All Things Sci-Fi and Fantasy

[Meryl]

I saw the trailer for the new Star Trek movie yesterday when I went to see "Quantum of Solace."  It looks great!  Too bad we have to wait til May, though. 

Here's a Top Ten list of sci-fi films based on interviews with scientists (go to the link for a list of the scientists):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/news/page/0,12983,1290764,00.html

Our expert panel votes for the top 10 sci-fi films
 
1. Blade Runner (1982) Dir: Ridley Scott

Whether you prefer the original theatrical version (with a bored-sounding narration and without the famed unicorn scenes) or the director's cut of a few years later (sans narration and unicorn duly re-inserted), Blade Runner was the runaway favourite in our poll.
 
The story revolves around Harrison Ford's policeman, Rick Deckard, and his hunt for four cloned humanoids, known as replicants, in a dystopian version of Los Angeles. Replicants have been deemed illegal and Deckard is a blade runner, a specialist in exterminating them.

The film is loosely based on Philip K Dick's short story, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? "Blade Runner is the best movie ever made," says Stephen Minger, stem cell biologist at King's College London. "It was so far ahead of its time and the whole premise of the story - what is it to be human and who are we, where we come from? It's the age-old questions."

It also discusses consciousness with an attempt to formulate a way to tell a human from a machine. The Voight-Kampff empathy test is used by the police in the film to identify the replicants - who have memories implanted and are programmed with artificial emotions. "The Voight-Kampff empathy test is not far away from the sort of thing that cognitive neuroscientists are actually doing today," says Chris Frith of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College, London.

Debates rage on whether Deckard himself is a replicant. Ridley Scott says that he is artificial, but Harrison Ford argues that during filming Scott told him Deckard was human. Whatever the answer, it is a worthy winner also because of the quality of the film-making: Vangelis' brooding score, Rutger Hauer's replicant's seminal "I've seen things..." speech and that shot of the future LA cityscape, which kicks off the story.
 
2. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Dir: Stanley Kubrick

A very close second, this mystifying story came out of a collaboration between Kubrick and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. It achieved enormous fame for its then revolutionary special effects.
 
Spacecraft consultants Frederick Ordway and Harry Lange, who had worked for Nasa, persuaded companies such as Boeing and IBM to supply prototypes and technical documents for use in the film. Astronauts visiting the set at Borehamwood referred to it as "Nasa East".

Aubrey Manning, emeritus professor of natural history at Edinburgh, praises 2001 for "the brilliance of the simulations - still never done better despite all the modern computer graphics. The brilliance of using Brazilian tapirs as 'prehistoric animals'. The brilliance of the cut from the stick as club, to the space shuttle. Kubrick declaring that once tool use begins - the rest is inevitable. Hal: the first of the super computers with its honeyed East-Coast-Establishment voice."
 
3. Star Wars (1977)/Empire Strikes Back (1980)

The first two films of the original Star Wars trilogy make it onto the list probably for reasons of nostalgia rather than science.
 
Essentially westerns set in space, they both cover the universal themes of good versus evil while making lead actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher spit out mind-boggling technospeak on a regular basis. There is also an element of mysticism (which some say sets them apart from the rest of science fiction), with the idea of an all-pervading "force" that can be harnessed by certain people for good or evil.

The epic saga revolves around the battle between the all-enslaving Empire (led by the Emperor, a force-wielding maniac and his part-human part-machine henchman Darth Vader) and a small band of rebels.

Its use of science is sketchy at best - light-speed travel is dealt with by the use of a "hyperspace" where the normal laws of physics don't seem to apply and force-wielding Jedi fight with theoretically impossible lightsabers - but the emphasis here is certainly not on answering the problems of the human condition. Two of the first blockbusters, they also started the franchises for toys, games and replicas that no science fiction film can do without nowadays.
 
4. Alien (1979) Dir: Ridley Scott
Remembered for the iconic scene of an infant creature bursting bloodily through John Hurt's chest, but Alien was about much more. An interstellar mining vessel takes onboard a lifeform with concentrated acid for blood and two sets of jaws, which then messily dispatches the crew.
 
Praised for the gothic set design and Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of reluctant hero Ellen Ripley, it is notable for its underlying themes of motherhood, penetration and birth. But for UCL space physiologist Kevin Fong it's the mundanity of the crew's lifestyle that makes it stand out.

"For the first time we got the idea that, in the far-flung future, people who live and work in space might be a bunch of Average Joe slobs sitting around with leftover pizza, smoking and playing cards to pass the time," he says. "It captures much of what long duration space flight is about now: dirty, sweaty and claustrophobic with long periods of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror."
 
5. Solaris (1972) Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

Remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002, but the original still holds a fascination for fans of the novel by Stanislaw Lem. A psychologist travels to a base on a remote planet to replace a mysteriously deceased scientist. There he encounters the secretive survivors - and his dead wife. Reality is supplanted by the increasingly attractive alternative of the planet's alien intelligence.
 
"The 1972 Solaris is perhaps the only film to address the limits of science set by our constrained human perceptions, categories and tendency to anthropomorphise," says Gregory Benford, professor of physics at University of California, Irvine and author of Timescape. "That it is also a compelling, tragic drama, not a mere illustrated lecture, makes it even more important."
 
6. Terminator (1984)/T2: Judgment Day (1991) Dir: James Cameron

Robots from 2029 send a relentless cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to 1980s Los Angeles to assassinate the mother of a future human rebel. One of a few films to deal with problems of time travel, such as the grandfather paradox: if you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, you wouldn't exist so wouldn't be able to travel back in time to...
 
The sequel featured another cyborg made of shapeshifting metal. "Despite the incoherent fictional science, it is a perfect piece of film-making in its genre, which I would call 'action movie' rather than 'sci-fi movie' if it were not for the fact that there are very few, if any, movies that genuinely deserve to be called sci-fi," says David Deutsch, quantum physicist at Oxford.
 
7. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Dir: Robert Wise

Set amid the cold war paranoia of postwar America, a flying saucer lands in Washington DC and a humanoid alien, Klaatu emerges, accompanied by his robot, Gort.
 
Klaatu (who pronounces: "I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it") tries to convince the world's leaders - and when they won't listen, scientists - to stop the rush toward mutual destruction.

It is cited by Beagle 2 project leader Colin Pillinger as one of his favourite sci-fi films. "During the showing, the cinema manager pulled a classic Orson Welles stunt and stopped the film to announce that a spaceship had landed."
 
8. War of the Worlds (1953) Dir: Byron Haskin

Famously adapted for radio by Orson Welles, HG Wells' tale of a Martian invasion of Earth became another cold war movie.
 
"The idea that there could be life that's developed in completely other circumstances in a completely different world which you would never recognise. That's a very appealing idea," says Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, California.
 
9. The Matrix (1999) Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski

Cod philosophy, fetish clothing and incredibly cool special effects combined in 1999 for a fresh take on man-made artificial intelligence enslaving the planet.
 
The science behind the fiction is conspicuously absent, being replaced with the permanently befuddled Keanu Reeves stumbling around being confused by nonsense about spoons, and jumping off buildings. Tak Mak, a cell biologist at University of Toronto, doesn't think this matters: "It's good old-fashioned entertainment value ... Future bad guys fighting future good guys."
 
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) Dir: Steven Spielberg

"We are not alone", declared the poster and this tale of Richard Dreyfus' escalating obsession with alien visitors against a backdrop of a secretive, omniscient government agency has provided the core of science fiction ever since.
 
"While it is highly unlikely that 'they' will rock up in a vehicle that looks like a giant, inverted Christmas tree or make their presence known by doing Jean Michel Jarre impressions on a cosmic synthesiser, Close Encounters is for me still the classiest alien visitation story in celluloid history," says UCL's Kevin Fong.

[Meryl]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_en_ot/obit_ackerman

Sci-fi's grand old man, Forrest J Ackerman, dies

By JOHN ROGERS

LOS ANGELES – Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," has died. He was 92.

Ackerman died Thursday of heart failure at his Los Angeles home, said Kevin Burns, head of Prometheus Entertainment and a trustee of Ackerman's estate.

Although only marginally known to readers of mainstream literature, Ackerman was legendary in science-fiction circles as the founding editor of the pulp magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. He was also the owner of a huge private collection of science-fiction movie and literary memorabilia that for years filled every nook and cranny of a hillside mansion overlooking Los Angeles.

"He became the Pied Piper, the spiritual leader, of everything science fiction, fantasy and horror," Burns said Friday.

Every Saturday morning that he was home, Ackerman would open up the house to anyone who wanted to view his treasures. He sold some pieces and gave others away when he moved to a smaller house in 2002, but he continued to let people visit him every Saturday for as long as his health permitted.

"My wife used to say, 'How can you let strangers into our home?' But what's the point of having a collection like this if you can't let people enjoy it?" an exuberant Ackerman told The Associated Press as he conducted a spirited tour of the mansion on his 85th birthday.

His collection once included more than 50,000 books, thousands of science-fiction magazines and such items as Bela Lugosi's cape from the 1931 film "Dracula."

His greatest achievement, however, was likely discovering Bradbury, author of the literary classics "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Martian Chronicles." Ackerman had placed a flyer in a Los Angeles bookstore for a science-fiction club he was founding and a teenage Bradbury showed up.

Later, Ackerman gave Bradbury the money to start his own science-fiction magazine, Futuria Fantasia, and paid the author's way to New York for an authors meeting that Bradbury said helped launch his career.

"I hadn't published yet, and I met a lot of these people who encouraged me and helped me get my career started, and that was all because of Forry Ackerman," the author told the AP in 2005.

Later, as a literary agent, Ackerman represented Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and numerous other science-fiction writers.

He said the term "sci-fi" came to him in 1954 when he was listening to a car radio and heard an announcer mention the word "hi-fi."

"My dear wife said, 'Forget it, Forry, it will never catch on,'" he recalled.

Soon he was using it in Famous Monsters of Filmland, the magazine he helped found in 1958 and edited for 25 years.

Ackerman himself appeared in numerous films over the years, usually in bit parts. His credits include "Queen of Blood," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "Amazon Women on the Moon," "Vampirella," "Transylvania Twist," "The Howling" and the Michael Jackson "Thriller" video. More recently, he appeared in 2007's "The Dead Undead" and 2006's "The Boneyard Collection."

Ackerman returned briefly to Famous Monsters of Filmland in the 1990s, but he quickly fell out with the publisher over creative differences. He sued and was awarded a judgment of more than $375,000.

Forrest James Ackerman was born in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 1916. He fell in love with science-fiction, he once said, when he was 9 years old and saw a magazine called Amazing Stories. He would hold onto that publication for the rest of his life.

Ackerman, who had no children, was preceded in death by his wife, Wendayne.

[Artiste]

Oh, more please.

[Kd5000]

Speaking of the STAR TREK remake, there are 12 other science fiction films being remade including FORBIDDEN PLANET. How could they???   It's a crying shame I tell you.   I've never seen THE ILLUSTRATED MAN, though of I've heard of it. 

A dozen sci-fi remakes are in the works
By GEOFF BOUCHER LOS ANGELES TIMES
Nov. 26, 2008, 7:07PM

Top filmmakers already have dipped into the sci-fi vault for 21st-century remakes of The War of the Worlds, The Planet of the Apes and the upcoming The Day the Earth Stood Still, so what’s next on the revival list? Plenty. Here’s a list of a dozen remakes and revival projects now at various stages in the studio pipeline.

1. When Worlds Collide

Steven Spielberg is one of the producers, and Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing), infamous for his “give me more” attitude toward CGI effects, is directing. Like the original 1951 film produced by George Pal, this Worlds, due in theaters next year, is about the mad scramble to build a spaceship to save humanity before Earth is destroyed by a rogue planet entering its orbit. The problem comes when there aren’t enough seats for everybody.

2. The Terminator

It’s not a remake, but filmmaker McG’s plan to revive the killer robot franchise with a sequel next summer starring Christian Bale as John Connor has been circled by fans after a strong showing this past summer at Comic-Con International. Terminator Salvation is set in the future and shows the grim war between humans and Skynet with its murderous metallic armies.

3. Robocop

If the Terminator can get tuned up for a revival, why not that other 1980s mechanical hero? After several fits and starts, MGM announced in March that a reboot of Robocop would be in theaters in 2010. Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream) is directing the remake of Paul Verhoeven’s bloody movie about a Detroit cop who is gunned down but then put back on patrol as a cyborg with troubled soul.

If the Terminator can get tuned up for a revival, why not that other 1980s mechanical hero? After several fits and starts, MGM announced in March that a reboot of Robocop would be in theaters in 2010. Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream) is directing the remake of Paul Verhoeven’s bloody movie about a Detroit cop who is gunned down but then put back on patrol as a cyborg with troubled soul.

4. Ghostbusters

There’s talk of making a third installment in the sci-fi comedy franchise and bringing back the original crew — Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson — as well as some new-blood, second-generation busters. Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, writers for The Office, are at work on the script for Columbia Pictures, and Murray, in the past the most reluctant to return, has said that he’s open to the idea. There was talk of Seth Rogen being a likely cast addition, but don’t bother calling him: “It sounds,” he said in October, “like the worst idea ever.”

5. The Creature From the Black Lagoon

Breck Eisner, the director of Sahara and son of former Disney chief Michael Eisner, is directing, while screenwriter Gary Ross is on board to retell the story of an Amazon River expedition that crosses paths with a prehistoric amphibian humanoid. The presence of Ross gives the 2009 release a link to the original 1954 film — that Universal classic was written by his father, Arthur A. Ross.

6. Flash Gordon

After the Black Lagoon remake, director Eisner is planning to revive Flash Gordon for Columbia, bringing back the brand that hit the silver screen in 1980 with the campy Dino DeLaurentiis production that so memorably featured the music of Queen, not to mention Topol with wings and Timothy Dalton in tights. Alex Raymond’s classic space hero, created as a comic strip rival to Buck Rogers, celebrates his 75th anniversary in pop culture next month, but it’s not clear that his retro appeal still holds. Earlier this year, Sci Fi canceled its Flash Gordon series, which had ratings that proved that Ming isn’t the one who is merciless.

7. Westworld

The late Michael Crichton wrote and directed the 1973 sci-fi thriller about a theme park where rich visitors can live out fantasies like engaging in Old West gunfights, thanks to the park’s androids, such as the menacing robot cowboy memorably portrayed by Yul Brynner. Just like in his Jurassic Park, though, you know things are going to go badly for the smug and boozy tourists. Crichton had worked on a script for a remake (and, at one point, Quentin Tarantino was approached to direct), but the author’s death in November might mark the end of the reboot effort.

8.Logan’s Run

This is a remake that can’t seem to find sanctuary even after a decade of attempts. A few years ago, Bryan Singer (The X-Men, The Usual Suspects) was all set to re-imagine the 1976 movie about a society where everyone submits to state-ordered execution parlors on their 21st birthday or gets hunted down by agents called Sandmen. Singer dropped out to make Superman Returns, though, and now producer Joel Silver (The Matrix films) appears intent to regenerate with a newcomer as director, namely Joseph Kosinski, who has made his name in commercials.

9. Forbidden Planet

Producer Silver is also behind a planned revival of this 1956 classic that gave a sci-fi twist to Shakespeare’s The Tempest and starred Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen long before his career tilted toward comedy. It also introduced the world to Robbie the Robot, a machine man who would show in film and television shows for decades. In October, it was announced that screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski (The Changeling) is on board.

10. Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s classic horror tale of science gone awry has given Hollywood shambling visions of cemetery horror for decades, among them Boris Karloff’s iconic 1930s performances and Robert DeNiro’s very different take in the 1994 Kenneth Branagh remake. Next up? Guillermo Del Toro says that after he finishes the two-film version of The Hobbit he will turn his attention to the gothic morality tale and that actor Doug Jones (Abe Sapien in Hellboy) might play the patchwork man. This one is still a long way off; The Hobbit films are due in theaters in 2010 and 2011.

11. Fahrenheit 451

It’s been 55 years since the publication of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel about Guy Montag, a “fireman,” a term for state-employed book burners of the future. Francois Truffaut brought the story to the silver screen in 1966, and there have been numerous efforts over the past decade to cook up a remake, with Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt among the stars who have flirted with the Montag role. Writer-director Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption) is on the job now with a planned 2010 release even though his announced star, Tom Hanks, dropped out of the project in March.

12. The Illustrated Man

Another Bradbury work that is planned for a 2010 release is this project from the Watchmen duo of director Zack Snyder (who also directed 300) and screenwriter Alex Tse. The Illustrated Man was a 1951 book of 18 short stories (including one, “Rocket Man,” that inspired the Elton John hit) that were linked by a bizarre framing device — a bum who is covered in tattoos from the future that move and represent the characters in the tales. It was made into a 1969 film starring Rod Steiger, but it’s not clear what direction Snyder is taking the property.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/movies/6134533.html

[injest]

I guess everyone is out of ideas huh? No more stories are being written, no new screenplays...

come on.

this is very irritating, they have all the money and all they want to do is regurgitate stuff...take a huge leap of faith and give us something NEW!!

[delalluvia]

I guess everyone is out of ideas huh? No more stories are being written, no new screenplays...

come on.

this is very irritating, they have all the money and all they want to do is regurgitate stuff...take a huge leap of faith and give us something NEW!!

That's what I was thinking...

[Kd5000]

The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is getting lousy reviews. Its 27% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, with Keanu Reeves in it, my expectations were somewhat lowered.  It  comes out Friday and I was really looking forward to seeing it.  Now I am hesitant.  I wonder how other scheduled  sci-fi remakes are going to fare?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1193610-day_the_earth_stood_still/

[Meryl]

The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is getting lousy reviews. Its 27% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, with Keanu Reeves in it, my expectations were somewhat lowered.  It  comes out Friday and I was really looking forward to seeing it.  Now I am hesitant.  I wonder how other scheduled  sci-fi remakes are going to fare?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1193610-day_the_earth_stood_still/

I was afraid it would be a stinker.  But I do like Keanu in his deadpan alien guy mode.  If it didn't cost me $12.50 a pop, I'd probably still go see it.

[delalluvia]

The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is getting lousy reviews. Its 27% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, with Keanu Reeves in it, my expectations were somewhat lowered.  It  comes out Friday and I was really looking forward to seeing it.  Now I am hesitant.  I wonder how other scheduled  sci-fi remakes are going to fare?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1193610-day_the_earth_stood_still/

A shame, and Keanu's role was going to be such a stretch for his acting. 

Naw, it didn't look that good from the previews and what endeared the original to everyone wasn't even hinted at in the previews.

[injest]

The remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is getting lousy reviews. Its 27% at Rotten Tomatoes.  Well, with Keanu Reeves in it, my expectations were somewhat lowered.  It  comes out Friday and I was really looking forward to seeing it.  Now I am hesitant.  I wonder how other scheduled  sci-fi remakes are going to fare?

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1193610-day_the_earth_stood_still/

sci fi movies rarely get good scores (in my experience) the hoity toity critics dont' consider them 'true art' ya know...