Sci-fi, past and present

[Midgetqueen]

All right! What're your favorites? I'm sadly more up on recent stuff than classics. My sweetie finally got me through all 9 seasons of the X-files so now I'm a lot more apt to go with him to the midnight showing of the new upcoming movie. We're starting on Firefly next. Besides that, I am a fan of Stargate SG-1, Star Trek: TNG (Alas! I have not seen enough of the original to know enough about it), the new Doctor Who (David Tennant = my fantasy man!), and I LOVE the new Battlestar Galactica. I almost went nuts this summer and winter waiting for new episodes.

As for the classics, I like the old-school War of the Worlds movie, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, because they're awesome. And Plan 9 from Outer Space because it's so TERRIBLE that it's awesome.

I have a whole set of like 50 old sci-fi movies, but so far the only one I've watched from the set is an old 80's flick with Brandon Lee called "Laser Mission." It's almost on par with Plan 9 for awfulness, but not quite bad enough to be good! *lol*

How 'bout you folks?

 

[Josephine]

Star Trek is my first love; Lord knows why I married a Star Wars geek. lol

I like X-Files, Firefly, Stargate, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Eureka, They Live... Never got into Battlestar Galactica or Andromeda.

Older movies etc are on a case by case basis; I can't think of any off the top of my head except Village of the Dammed. I liked that one!

 

[dhermann1]

I'll eschew some of the more well known ones and mention a couple of more unusual favorites: "The Day The Earth Caught Fire", nuclear bomb test sends earth off its axis, spinning into the sun; a goofy but wonderful Russian flick from the 70's whose name I don't recall, but the gist was that some capitalist ba***rd up on the moon had a monopoly on AIR and was charging people for the privilege of breathing. What else, hmmm . . . early kids Sci Fi TV shows were great! Favorites were Captain Video, Tom Corbett Space Cadet and Rocky Jones Space Ranger. Wonderfully, hilariously dumb (but not to us back then!) And there was a wonderful, I suspect foreign made, cartoon series about a little boy who goes into space with professor So and So. Highly educational.
Oh, and a great series that only ran 2 seasons around 1960 to 62 called "Man in Space", with Bill Lundegan. They used state of the art (i.e. Mercury) technology and had pretty realistic plots. I think it turned out to be too expensive to be profitable, or something.

 

[Josephine]

There was 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" where the Van Allen Belt caught fire, that's a good one to amuse. And I like "Them!".

 

[DutchIndo]

I bought 1st and 2nd seasons of the "Outer Limits" the 60s B&W versions. They had some great episodes with actors who were not yet big. Some of the creatures were laughable because of the rubber masks. Special effects have come a long way since then. Another series from that time is "One Step Beyond" this was more spooky because it was based on true stories. The later is hard to find in restored condition. The condition of the print is scratchy at best. This were really bought out of nostalgia.

 

[Midgetqueen]

OH MAN, the Outer Limits! I can't believe I forgot that, and the Twilight Zone... And Eureka, but I've only seen the first season of it.

I'm *really* wanting to get into older sci-fi movies. I'm such a sad case, I didn't even know where the "Klaatu Verata Nikto" line from Army of Darkness (Ooh! the Evil Dead trilogy! 'Nother good one!) came from. I laughed my butt off when I saw it in TDTESS. Then hung my head in shame for not having known the reference that Raimi, Campbell etc. were making.

 

[MrBern]

Trek for FREE

Xfiles was great for the first few seasons. The last couple & the movie were...lacking.

If youre at all curious about Original StarTrek, its viewable for free on CBS' website...as well as some other classic tvshows:
http://www.cbs.com/classics/star_trek/video/video.php

You might want to check out episode28, City onEdge of Forever. An award winning episode where Kirk & Spock must travel to `30s NYC ..

 

[RIOT]

I'm not a big Trekkie fan but I did watch a lot of The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Twilight Zone, Lost in Space & Battlestar Galactica in my youth.

 

[nobodyspecial]

Last Friday a local theater ran The Planet of the Apes as a 40th anniversary of the movie. I loved it. I saw the movie on TV when I was a kid, but had never seen it on a big screen and commerical free. Watching the movie made we want to see the sequels. I also remember watching the TV series, though I do not remember any specifics other than that it was on each week. There were also action figures to be bought.

 

[MrBern]

Planet of the Apes was fabulous. I believe it won some sort of Oscar for the makeup in `68.
Heston was once asked if he regretted doing the sequel. He adamantly stated that it was way before anyone thought of star wars' or trek's sequels and now wished he had done them all.

 

[Caroline]

I love Planet of the Apes! The tv show sort of creeped me out as a kid but I love the movie - the original of course.

I have a series of Sci-fi movies that I watch obsessively: Soylent Green, Omega Man, Logan's Run, and Westworld. I don't know what's wrong with me . Anyhoo, I love the old 1950's stuff too. Sometimes I just keyword search "mars" or "it came from" on the library's database. One can get some good pulpy fiction hits that way too. I don't really do the contemporary tv shows all that much - too much story. Probably one of the most persistant workplace annoyances for me in the 1990's was various people asking me if I saw the X-files...No I didn't I was busy wrestling with the Planet of the Apes VHS!

 

[MrBern]

dinosaurs

I love the ripoffs of LOST WORLD...like the 1957 B&W movie LAND UNKNOWN.

A naval chopper investigates antarctica & crashes into tropical valley of dinosaurs. Gotta love the old uniforms & the blonde reporter.

 

[DutchIndo]

Funny last year I really got into buying 1950s Sci-Fi . My Son worked at DVD Planet and got breaks on movies. I had him buying all these corny Sci-Fi's for me. Yes shades of Sat mornings before Cable TV !

 

[Vornholt]

How about The Adventures of Briscoe County? I know, I know. Is it sci-fi? Adventure? Western? Anyway, I liked it.

 

[blacklagoon]

two really well made films were THEM about the giant ants and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE.

 

[Panache]

My favorite Science Fiction movie from the 50's is "Forbidden Planet".

Well over 50 years old but the story (based on Shakespeare's The Tempest ) is great, the script and acting hold up and the effects are wonderful.

If you haven't seen it you should check it out.

Cheers

Jamie

 

[kampkatz]

The late TV series "Babylon Five" had some great themes concerning the attempt to maintain peace among multiple races of beings. B-5 was a massive space station that over 200,000 beings from various planets inhabited.

 

[Rachael]

SciFi is near and dear to my heart. I don't think I could pick just one favorite, but I do love those that combine old and new. The future noir genre I suppose it's called. The idea of combining the aesthetic ideal of past eras with the dystopic atmosphere of the potential future both appeals to and scares me.

but of course if I had to pick just one out of the films that project this, it would be without question BladeRunner. which, by the way, I had the pleasure of attending in my local cinema last fall. In costume. carrying a neon-handled umbrella.