peanuts Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 vilage of the damned is brilliant ( the original b&w) version scared me silly as a kid can anybody remmeber "them " with the giant ants ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Ah, yes: Contact, very nicely done indeed. Good science (and the spaceship that takes Jody Foster's character on that journey is quite credible science fiction - weightlessness and all...). and - unusually for Hollywod - very close to Carl Sagan's book. F p.s. I have a surround sound system in my home cinema and when the radio telescopes pickup the signal, the Whoomf-Whoomf of the alien message fed through 5 speakers and a woofer gives me goosebumps EVERY time. I think I got that system just for that film???? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRat Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Carl Sagan..........Cosmos, absolutely superb series! Anyone mentioned............. Mars Attacks?!!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumblestripe Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Mention of the Jurassic Park films reminded me that Westworld (which is essentially the same film but with gunslingers instead of Velociraptors) was a cracking good SF film and within it's own parameters seems to be "believable" or at least "logical" science. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 I know its not a film but the one thing that I am surprised that I haven't seen mentioned here is the recent reboot of Battlestar Galactica. This took the original series concept in the vaguest terms and turned it into a very tense, post 9/11, gritty political and action based drama. If you haven't seen it then get the DVDs immediately! If you are put off by the high camp of the original series then don't be. the performances by all concerned were almost consistently outstanding - particularly Edward James Olmos as Adama BSG is sheer brilliance. While it does laugh in the face of science it gets a couple of things right. Ships sometime fly backwards to shoot at things behind them and Galactica herself gets progressively more battle scarred as time goes on. I rather liked Caprica which would have explained why Cylons had a thing about religion had it lasted into a second season. Still, the second BSG prequel 'Blood & Chrome' will be along soon which takes a more populist 'blowing stuff up' approach. Trailer looks fun. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceptic Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 Carl Sagan..........Cosmos, absolutely superb series! Anyone mentioned............. Mars Attacks?!!!! Carl Sagan..=..Top Man......and sorely missed.......Cosmos and The Royal Institute's Christmas Lectures. TV at it's enthralling best. As for 'Mars Attacks' + Slim Whitman's 'Indian Love Song' becoming the ultimate weapon,...I'll pass (out) on that. It was worse than the defeat of the Triffids, using seawater.... Mind you, plants (and molluscs) don't like salt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 10, 2012 Share Posted June 10, 2012 RE: 2001: A Space Odyssey It was also this sequence that lit my touch paper :- /edit/ ... Dave beginning to disconnect Hal ... One minute Dave's labouring under Gravity's full effects, including having to climb a ladder (Why can't he just float up / along / through ?). Once inside Hal's brain, he's back to floating.. Yes, it's really hard to pretend that you're weightess while filming in the presence of a force of 9.8 m/s2. Every hair on an astronaut's head floats around - even in orbit. I think it is jarring in 2001, because they really did try hard to get it right for so much of the film, unlike most SciFi movies that just assume artificial ship gravity has been invented and ignore the whole problem. Apollo 13 (hardly fiction) also tried hard and generally succeeded pretty well. WALL-E had fun with the artificial ship gravity concept. I'd put WALL-E on the list as SciFi and better than most. (The link is a mash-up.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium John M Upton Posted June 11, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 11, 2012 Babylon 5 had a plausible approach to the great gravity issue. The station itself was designed on the principles of the O'Neill Cylinder with rotation generating gravity, the centrifugal force effectively pushing you onto the floor inside the cylinder (the same principle was also applied to the rotating section of the Russian ship that is sent to intercept the Discovery in 2010) and was initally depicted correctly with the core shuttle in the centre being an area of very low gravity although subsequently this problem seemed to disappear from the series and everyone started walking around that section as per normal gravity. In theory providing you could come up with a decent sized fusion reactor and a rotating mechanism capable of rotating a metal cylinder almost five miles long then it could be done using scientific principles. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Returning to Star Wars, why send human clones (who - presumably have the same human characteristics [and emotions and feelings???] as the original human template) against the battle droids? Rather like sending waves of BEF Tommies against dug-in machine gun nests, a waste of life. Clone soldiers are certainly not the Jedi way, but there is a complex backstory (like much of Epsisodes I-III) that is not evident on the screen. The clones were part of a long term Sith plot. Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas orders the clones from Kamino on the instructions of his friend Jedi Master Dooku (who at that time is being turned by Darth Sidious, the apprentice to Darth Plagueis*). The clones are funded by Hego Damask aka Darth Plagueis. Dooku then murders Sifo-Dyas and gives Sifo-Dyas' lightsaber (and blood) to the cyborg Grevious. * This creates a violation of the rule of two. Darth Maul is apprenticed to Darth Sidious, who ultimately uses the clones to create civil war in the republic which enables him as Senator then Chancellor Palpatine to become Emperor. Hence the dialog at the close of Episode II: Obi-Wan: I have to admit that without the clones, it would have not been a victory. Yoda: Victory? Victory you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun the Clone War has. Use of clones was not the Jedi way. Clones as the army of the republic illustrates that in the shadow of the dark side, the Jedi order has lost its meaning in the republic which also explains why Master Windu is so interested in 'the chosen one' over Yoda's objections. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 It is quite true that I've never finished watching a Star Wars movie without dozing off. I dunno why. They are not THAT bad (not good either but not bad). Anyone remember a Soviet SF movie by the same author of Solaris (I think) which involved a large disused factory that had different time zones within it (some centuries apart others mere minutes) complicated by occasional shifts in the time zone's location. The main protagonist was trying to map it.....???? Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Anyone remember a Soviet SF movie by the same author of Solaris (I think) which involved a large disused factory that had different time zones within it (some centuries apart others mere minutes) complicated by occasional shifts in the time zone's location. The main protagonist was trying to map it.....???? Best, Pete. Would that be Tarkovsky (the director of Solaris) or Stanislaw Lem (the original author of Solaris)? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 It had that same stark view, empty, that Solaris had so I'm guessing it must be the movie director.....I only saw a preview on one of Barry Norman's shows, decades ago, though. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I had a quick peek at Wikipedia, I think that the film you are referring to is "Stalker" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_%28film%29) - already mentioned here as a good SciFi film Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 That's the one, Good Doctor. Thanks, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ceptic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Babylon 5 had a plausible approach to the great gravity issue. The station itself was designed on the principles of the O'Neill Cylinder with rotation generating gravity, the centrifugal force effectively pushing you onto the floor inside the cylinder (the same principle was also applied to the rotating section of the Russian ship that is sent to intercept the Discovery in 2010) and was initally depicted correctly with the core shuttle in the centre being an area of very low gravity although subsequently this problem seemed to disappear from the series and everyone started walking around that section as per normal gravity. In theory providing you could come up with a decent sized fusion reactor and a rotating mechanism capable of rotating a metal cylinder almost five miles long then it could be done using scientific principles.* *Great idea, but, already pre-empted by visionary Arthur C. Clarke in 1972. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendezvous_with_Rama Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Mars Attacks?!!!! Haha! Have to say I loved this one, but not in the vein of this thread... I have to disagree with Starship Troopers! Awful awful AWFUL film, I suppose it looks OK but the plot and the chararterisation and even the way it is presented is real car crash stuff. No, no and thrice NO! I've sortof a love-hate relationship with this one...I agree it's presentation is real car crash TV style stuff (a bit like watching the Jeremy Kyle show) but i've always got the impression it was intentional/ironic...come join our totalitarian regime, remember we're the good guys......would you like to know more? I'd agree not within the vein of this thread though. I liked the suggestion earlier of 'Dollhouse' - I think one that would definately come under the premise of this thread, and one that really works on your head/conscience. The concepts involved are very challenging personally. Sad it had such a premature demise. Similarly Firefly and Serenity, also Joss Whedon productions. I loved the premise, I loved the look, I loved the signature humour, I wasn't particularly put off by poor science... I particularly liked some touches - the revention to older (more mechanical, less electronic) tech the further you go from civilisation was very logical (reverting to old style guns which are maintainable not high-maintainence electronic/power dependant laser weaponry for example) - I also liked the attempt at a 'melting pot' of post-earth language and dialect - a little more thought than the usual 'in the future everybody speaks American'. Could we invent a drug that eliminates human naughtiness but has unexpected dire side effects? Dispensing drugs that were supposed to be very beneficial but ultimately have turned out to be harmful is an all-too believable concept unfortunately, although whether they would do a field-test on an entire community is maybe the question to ask. I think the key there is whether you believe that (at least part of) the corporation/state (Alliance) that now tries to control everything would have given such a thing a go...something I do like and which makes it more credible to me is that The Alliance is not generally portrayed as all-knowing deliberately evil empire, it's just big, beaurocratic, full of it's own little ineficciencies, heirarchies, secrets, and it's entirely convinced it's right and knows best... Would a paternalistic totalitarian government possibly try to conceal this awkward truth from its citizens? Assuming you take the previous one as read, this probably comes down to 'do they think they can get away with it?' - which if they also control all media and communications is a possible yes - freedom in long distance communication is seen as a given, almost a right, from our point of view, so this feels like a stretch, but with vast distances and communications infrastructure tightly controlled by one organisation then maybe? Do agents of governments ever try and 'spin' bad news so it helps their cause rather than hinders it? No need to answer that! Maybe my only big suspension of disbelief was for my 'container geek' side noting that various current container leasing firms will still be shipping 20' ISO boxes (albeit with some shiny new logo's) across space in the far future judging by their presence at various ports...the Alliance presumably remains a big believer in the power of standardisation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold SHMD Posted June 11, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 11, 2012 Currently watching “Crimson Forceâ€. Not sure what's going on as it's in Chinese! Better not pass judgement until I see it in English but so far I'm not impressed with all the arguing. Kev. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
shortliner Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Pitch Black? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iL Dottore Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 ...Clone soldiers are certainly not the Jedi way, but there is a complex backstory (like much of Epsisodes I-III) that is not evident on the screen... Thanks for filling us in on the backstory, but it still doesn't address the question of why any sentient being (in his/her/its' right mind [or minds]) would want to send (expensive to grow?) sentient, living beings to attack machinery. Presumably the technology for battle droids would be well known (otherwise how would the Jedi know how to disarm/inactivate them?). Given that battle droids are basically humanoid(ish) battle computers running on some sort of software (Windows Version 25,477,988 perhaps???), then a good computer virus would really ruin their day... Star Wars - great entertainment, but poor science and (to my eyes) abysmal logic... F Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Similarly Firefly and Serenity, also Joss Whedon productions. I loved the premise, I loved the look, I loved the signature humour, I wasn't particularly put off by poor science... I particularly liked some touches - the revention to older (more mechanical, less electronic) tech the further you go from civilisation was very logical (reverting to old style guns which are maintainable not high-maintainence electronic/power dependant laser weaponry for example) - I also liked the attempt at a 'melting pot' of post-earth language and dialect - a little more thought than the usual 'in the future everybody speaks American'. I'm reminded of a scene in Firefly where Jayne attempts to shoot the lock off a door with a captured stun gun. After several ineffectual shots he mutters something about 'stupid high-tech Alliance junk' and proceeds to turn the gun around and use it as a hammer. The clever thing about Firefly's language is that the back story declares the two dominant societies of 'Earth-that-was' ended up being America and China. That very neatly allows the characters to speak English most of the time but to swear in Chinese. It works really well and avoids the horror of made up space swear words which are so fracking lame. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I'm reminded of a scene in Firefly where Jayne attempts to shoot the lock off a door with a captured stun gun. After several ineffectual shots he mutters something about 'stupid high-tech Alliance junk' and proceeds to turn the gun around and use it as a hammer. There were some touches in the show that made you scratch your head - the use if a Mi-24 helicopter fuselage as the 'ambulance' in the episode mentioned, or the high security floating house that doesn't notice when you park a spaceship a couple of metres below it. I like the whole Firefly/Serenity series, but you do have to suspend your disbelief at some of the technology (or lack thereof), and (like Star Trek) the fact that the technology adjusts to match the needs of the plot. Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Castle Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 BSG is sheer brilliance. While it does laugh in the face of science it gets a couple of things right. Ships sometime fly backwards to shoot at things behind them and Galactica herself gets progressively more battle scarred as time goes on. I rather liked Caprica which would have explained why Cylons had a thing about religion had it lasted into a second season. Still, the second BSG prequel 'Blood & Chrome' will be along soon which takes a more populist 'blowing stuff up' approach. Trailer looks fun. Hi 30801, I agree about it being a shame about Caprica but I found it quite hard to get into and I think that it was a lot less accessible than BSG itself. Ho hum... The use of the spinning around and shooting backwards and a realistic approach to things such as metal fatigue and ageing equipment is highly unusual for Sci Fi (although Star Wars did a lovely line in decrepit future technology too) and was very welcome. The cannibalising of the wrecks to keep the viper fleet flying was another great thing to see. It makes it Sci Fi that engineers can love! Thanks for the link to the Blood & Chrome trailer - both myself and the other half hadn't caught up with that one and we will both be glued to it when it comes to a TV screen near us! Led Zep & All... All the best, Castle Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Sidecar Racer Posted June 11, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted June 11, 2012 As TV series have made it into the thread , I give you , Buck Rogers in the 25th Century , Come on , no red blooded guy could resist Willma Deering in that tight white suit . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century , Come on , no red blooded guy could resist Willma Deering in that tight white suit . Well ... if you're going there ... (rebooted) Battlestar Galactica: Cylon Number 6 and Starbuck Star Trek: Voyager: Borg 7 of 9 Forbidden Planet: Altaira "Alta" Morbius (from the way back machine) Logan's Run: Jessica A 'love interest' for Kirk, every four episodes or so, of Star Trek and the all time ComiCon cosplay fave: Slave girl Leia. It quickly becomes quite a long list. While biology is incontestably a science, I don't think that particular biological study is the kind of science fiction the good doctor had in mind in this thread! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mucky Duck Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 That's the one, Good Doctor. Thanks, Pete. Stalker. Absolutely my favourite film. The Stalker being a paid guide who leads a writer and a professor into the mysterious and forbidden 'Zone', within which normal laws of physics do not apply. The purpose is to take them to the 'Room' within the Zone where all a person's desires are realised. Beautifully shot, very bleak and quite haunting. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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