posted
Hi there I'm new here and this looks like a good place to start.I've recently reawakened my interest in Sci Fi,even filmed some background footage for a film.My main interest besides Startrek,is the early days of Sci Fi in books and movies.So any one out there who likes the old ground breaking stuff feel free to jump right in.Later on if anyone is interested I'll post a link to the film that we are making.
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Hello, welcome to Flare. About "jump right in", if you want to start a discussion you're going to have to specify your thread topics a little more.
Why, "The day the earth stood still" is a very good old sci-fi movie, with funny, cheap fx by today's standards. The same can be said about "Them!", but that movie starred James Arness, who to me can never be anything else than Zebulon Macahan, so that movie always makes me think about how the West was won, although by the time of "Them!", it was good and won already.
See, no guidance at all, just plain horseshit. It's great to hear of your enthusiasm, though, especially in such an abundant topic as Old Sci-Fi. I look forward to seeing more of that, we can use the variation.
YOUR WEAPONS HAVE NO EFFECT ON ME
Registered: Aug 1999
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-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
You seem to have gotten the idea without any prompting from me.What I was getting at was the stories and movies you all like best,and the ones that have made the most impact on the development of Sci Fi.My favorite I guess is H.G.Wells.War of the Worlds has never really been filmed the way it should be.I think that doing it just the way it was written,same time period and all,without any attempt to explain any inconsistancy with todays world.When I was a small kid a UHF channel aired "The Shape Of Things To Come" that was probably the first movie that ever really caught my interest.Then "Forbidden Planet".Lets hear about Oldy but Goodies that you think of when the word ground breaking is used.Books to,and as many as you care to list.
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TWIKKI FROM BUCK ROGERS HAS A PENIS FOR A HEAD!
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
And I thought I was the only one that noticed that. Actually I was thinking more along the lines of the earlier movies and the pre Star Trek TV series,but the lesser known or actually just less remembered also count.As far as old stories go here are a couple that you might get a kick out of.First "the Damned Thing"by Ambrose Bierce. http://www.blackmask.com/books12c/damnedthingdex.htm Then "The Red One"by Jack London. http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/RedOne/redone.html Each of these is an early Sci Fi that has always been misslabeled as Horror.They are short,The Damned thing very short and well worth reading.
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Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
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posted
Anything by Verne, of course. The genre pretty much owes its existence to him.
Registered: Nov 1999
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
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Verne was a great Writer.A while back AMC had the original film version of Mysterious Island.I'm still not sure which version was from Vernes writtings both were great but completely different.H.G.Wells Martians are probably the best of all the alien beings though.Vernes stories were more about people,and his characters had a bit more life to them.Wells characters were good but the English of his day were sort of stilted compared to the europeans.Still you could feel more sympathy for Wells people.Comparing the two is a good exercise.
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'The Island of Dr. Moreau' by Wells may well have been the first ever story to warn us of the horrors of biotech (what Wells called 'vivisection', but I think I can make the stretch), if he hadn't been beaten to it by the 'maid who made a monster', Mary Shelley. Frankenstein is a book that is more often labelled as horror, but can also be thought of, at least chronologically, as a starting point for SF. Even HP Lovecraft's horrific vision had an SF tinge to it, which is most obvious in stories like 'At the mountains of madness', one of my favourites. I think Edgar Allan Poe also wrote certain stories - there was one about a journey in a balloon?- which qualify as proto-SF. BTW, yes, I'm new here. this seemed like a good topic to start on, and greetings all.
Registered: Sep 2003
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
Well now at last someone who has really studied the old ones. Frankenstein is most certainly SCI FI. As for the good Dr. Moreau that was one wacked out dude. Chimera seem to appear right before a civilization falls and hang around for centuries as a warning to later ones. Recombinant DNA? makes you wonder don't it.
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Has anyone read the stories of Eric Frank Russell? Shoot-em-up Golden Age Sf at its finest!
Registered: Sep 2003
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Mountain Man
Ex-Member
posted
Eric Frank Russell. The name sounds familiar. But I may be thinking of an Illustrator with a similar name. I'll look him up sounds like the kind of stories I'd like. Short stories I hope.
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quote:Originally posted by Mountain Man: When I was a small kid a UHF channel aired "The Shape Of Things To Come" that was probably the first movie that ever really caught my interest.Then "Forbidden Planet".Lets hear about Oldy but Goodies that you think of when the word ground breaking is used.Books to,and as many as you care to list.
Are you sure you don't mean THINGS TO COME? That thing you mention above, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, was an unwatchably bad movie from 1980 (saw it on a double bill with TMP and laughed till I wept -- there are lunar exteriors shot OUTDOORS in daylight in Canada that are just ludicrous), trying to cash in on the Wells name, but not really owing much (besides character names) to the 30s film.
I'd say DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and THE THING are still very solid older sf films. I don't think the fx in DAY have dated at all, and they serve the story, which is what really makes it all work. FORBIDDEN PLANET has that terrible 50s color film look and 'comic relief' characters that probably inspired Cochrane in FIRST CONTACT, but other than that it has always been enjoyable to watch.
In the 60s, there's FIVE MILLION YEARS TO EARTH (also known as QUATERMASS & THE PIT), which is a serious intelligent SF film that mixes religious aspects in quite ingenious ways (warning: the movie has an effects sequence so bad in it that it may take you out of the film; I saw it at a revival house and the whole place was rocking with laughter, which did NOT help the movie at all.)
I think COLOSSUS THE FORBIN PROJECT is also very good.
As for older SF novels ... Van Vogt's VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE and WAR AGAINST THE RULL were good pulp era reading, as was a lot of Heinlein's 'juvenile novels' like SPACE CADET.
When I finally got through with it, I found Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END to be a captivating read, and always wish somebody'd get their act together and do a kickass miniseries of it.
Those are just a few off the top of my head.
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Registered: Jul 2003
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