Kevin's Watch

On the classification of Being John Malkovitch, I think Card is just one of those people who refer to all fantasy genres as sci-fi (despite sci-fi actually being a subset of fantasy).

Hmmmmm. Bladerunner, while a good movie was a pretty bad adaptation of Dick's book. Screamers was much more faithful, and a really underrated movie.

I'll take Silent Running, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original and the one from the 70s), Alien, The Abyss, and The Terminator.

I agree: Screamers was very good: hey, ever seen Imposter with Gary Sinise? Another pretty cool Dick adaptation...

Yeah, I liked Imposter too.

Yeah, Imposter was pretty good.

Well, I have not yet seen Impostor, I just added it, along with screamers, to my netflix queue...

I thought Malkovich was very Phillip K. Dick, which is to say, SF without much detail on the mechanism.

Vector wrote: I also liked Terminator 2 - and when it came out it really broke ground in the special effects department which served to raise the bar considerably in later SF movies. However, though it clearly has scifi underpinnings, I always feel that the action is emphasized more than the sci-fi elements - so I didn't list it, but I did debate to myself about putting it on this list, so it was a close call.

True, I also would describe T2 as an action film first and a sci-fi film second, even though the sci-fi premise is crucial to the story. Labels, labels...

Cail wrote:Bladerunner, while a good movie was a pretty bad adaptation of Dick's book.

I've never read any of Philip K. Dick's stories, so I'll take your word that Blade Runner was a bad adaptation. As a movie, I love it, of course. It's among my favorite sci-fi movies ever. I don't think an adaptation should be held prisoner to the source material, especially in the case of a film as special as Blade Runner: I appreciate it on its own terms as cinematic art.

Matrixman wrote:True, I also would describe T2 as an action film first and a sci-fi film second [...]

Are there any sci-fi films that are sci-fi first, and not action first, or comedy first, or buddy-movie first, or drama-first, or even romance first (which I include because they spewed out Solaris) ??? May the Space Odyssey movies ... can't think of many more.

True, most sci-fi movies use the sci-fi basis as an excuse for action to some degree or another. BUt there are levels on the scale - many continue exploring the concepts as the movie continues, whereas some, once the basis is established, continue on as almost pure action movies.

Some examples of sci-fi movies which are not action movies:

Close encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
K-Pax
Cocoon
The Abyss, though with some exciting moments, is not really an action movie
etc...

Check out Primer. Great Sci-Fi, zero action.

Silent Running...The Martian Chronicles (though it was originally a miniseries) to some degree and The Illustrated Man.

Matrixman wrote:

Cail wrote:Bladerunner, while a good movie was a pretty bad adaptation of Dick's book.

I've never read any of Philip K. Dick's stories, so I'll take your word that Blade Runner was a bad adaptation. As a movie, I love it, of course. It's among my favorite sci-fi movies ever. I don't think an adaptation should be held prisoner to the source material, especially in the case of a film as special as Blade Runner: I appreciate it on its own terms as cinematic art.

Very true, but the movie misses (or ignores) the main theme of the book. I agree both are good, but I'm glad Scott chose to use a different title than the book, since it is a really different story.

Agreed. In that movie, the original title wouldn't have made much sense.

--Avatar

My favourite sci-fi film is the 1960s version of The Time Machine.

danlo wrote:Silent Running...

GREAT movie. Beautiful.

Loremaster wrote:

danlo wrote:Silent Running...

GREAT movie. Beautiful.

Yup, that one's definately a classic.

Say, Vector, since you have both Dark City and The Matrix on your favorites list, I'd like to ask what you make of film critic Roger Ebert's view that The Matrix is more or less just a shallow version of Dark City--that Dark City is a true sci-fi original that delves deeply into issues of human identity and all that, while The Matrix merely presents a cool premise, but doesn't dig deeper, becoming just an action movie. I don't have the link to Ebert's reviews of both films on me, but you can just go to rogerebert.com, I think.

I disagree with Ebert's contention that The Matrix is not a deep sci-fi film: it certainly had a profound impact on me! However, I like Dark City very much, too. I caught it on TV only a few months ago, in fact, and I thought it was a very arresting, thought-provoking film. But at no time did I feel that--aha!--The Matrix ripped off this movie. I think the two films are quite different from each other.

Anyway, what do you think?

Personally, I think that 'The Matrix' is just a populist/lowbrow version of the movie 'Pi'.

Matrixman wrote:Say, Vector, since you have both Dark City and The Matrix on your favorites list, I'd like to ask what you make of film critic Roger Ebert's view that The Matrix is more or less just a shallow version of Dark City--that Dark City is a true sci-fi original that delves deeply into issues of human identity and all that, while The Matrix merely presents a cool premise, but doesn't dig deeper, becoming just an action movie. I don't have the link to Ebert's reviews of both films on me, but you can just go to rogerebert.com, I think.

I disagree with Ebert's contention that The Matrix is not a deep sci-fi film: it certainly had a profound impact on me! However, I like Dark City very much, too. I caught it on TV only a few months ago, in fact, and I thought it was a very arresting, thought-provoking film. But at no time did I feel that--aha!--The Matrix ripped off this movie. I think the two films are quite different from each other.

Anyway, what do you think?

Hmmm, I just read his review and though he does make some good points, I think he is wrong. I can see it borrowing from "Strange Days" as he mentions, a movie that I also enjoyed - but the use of that virtual reality is very different - in "Strange Days", the VR was totally playback, which is very different from a reconstructed interactive world that was presented in Matrix - though the initial scene where Neo is in his home and the gang shows up to buy mind narcotics was reminiscent of "Strange Days". If I was to say that Matrix borrowed something from some other movie - I would look at such anime movies as "Ghost in the Shell", and I think the borrowing is more obvious in that case, especially when the Matrix is taken as a whole along with the Animatrix - this helps to see the connections.

The connections he makes with "Dark City", IMO, are simplistic - that they are both cases of "Humanity" being confined in an artificial world maintained by other beings - this is a common theme in many movies and books - for example the recent "The Forgotten", or "The Thirteenth Floor" (which btw also shares a lot of concepts with The Matrix) - SO I think he is being plain wrong with Dark City.

I DO think that The Matrix used action and special effects as its primary vehicle/style, however, it exposed to mainstream cinema a number of concepts that were not seen there previously - the concept of generating a World where the mind could live without being aware that it is in a machine. This concept was presented very well and though not entirely original, the way it was used seemed original to me. I had always thought of that concept as a way to give humankind a form of "immortality" since if a brain could be maintained much longer than the body, then why could it not go on living is such a virtual world ? But I had never thought of using such a virtual world as a way to keep the minds prisoner.

Also, such concepts of as learning through immediate brain dumps was explored rather effectively. There are plenty of other interesting concepts integrated as well.

In conclusion, though certainly "The Matrix" borrowed and adapted many concepts (and who doesn't), those concepts were integrated in an original way and the underpinnings of the story were far from shallow.