Replies

What did you think of "The Mole People?" Used to scare the bejezes out of me as a kid..

It's actually pretty bad--a classic Mystery Science Theater episode--BUT the actual Mole People are damned cool!

I loved The Day the Earth Stood Still, Crack in the World, and When Worlds Collide. What do you think?

I like TDTESS but was always turned off by it's bizarre message--stop fighting each other or we'll kill you all! Having said that, I loved the score by Bernard Hermann, the acting, and jsut the whole idea that it's a more intellectual, serious attempt at a SF film than most of the era.

CITW I saw so long ago I can't recall much.

WWC, which is being remade, was good but left out way too much material from the book. It's a pretty cheap movie, actually, but it uses its budget well. I always thought it was ahead of its time in daring to show the destruction of the planet, period, something most movies always avoided, though the actual end of the planet is disappointing. Also disappointing was the Candyland scene at the end, which I've learned wasn't intended to be the final matte painting but they used it anyway.

My particular faves of the pre-Star Wars era are (among others) The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, Forbidden Planet, Five, 2001, The Andromeda Strain, Colossus:The Forbin Project, Solaris (Russian), Omega Man, Planet of the Apes, Metropolis, The Shape of Things to Come, Magnetic Monster....I could be listing all day...

I could talk to you all day!! Gee, is there a Sci-fi fan thread?

I agree with most of your list: I really liked Colossus, the Forbin Project and Andromeda Strain. I try to talk movies on IMDB, but somehow I also end up fighting with a Bush-Basher or America-Basher no matter what the film is! I mean, we could be discussing the relative merits of Disney's Pochantos vs. the sequel, and someone will come up with an anti-American, anti-Bush tie-in.

By the way, when I first saw TDTESS, I was kind of young and didn't get it, but I clearly remember my grandmother being frustrated by the hypocrisy of the planets Klaatu represented--"curb your agression, you savage humans, or our robots will rip you a new one?"

Take care. It was fun.

I really enjoyed the cold war era Colossus - The Forbin Project (1970).

It was an interesting and intelligent movie.

It introduced a great new theme and concept and may now "occupy the field" for those who remember it.

The only problem I have with it is that any new movie based on the same or a similar theme will be accused of copying Colossus - The Forbin Project, even though the concept is simple and can be independently conceived.

This is significant, because modern military technology has advanced to the point that armed unmanned aerial vehicles (e.g., Predators armed with Hellfire missiles) have already been used in the War on Terror, and in the future, one can envision unmanned naval and land military systems.

At some point, the technology may develop to the point that there will be fewer or no humans in the control loop of these fighting systems. For example if the control communication link with an unmanned aerial vehicle is lost, the vehicle must be capable of operating in an autopilot mode.

Although Colossus - The Forbin Project dealt with computer-controlled nuclear missile launchers, modern technology allows for much more than missile launchers and missiles to be remotely controlled by computers.

The fact that Microsoft has been lobbying hard and in many cases successfully to get its Windows operating system into embedded military weapons systems could itself be the subject of a science fiction/horror movie. And such a movie could even involve viruses!

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
Rq-1 Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
armed with two Hellfire missiles
http://www.ga.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=983174400&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&