Posted on 05/24/2016 12:33:44 PM PDT by EveningStar
I wish they’d put more titles on iTunes. I have THEM, Forbidden Planet, and a bunch of others, but wouldn’t mind Tarantula, or The Deadly Mantis.
Low budget black and white garbage with surplus world war II radio equipment for props.
No. Great books yes, but movies !? I’m not going to get into a argument about what is science fiction and what isn’t. Someone will undoubtedly say that Star Wars I’d not “science fiction” it’s space opera, etc...
Star Wars
Star Trek
Alien
Predator
District 9
Blade Runner
The Terminator
2001
The Matrix
The Thing (John Carpenter version)
Minority Report
Gattica
Sunshine
Interstellar
Mad Max
Avatar
Planet of the Apes
Edge of Tomorrow
Most of these are franchises. Not all are great of course. But since roughly 1977 when Star Wars came out movies have only gotten better. JMHO, your mileage may vary.
Random can be fun. The movies lag way behind literary SF because they’re so stuck in the 50s. Orson Scott Card had a long diatribe about this a few years ago, the short version is that movie SF was about 2 decades behind literary SF (which was OK because it was younger and had to learn) then got stuck. There’s some pushing it, Moon is another good one that breaks away from the old molds, but the blockbuster tent-poll SF is firmly grounded in the 50s (and earlier in some cases) and resolutely refuses to evolve. Subsequently even the stuff that’s moved past the 50s rarely gets past where lit SF was in the 60s, maybe the 70s. It just can’t gain the traction to evolve further. Movie SF can’t even manage to evolve to Cyberpunk, and THAT’S a 30 year old lit movement.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
One of my all-time favorites!!!
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers
One of my all-time favorites!!!
Forbidden Planet was the first big budget SciFi that was shot in color.
Of course most of those in your list are really just making the same movies they were in the 50s, only with better budgets. That was the Star Wars revolution: make B movies with an A budget and schedule and laugh all the way to the bank.
Robot Monster!!!
So bad, it elevates Plan 9 from Outer Space to Academy Award status.
So bad, it’s good!
Uh... no.
It’s still bad.
If you click on my name you can see some commentary on sf books—it is also a bit dated. I believe none of the great books I reviewed have been made into movies—yet.
I would say that 2001 was concurrent with similar currents in literary SF. Blade Runner was Cyberpunk wasn’t it? Actually it probably influenced Cyberpunk.
Ender’s Game got made into a movie. Card was heavily involved, it was OK, didn’t do well at the box office, no rest of the series (which is probably OK since that series goes down hill at light speed). Other than that I don’t think any of those have been touched. Some are really good too, but they can’t be turned into 50’s action adventure movies.
But you have to understand how the situation looked like from the Martians' viewpoint.
Starring Forrest Tucker
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