The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[colinr0380]

Is it really so strange that Akira is popular? It's a bizarre story bursting with strange ideas, vivid imagery and style, a soundtrack both unclassifiable and catchy, set in an ever-popular environment, the cyberpunk dystopia, and full of government conspiracies, mad religions, social unrest, leather-clad biker gangs, and apocalyptic overtones. It's tailor-made for cult popularity, general incomprehensibility included.

Not to mention psychic kids getting experimented on and an otherwise overlooked teenage boy able to use his newfound powers (a metaphor for puberty?) to explode gun toting soldiers, bring down helicopters and wield space lasers! Its an astonishing feat of animation that is full of little details and behavioural moments put into almost every expression shown by the characters (from the amusing pan from Kaneda's ID photograph to his fixed smile through to the Mona Lisa-like expression of relief on Kei's face in that final scene inside the impact zone) that it rewards repeated viewings. It is a romance, a biker movie, a psychic-power horror, an action film, sci-fi metaphysical, a meditation on the fallout of total city destruction caused by World War II and the atomic bomb, and most of all about two friends finding themselves on opposite sides of a conflict before being able to reconcile again, at least in spirit.

I also find it quite moving in the way that it slowly morphs its viewpoint from a tiny portrait in the first section of the film of the futureless hooligan biker gang rampaging around in petty and pointless turf wars who at first get contrasted with the useless authority figures of school principal (and the decrepit, graffiti covered school itself, with not even a substitute teacher in sight) and the angry at getting seen as an old man police officer at the station before we move entirely into the section featuring the older (but not exactly wiser!) characters involved in internecine politicing, resistance/terrorist organisations, the military and religious cults all themselves falling apart through in fighting and literally powerless in the face of the younger generation (or those kept artificially forever young) suggesting that the line between the biker hooligans and the respectable society is thinner than we might have otherwise expected (which feels quite close to the ideas underpinning A Clockwork Orange in some ways). I love the expansive generosity on display, even in this highly compressed film, for showing such a wealth of different characters, generations and social statuses all jostling together (and against each other) within the world being portrayed.

In the end everything that people build gets destroyed all over again (and inevitably will again in the future), individual people suffer and die pointlessly whether for noble causes of social justice or whilst in the process of trying to escape their gated compound with suitcases full of worthless cash (or the wrong people get punished by the actions of others, i.e. Kaori or the children experimented on and especially Akira himself) but for those who remain in the rubble there is the consolation of friendship, forgiveness and a feeling of love that still remains and allows for the Sisyphean task of rebuilding to begin all over again. Not a better or worse society, just an enduring one in the face of inevitable suffering. It feels quite Buddhist in that sense.

Plus of course Akira eerily predicted that the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would both be held and then get derailed by events out of their control!

[knives]

That’s a bit of an exaggeration. Akira is 6 volumes long, and the film pretty much follows the first three with the finale of the third and sixth volumes combined. The manga is still a much more detailed and satisfying story.

Of course the best Akira related media is the OST.

I legit forgot that so a total mea culpa.

[bottled spider]

Womb (AKA Clone) (Benedek Fliegauf, 2010). A woman bears the clone of her recently, tragically deceased boyfriend. What happens next will shock you.

I don't want to be overly dismissive of the film, as it did engage me to a degree, especially the first half, but the picturesquely bleak setting, the dialogue with its long pauses and mute responses, and the story itself all struck me as inauthentic. False seriosity, with artistically deployed silences and the prettiness of a good knitwear fashion spread.

Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (Craig Baldwin, 1992). My local video rental place shelves this with the documentaries, but IMDb labels it 'Comedy, Sci-Fi'. It's a collage of sci-fi B-movies and footage constructing an alien invasion narrative to explain American intervention in South America. I respect its savagery, but as someone who doesn't know the history well, the information whips by a bit fast. I mean it's comprehensible, but I think a true appreciation requires a more politically informed audience. And it's a bit one note.

[bamwc2]

Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America (Craig Baldwin, 1992). My local video rental place shelves this with the documentaries, but IMDb labels it 'Comedy, Sci-Fi'. It's a collage of sci-fi B-movies and footage constructing an alien invasion narrative to explain American intervention in South America. I respect its savagery, but as someone who doesn't know the history well, the information whips by a bit fast. I mean it's comprehensible, but I think a true appreciation requires a more politically informed audience. And it's a bit one note.

There are still video stores? The last one in my college town is shutting down now.

[bottled spider]

For whatever reason, there is one in Victoria, BC that survived the mass closures, and is still going strong. And they've even kept a handful of VHS tapes on their inventory.

[colinr0380]

I mentioned them in previous posts in the forum but something that really fascinated me (and got me into sci-fi with its associated "Movie Nightmares" season) was a series of three "New Nightmares" episodes of the Without Walls series from 1993. Unfortunately the first episode "Man-Machine" is not on YouTube (probably because it is the most film clip heavy, which takes in the topics of Alan Turing, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, H.R. Giger, J.G. Ballard and Crash, Asimov and robotics, replaceable parts and plastic surgery, William Gibson and Neuromancer, and so on), but the second episode "Nature Says No" and the third "Them" are still currently up.

These episodes are a bit more about sci-fi literature but of course they also serve as a good primer to sci-fi films as well.

[Calvin]

As well as the aforementioned End of Evangelion, there are a few other anime films that have the potential to make my final list. I suspect Yoshiyuki Tomino's Ideon: Be Invoked won't make the cut as it's essentially a proto-End of Eva right down to being the true conclusion of a TV series that had an unsatisfactory ending due to budgetry reasons. I'll need to rewatch it in the coming months, but I remember thinking that while it was a great work in its own right (probably Tomino's best) End of Eva came along and did it a bit better.

Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 2: The Movie manages to capture that feeling of anxiety and confusion that I can (thankfully) only imagine accompanies an act of terrorism. I've seen the Patlabor series described as a slice of life drama disguised as a mecha show, but the focus of the feature films moves away from the SV2 officers and shows them as ultimately pawns in a game - a small part of a bigger picture that is always out of reach. Oshii uses them as a vector to put forward films that are ultimately about the risk of dehumanisation that comes with increasing reliance of technology (Patlabor 1) and whether an unjust peace is more or less desirable than a just war (Patlabor 2). While Miyazaki, Takahata and others have been very public with their own political views, Patlabor 2 is perhaps the most obviously - and most powerfully - political anime ever made.

[YnEoS]

Was reading the thread on the new Dune film, and thought I'd mention that there's lots of great fan edits of the original David Lynch Dune, so if anyone is considering revisiting that for the new movie or this list, it might be worth tracking some of them down, since the theatrical cut is heavily abridged, and the extended edition was messed around with a lot and disowned by David Lynch.

My personal favorite is the Third Stage Edition, which mostly just augments the theatrical cut with additional footage and the original book ending, and doesn't try to "fix" any of it. Its uneven and messy, but for me that's part of the appeal of the film, and I love watching it with a more fleshed out story. I don't really think any can lay claim to re-creating David Lynch's "original intention" but they're still good ways to experience the film if you're not happy with the current versions. There's some other fan edits that try to remove parts that people feel don't work as well in the film like some of the non-plot-essential voice overs.

Unfortunately I think a lot of these were made in the DVD era, and I dunno if there's been enough sustained interest to re-do them with HD sources, but maybe the new film will re-generate some interest.

[swo17]

I mean, Arrow's supposed to be giving it a new edition soon, and one can hope they'll go all out

[therewillbeblus]

Demon Seed takes the 'What can go wrong with creating independent-thinking AI' trope of purely antisocial logic-fluent computer minds terrorizing emotional-moral human beings, and decides to apply it to an entrapment slasher format, where the killer isn't a mysterious force lurking in the house, but is the fucking house. I love Julie Christie, and want to believe that she can elevate any movie just a bit (and she is pretty good here) but holy shit this was terrible. I've already expressed my personal disgust with rape on film when seemingly tasteless and for no explicit rationale on why it needs to be shown, and this exhibition only affirms that peeve. I get what the film is going for, and I can appreciate those who have chosen to give it enough rope to analyze its themes specifically applied to disproportionate gender empowerments and the consequences of careless patriarchal freedoms on the female experience in the forms of assault. However, this is too drenched in the sterile 70s vulgar shlock of horror films that exploit women when they think they're forming a validating commentary, and my life will be just fine without giving it much thought again.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

April and the Extraordinary World (Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci, 2015): The film takes place in an alternate Europe where the the world's top scientists have all been abducted since the late 19th century and France is still ruled by descendants of Napoleon. Because the world went without its leading minds, it's trapped in a perpetual state of the industrial age with everything run by steam power. One day a trio of scientist along with their young daughter April (Marion Cotillard) get raided by the oafish police officer Pizoni (Bouli Lanners). In this reality all scientists are required to work for the emperor, while they operated independent of the government. After a lengthy chase scene, April's parents are seemingly killed by a mysterious cloud, and she's left alone. Fast forward a dozen years and April now lives the life of a bookish rogue along with her talking cat Darwin (Philippe Katerine). But when they're discovered by a strange force that observes them, she too may fall to the same fate as her parents. I generally don't like steampunk very much, but mercifully the in your face aesthetic is kept to a minimum here. April makes for a wonderful hero, and her journey to reunite with her family is truly touching. I really liked this one.

Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos, 2010): Elena (Eva Bourne) a young woman with psychic and telekinetic abilities finds herself institutionalized in a mental hospital overseen by the insane Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael J Rogers). The hospital, the Arboria Institute, is a futuristic sci-fi hellscape with enough identifiable features to place it in the early 80s. Elena spends most of her time there doped up on medication to keep her sedated while Dr. Nyle runs gruesome experiments on her and other patients. After awakening from her catatonic state, Elena begins her Sisyphean quest for freedom. The hallucinatory style from writer/director Panos Cosmatos was initially a thrilling experience, but after having it thrown in your face relentlessly for more than an hour, it grew tiresome. It's got enough ideas to sustain it through its runtime, but sitting through it was a bit of a chore. It also takes a bizarre turn into the slasher gene in its final act.

Elizabeth Harvest (Sebastian Gutierrez, 2018): This modern, sci-fi update of the Bluebeard fairy tale stars Abbey Lee as the titular Elizabeth, who settles into her new live married to older tech billionaire Henry (Ciarán Hinds). He tells her that everything in the mansion is hers, but there is one room that she must never enter. One night when Henry is asleep she enters the room using a keypad with their shared combination and finds a woman that looks like her kept in a cryogenic storage unit. The next morning, Henry confronts her on it and murders her. Soon, Elizabeth is back without any memory of what happened. Like before, she and Henry have just returned from their honeymoon and spend the next several days growing accustomed to life together. The cycle repeats itself, but what will happen to Elizabeth when she makes the shocking discovery again? The film only works if we accept the central conceit that Henry would use the same combination on the forbidden room as he did every other room in the house. That's an absurd leap of logic and leaves the film with an unforgivably big plot hole. Despite the film picking up in the second half, I can't recommend this.

Fantastic Voyage (Richard Fleischer, 1966): Defecting from behind the Iron Curtain, scientist Jan Benes (Jean Del Val) has discovered the secret of miniaturizing any object for an hour at a time. After landing in Washington D.C., his motorcade is attacked and Benes develops a life threatening brain clot after the car crashes. In order to save his life a top secret team of scientists recruit CIA agent Grant (Stephen Boyd) to lead an expedition into Benes's body and surgically remove the clot from the inside. With only an hour to save his life, the team fights a race against time to make their way through the patient's body and into his brain. However, they find themselves trapped in an inhospitable environment where the flow of blood is greater than the current of any rapid, and the host's leukocytes see them as an invader to be terminated. It's a mostly fun cheesy adventure, but...

Spoiler

the film's frequent declarations of faith from its protagonist and his belief in intelligent design are fairly grating. What's more the atheist turns out to be the film's villain, valuing his own survival of that of his crew mates. That was even more grating.

The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell, 2020): As the film opens, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) goes through a desperate escape attempt from her abusive boyfriend Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen). She succeeds, and starts a new life in the house of officer James Lanier (Aldis Hodge). After a few days her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer) informs Cecilia that Adrian has killed himself, but when the reading of his will draws her out, it proves to be a ploy designed to allow the very much alive abuser to locate his victim. Adrian, a master of optics technology, has created a suit that allows him to appear invisible to all around him, and he uses it to begin making Cecilia's life a living hell. I really liked this one. It's the best film about gaslighting since, well, Gaslight. It's a lock for my list, and is probably my favorite film of 2020 so far.

Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2016): As the film opens, Alice (Milla Jovovich), one of only a few thousand humans left alive, roams the wasteland that was once Washington DC where she encounters horrific monsters twisted by the T-Virus. The once evil A.I. from the Umbrella Corporation informs her that Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) will soon eliminate the rest of humanity unless they release an antidote to the virus into the world which will kill off all the zombies. Of course it's located in a bunker underneath Raccoon City, where an atomic blast from the second movie exposed it. Along with her old ally Claire Redfield and a small band of survivors, Alice infiltrates the Umbrella base to undertake a suicide mission. Well, it's over now. I don't get the fan base that this series has, since all of it was just dumb. Anderson is a poor director, and an even worse writer. It's a shit movie to end a shit series.

Return of the Fly (Edward Bernds, 1959): With both parents dead, Philippe Delambre (Brett Halsey) returns to his father's estate for his mother's funeral only to find uncle Francois (Vincent Price) who informs him of his father's harrowing story. Determined to carry on his father's investigations into matter teleportation, Philippe restores his father's lab, rebuilding the machine that the fly creature wrecked in the first movie. This time Philippe engages with his unscrupulous business partner Ronald Holmes (David Frankham), who's on the run from a murder charge in the UK. After Ronald betrays Philippe, he intentionally puts a fly into the matter transporter with Philippe, thus recreating the monstrosity from the first film. Although it takes a different path from the original, once Philippe becomes the fly, it's essentially the same movie as the first one, except this time it's black & white and cheaper looking. Mileage will vary, but if you liked the original, you'll probably like this too. I wasn't exactly a fan of the first one and didn't much care for this one either.

[Nw_jahrles]

Barbarella (1968) - Roger Vadim

YMMV depending on how infatuated with Jane Fonda you are with this one. A sex comedy without lots of attempts at sex or comedy. The opening scene with Fonda disrobing out of her spacesuit while floating in air is probably where most of this films “sexy” reputation resides, but the film consists of Fonda transporting (by spaceship, by flying, by vacuum tube) from one scene to the next, with very little propelling the story forward other than perhaps a sense of camp with the sets, costumes and characters.

Of course, it’s a sex comedy in space, so it’s probably not fair to assess it based on elaborate plotting or fully developed characters, but like I said, there is little sex in the film, and the comedy fails not because the jokes fall flat, but rather there seems to be large portions of the movie where there are no jokes being told at all. David Hemmings being the lone exception for some comic timing in his scene.

[Rayon Vert]

I’m excited about joining this project, and I plan to spend five solid months of near-exclusive film-watching devoted to it. The ratio of virgin viewings to rewatches is really high this time, which has got me especially jazzed (and will reveal if it’s not already apparent by my postings on this board the level to which I'm stuck in a time warp and don’t keep up with current films!).



Monsters (Edwards 2010). (1st viewing) Mexico doesn’t have enough problems it had to be the country where this crashing space probe letting loose alien life forms it was carrying back landed. I liked the serious, realistic tone of this, with a special vibe given that the “infected zone” has been existing for six years rather than erupting for the viewer à la War of the Worlds. Moments of ordinary, sheltered reality therefore intermingle with sudden returns to shock and fear (to which we can relate at the present in our - though admittedly somewhat less dramatic - prolonged covid existence). It’s intimate with the focus on two characters only and it doesn’t have anything of a blockbuster monster film feel about it - more of a drama, with science fiction adventure sequences. It succeeds in creating atmosphere, the characters and their relationship are handled well, and the film can be beautiful in its visuals. At different times, the alien life forms can evoke both terror (in scenes that explicitly echo moments in films like Jurassic Park and War of the Worlds) and transcendent wonder. Not a masterpiece but an effective enough, well-executed little piece.


Forbidden Planet (Wilcox 1956). (revisit) The first time you see this, it’s striking to encounter so many of the elements found later in Star Trek and Star Wars (for the latter, lightspeed travel, the desert planet, the C3PO/R2D2 robot, the two suns/moons, the landspeeder, the hologram of Alta/Leia, and especially the very similar visual designs of the incredibly vast machine created by the Krell civilization, with its walkways, platforms and miles deep chasms). It’s quite impressive also for the era in terms of the production design and special effects and that electronic noise score. Then you have the idea of mind-created reality through the “monsters of the id”, which also feels ahead of its time (e.g. Solaris). But that whole business with the campy and racy business about the sexual education of Morbius’ daughter just seems so out of place, and more damagingly this very talkative film just has an awfully dragging, devitalized pace, making it a very mixed experience on revisit.


Gattaca (Niccol 1997). (1st viewing) That beginning got me hoping for some space travel that didn’t happen and the science fiction here (a future genetically engineered society) is to a large extent window-dressing for a fairly regular thriller revolving around hidden identity. I can’t say the themes here stimulate much emotion in me, and as a thriller it was competent and entertaining enough but that’s about it. That second scene with the brothers swimming was a silly note, but on the whole the only such flaw.


Upgrade (Whannell 2018). (1st viewing) This is the type of action-heavy, surprise-upon-surprise thriller sci fi film (cyberpunk to boot) that’s really less my thing and therefore unlikely to make my list (but I’ll possibly contradict this statement by including Minority Report). However I was completely impressed at how cleverly this was written and executed, and how fiendishly entertaining it is. A lot of creativity here. The humor is surprising at first but fully works. It also looks amazing for this budget-size.


This Island Earth (Newman 1955). (revisit) Even though it’s a bit clunky from the beginning, the setup is still fun and a bit intriguing, especially when Cal reaches his destination in this strange, remote location (is this actually Georgia? are we maybe on another planet masquerading as Earth?) where the sense of entrapment develops. But the film pretty much dies once we’re off to Metaluna and the already crude visuals reach near-abysmal levels with some of those backdrops and that monster in a suit. MGM’s Forbidden Planet is a masterpiece compared to this - I’m glad I waited on the rewatch before deciding to go for the blu upgrade.


Looper (Johnson 2012). (1st viewing) Above in the Upgrade write-up, I mentioned the action sci fi thriller subgenre isn’t my favorite but I went almost straight into another instance here (and of course I have others on my to-watch list). The abrasive loudness was built on some nevertheless clever enough premises and it was entertaining enough in its build-up, if without any of the fun in something like Upgrade. But reading what TWBB states in his write-up, I guess I’m not alone in experiencing the second half as a severe letdown. As soon as the Emily Blunt & kid part started, I progressively but surely lost all interest in the film. It feels like the addition of that melodramatic dimension just took over and sucked the air out of the thriller, while the new dramatic development itself was too trite and sentimental to command sufficient interest on its own. But like TW also, Jeff Daniels jumped out at me as every good in his small part.


The Stepford Wives (Forbes 1975). (1st viewing)] I guess just having the film in this thread is partially a spoiler. The obvious satirical idea of it is fun but the execution as a whole isn’t very much. I was surprised how sluggish this was, and not all that well acted. There’s a strangeness that doesn’t emanate so much from the slight bizarre behavior from some characters in the story so much as in the lack of any tension or dramatic pace for a lot of the film. It’s only in the last quarter of an hour that the movie seems to wake up and then go into its Ira Levin Rosemary’s Baby-esque thriller mode. Underwhelming.

[colinr0380]

THX-1138 (George Lucas, 1971)

"Could you be more... specific?"

It might be a controversial opinion but I still feel that THX-1138 is George Lucas' best film (and Warner Bros was on dystopian fire with this, The Devils and A Clockwork Orange released in the same year!). Despite its Buck Rogers opening (and then immediately following it up with backwards running credits to match Kiss Me Deadly!), it is rather indebted to 1984 and dystopian sci-fi in general (with an added late 60s early 70s focus on drug experimentation on the one hand; and authoritarian cops ready to beat down the free thinkers with their truncheons on the other!) but I love the contrast of the clean white look of the shopping mall and parking garage world of the future and the grimy, dark and abandoned tunnels outside of the frequently trafficked areas. I particularly like the really abstract editing of the opening of the film showing a 'working day in the life' of the society, though even there we see LUH in the process of switching the medication and being viewed with suspicion by the camera in her smart bathroom cabinet, sending reports and samples of her voice back to Central Control for analysis!

THX is a technician with everything going for him. A good job, an easy commute and a partner in LUH. After a few episodes of illness and disorientation THX eventually finds out that LUH has weaned herself off of the cocktail of drugs that everybody takes and, in (forbidden) love with THX has decided to take him off them too. They have non-authorised sexual congress and make plans to flee the city after THX's next shift at the factory. However he is functioning poorly in his high risk, high concentration required job and it almost ends in disaster. LUH is removed from him without warning and replaced with SEN (Donald Pleasance), who tries unsuccessfully to take her place in THX's life but is only rebuffed and himself informed upon by THX in order to get rid of him. Both THX and SEN end up in an all white void prison and end up making an escape from it, getting split up in the process. Whilst SEN heartbreakingly tries to escape but turns back at the last moment, scared of the unknown awaiting him beyond the boundaries of the city, THX and fellow escapee SRT discover the horrible truth of what happened to LUH

Spoiler

literally turned into an incubator for the illegitimately conceived baby. Or maybe she was destroyed and the name and number affixed to a new foetus

and go on a wild spree through the city to try and escape the implacable robot footsoldiers marching after them.

This film has such a dark and blackly comic vision of the future, such as the way that whilst television has advanced to the level of a holographic projection (and in the *sigh* director's cut an automated masturbation machine) the actual content of television has regressed (refined down?) into channels dedicated entirely to a sight of one sex or the other naked dancing to tribal beats, or the '24 hour police beating' channel (the news?). Or the way that all the children are learning by rote and literally having the knowledge pumped into their veins somehow! The comfort of a personalised interaction is both present but also automated because it has to be provided to every one of the masses, so the technology (like the confessional box for religion) is talking to you directly but only providing the set programmed replies that it gives to everyone! Which to be fair is all that it really needs to do, because the masses are 'socialised' enough (through the drug regime) to have a pretty predictable range of problems that can be pre-programmed and accounted for. People are not coming to their medicine cabinet for help, or the confessional in despair and looking for answers, or watching television for a wider perspective on the world but appear to be just going to these places out of habit, as areas that once fed a need that is long lost and now it is just a ritual to be observed. These places of (albeit abstract) comfort have now become monitoring stations to check and alert the authorities behind the scenes of any deviant behaviour out of the norm.

The humanity behind the bland automated voices appears less in our heroes but more in the behind the scenes radio chatter of the technicians trying to keep the equipment going! Such as the duelling bureaucrats in the mind lock scene or the one in the prison of the veteran operator training up the rookie in how to use the equipment and using THX as the training subject! (It is the scene that I always think about if I see people doing wild abstract modern dance movements!) Similarly the 'Jesus box' is blandly impersonal and then we go behind the screen into the tangle of wires behind and see a small sliver of life in the insects behind (quite like the similar scene in the later Phase IV)

I kind of love the way that the superficially calm and ordered society is taking so much effort to keep functioning! But the highs and lows are blanded out (probably another drug reference) into a kind of emotional monotone where nothing ever has an impact, either positive or negative. So a section of the factory exploded and killed a number of workers (with a hunk of unidentifiable meat being dragged out by hooks), but that will just be something that will set the work schedule back a bit. Rebellion is kind of expected, or otherwise why would the surveillance be so intensive in the first place. They need subversives to justify the expense!

Speaking of which this film has one of the greatest car chase scenes in cinema, unique in the way that it is both thrilling and continually being stunted by events, as well as being masterful in its use of sound effects and editing to convey tension. SRT never even makes it out of the parking garage as he has difficulty figuring out the controls of the car! The engine of THX's car overheating leading to it stalling out and having to wait for it to cool down all whilst a computer voice ticks off the gap between THX and the quickly closing in chasing police bikes is a wonderful moment of contrasting inaction with the high speed whine of the bikes. And that all pushes on into the final foot chase section where the authorities have calculated in their cost-benefit analysis that it will cost too much after a certain point to chase THX and return him to the city and the robotic pursuers are reduced to plaintively calling for THX to come back, as he presses onward into the unknown.

So THX does not escape through ingenuity or skill, he just uses all their money up until they have to let him leave! I suppose like filmmakers never being able to finish a film until the funding runs out! Or a student on a film production course!

On the subject of filmmakers never finishing tinkering with their films I still feel that the director's cut of this from 2003 is completely unnecessary. Lucas went back to this like the original Star Wars trilogy and added in lots of extra CGI additions that don't add anything new narratively but kind of annoyingly fiddle around the edges of what was already there. There are a lot of shots that try and broaden out the scope of the film with wide vistas and huge banks of workers at their terminals in THX's factory and so on, which feels rather wrongheaded for such an intimate and sparse film in its original version. The mind control scene in its original version does not have all of the elements of Duvall's eyes rolling back in his head or the shots of the heated radioactive rod that has been dropped burning its way through the electronic equipment. Most egregiously the car chase scene begins with a very fake feeling sequence of dodging traffic on the city freeways before plunging into the tunnels, as well as climaxing it with a highly unnecessary scene of CGI characters diving from some scaffolding into a pipe and running away from the scene in the final crash sequence which really undermines the spectacle of the original scene and especially the final crash of the police robot into the car, which was apparently an unplanned accident involving the stunt performer getting thrown off the bike and then trapped between the car and the bike that was left in the film (It was amusing to note how those two clips on YouTube have cut out the best part of the sequence, the long tense wait for the car's engine to cool down!). Lucas has also felt the need to replace the outer shell dwellers who attack THX when he is on foot, which was just hairy midgets in ragged robes in the original film, with CGI mutated monkey men (similar to the way that SEN's attempt to leave the city earlier in the film is aborted when he sees some rats at the end of the train tunnel in the original version, which have to be monstrous mutated abominations in the director's cut. Maybe that puts us more into SEN's mindset perhaps, but I think frankly it felt more impactful seeing SEN react in fear to animals we are familiar with but he had perhaps never seen before rather than actual monsters, and in the end it all feels just like Lucas being unable to stop tinkering and wanting to have fun adding in creatures where he can, as also seen in turning the lizard in the guts of the Jesus booth into a fantastical one with antennae and wings).

Unfortunately as with the original versions of the Star Wars films the original version of THX-1138 is not available anywhere at the moment, with the 2003 augmented director's cut having superceded it. It is still a really worthwhile film to see, but I still hope that one day we'll see a good quality version of the original cut get released alongside the director's cut too, but that is probably a pipe dream unless Criterion or Arrow get their hands on it.

[Mr Sausage]

I agree with you that this is Lucas' best film. It's a weird, uncomfortable distillation of the major themes that dominated the early-to-mid 70s: paranoia, anti-authoritatianism, anti-consumerism/capitalism, etc. It's a left-wing critique, even a Marxist one, while also couching that critique in the visual language of anti-communism, with its maze-like bureaucracy, faceless police force, gulags, and extreme collectivism. Perhaps the critique is a sweeping one, aimed at whatever authoritarianism is available. Not because Lucas is an incisive voice of dissent and revolution, showing how the discourses of capitalism and communism are equally oppressive, but because he isn't too interested in the specifics of ideas. It is enough for the ideas to suggest a mood of discomfort and confinement.

THX-1138 is a triumph of mood and technical ingenuity. Its story and characters work insofar as they are general enough to provoke basic emotional investment. After that, you're left to become lost in spaces and sequences that create their moods out of contradictions: prisons in which confinement is created from extreme openness; chases in which tension is created through spatial disconnection; day-to-day events in which fear is created out of placidity. Everything in this world is the opposite of what it presents itself as, and you feel that all the way down to the formal elements.

It's strange to think of George Lucas making something so alienating and unconventional, but that's just one more tension we can add to the film's total effect. It's one of the most stylish sci-fi films ever made. Much like Blade Runner, tho' it plays with heavy ideas, the lasting effect is a purely emotional one.

[Rayon Vert]

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt 2011). (1st viewing) My memory is that when this reboot series came out the talk was about how realistic the apes looked, so I was a bit disappointed to see that despite the performance captures used this is still very obvious CGI, creating an animation/videogame-like quality, most prominent in those sequences where the apes run and jump, with the unrealistic motion typical of what plagues modern superhero films for instance. That aside, I thought this was terrific for a blockbuster popcorn movie. The premise used to create an origin story for the saga was clever, as is the writing throughout the story and screenplay. It pushes obvious emotional buttons but does so effectively and without overdoing it, and it adds another dimension to the series. In the 1968 original, you rooted for the human - here it’s the apes you feel sympathy for, and the film does a good job of creating an empathy-awakening perspective for the “other”, i.e. non-human animals. In that sense, one of the ways other than the obvious that this links up with science fiction is that it ties in with the “nature’s revenge” eco-horror films that started coming out in the 1970s, that most of the time have an unexplained and/or explicitly science fiction dimension attached. Really enjoyed this despite the CGI caveat, and I have tons of films to see before list’s end but it’s not impossible this might make mine.


Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Scafaria 2012). (1st viewing) I’m afraid I wasn’t that impressed. Apocalypse aside, this remains pretty much a romcom with heavy emphasis on the com. It’s good for several laughs but it doesn’t get profound for me the way Groundhog Day does (which I won’t be voting for because I categorize it in the fantasy rather than sci fi category). The relatively more dramatic back end of the film actually deflated the film a bit and I didn’t really feel the Carell-Knightley match-up in terms of chemistry, so consequently the ending TW gushes over didn’t have the effect over me it was intending to.


Snowpiercer (Bong 2013). (1st viewing) There’s some depth to the grim philosophical/socio-political ideas that the narrative plays out but at the same time it’s basically an action movie with a lot of the clichés of the genre, and even the Brazil touches didn’t feel all that fresh. I was nevertheless on board initially but the emphasis on the violence started numbing me out and disinteresting me completely in the second half.


A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick 1971). (revisit) I’ve seen this too many times for it to be as vital and shocking, and I’m not always in the mood for it, but the film always strikes me in terms of how it’s such a magnificent and hugely impressive accomplishment in terms of invention and creative ambition. Kubrick furthers his art in terms of the embrace and integration of music and visuals, adopts visual tropes that will become characteristic, as well as a slightly artificial, slowed down and precise acting and delivery style that gives some of his later films (definitely Barry Lyndon, and The Shining to a lesser extent) an odd, quasi-absurdist quality at times (the procedural prison scenes are some of the ones I enjoy most in this sense). Just in terms of these factors and watching the craft at work, and of course McDowell’s outstanding performance, which is such a huge part of what gives the film its strength and power, it’s a consistent pleasure.

These bits can’t fully distract from the main events of disgust, but do intrude just enough to cause an uncomfortable juxtaposition of humor and horror. In that sense, Kubrick is pulling one over on his audience reflexively, aligning an audio/visual gag with painful repellent, giving us a taste of our own associative experiment not too much different from the one Alex has thrust upon him in the film's most infamous scene!

That’s very true. Part of the joke here is how the film potentially warps music for the viewer (it’s not really possible to hear some of these pieces without bringing the film to mind anymore) the same way dear old Ludwig van gets ruined for Alex.


Passengers (Tyldum 2016). (1st viewing) I was expecting to find this (much more) cheesy and not to like it, and instead was almost impressed, and definitely entertained all the way through. Even if all the décor and elements here (hibernation pods, astronauts stranded outside the ship, etc.,) are déja vu, the premise of Castaway-in-space is compelling (haven’t watched Robinson Crusoe on Mars yet), especially the way it comes about, and you feel what it would be like to know you’re going to spend your entire life alone, in a completely limited horizon, even if you have all the toys you can imagine available at your disposal. (Hard not to relate to this a little given my current personal situation - probably not alone here though - within the larger covid/isolating social measures context we’re experiencing.) The film then takes an even more interesting twist and takes a chance with the viewer’s sympathy by having the protagonist making a moral decision that’s understandable but still completely unforgivable. And when the film further along reaches a point that risks getting mired in merely romantic subject matter, it saves itself by changing gears again.

The film’s ending felt like the wrong, less courageous choice here, but I can forgive it given the relative daring of what preceded it up to that point.


The Endless (Benson & Moorhead 2017). (1st viewing) Suspenseful basic idea about two brothers revisiting the was-it-or-wasn’t-it-a UFO death cult camp they escaped as youngsters. I liked the realism and found the initial mystery intriguing. However the film disappoints as the secrets start to get progressively revealed in the second half, the fantastic element being too exaggerated and silly for its own good, and the

Spoiler

use of the time loop motif

by now too overused to feel novel and as mind-boggling as probably intended.

[domino harvey]

I saw THX 1138 for the first time recently and also enjoyed it. It definitely feels like a movie that could only be made when it was-- a big budget mainstream film with zero exposition and an audience thrown into a lot of weird arthouse trappings. Def seemed like the kind of movie not intended to be watched sober. The CGI additions are so unbelievably awful that it boggles the mind that even an egomaniac like Lucas can't see how distracting and above all unnecessary they are. I was tickled to learn the shot of Duvall getting sucked off by a machine was a new addition too though!

I was pleasantly surprised by Passengers as well, Rayon Vert. It's stayed in my memory a lot longer than a lot of other objectively better films so I may actually like it more than I even think. To the film's credit it doesn't just wave aside the repercussions to Pratt's actions, as seen in my favorite scene when

Spoiler

Jennifer Lawrence wakes him up by beating the shit of his face with her bare fists!

But the film convinces as a credible romance in the end, which considering everything is a pretty big achievement. I do think the speculative "fixed" ending someone posted on Reddit would be way, way better, though:

Spoiler

Have Pratt die and leave Lawrence struggling with whether or not to do the same thing he did for companionship.

That's the kind of ending that could have turned this into a genuinely great film.

[therewillbeblus]

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt 2011).In the 1968 original, you rooted for the human - here it’s the apes you feel sympathy for, and the film does a good job of creating an empathy-awakening perspective for the “other”, i.e. non-human animals. In that sense, one of the ways other than the obvious that this links up with science fiction is that it ties in with the “nature’s revenge” eco-horror films that started coming out in the 1970s, that most of the time have an unexplained and/or explicitly science fiction dimension attached.

Interesting observation on the 70s connection, I've always categorized this film firmly in the camp of the 'prison-escape' subgenre, which helps fuel that 'other'd empathy you're talking about. It's easily my favorite of the series, and would be near the top of a Prison Films list, but probably not here since I don’t think its greatest pleasures lie in sci-fi themes.

[colinr0380]

It has been a while since I have seen either film but I did think that Rise of the Planet of the Apes was probably more influenced by the later entry in the original series, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, more than the original Charlton Heston film. Though it might just have been because Conquest was also dealing with how the apes got freed and organised in the first place. It is of course quite different to Rise because Conquest is part of that closed loop structure to the original series where the ape uprising is led by the son of the two ape time travellers who escaped the apocalypse at the end of "Beneath The..." and travelled back to 1971 in "Escape From..."!

That does confirm both of your wider points though, since Conquest was right in the middle of a number of early 1970s 'nature strikes back' as well as 'prison escape' films!

I saw THX 1138 for the first time recently and also enjoyed it. It definitely feels like a movie that could only be made when it was-- a big budget mainstream film with zero exposition and an audience thrown into a lot of weird arthouse trappings. Def seemed like the kind of movie not intended to be watched sober. The CGI additions are so unbelievably awful that it boggles the mind that even an egomaniac like Lucas can't see how distracting and above all unnecessary they are. I was tickled to learn the shot of Duvall getting sucked off by a machine was a new addition too though!

It does make me wonder how aware Lucas was of Alphaville at the time because it really feels like he is doing the same thing in THX-1138 that Godard was doing, in utilising real locations that look just strange (and impersonal) enough to become science fictional ones. It was especially great watching the The Gumball Rally from a couple of years after THX-1138 to see that it also has a scene set in the same tunnel location!

Was it accidental that that kind of comparison could be made between Alphaville and THX-1138? They do feel strangely close, just on a bit of a grander scale and probably sharing similarities more for practical reasons than philosophical ones. Maybe that is just the point where those existing outside of the Hollywood system by choice and to make a point and those still on the outside for now but working to eventually get a foothold into the production process exist in the same sphere before their paths diverge to quite different ends of the filmic spectrum!

Although if being in the tradition of Alphaville is the case it makes it even worse that it seems as if Lucas forgot all of those influences by the time of doing the director's cut version and adding in all the CGI elements and expansive shots which kind of ruin everything around them by how incongruous they seem. It especially ruins the final car chase scene as well as that 'bustling crowd' moment by taking the already impressive numbers of people in that scene and then having to add in even more CG figures and another wide shot as if to make it all the more impactful, but it just ends up working the other way unfortunately. As well as looking rather dated now the constant back and forth cutting (when they are not being inserted directly into existing footage) between the 70s footage and those slick early 2000s CG moments is extremely jarring. Perhaps the worst of all is that in tinkering with this film Lucas does not even have the (already very weak) justification used when augmenting Star Wars that he had a whole new trilogy of films coming and needed to ensure a certain consistency of effects across the series. There is no such argument possible with THX-1138 and it just ends up undermining the whole production.

And yes the addition of the machine being used on Duvall in the television watching sequence was jaw dropping. It was already implied that the character is performing pretty much the same action in the original version, just manually, but of course in the director's cut we need the addition of a milking machine in the shot as well. Which itself reminds me of that other moment where one of the troupe of visitors being shown around the control room during the final chase sequence trips up a little and looks down at his foot and the director's cut has seen fit rather than just leaving it in there as an inexplicable and rather inconsequential bit of business to instead have a strange metal pipe sticking out of the middle of the floor that the actor knocks his foot on with an audible clang as he knocks against it! Which in trying to 'explain' that actor's body language both ensures the audience's attention gets drawn to that moment more than they may have been in the original version and may cause some legitimate confusion about what the heck a metal pipe is doing there now!

Those are both moments where the CGI additions in trying to smooth things out and make sure that everything is accounted for and that there is no room for confusion (or to miss the brilliant point being made, or the 'accident' of having a different interpretation to what is going on in a scene: i.e. subtlety and implication!) ironically makes everything messier! In attempting to remove the humanity, it shows the all too human doubts and flaws (or at least a lack of confidence in their audience) of its creator even more clearly perhaps.

One of the great things that the DVD extras related to me is the final scene of climbing up that long shaft is just done with the actors climbing along the ground Monty Python-style and making it look as if they were climbing upwards by tilting the camera sideways! All the CGI in the world couldn't match that one moment of ingenuity from the original production!

[colinr0380]

It’s good for several laughs but it doesn’t get profound for me the way Groundhog Day does (which I won’t be voting for because I categorize it in the fantasy rather than sci fi category)

That reminds me to do the recommendation for anyone wanting a sci-fi piece that tackles the Groundhog Day premise to check out the wonderful short film 12:01 P.M., which has perhaps Kurtwood Smith's best role!

[therewillbeblus]

.Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Scafaria 2012). (1st viewing) I’m afraid I wasn’t that impressed. Apocalypse aside, this remains pretty much a romcom with heavy emphasis on the com. It’s good for several laughs but it doesn’t get profound for me the way Groundhog Day does (which I won’t be voting for because I categorize it in the fantasy rather than sci fi category). The relatively more dramatic back end of the film actually deflated the film a bit and I didn’t really feel the Carell-Knightley match-up in terms of chemistry, so consequently the ending TW gushes over didn’t have the effect over me it was intending to.

I’m sorry this didn’t work for you, though it sounds like you had an entirely different experience watching this than I did! While the film is funny and inspired in how it predicts what mankind might descend to given an impending fixed fate, I never felt like comedy was particularly emphasized over the pathos at any stage. I also don’t think you need to buy the specific relationship, since I love this film for mostly selfish reasons. On a more surface level, I’m fascinated with how human nature exposes itself in the face of acute crises, and watching people respond in different ways is comforting because it reinforces a celebration of each person’s uniqueness (so, we’re not simply programmed to engage in Hobbesian violence in such circumstances- how nice!)

The more striking aspect, though, is how the film prompts a flood of vulnerabilities to emerge into the conscious and forces one to work through competing attitudes that are all valid. When death- or a form of uncontrollable finality- is imminent and inescapable, do we remain paralyzed in a self-flagellating state of regret, resentment, and fear? Or can we ascend this with acceptance and find mindful gratitude for the present moment and a life well-lived? The ending is a spiritual experience for me, using my own personal development along all those paths without pretending like it would be easy to choose the serene one, and I admire the film for refusing to shame fear and regret and giving them an equal footing with the more positive outlooks. Also, the belief that in such a short time we could alter our attitudes, with the right support for self-reflection, is immensely optimistic. Personally the believability of the relationship in front of us was secondary to the impact of how the tones reached its zenith subjectively for the viewer, and I found Scafaria’s style exceptionally welcoming for me to use my own therapeutic relationship with nostalgia v where I’ve ended up in life to plant myself in her world and engage with the themes.

[Rayon Vert]

I do think the speculative "fixed" ending someone posted on Reddit would be way, way better, though:

Spoiler

Have Pratt die and leave Lawrence struggling with whether or not to do the same thing he did for companionship.

That's the kind of ending that could have turned this into a genuinely great film.

That's definitely along the lines of what I was thinking would have been a better ending.

[Rayon Vert]

I’m sorry this didn’t work for you, though it sounds like you had an entirely different experience watching this than I did! While the film is funny and inspired in how it predicts what mankind might descend to given an impending fixed fate, I never felt like comedy was particularly emphasized over the pathos at any stage.

We definitely had a different experience regarding the comedy ratio. This gets labelled as a "romantic comedy-drama" but honestly I felt like there were very few purely dramatic moments, except until near the end, and a lot of purely humorous scenes. Not a lot of scenes on youtube to choose from, but this one for instance seems to me to represent the vibe of the movie through at least the first hour.

I guess I also wasn't that intrigued or wowed by the consequences of the main premise, as maybe I feel that's been done in other movies as well (?). I think I have a few other similar themed movies on my list to watch where I'll be able to compare, in any event.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah that’s definitely a scene built more around comedy, though still there’s an examination of avoidance there as the cop resigns himself to his professional role as a crutch to cope with the uncomfortable through intentional suppression. I was thinking more of the earlier scenes like the party that are funny but there’s an equally infecting pathos as Carell’s depression doesn’t match his surroundings, and are reminiscent of that social exclusion born from isolating mental health issues. Anyways, I agree that plenty of other great sci fi films touch on these existential themes, and you’re also in the majority of not thinking this was anything special given its mediocre critical response, so it’s far from an unpopular opinion

[domino harvey]

I’m with RV at least in the comedy-drama dynamic. It’s funny until it isn’t. But I find the ending to be enormously impactful, and I’ve never forgotten the final exchange, which is so sad and beautiful and true to the premise. Sorry to hear it didn’t hit you RV on an emotional level, as I found it a truly touching romance.