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Lately I find myself drawn to the aesthetic of science fiction movies and TV shows of the Space Age, where science promised us untold prosperity and progress and the black and white Twilight Zone morality plays of the 50s were giving way to vivid garish Color!TM Science fiction became dominated by a style of cool special effects features that may not have looked REAL, even at the time, but still looked stylish and evocative. Animation had Johnny Quest. Live action had Star Trek and several Irwin Allen shows of varying flavors of camp.  Across the Atlantic we had Doctor Who and Gerry Anderson producing half-a-dozen puppet shows involving people tooling around in toyetic vehicles (largely because marionettes look like dogshit trying to actually walk)  And acros the Pacific we had Eiji Tsuburaya making weird monsters for Ultraman and the Science Patrol to contend with.  On the SIlver Screen, we ran the gamut from Forbidden Planet to Barbarella, Planet of the Vampires to The WIld WIld Planet. A unifying trait of all these were a sleek futuristic swingin' set design, a soundtrack featuring saxophones and snare drums, teams of Serious Competent Professionals solving problems with science and money and probably guns of some sort as they battle aliens or sea-people or Yellow Peril Fu Manchu type supervillains, and a sense of counter-culture sexy hip-ness that's charming in hindsight. Plus, you know, a bucketload of racism and sexism like everything else made in this era, made even more ridiculous by contrast with its "enlightened" futurism. So discuss, give recommendations, or just binge-watch some of this retro crap on Shout Factory and be reminded of a more happenin' time
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Nov 24, 2020 01:17
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:19 |
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