Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Best unnappreciated Sci-Fi series / Movies

This is topic Best unnappreciated Sci-Fi series / Movies in forum General Sci-Fi at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/8/113.html

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

The title says it all. What do you think are/were the most unacknowledged Science Fiction series' or movies?
I think I'd have to go with Space: Above and Beyond.
Thoughts?

------------------
"I've never seen anything this beautiful in the entire galaxy. Alright, give me the bomb" -Ultra Magnus, Fight or Flee

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

That's a good one. But you might wanna qualify exactly what you mean by 'unappreciated.' Most TV SF is unappreciated, especially by network producrers who want to make it because it's popular, but then do all they can to kill it.

Posted by Vacuum robot lady from Spaceballs (Member # 239) on :

I guess I mean underappreciated as a good quality show, with many good attributes, but just didn't seem to work out, or just was never popular, wether it be with network execs, or just fans in general.

------------------
"I've never seen anything this beautiful in the entire galaxy. Alright, give me the bomb" -Ultra Magnus, Fight or Flee

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

I extremely agree. S:AaB had it all. Well maybe to much "horror of war" and to little humour. But the FX were really great, and so was the story.

------------------
-You're crazy!!!
-Funny, I thought I was pisces!

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I'll nominate "CUBE" FANTASTIC movie.

------------------
"Remove your hand or I will remove your arm!" - 7 of 9

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

'Cube' is indeed one to add to the list! Great movie, and it has Nicole deBoer

------------------
Presenting the NX-59650. It can slice! It can dice! It can seperate into THREE parts!!
Now available with THREE FULL warpcores!
But wait! Buy now, and get a free number upgrade to NX-74913!

To order, call: 0800-PROMETHEUS

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

How about Dune? I seriously like that flick! Haven't read the original books, but I really could relate to the story. I mean if you switch the Atreides with Starfleet, the Harkonnen with Klingon and those grunting little guys who were meant to be Ordos, who spoke in a translator all the time, with Romulans you have a good frame of reference.

------------------
-You're crazy!!!
-Funny, I thought I was pisces!

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Well, yes, but I'd like to accept Dune on its own merits. . . I personally like the film. Maybe it's the David Lynch surrealness. I don't know why I like it when so many people loathe it, and in that sense it's very much like Space: Above and Beyond for me.

I mean, looked at objectively, S:AAB sucked! The kids were all useless actors, the effects were ropy, the premise made no sense (they're fighter pilots AND grunts? Why? How do you justify that? Is it a Colonial Warrior thing?), they had bizarre guest characters (David Duchovny, pornstar Ashlyn Gere). . . yet it was great! James Morrison (as Colonel McQueen) couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, but was brilliant here in a way that excuses his later turns in Millenium and Prey.

*looks up more facts*

Ooh, Kristen Cloke is only 5 days older than me. . . noen of the main actors have done anything of note since apart from turns on The X-Files or Millenium. . . oh, yes - "Who Monitors The Birds?" is the best ep of the lot. It's got Dale Dye in it, Hawkes actually gets a haircut that makes him look like a Marine, he makes friends with a Chig then kills him anyway, and a zombified Captain Vansen wanders around in a bikini. Utterly brilliant. 8)

Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

I've read one "Dune" book, which is what the movie was based on. I can't say I hated the film, i watch it once in a while, just to hear Sting say "I will kill him." I think it was just to much book for one film. should have been two films. My copy is a directors cut, about four hours, and it still can't get it all in. I don't think I would have liked it without haveing read the book first.

------------------
Fool of a Took, throw yourself in next time!!
Gandalf

Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

One word:
Brimstone.

Another word or two:
Flipping brilliant.

I watched two episodes of it that I taped over the summer again last weekend (the 'It's a Helluva Life' and 'Ash' episodes (all sp.)), and they've held up unbelieveably well.
Even when I now what's going to happen, the show is entertaining enough with it's characters and kidkass dialogue to eclipse most sic-fi shows.

And I don't even want to smell a "Brimstone-is-fantasy" argument. I just wanted to acknowledge this excellent show cut down in te prime of it's life.

------------------
Devil: Oh look at the time! I'm late for services.
Stone: Services?
Devil: A group of young teenagers that have been celebrating the Black Sabbath are planning on deep-sixing their gym teacher tonight. I'm gonna go and give them a little encouragement!

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

"Ultraviolet" from UK's Channel 4.
On last year, only six eps long. Blows Buffy out of the water for serious vampire drama!

(Out on video in UK, BTW!)

------------------
"NO! NO! Kill you all!
Die! MAKE YOU SUFFER!!!"

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Supposedly they ARE making a second series, Monty. Of course, C4 may have changed their minds because it wasn't controversial enough. Maybe they need the money to pay for their interminable "PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE Subscribe to Film Four" commercials. . .

Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :

Earth 2. Definitely Earth 2.

------------------
"Captain! I must protest! I am NOT my neighbour's dog!"

- The First One, TrekSunday chat, Oct. 17, 1999.

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Lee & Herring's This Morning with Richard not Judy.

What? oh, Sci-fi. Er, Buffy? Just cause it takes such an effort to convince anyone that the show isn't shit based upon their preconceived notions.

------------------
"Give me a f*cking..."
-Jubilee McGann

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Hmm. I can certainly see liking Dune the movie if you're a Lynch fan. It's a good Lynch film. Not exactly a good Dune film, but hey.

Personally, I think a book like Dune is downright impossible to film, at least to the extent where a large number of people will be happy with the outcome. Obsessively freakish Dune fans (such as myself) are bothered by changes from book to movie, and more casual moviegoers are going to be turned off by the movie's detail. A lose-lose situation. Luckily, I happen to like Lynch, and I understand some of the problems when translating any book to the big screen. So, uh, I think it's ok.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right, unappreciated SF things. Uh, ExoSquad? Yes, I know it was a cartoon, but if we can have a Transformers Brigade around here...

------------------
"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by Xentrick (Member # 64) on :

"Mann & Machine," and some of the funnier episodes of "Alien Nation."

Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :

I know it really doesn't count as SF as much as Fantasy, but I'd like to nominate "Beauty and the Beast" with Ron Perlman & Linda Hamilton.

A television show so laced with literary references and human drama I've never seen.

Plus my girlfriend loves it, is planning on writing her Master's thesis on it, and I can score points for having posted in its favor.

------------------
'In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to Liberty; he is always in allegiance to the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection of his own." ---- Thomas Jefferson

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Well, someone's getting lucky tonight. 8)

Shame about the last series after Linda Hamilton left, though. Up until then, I must admit I really liked this show. I'm a softie at heart, really. . .

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

I also really liked Dune and S:AaB. I felt that they were both done well.

------------------
Death before Dishonor!
However Dishonor has
quite a disputed defintion.

Posted by bryce (Member # 42) on :

Transformers is under appreciated because no one shows it anymore.

------------------
With 17 hours of class, guess what I'm doing.

Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :

Does anyone remember a Saturday morning cartoon from the mid or late 1980s called "The Mighty Orbots"? It was about a group of five robots who combined into a big robot at the end of each episode to fight the villain of the week. It was a sort of Americanized anime, but had some good SF stories. I used to watch it every week (I was a college student at the time).

Re: Lynch's Dune. I think that most fans of the book were expecting something like Lawrence of Arabia. At least that's the picture I had when reading the book. Instead, Lynch gave us his vision colored by his obsessions with physical deformity, bodily secretions, and decayed industrial technology. I like his movies, but in retrospect, he was the wrong guy for such an epic story. I suppose he was chosen on the strength of "The Elephant Man," which is a completely different type of movie. I thought the technical design was also pretty bad: none of the ships or other tech made any impression. We can all lament the failed attempt by Jodoworsky to film Dune with designs by Moebius and HR Giger! Maybe someone will try to film this story again in a few years (but hopefully not Devlin and Emmerrich!)

------------------
When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

But have you seen those Giger concept drawings?! Goodness...that would have been an even more bizarre movie than what Lynch made. Sandcrawlers as huge cyborg-esque fat men?

------------------
"If you are going to be my girlfriend please don't dump me after I like you."
--
Michael

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

Another show that I liked was called Space Rangers or something like that. It was a group of rangers who went around the galaxy and stopped the bad guys. It was supriseingly good.

------------------
Death before Dishonor!
However Dishonor has
quite a disputed defintion.

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

May I also elevate to divine status the groovy "Ulysses 31" cartoon. I must also confess to finding it impossible to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer without causing a mental short-circuit.....

"Buffy! Captain Buffy O'Hare!
Mutants and aliens and toads beware!"

eeep, a bit of a private UK ref there....

------------------
"You will be swept away....
You, your men, your ship, your WORLDS!"

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

I thought it was Bucky O'Hare.

------------------
Death before Dishonor!
However Dishonor has
quite a disputed defintion.

Posted by Krenim (Member # 22) on :

It was. And Bucky O'Hare did air over here (briefly).

------------------
"Stop right there! I have here the only working phaser ever built! It was fired only once: to keep William Shatner from making another album."

- The Collector, "Treehouse of Horror X," The Simpsons.

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

I used to watch Bucky O'Hare. I still remember what the ships look like.

------------------
Frank's Home Page
"We've got some new songs here that are not even on the MP3 thing. They're not available in any format, except of course the bootlegs that seem to proliferate all through our audience, as we watch people lip-synch along to songs that HAVEN'T BEEN RELEASED! DAMN YOU!" - John Linnell

Posted by Lt. Tom on :

*Tom's ears perk up. Someone said Dune?* =)

Well, I won't rehash all the Dune and Cube posts, but I couldn't let this thread slip by without mentioning my favorite series of all time: Quantum Leap. Cancelling that show was the second-dumbest thing NBC's ever done.

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

Well, I'd hardly say they cancelled it. It had several good years, and went out on a high note.

Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :

Harsh Realm. Definately Harsh Realm. Cancelled after 3 episodes. Wasn't even given a chance.

------------------
Fabrux's Starship Page

I am Canadian

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

Due to the great populairity of the Thundercats left in a shadow. They never got around to making a final episode...

And ofcourse, the fantastic series: The Visitor.
Roughly 13 suburb episodes, then it got canceled. Why they ever did that is beyond my comprehension.

------------------
"Scan that ship Mr. Worf!"
"Aye sir, 600 DPI?"

Posted by Lt. Tom on :

TFO: No, they didn't cancel it outright, but in order to have it renewed Don Bellisario would have had to contradict rules laid down for the rest of the series. Some of this is evident in the last season, too. I classify it as underappreciated because most people I've talked to respond with "Quantum What?"

Fabrux: Good one!

Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :

Invasion America. It's got great story and high-quality animation, but WB canceled it after the first chapter.

------------------
--Then, said Cranly, do you not intend to become a protestant?
--I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent?

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

I too liked Beauty and the Beast, one of only two or three shows my mother and I watched together.

Alien Nation, yeah, I liked that one too, never saw the last movie that was suppoed to tie up the loose ends.

------------------
Fool of a Took, throw yourself in next time!!
Gandalf

Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :

Unnappreciated sci fi flicks...hmm. Of recent note, Dark City. A brilliant film that I think 12 people saw in the theater. Imaginative filming, wonderful acting, and an original plot.

And the often overlooked is Attack of the Flesh Devouring Space Worms From Outer Space. Oh, wait, that was crap.

------------------
Thank God that we live in a country so hysterical over crime that a 10 yr old child can tried as an adult.
~C. Mongomery Burns

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Watched "Alien: Resurrection" again. I have seen Ron Perlman on at least five non-consecutive occasions since "Beauty & The Beast", without ever connecting the faces. Well, why would I!? Though I must say he looked cooler as a lion. On the other hand, who wouldn't?

------------------
-You're crazy!!!
-I thought I was pisces!