Midnight Gospel (2020)
Kairo (2005)
Aniara (2018)
The Thing (1982)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
La jetee (1962)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
2046 (2004)
Tetsuo the Iron Man (1988)

My decades breakdown:
2010s: 7
2000s: 4
1990s: 1
1980s: 4
1970s: 2
1960s: 1
1950s: 5

1900s: 1

[therewillbeblus]

Wow I know you said The Midnight Gospel would place high, but I didn’t expect that! Hopefully this serves as a cue to convert others to watch this long movie, that only reveals itself as such in its final act, forcing a recontextualization of all that came before as more than just isolated podcasts but powerful -as well as unexpectedly and ironically realistic- therapeutic development

[Murdoch]

There was definitely a recency bias for my top two, since I watched both several times over during quarantine periods.

Many of my remaining top 25 were based on fond memories rather than recent viewings, which is probably a bad approach to this list but I wanted to spend my limited viewing time focusing on viewings of movies I hadn't seen before. Unfortunately little of what I watched grabbed me other than Solaris, which just missed my top ten at number 11 and I hadn't seen in full since college, and Patlabor: The Movie, landing at 25 and which I may have put on just to have justified watching the entire OVA and three movies for this project...

[therewillbeblus]

Which Solaris? Soderbergh's version was in my top five until the last minute (it currently still sits just outside the top ten) while the Tarkovsky is farther down the line. I watched both again recently, and continue to find myself more entranced by the re-imagining.

[domino harvey]

Eleven lists in so far. Deadline is “today” but that means tomorrow morning (~9 AM EST)

[Murdoch]

Which Solaris? Soderbergh's version was in my top five until the last minute (it currently still sits just outside the top ten) while the Tarkovsky is farther down the line. I watched both again recently, and continue to find myself more entranced by the re-imagining.

The Tarkovsky. I like Soderbergh's just fine but I find Kris and Hari more compelling as a couple, and the opening moments on Earth have always stuck with me, even since I was only half-paying attention during my first college viewing.

[Dr Amicus]

The Mouse on the Moon (Richard Lester, 1963) The sequel to The Mouse That Roared, a late Jack Arnold British comedy, about a tiny European country that is nearing bankruptcy and so declares war on the US in order to get reconstruction money after the inevitable speedy, bloodless defeat - things obviously don't go to plan. In the second, more obviously SF, again facing bankruptcy (their one export, wine, has developed a tendency to explode...) seeks a loan from the US for space research (in actuality to fix the plumbing in the castle), knowing it won't be believed but safe that it will be good PR in the cold war. Not to be outdone, the Soviets donate one of their old rockets. Although you can see how this may progress (remember the wine!) the result was really rather fun, plenty of satirical barbs aimed at everyone and a glorious cast of reliable British character actors doing their thing (Ron Moody, David Kossoff, Margaret Rutherford, Terry Thomas) and a likably naive Bernard Cribbins. It won't make my list (although Cribbins will make an appearance) but this turned out to be a minor gem. If only there was a decent disc of it in the UK (the first, equally good, is also AWOL).

Blue Thunder (John Badham, 1983) This is really pushing at the limit of SF, but it was written by Dan O'Bannon and reviewed in Ares (an SF gaming magazine) so that's good enough for me. Badham, like Peter Hyams, is an old favourite of mine - a solid, workmanlike director whose films were teenage favourites. I'd seen this before, probably it's first screening on UK TV in the late 80s, and remembered little but it, like the above, turned out to be really solid. Its premise, a highly advanced helicopter is being tested for potential sneaky surveillance, seems quaintly outdated now, and the helicopter was within then current technology (at least, according the introduction) - but the treatment of technological advance on society is a core theme of SF, especially from the 1950s onwards, and it feels SFnal. The print on Sony Movies Action here in the UK is a bit soft and 16:9 (after teasing with scope opening credits), but it still works pretty well. The last third or so of the film becomes an extended set piece cat-and-mouse chase and is really quite tense. Roy Scheider makes for a solid lead (some Vietnam flashbacks promise more than they really deliver and threaten to turn this into Airplane) but Malcolm McDowell is largely wasted as a sneering baddie. At the borders of SF, but a solid watch.

Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996) I have an odd relationship to this film - it played a part in the time I was nearly banned from my local cinema. 1996 was the centenary of cinema in the UK and as a celebration for one day (a Sunday in May IIRC) cinema tickets were free. One of our two local cinemas in Guernsey, a leisure centre which then frequently showed second run blockbusters and occasional cross over art house hits, had a weekend of classics (Jaws, Gone with the Wind, The Wild Bunch), the other, a four screen first run cinema, did nothing. I wrote a letter to our local paper praising the former and being fairly critical of the latter - although leaving them an opening that maybe they were planning an event for their own anniversary (a whole 3 years at that stage). Needless to say, after my letter was printed, the cinema said yes that indeed was what they were planning. The problem came from the fact that the original free day was on a Sunday in May (I think) - not the busiest day of the weekend, and the only new "big" film that weekend was From Dusk Till Dawn. When the cinema in question chose it's day of free tickets, it was a Friday on the FIRST WEEKEND OF INDEPENDENCE DAY - with Twister and Mission Impossible still playing and going strong. Needless to day, it was chaos that day - massive queues all day long on a very hot day indeed. I managed tickets for Twister that day - ID4 was sold out - and later learned from people at the cinema that the owner was so angered by my letter and feeling compelled to have a free ticket day that he wanted me banned from the cinema, It didn't happen (the staff pointed out I was probably their most loyal customer at the time) but it makes a good story. Unlike this - I've seen it many times over the years and has become comfort viewing. It's a bit rubbish, owes more to disaster movie tropes, makes no sense at any point but somehow remains an easy watch - probably because the cast does their thing and clearly nobody is taking this seriously, The bit with the dog jumping to safety in front of the massive fireball got a big, ironic cheer when I saw this at the cinema.

Escape From New York (John Carpenter, 1981) - The first rewatch of this in over 30 years, this was an early VHS rental in the day.+ and it's surprising how little was made of the premise, although considering the budget was not high maybe not. At times this almost looks like an Italian rip-off (and indeed Lee Van Cleef as the costar could easily be in either) - I had actually hoped to get to Escape from the Bronx by the end of this project, but no luck. IN the early 80s, Starburst (the SF magazine, not the sweets) was in its prime and had a short lived poster magazine spin-off - the issues I can remember were Excalibur, Dragonslayer and this, which seems to sum early 80s Sf and Famtasy cinema. Anyway, the film is fun but my least favourite Carpenter from the period - it's miles better than the 90s sequel, but the recent space-set rip off Lockout makes for an entertaining watch.

2012 (Emmerich, 2009) More Emmerich disaster movie / SF nonsense - the Scientific rationale behind it is clearly cobblers but the spectacle is undeniably impressive, the sequences where our heroes are in danger and have to escape from the latest piece of land which is collapsing / whatever have a genuine sense of awe about them. The problem is the characters are far less likable than ID4 and much less fun. I was never bored, but that's about as far as I'll go.

Ikarie XB 1 (Jindrich Polak, 1963) - Not much to add to the praise elsewhere in the forum - however, one scene stuck out in particular for its treatment of SF tropes. When the two astronauts cross over to the other ship, they are clearly in zero gravity on the ladder - when they get to a floor, their boots light up around the edges and they are walking normally. Clearly, the audience is trusted enough to know the conventions that this needs no further explanation. A few minutes later, one of them refers to their Magnetic Boot, just in case we've missed it, but the whole sequence impressed me for its simplicity.

This Island Earth (Joseph H Newman, 1955) - Another rewatch, but the last time I saw this was on a BBC2 SF season about 40 years ago. It's undeniably odd - all set up and little else, the later space journey is ultimately pointless (a longer film could have seen our heroes trying to desperately repair the Metaluna energy supply - but not in this film) if undeniably spectacular. The scenes on Metaluna - especially the matte paintings - have a lovely pulp sensibility about them (very Chesley Bonestell).

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Val Guest, 1961) - a rewatch in the correct ratio and with the ending (when I saw this last, my video missed the last few minutes!) proves it was as good, if not better, than my memory told me. The special effects are occasionally dated, at other times (aerial views of a mist shrouded London are eerily effective. It also fits in with the Cosy Catastrophe cycle - although, here it is less cosy and more open ended. Certainly the build up is reminiscent of John Christopher's The Death of Grass and even Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes, the latter of which shares its journalist hero with this. It's also part of the cycle of effective, minor key SF films in Britain between the first and last Quatermass films and one of the best. It's one of Guest's best films - b&w scope suits him I think - and will certainly appear prominently on my list.

OK - I think that's my final viewing log of the project. I'll just finalise my list and see everyone after Domino has done his magic.

[Rayon Vert]

The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Val Guest, 1961) - a rewatch in the correct ratio and with the ending (when I saw this last, my video missed the last few minutes!) proves it was as good, if not better, than my memory told me. The special effects are occasionally dated, at other times (aerial views of a mist shrouded London are eerily effective. It also fits in with the Cosy Catastrophe cycle - although, here it is less cosy and more open ended. Certainly the build up is reminiscent of John Christopher's The Death of Grass and even Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes, the latter of which shares its journalist hero with this. It's also part of the cycle of effective, minor key SF films in Britain between the first and last Quatermass films and one of the best. It's one of Guest's best films - b&w scope suits him I think - and will certainly appear prominently on my list.

I loved this, made my top 20.

[bottled spider]

As usual with these lists, they provide the impetus to finally watch classics of the genre that I'd always meant to see but never got round to. Like Robocop, Starship Troopers, Dune, Twelve Monkeys, Metropolis, and Fahrenheit 451. Will my list be disqualified though if I confess to still not having seen Back to the Future or any version of War of the Worlds?

Also a pleasure to revisit stuff I hadn't seen for years, some not since I was a kid -- Empire Strikes Back, The Terminator, E.T., Jurassic Park, or the more recent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I regret not revisiting Through a Scanner Darkly, Donnie Darko, Another Earth, Inception, or Melancholia.

In retrospect, I wish I'd spent more time on epic, blockbuster sci-fi. Again, dare I admit to not seeing Interstellar?

The Mouse on the Moon and Ikarie XB 1 are a couple more I wish I'd seen.