Science Fiction suggestions

[Kostmayer]

Dark Star - An early (possibly the first) John Carpenter film.

Low budget Sci-fi spoof. Very silly, but quite poignant in places.

[unclejack]

Yeah, I think I'm gonna try and watch that one. I did a search for the trailer but couldn't find it but I saw some of the pics for it and it looks awesome.

[unclejack]

I meant Natural City, not Dark Star, although I don't know anything about Dark star. Just clarifyin my response was to the natural city post.

[Connavar]

Try it its a good and different SF.


Its better than The Returner who is much more action oriented. Looked alittle inspired by Matrix actionwise you will know if you see the action scenes.

[j. d. worthington]

Answer: Yes, The Thing is a remake of the earlier film... so much so that the opening title in the Carpenter film is an hommage to the Christyan Nyby/Howard Hawks film; the difference being that, by the time Carpenter made his film, they could actually do such a chameleon creature; whereas in the original they had to play it as a humanoid being -- but with very nasty elements. It's actually a rather good suspense film with some nice atmospheric moments, and some good characterization.

And it was Village of the Damned; Children was the sequel, and Village has been filmed at least one other time (possibly two): once by John Carpenter (1995) and once in Mexico, by Miguel Marte (as Pueblo de maltidos; 1993), if this is the same story, which I'm not certain of. I've not seen either of the later film versions. It was based on John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos (1957).

[unclejack]

I don't know about the one in Mexico but I've seen the John Carpenter version a couple of times and it's really good. It's been awhile since I saw the first one though. I don't know that I've ever seen the original of the thing though. I will say that I liked it, it was one of the best sci fi horror flicks around. And I don't know how the first one ended, but I like the ending in the John Carpenter version. Kinda leaves you in suspense not knowing if either one of them is the the thing or not. Most of the time when that's done in movies it leaves you feelin frustrated but in this one it was pretty cool.

[j. d. worthington]

There are two versions of the John Carpenter film. In the original theatrical release, there's an ending such as you describe. In the other, there's a further bit where there's voice-over and a repeat of some of the opening landscapes, etc. It really weakened the punch of the original ending which, as you say, was left open... were either of them? If so, would this whole thing start all over again... only worse (being out in the world at large)? And, for that matter, the possibility that sharing the bottle spread the contagion... and so on.

For all its over-the-top (at times) effects, it really was a rather good adaptation of the incidents (though not the underlying philosophy) of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?", while the original is a different film, really; good, but quite a different proposition.

[MsGudBod]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

LOL. Yes, I've always had a fondness for Westworld, with the mixture of tongue-in-cheek parody, social commentary, and sometimes dark, menacing atmosphere. Yul Brynner did manage to walk that line very well, I think. (Though I feel sorry for the poor stuntman who had to do that flaming android bit... which I recall hearing, several years ago, was all done in one take.....)

EDIT: By the way, I'm only aware of two film versions of The Blob per se, though Larry Hagman(!) did a sequel of sorts to the original in 1972:

Beware! The Blob (1972)

Maybe that was wishful thinking on my part for a newer version of "the blob", as this seems to be the summer of sequels and remakes.
And...
It appears I owe you yet another debt of gratitude for yet another movie to checkout when I get the chance.(as hectic as my life seems to be, never any time for {{ME}})

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by MsGudBod

It appears I owe you yet another debt of gratitude for yet another movie to checkout when I get the chance.(as hectic as my life seems to be, never any time for {{ME}})

Weeelllll.... I'm not sure I'd be too intent on getting around to seeing that one. As I recall (and I've not seen it in 35 years) it really wasn't particularly good....

However, if you track it down, and it turns out to be good... I'd like to hear about it (and perhaps I could watch it again myself....)

[The Ace]

Dark Star (apart from the C&W soundtrack) and the Forbidden Planet.

[CaptainCatfish]

How about "Andromeda Strain"?

[unclejack]

I just watched that one recently and loved it. I posted a thread on that movie in the general media section if you wanna check it out.

[Gav]

Hey Unclejack

What sorts of SF are you looking for?

The hard sort (quite hard to find in movies) or the space opera type (much easier)?

A couple of films that people haven't mentioned:

Dark City
The City of Lost Children.


I've just watched a rather good french motion-capture animation called Renaissance. You can pick it up cheap in Virgin at present. It's well worth a look.

[Briareus Delta]

I'd have to agree with those nominating Dark Star - well worth watching. I recently caught a film called The Butterfly Effect on TV, which is quite an interesting time-travel tale. I enjoyed it, even though it featured Ashton Kutcher who's not exactly my favourite actor.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Apart from the obvious classics, I think good sci-fi films are increasingly hard to find these days. Good luck with the search, Unclejack!

[unclejack]

Okay well 2 things. First of all I don't kinow what you mean by Hard sci fi and space opera sci fi so I don't know how to answer that one. I have seen Dark City and it was ok and City of Children was pretty good too. Neither one of them screamed out sci fi to me though, or at least not in the sense of the kind of sci fi I'm into. I do like the space age sci fi like Firefly and Lost in Space and I also love The Outer Limits. (The new ones, nothing against the old ones it's just that I've seen more of the new ones) I'm really not too big into the whole alien scene, I think it's been done to death and is becoming increasingly unoriginal and AI always seems to come off as a little to soft and unbelievable to me in the integration of emotions into the AI in question. I don't really buy it. But mostly I enjoy the kind of sci fi that relies heavily upon the setting to create the mood and feel of the film. I love movies set in the future like Equilibrium or Minority Report even though I do have some problems with the constant mixing of genres that Hollywood typically seems to carry out nowadays.
I liked The Butterfly Effect, it was pretty original, but I have to say that a movie that resembles it that I thought was a thousand percent better was The Eye Inside. (It may actually be spelled The I Inside, I can't remember) It's not sci fi but it definately is much more gripping and intrigueing than The Butterfly Effect.