70's Sci-Fi Appreciation Thread (pre-Star Wars)

I've always enjoyed the 78 Body Snatchers.

 

Me too.

 

Colossus: The Forbin Project has been posted on YouTube in letterboxed form! There is some vertical distortion but otherwise it looks OK.

Okay, never mind. After watching it further, it appears that it was taken from a pan and scan source and then letterboxed. So, it's not true 16:9. Plus, it is weirdly bright in the middle of the frame and dimmer on the sides. I was hoping somebody had posted it from the laserdisc.

 

From your original list, my faves would be:

Logan's Run
Soylent Green
The Omega Man
THX-1138
Westworld
The Andromeda Strain
Silent Running
Planet of the Apes (1968)
The Man Who Fell to Earth
Genesis II (TV movie) (only because it's Gene Roddenberry )
Planet Earth (TV movie) ( see Genesis II)
Rollerball
The Stepford Wives
A Clockwork Orange
Solaris

 

What about Strange New World, the third Dylan Hunt pilot?

I need to give Sapphire & Steel an honorable mention. It premiered at the tale end of the 70's. ITV show.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078682/

 

I love pre star wars sc-fi. I'm going to compile a list of films to see from this thread..

 

That's the purpose! To discuss them and find new suggestions.

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

My pleasure.

 

I remember watching it on my local television station, and also reading the novelization of the movie. An interesting concept that could have gone places.

 

Since it falls under the heading of science fiction, I'll mention "Space Battleship Yamato," which was originally released in Japan in 1974 and later released in the U. S. (after "Star Wars") as "Star Blazers." It was an excellent anime series that was only on television for one summer. Unlike many animated series of the time, this one had to be watched in order due to the tight continuity. The series focused on battleship The Argo (built inside the wreckage of the Battleship Yamato to hide it from the aliens) and its mission to save Earth. They had to make a 296,000 light year round trip from Earth to another planet in one year. At the end of each episode they would tell you how many days Earth has left to live. The series had some very interesting twists and some of the characters didn't make it to the end of the series.

Two things that I always remembered about the series are: (1) The ship didn't use faster-than-light drive to make the journey, instead they used space warps (several each day) to travel the distances, and (2) the ship featured one of the most powerful weapons I've ever seen, the wave motion gun (its power is comparable to the Death Star's weapon, the first time they fired it they just intended to destroy a base/city (I don't remember exactly which) but ended up destroying an entire planet).

BTW, a live-action movie of the series (released in Japan in 2011) was released on Blu-Ray this year in the U. S.

*Some information in this post checked and verified from Wikipedia.

 

Some background on Demon Seed: director Donald Cammell (Performance) had been trying to get a project going with Marlon Brando for years. Even the role of Chas in Performance was meant for Brando in the early stages.

MGM nixed Brando for Demon Seed and cast Fritz Weaver instead. It seems the idea of Cammell and Brando together would be more than the studio could control.

Donald thought the premise of Demon Seed was interesting and tried to work on the script to incorporate some of his ideas. In his script, it was much more of a "love affair" between computer and human. It also shares some of the atmosphere of Performance with Julie Christie trapped in the house much as Chas in hermetically sealed in Turner's flat. Cammell's widow China has said Donald envisioned a much lighter tone as well. All that seemed to remain of his imprint are the visual touches and his design of the polygon "cocoon" and baby.

His experience with Demon Seed was such that Donald vowed to never work on another project that he didn't write.

Cammell can be heard reading part of Joseph Conrad's Victory during one scene, and he also works Borges into another.

It remains a fascinating and undervalued film. It just happened to come out around the time of Star Wars and was swamped by Lucas' film.

 

I have not seen either of these--due to their "worst movies of all time" status, but I figure that sooner or later I will get to these 1973 releases:

Z.P.G.
Lost Horizon

 

More from 1979 to add to the list:

The Visitor
Quintet
H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come

(Yes, I know, not "pre-Star Wars")

And one from 1977:

End of the World

Finally, who can tell me the name of the 1980 stranded on an island/post apocalyptic flick?

 

A lot of good ones have already been mentioned. I didn't think The Starlost was that bad either. I thought it was somewhat comparable to Dr. Who or other stuff like that. I have read the book. I always wondered how the religious sect or anyone else never journeyed out far enough to hit a wall of the space ship.

Blake's 7, I believe began in the late 70's. It's pretty good. You can find some of those ep. on YT.

Someone mentioned The People, which is a pretty good TV-movie. It's more drama, but I enjoyed it.

Currently I'm watching Dr. Who from the 70's, the Pertwee era. I prefer the early eps. to the newer stuff.

Nobody mentioned Man from Atlantis. You can order them VOD. Yes, it's kind of cheesy, and I always had trouble with the way he swam but they are sort of interesting.

Survivors was a British TV series that detailed a post apocalypse-type scenario. Pretty decent similar to most of the Brit TV.

I always like Peter Watkins Punishment Park. Yes, it's dated to the era of Vietnam, etc. But I guess you could look at it as an allegory, etc. It's still worth a watch about people against the war that get sent to Punishment Part and hunted down.

Brewster McCloud--Robert Altman, SF as a parable. A boy builds wings to fly under the protection of a murdering angel, and fails to fly. Society takes a beating.

 

You can find The People on YT:

 

I didn't see anyone mention, Star Crash, but I just skimmed this thread. It's definitely MST3K material, but if you're a SF geek like me worth seeing.

Death Line was a UK movie, I think originally titled Raw Meat about some deserted tunnels under London where a cannibalistic community lives. I don't think it was ever released. You can see a clip on YT.

Sleeper is a Woody Allen film that takes place in the future, where he wakes up and tries to fit in. I think it's pretty hilarious.

I don't know if anyone mentioned the John Carpenter picture, Dark Star, the dark comedy.

The Stepford Wives starred Catherine Ross & Paula Prentiss who plays wives in a small town of Stepford, where the other women in town seem very passive.

The Land That Time Forgot is a Saturday morning type movie for me from Edgar Rice Burroughs. It takes place in the Antarctic where dinosaurs roam.

Rabid is a David Cronenberg body horror film.

King Kong remake. It's a De Laurentiis film with Jessica Lang, and Jeff Bridges. I mention it just because I'm a Kong fan, and I was interested to see how they treated this remake. Kong climbs to the top of the World Trade Center in it, and it's worth it just to watch that part.

 

Charley, though late 60's is worthwhile starring Cliff Robertson, in which he won an Oscar. It's about a mentally challenged man who is given drugs and becomes a genius.

Quatermass and the Pit--again late 60's, but worth seeing.

The Love War was a made for TV movie starring Lloyd Bridges about aliens using Earth as a dueling arena: the survivor falls for a woman. It's on YT in four parts if interested.

No Blade of Grass is a SF environmental warning where strife and starvation strips humans of civilized behavior.

 

Z A R D O Z
I like Hollywood to try and do a remake of this psychedelic sci- fi mindbomb.

 

Punishment Park by Peter Watkins is of the era.

You might enjoy this SF 70s blog for some more suggestions: space1970 »

 

That movie gives me a headache when I watch it--I guess it is the true definition of a "mind bomb."

 

Well that's a expression Sean used to say when he had a affair/dating Lindsey De Paul..apparently he would read his poetry a lot to her and would sprout mindbomb to describe things.

 

That is so funny, I had just posted a Photo from Glen and Randa in another thread yesterday (not a common movie at all).

Randa is Shelley Plimpton, she is the mother of Martha Plimpton the young tomboy in Goonies.

Shelley and Steve Curry (Glen) were both in the 1968 Broadway show Hair. Those who remember the poster for Hair, which was used on the original cast album, Steve Curry's head and hair were used to the photo that appeared on both.

If you have not seen Glen and Randa, it is a low budget movie but it is interesting in it's own way. It is fairly representative of the experimental indie films of the time.

 

That's a horrible, horrible movie, but I'd consider it horror/fantasy (and not very good horror/fantasy), not sci-fi. To me, science fiction has got to have an element of science in it plus something about space travel or time travel or a futuristic invention or other dimensions or alien life. A movie about a giant ape on an island is not SF. A movie about a giant robot ape vs. Godzilla would be sci-fi. Very bad sci-fi.



You can consider Godzilla to be borderline sci-fi, since it was a creature "awoken" by H-bombs and so on. I think it's more fantasy/horror, but the lines blur on some of these films. Ghostbusters, for example, would be a horror/sci-fi/comedy.

 

Just pre-ordered the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Stalker! (Yes, I know it is a 1979, post-Star Wars film).

Amazon.com: Stalker (Feature) [Blu-ray]: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Andrei Tarkovsky: Movies & TV

Fahrenheit 451 50th Anniversary Blu-ray, too! (Yes, I know it is a 1968 film. I'm stretching the time period a little bit. Heck, a Sci-Fi thread can use a little temporal manipulation!)

Amazon.com: Fahrenheit 451 - 50th Anniversary Edition [Blu-ray]: Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, Cyril Cusack, Anton Diffring, Jeremy Spenser, Alex Scott, Bee Duffell, Francois Truffaut, Lewis M. Allen, Jean-Louis Richard: Movies & TV