The 1970's Science Fiction Movie Poll

I don't think we ever made one.

phase iv is super creepy & psychedelic, with some of the best acting by real ants ever filmed and a great burbling electronic score. I was talking to a friend who had vague memories of seeing it as a child, but he had perfect recall when it came to the scene where ants started crawling out of the 3 circular holes in a dead guy's hand.

DVD NOW PLZ

-- Edward III, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 14:35 (3 months ago) Link

DVD GODZ HAVE ANSWERED MY PRAYERS

where is it available? I saw a forum message that noted it appeared to be a best buy exclusive??? amazon doesn't have it.

yeah, oddly enough it's only available at best buy. netflix has it too.

I am curious about the Final Programme ref'd above but going by Milton's other recommendations I'm suspicious...

milton's otm more often than not

truth bomb

sorry stalker was unwatchable. I think I hate Tarkovsky.

fortunately he's dead

don't swear off tarkovsky until you've seen mirror.

the phase iv dvd was put out by legend films, who apparently licensed a bunch of obscure movies from the paramount vaults - student bodies, the sender, mandingo, some kind of hero, etc - and legend's promoting them as best buy exclusives.

it is v v weird to see phase iv on a promotional endcap display at best buy, but at $10 it's both a steal and a freakin nobrainer.

turn my back on this thread for one second and I miss the Phase IV DVD reissue! got to pick that up.

came here to say I'd seen a new one I'd never heard of, an East German production from 1976 called 'In The Dust of the Stars'. there were evidently only four science fiction (aka 'Utopian') films produced in East Germany from 1960 to 1989, and each had to pass party review. the plot concerns six bold, courageous & friendly cosmonauts answering a distress call, landing on an alien planet of decadent, hard-partying Capitalists who attempt to corrupt them with endless parties and psychedelic dancing to distract them from their secret -- they are actually colonists who have enslaved the resident population to work underground as slaves. the party scenes are hilarious, and long -- twenty minutes can't go by without one of the rulers clapping his hands & a squad of go-go dancers climbing out of the mirrors to dance to 'crazy electronic music'. the visual style is closer to Mario Bava circa 'Planet of Vampires' or a very low budget 'Barbarella' than anything contemporary, the dialog is ridiculous (one of the cosmonauts names is 'Thob'), so this doesn't fit at all with the dystopian themes of these other films, it's just interesting fun

also saw 'Silent Running' again. it's about as slow and ponderous as I remembered, but there's a lot in here I didn't get as a kid that makes me sort of astonished this was made -- Bruce Dern is not just self-righteous but terrifying, and I'd forgotten (spoiler) that he outright murders all his crew members to save the forest. After the last eight years of being inundated with Malkin & Limbaugh tropes of the wild-eyed crazy liberal tree-huggers, seeing this movie again made me think that Limbaugh couldn't have bankrolled a right-wing film with this extreme a caricature if he'd tried -- Bruce Dern really is not an inviting protagonist, he's basically the Unabomber. But the film is in earnest, it is absolutely For the Trees, so it ends up giving you a lot to think about precisely because it is so awkward, it's one of the only films that seems to want to go into the mentality of 70's domestic terrorism. the DVD's commentary is just Trumbull & Dern, mostly talking about the effects, it would have been interesting to hear from the the other screenwriters Michael Cimino & Stephen Bochco

long time since I've seen Silent Running - i have it on VHS but no player. Pretty spot on comments about Dern though, all his friends being non human and all.

me and my sister bawked our eyes out when the 'robots' bought it.

everybody's creaming over teh new godfather discs but this is what has me seriously considering getting bluray player

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001G7PX80/

wot, no ape head?

my cousin has the japanese alien set

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/alienquadrilogyhead.jpg

not even one vote for Beneath the Planet of the Apes. saw that again -- that's my favorite one by far. once you get to the underground city...

finally saw Fassbinder's one science fiction film 'World On A Wire' from 1973. Loved it. Are there any earlier virtual reality films?

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/WorldOnAWire2.jpg

the new bluray planet of the apes set has the original cut of conquest of the planet of the apes, the version that studio heads demanded be cut lest it get an R rating and/or incite actual rioting in the streets.

goddamn, they really want me to buy a bluray player, don't they?

Martian Chronicles - 1979 TV mini-series - far less kitschy than I was expecting. screenplay by Richard Matheson! the space effects are terrible, but whenever the martian cities & outfits hit the screen I was tempted to just pause and stare at them -- I wanted to live there. (tried to find a screenshot of the Martian Mask of Conflict, but blogs are sleeping). the anti-colonial themes are front and center, not glossed over at all, and the scene where the psychic empath martian gets stuck with the Missionary and is thusly forced into the shape of a wounded Jesus, and he's in agony trying to talk the priest into looking away before he bleeds to death - that is an amazing scene, especially for broadcast 70's television. I wasn't expecting this one to fit with the other US 70's science fiction films, but it absolutely does, it's as bleak and dystopian and fatalistic as the rest of them

also saw the 1972 East German 'Eolomea'. it's just as swinging & psychedelic as 'In The Dust of the Stars', but also more serious in tone. I liked it, though it doesn't click with the Western dystopias, in fact in East Germany they couldn't call them Science Fiction films, to distinguish them they would call them 'Utopian films', and that's accurate -- the two I've seen are proscripted cheerleading. http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/eolomea.php

Das Millionenspiel - 1970

Reality TV Show where contestants win one million deutschmark if they can evade three assassins for one week, while the world watches coverage via 20 mobile film crews

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066079/

Seems like a made for TV reiteration of The 10th Victim which I remember being good campy fun, but maybe worth checking out, and obviously still way ahead of its time, plus music by Can

http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/ask-film-question/16845-phase-iv-saul-bass-fish-lady.html

whoah

http://io9.com/5877874/lost-films

Hu-Man (1975)

An actor (Terence Stamp, playing himself) is placed in a series of dangerous situations, while his fear is broadcast to the television audience. Their emotional reactions will determine whether he is sent into the future, or the past. Directed by Jérôme Laperrousaz and co-starring Jeanne Moreau, Hu-Man won the Trieste Festival of Science Fiction Films in 1976, but has strangely fallen into obscurity, and apparently no prints are available.

yes! i read that too! wish it were available

posting this to watch later: Idaho Transfer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXxzzpGF7O8

liked Idaho Transfer a lot. perhaps one of the lowest budget films on this entire list, but it doesn't matter; point a camera at those volcanic plains & the Idaho landscape, set it to an acoustic guitar & analog synth soundtrack and it is easy to believe that civilization has ended everywhere

and the ending is RIDICULOUS.

we should run this poll again sometime. it's missing a bunch of important ones, and some of them are finding wider audiences.

tried to find a screenshot of the Martian Mask of Conflict, but...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_5Qcl1S1MdQQ/SPZihzUViZI/AAAAAAAAMrE/hfqfUpOb3Co/s1600/bscap0019la1.jpg

Peregrine: "2000 years we waited for your return. And now I am the one who sees you, and hears you speaking."

Martian Jesus: "You see nothing but your own dream ... your own needs. Beneath all this I am another thing."

Peregrine: "What am I to do?"

Martian Jesus: "Look away from me, and in that moment I'll be gone. Halt, or you'll kill me!"

Peregrine: "Or I'll kill you?"

Martian Jesus: "If you force me into this guise much longer, I will die. This is more than I can hold."

Father Peregrine and 'Jesus' exchange inaudible whispers.

Peregrine: "And I have made you like this with my thoughts."

Martian Jesus: "You came into the church. You looked at the crucifix. Your old dream of meeting him seized you once again. Seized me. My body still bleeds from the wounds you gave me with your secret mind."

Peregrine: "…Oh, my sweet God …. Go, before I keep you here forever."

whatever you think of the crimes of george lucas it is silly that thx placed so low

well based on your posts Martian Mask of Conflict looks amazing but unfortunately the only Google result for it is, uh, this thread

It's from The Martian Chronicles, Shakey

I mean I'm assuming you thought it was the title of some separate movie, which I did for a split second

hmmm, apparently The Martian Chronicles DVD is still in print over here but The Silver Locusts isn't, tho it's easy enough to get a used copy.

sorry, meant to say the orig Ray Bradbury book (Silver Locusts) isn't. anyway they're both well worth having iirc

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2008/10/29/douglaskirklandco460.jpg

watched the martian chronicles dvd again recently. loved the rocket prop but the whole thing didn't live up to my memories or the book.

Zardoz 2

;_;

ah thx read the book, never bothered with any screen adaptations

http://coilhouse.net/2012/05/teenagers-in-space-a-soviet-sci-fi-film-from-1974/

wow

awesome

i think i'm going to watch barbarella again

is CQ any good?

not really

I kind of liked it, but I know I was in the minority

it's not a patch on Barbarella that's for sure

CQ is charming but not a must see. Soundtrack is alright.

That's a good description

haha, this is my 2nd google search result for "ken middleham ants"

Perhaps of interest as a compare/contrast

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/lists/50-best-sci-fi-movies-of-the-1970s-20150114

I can think of a whole lot of films that didn't make the list better than most of their bottom 20 -- first third of this list makes the decade look a lot more wretched than it has to (though I hadn't even heard of 'welcome to blood city')

putting phase iv in the top 10 though, all is forgiven

Saul Bass' Long-Lost Original Ending for Phase IV Unearthed in Los Angeles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beLpsWaUDNk

Whoa @ lost ending. I guess there were probably a bunch of other majorly cut parts throughout... still manages to be awesome, though.