Starflight One- Space Flicks From Back In The Day

[Orionblamblam]

The new "V" is actually really quite good. Good writing, acting and production values. Granted, it's really kinda way, way out there, featuring such fantastical elements as: the leader of the Visitors is an attractive, charismatic person promising the people hope, change and universal healthcare; centralized control over things like energy; a cult of personality; brainwashing of the young; and demonization of any dissenters.

Well, all that was featured in the original. I actually got surprised that the new series kept the "V-jugend".

It's interesting how more or less similar basic features can lead to very different interpretations. In the original, the V's were obviously a Nazi-analog; in the new series, they are an analog for... another political movement. Even though the basic motivations and propaganda and results are very similar, the "feel" is very, very different.

 

[Hammer Birchgrove]

I watched H.G. Wells' Things To Come today. Pretty good SF film with decent SFX, given the time it's made, at least some parts of it are still relevant today. Pretty cool Blended Wing Body aircrafts in the film, they were both bombers and transport for paratroopers.

The space gun was idiotic though; for once, the uppity hippies were right... :

 

[Stargazer]

I watched H.G. Wells' Things To Come today. Pretty good SF film with decent SFX, given the time it's made, at least some parts of it are still relevant today. Pretty cool Blended Wing Body aircrafts in the film, they were both bombers and transport for paratroopers.

The space gun was idiotic though; for once, the uppity hippies were right... :

Was that the one with the Morlocks and the Eloys? I remember watching this when I was 9 and I loved it!

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Was that the one with the Morlocks and the Eloys? I remember watching this when I was 9 and I loved it!

No, I think you're thinking of the Time Machine http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/.

 

[Hammer Birchgrove]

Was that the one with the Morlocks and the Eloys? I remember watching this when I was 9 and I loved it!

No, I think you're thinking of the Time Machine http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/.

Indeed. George Pal's The Time Machine - and War of the Worlds - are great films though, despite Pal replacing Wells' socialist message with a Christian one (oh, the irony...).

Here's about the 1936 Things To Come:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028358/

It's very different from George Pal's films, then again, so are Wells' early novels compared to his later ones.

Unfortunately, there was also a "re-make" in 1979; luckily I haven't seen it:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079894/usercomments

Poor Barry Morse...

 

[DACguy]

I know this is an old thread but I'm a new member and have been going through all the existing threads. I just wanted to tack on an answer to a question early in this thread.

The TV movie about an orbiting colony threatened by Chinese nuclear weapons in a close orbit was called "Earth 2" (this is the original from the early 1970s, not the series from the '90s). It was a pilot for a series but was not picked up, instead it was run as a movie on the "ABC Movie of the Week" program. It is available from the Warner Archives on DVD along with many other obscure science fiction TV pilots (two of the Gene Roddenberry post-"Star Trek" pilots are there).

 

[Curtis Scholl]

Hi Folks:

I do not know if any of you are still interested in the old Gerry Anderson stuff, but HULU has some of them. I know that UFO, Ed Bishop as Straker, is there.
There are also series like Space:1999, SuperCar etc. They did have Dr Who old stuff, but it is all gone now.

I would like to find "Earth 2" from the 70's. That I missed seeing, along with Moon 02, and others.

The Buck Rogers of the 80's was only interesting for the spacecraft hardware, the scripts were not all that great. I keep seeing the same librettos in every series.

Take care all,

Curtis Scholl