Posted on 08/09/2014 12:34:57 PM PDT by EveningStar
In these days of seemingly weekly science fiction blockbusters (which are usually SF in name only… they're actually just big gun actioners that take place in the future) and the hype that surrounds them, it's easy to forget that once such films were the low man on the totem pole. Stuff fit for kids and juveniles but not serious adult audiences. Thus, in past decades, except for a few A list films like Them and The Day the Earth Stood Still in the 1950s and Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, and Logan's Run in the '60s and '70s, many SF movies slipped under the radar or were simply shrugged off by the critics...
With the foregoing in mind, we come to our list of the 10 most underrated classic science fiction films which will be rated not strictly from least underrated to most underrated, but from good to best of the bunch. All of them, in any case, are films that never really took the screen world by storm, nor the SF community for that matter, but that offer elements that deserve the attention of any SF film fan. All are solid little films each with surprising angles that will reward the patient viewer willing to look past production values and embrace the singular worlds they bring to life...
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
ping for later
I was thinking...this may have been the first film Connery did after he got away from the 007 thing... Everyone was surprised that he had some real acting talent... He was (by far) the best 007 of the bunch...but I do like D. Craig in that character...
Outland was outstanding...
Sorry I'm late to this thread, but I wanted to respond to your comment.
Beauty finally arrives near the end of the third installment of The Matrix. The first and second installments are indeed quite ugly (except for the presence of Monica Bellucci), but I believe there is a reason for this.
At the time Larry (now Lana) Wachowski was going through a so-called "gender reassignment" process. Although The Matrix can be understood on a few different levels (if only as a glorified shoot-em-up with a bit of sophomoric philosophy thrown in) I think one level was a direct reference to what Wachowski was going through, i.e a woman stuck in what "she" believes to be a false matrix of maleness.
In the end when the humans, machines, and programs agree to a detente then the blackened skies part and there is a burst of beautiful color unlike the green-tinged landscape of "the Matrix" or the dingy browns of the sewage system beneath it.
Despite a bit too many car chases and philosophical inconsistencies, I found it entertaining, surprising in its use of special effects, and a bit more substantial in its storyline than most SF fare.
But I agree that Solaris beats it hands down as a serious and beautiful movie. The last scene in Solaris is my favorite of all last scenes. How movingly and poetically tragic to see it raining inside his father's house. Such a simple incongruity that reveals so much about the otherwise baffling yet beautiful scenes that preceded it.
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