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 I recently watched a double feature of Zardoz... https://youtu.be/gavlcbunY00 and Logan's Run... https://youtu.be/q_2iic4YkwQ Sci-fi in the 70s was certainly someththing, wasn't it? SidneyIsTheKiller fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Oct 12, 2021 |
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Oct 12, 2021 03:33
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Of course conversation about those seminal 70s sci-fi flicks "Star Wars" and "Alien" are more than welcome, but don't let the topic stray from the 70s! https://youtu.be/_9SRECxzbGo
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Oct 12, 2021 03:39
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Logan's Run is so outrageously dated that you would think it'd be the easiest thing in the world to do a remake of it. But thry've been trying to get a remake off the ground for so long that the society depicted in the film would probably consider it too old and needing to be euthanized. Frankly I think it's because it's such a modular, seemingly easy to remake tale that it's difficult to come up with an angle to actually do one.  Want to do it darker and grittier? That's Blade Runner. Want to do basically the same movie, just less 70s? You've got Michael Bay's The Island. Want to play up the "not only are they killing people they're feeding them to the populace" angle? Hello, Soylent Green! How about Logan's Run with apes (Planet of the you know)? Or robots (Blade Runner again). Or virtual reality (The Matrix)? Or maybe the title would be cooler if we had a word like "blade" in it somewhere, etc. etc. Logan's Run is arguably the mid-late 20th century sci-fi story in its essence. In the end, the thing that truly makes it stand out and memorable is, in fact, how amazingly 70s it is.
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Oct 12, 2021 05:25
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 People also like to talk about how Star Wars came along the following year and killed this type of movie dead, but I honestly don't think that's true. Much of the movies I listed above are post-Star Wars, and you can even see shades of Logan's Run's "authority is lying and trying to kill you" motif in Alien's nefarious Company and Mother computer. Also, its fantastical setting and ray guns and robots make it seem more like a pretty good transitional piece between dystopian Charlton Heston flicks and the like and the George Lucas era rather than something diametrically opposed to the latter. 
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Oct 12, 2021 05:36
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 Oh btw both "Star Trek: The Animated Series" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" are fair game itt. 
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Oct 12, 2021 05:55
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I liked Logan's Run but frankly it does a terrible job of selling its happy ending. They find a senile old man living alone in the ruins of a prior civilization that collapsed on itself, and if our protagonists hadn't run across him there wouldn't even be anybody for him to ask to bury his dead body, and this is the better alternative that's worth blowing up the city for?
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Oct 12, 2021 06:01
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Zardoz is like a reverse Logan's Run where instead of a post-apocalyptic would-be utopia killing its citizens before they get old, here they are kept alive forever. And the only one that can show them the error of their ways is naked former barbarian Sean Connery.  (it was kind of hard to find good pics of the movie that weren't borderline nsfw) Also like Logan's Run, I'm not sure how happy I was supposed to find the ending, in which former immortals gleefully embrace getting brutally massacred. Zardoz is lucky it's so weird because frankly the movie's already kind of a bore as it is, but at least there's no end to its parade of bizarrities throughout its running time.
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Oct 12, 2021 06:52
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Silent Running (1972) is probably due for a remake.
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Oct 12, 2021 15:41
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Buttchocks posted:Silent Running (1972) is probably due for a remake. It was called Cool Runnings and it was a pretty true to the original remake other then the space ship was a bobsled, the main character was recast as a handful of Jamaican guys, and instead of saving the last of the plants they are in the Olympics. Pretty much the same otherwise!
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Oct 12, 2021 21:50
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Gotta include  The cheap rear end 2017 Death Race 2050 was actually not that bad for a cheap rear end remake. The semi sequel Death Sport hits many fewer of the 70s tropes. Though it does have motorcycles that sound like TIE fighters. Also Beneath/Escape from/Conquest of/Battle for Planet of the Apes. Conquest has some great dated quasi future architecture and dystopian society bits. Beneath had a lot of nuclear apocalypse/wasteland bits that really brought to mind Omega Man (Heston's take on I am Legend.)
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Oct 12, 2021 22:11
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Oh poo poo, forgot about Love me some 70s dystopia/post-apocalyptia.
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Oct 12, 2021 22:20
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I really liked A Boy and his Dog, there was some other post apocalyptical movie on TV the other day, much newer, also about a guy and his dog and girlfriend. I forget what it was called (I had a bunch to drink) and all I could think of was "so this is just a crappier version of a Boy and his Dog". I think it was zombies instead of fighting for resources and reproduction because of course it was zombies. Lots of similarities otherwise, just I remember it being worse but maybe I was just annoyed that I wasn't watching the old movie instead which I have fun memories about and had my hopes up. It wasn't a remake per say as far as I could tell but I've seen actual remakes stray much further from the original. He didn't even feed the dog his messed up girlfriend at the end, definitely a worse ending whatever it was, I was disappointed mostly because I was constantly making comparisons Yeah I just spoiler tagged the ending of like a 45 year old movie but I feel it's worth doing so if anyone hasn't seen it and likes those types of movies, I liked it. Twenty Four fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Oct 13, 2021 |
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Oct 13, 2021 00:29
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Twenty Four posted:Yeah I just spoiler tagged the ending of like a 45 year old movie but I feel it's worth doing so if anyone hasn't seen it and likes those types of movies, I liked it. I never saw this movie but all clicking the spoiler did for me was move it from "maybe check it out" to "definitely check it out."
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Oct 13, 2021 03:53
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I went into A Boy and His Dog blind and man what a roller-coaster of wonder. I need to watch it again soon.
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Oct 13, 2021 05:34
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banned from Starbucks posted:I went into A Boy and His Dog blind and man what a roller-coaster of wonder. I need to watch it again soon. Same, no clue going into it other then a friend sitting me down to watch it. I didn't watch it when it came out because, well, I wasn't alive, but a friend who is big into post apocalyptic stuff (I enjoy it too), a number of years ago was like "you would love this movie" and I did. They also mentioned how much the Fallout series of games picked up from A Boy and His Dog and he isn't wrong, specifically the old games. Dogmeat, vaults, scavenging, raiders, scarcity, shanty towns, etc. Not that the movie came up with all of the ideas entirely originally but it is obviously a big influence. SidneyIsTheKiller posted:I never saw this movie but all clicking the spoiler did for me was move it from "maybe check it out" to "definitely check it out." I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone I met, though I wish I could, but considering you are the OP of the thread I feel more then safe saying you or anyone into the genre should watch it. Since it seemed to hook you on it, I will make a short spoilered elaboration on the ending, which is really great actually. Read it or don't, but it is a 45ish year old great movie, so not a new ending but might be worth avoiding if you want a bit of extra fun for anyone who hasn't seen it. The main character has to decide between running off to start a new life with his new questionably trustworthy girlfriend, who are a hot commodity in this setting, or feed her to his starving telepathic dog that has been his best friend through thick and thin. He totally goes with "man's best friend" and it is actually both a bit of a dark "oh wow" moment but also sort of a feel good "best buddies off to new adventures" after a huge sacrifice. I loved it. Also if anyone off the top of their head remembers what the hell that other similar newer movie was let me know, my search engine skills failed me and I didn't get much closer looking at imdb for a few. Maybe it wasn't as close as I thought and I was too drunk watching it the other week.
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Oct 13, 2021 07:24
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I'm gonna come clean and admit that until recently I'd always assumed "A Boy and His Dog" was the name of a wholesome anime film from the 80s.
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Oct 13, 2021 10:35
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No mention yet of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I watched this recently and it holds up surprisingly well.
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Oct 13, 2021 10:45
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers '78 is a real interesting watch because it feels self-consciously modern, like the whole context is this is The Updated Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and it puts you in this mindset of seeing its 70s-ness not as something old but as something new. It's a really cool thing.
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Oct 13, 2021 11:27
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Man, I keep going back to watch the carousel scene from Logan's Run, it's such a striking, almost hypnotic sequence (honestly a lot of it is the sultry robotic voice of the announcer): https://youtu.be/4M2vx_RCwSs It's macabre, no doubt, but there's also something oddly touching seeing a huge crowd cheering people on in their last moments.
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Oct 13, 2021 12:19
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The '70s was pretty much the best time for Scifi because they could get weird with it. The '80s perfected a lot of the formulae developed in the '70s but nothing beats the wild experimentation of the '70s. All the movies that have been previously mentioned, the Stepford Wives, Isle of Dr Moreau, Wizards, Man Who Fell to Earth, Rocky Horror, Deathsport, Fantastic Planet, Chariot of the Gods, Boys from Brazil . . . just so many amazing and amazingly weird takes. Like that dude said about Logan's Run. It's the quintessential Scifi movie. That's the template right there.
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Oct 13, 2021 17:09
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Ratatozsk posted:Gotta include God, I love this movie
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Oct 14, 2021 01:38
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Did someone say "70s Sci-Fi"? I posted a lot about this a few weeks ago in the spaceships thread, but the Filmation live-action Saturday morning kid shows "Ark II", "Space Academy" and "Jason of Star Command" are among my favorite memories of being a Seventies kid--but who the hell thought it was a good idea to turn a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world of survivors in the wake of total environmental collapse into a kid's show? Surprisingly, it worked pretty well and kept an optimistic, positive feel despite what would otherwise be very grim 1970s subject matter. The titular Ark II was a high-tech RV on a mission to help the survivors in this wasteland get along with each other and rebuild civilization, and also fly around with a rocket pack at least once per episode.  The high-tech recreational vehicle from "Ark II" found new life in Filmation's next sci-fi kid show, "Space Academy," featuring Jonathan Harris and a diverse cast of talented young people in a very Star Trek inspired episodic series about prep school on a greeblie-covered asteroid base--the RV became the base of Space Academy's "Seeker" spacecraft. As a kid's show the episodes centered around peaceful conflict resolution and often ended with the "monster" of the episode becoming friends with the cast as they resolved their differences through means other than blowing things up (although some problems did get solved by blowing things up.)  Following Filmation's time honored tradition of reusing sets and stock footage, "Jason of Star Command" was a mixture of Star Wars ripoff and homage to 1930s sci-fi serials, with 15 minute episodes ending with cliffhangers, with an off-brand Han Solo as the main character and a great supporting cast including James Doohan (until he got beamed up for Star Trek: The Motion Picture) as the base commander, horror/SF film veteran Sid Haig as villain Dragos, and Cleopatra Jones herself, Tamara Dobson. And the RV was back, this time as Jason's souped-up "Starfire" class spaceship.  All of these series are on YouTube and are fun & watchable, the model work is great and makes the most of what were considered large budgets for Saturday morning kid shows but miniscule compared to even a not-so-major film company's SFX budget. Jetrock fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Oct 14, 2021 |
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Oct 14, 2021 04:21
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They should package all three shows together as "The Space RV Chronicles!"
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Oct 14, 2021 08:29
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I always forget that Mork & Mindy is a spinoff of post-shark-jump Happy Days.
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Oct 14, 2021 08:50
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Twenty Four posted:Same, no clue going into it other then a friend sitting me down to watch it. I didn't watch it when it came out because, well, I wasn't alive, but a friend who is big into post apocalyptic stuff (I enjoy it too), a number of years ago was like "you would love this movie" and I did. They also mentioned how much the Fallout series of games picked up from A Boy and His Dog and he isn't wrong, specifically the old games. Dogmeat, vaults, scavenging, raiders, scarcity, shanty towns, etc. Not that the movie came up with all of the ideas entirely originally but it is obviously a big influence. I Am Legend, the Will Smith version? Not the already mentioned Omega Man version.
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Oct 14, 2021 11:49
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers being fresh on my mind thanks to this thread and seeing it included in my Shudder trial I decided to give it a revisit. Some thoughts:
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Oct 14, 2021 16:48
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The Lathe of Heaven was technically broadcast in January 1980, missing the 70's by just nine days. It was filmed for PBS in the 70's, and it's based on a 1971 novel, so I say it counts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA It's very low-budget, but i think it works fine to just imply all the events that would be to difficult to show.
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Oct 14, 2021 18:12
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habituallyred posted:I Am Legend, the Will Smith version? Not the already mentioned Omega Man version. Holy crap after you saying that, I totally can see how the vague description I gave could totally fit the Will Smith "I am Legend" (which I actually liked) but that's not it at all. The movie I was thinking of felt much closer to "A Boy and His Dog" then that movie. Definitely lower budget but at least that new or newer. I wish I could remember more details. I spent a lot of time searching with no luck, everything I find is either "same era, maybe somewhat related", "even less related, but closer time frame", to "uh I guess this movie has a dog in it?". it probably will take someone who just happened to see it, I'm pretty sure it was bad and obscure. That was a really good guess though! Also this makes me think that I can't remember if I have or haven't seen The Omega Man and I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
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Oct 15, 2021 01:16
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Buttchocks posted:The Lathe of Heaven was technically broadcast in January 1980, missing the 70's by just nine days. On the other end of the 70s (ie early 1970) I submit Colossus, where the US decides to build a supercomputer in a mountain vault to control it's nuclear weapons arsenal.
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Oct 15, 2021 11:32
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Oh man 70's Sci-fi is my jam. Like a lot of aspects of popular culture, the 1970s was when everything changed. Basically the revolutionary ideas of the 1960s became mainstream and you can totally see that in sci-fi films of the 1970s. In the early half of the decade there was a ton of weird psychedelic poo poo that followed 2001: A Space Odyssey then Star Wars came and changed just about everything involving the ways movies were made, marketed and consumed. Then the last few years of the 70's you've got films that took from both and became seminal works that started careers, created foundations for major sub-genres and launched huge franchises. Some of my favorites that haven't already been mentioned Mad Max, the birth of an entire genre of post-apocalyptic car chase movies.  The Andromeda Strain, this was Michael Crichton's first film script based on this first novel. A satellite crashes to earth with a deadly virus attached and a group of scientists have to deal with it.  Capricorn One is a space movie where nobody actually goes to space.  Dark Star, it's John Carpenters first real film, it's kinda like a dark comedy version of Silent running. 
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Oct 21, 2021 06:42
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Jetrock posted:but who the hell thought it was a good idea to turn a dystopian, post-apocalyptic world of survivors in the wake of total environmental collapse into a kid's show? I think it's marrying the sitcom in a fantastic world subgenre of the 60s to the increasing pessimism of science fiction in the 70s. It goes from the wonderful space future in front of us to the terrible systems we've built running us all down. There's a turning point of American optimism somewhere in the late 60s and early 70s, and family television followed that, in content if not necessarily tone.
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Oct 22, 2021 15:14
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Cease to Hope posted:I think it's marrying the sitcom in a fantastic world subgenre of the 60s to the increasing pessimism of science fiction in the 70s. It goes from the wonderful space future in front of us to the terrible systems we've built running us all down. There's a turning point of American optimism somewhere in the late 60s and early 70s, and family television followed that, in content if not necessarily tone. The 70's were a lovely time, and the prevalence of dystopian/apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic was a result. Much like today everything was going to poo poo, just for somewhat different reasons, corruption, urban decay, war, the gas crisis, air pollution, violent crime, the constant threat of nuclear war and all those things were being reflected in the media of the day. I had an art professor a few years ago tell me he was strangely looking forward to the next decade because things were going south and the worst of times bring out the best art, and I often think of this when looking at the media of the 1970's. As far as children television goes, until 1968 with the release of 2001, Sci-fi was almost exclusively considered "Kids Stuff" and that attitude bled into the 1970s pretty heavily, so there was still a desire for sci-fi kids shows despite sci-fi "growing up" and they tried to incorporate those trends into the content. This wasn't just limited to Sci-fi either, the 70's saw the rise of the anti-hero across genres, gone were the white hat-virtuous-cowboy heroes and in were the gun toting vigilantes, gangsters and outlaws. There was also a drastic shift in prime-time network television, idilic suburban/rural shows like Leave it to Beaver an The Andy Griffith Show were out and were replaced with more grounded and realistic depictions of urban American life like All in the Family or Good Times. In the Reagan 80's there was a conscious effort to forget and distance ourselves from everything related to the 1970's, which is unfortunate because it really was a time of exciting experimental culture and media, and really was the birth of modern media as we know it today.
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Oct 22, 2021 16:23
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Absolutely a fan of American 70s cinema in general, so much lovely filthy anti-heroic crap. Stuff like Taxi Driver couldn't have been made in any other decade.
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Oct 25, 2021 09:49
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Rollerball (1975) Corporations have taken over the world, and one of their methods of keeping the populace subdued is the bloodsport of Rollerball. The purpose of the game is to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. Jonathan E, played by James Caan, has become a Rollerball superstar and is therefore a threat to the corporate structure. As the story progresses, Jonathan E learns more about the corporate society and the power he possesses, and ultimately learns how to wield that power against the corporations. Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFSCzTCNW1M 
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Nov 1, 2021 15:12
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Kao_Pai posted:Rollerball (1975) Corporations have taken over the world, and one of their methods of keeping the populace subdued is the bloodsport of Rollerball. The purpose of the game is to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. Jonathan E, played by James Caan, has become a Rollerball superstar and is therefore a threat to the corporate structure. As the story progresses, Jonathan E learns more about the corporate society and the power he possesses, and ultimately learns how to wield that power against the corporations. Like a lot of 70's movies Rollerball is super prescient of 21st century America. Corporatized sports, and media manipulation of the masses were both in their infancy at the time. The original is good, but the pacing is really slow compared to modern movies, they did a remake a few years ago but it was garbage, which is too bad because a good remake could totally resonate today.
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Nov 1, 2021 16:36
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The only thing I know about the Rollerball remake, other than its garbage, is that there's a hilariously cartoony sound effect being used when a fence or something is being run over.
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Nov 2, 2021 15:43
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Cooked Auto posted:The only thing I know about the Rollerball remake, other than its garbage, is that there's a hilariously cartoony sound effect being used when a fence or something is being run over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Dfi-b-qns&t=47s
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Nov 2, 2021 15:56
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It's really too bad, because in a post Colin Kaepernick world, a new Rollerball could be so topical. Like the story could be about a sports superstar that becomes so popular he's able to use his fame to influence public opinion against the establishment and then league tries to silence him for it. The other thing about Rollerball is that it's got amazing graphic design, it looks retro now but instantly recognizable.  Like when you see text like that you know it's going to be some crazy future funky sci-fi.
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Nov 2, 2021 16:04
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Bucnasti posted:Dark Star, it's John Carpenters first real film, it's kinda like a dark comedy version of Silent running. "How are the Dodgers doing?"
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Nov 3, 2021 00:47
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So I wasn't lied to back then, excellent.
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Nov 3, 2021 15:57
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