Hello everyone, this time around we're going to be voting on SPACE movies. This should be a fun theme so let's see what you have!
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I really dug "Moon", a low-budget not-so-well-known film I saw last year that has stayed with me. Been thinking of watching it again this week.
Moon is a great film. I'd be up for any of the films brought up so far. My votes are this or 2001, since I've never seen that.
2001: A Space Odyssey because it's the high water mark of realistic space sci fi. Outland because it's close - and it's Sean Connery playing Gary Cooper in High Noon on a moon of Ganymede. Eolomea because I never got around to watching it and I really should.
Another vote for Odyssey. It's ripe for discussion. I've seen it twenty times and I'm still not sure about anything. This was my first thought when you mentioned Connery in space
Zardoz is one of my absolute favorite movies. I'm not shitting anyone here. It had SO many flaws, but I saw what they wanted, I understood what they meant, and the whole thing was so over the top and original it was just great. It exists as a film exactly where it was meant to exist and stays there perfectly.
I watched most of that movie for the first time on Monday and just...couldn't. I get what they were going for, it had the potential to be a great movie, but there was just too many things for me to look past all the flaws and like it and my roommates didn't like it much either so what I'm asking is: why do y'all like it? Am I missing some sort of context surrounding the movie or subtext within it?
I have no idea how Zardoz could ever be a great movie. It veers much too readily and willingly into psychotronic territory and is chockablock with lines that are nearly impossible to say with a straight face. That is the greatness of Zardoz: it's so fuckin' weird that you're not sure how it happened. I mean, John Boorman did The Emerald Forest and Beyond Rangoon. Sean Connery went on to be, like, Sean Connery. Charlotte Rampling is a queen of merchant ivory and John Alderton had done a massive run on Upstairs Downstairs so successful that he got himself a spinoff. Yet there it is. The gun is good, the penis is evil. Zardoz has spoken.
i also vote for this. (Or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if we haven't done that).
That's a (mildly) bold statement. I guess I gotta see it now.
Naah, dawg, the movie was a pigfuck. Never should have happened. American Sensibilities and all that.
a) I still laughed sometimes. i also recall seeing it more than once when I was very little, so it has a special, albeit cloudy and vague, place in my heart. b) are you trying to talk like me when you reply to me? If so, you've been pretty spot-on with the white kid vibe, i.e. rap slang with a one-decade delay.
I put 2001 on there because I've never seen it, but it's always been on my list. I loved Gravity - even though I thought the weird quasi-religious stuff was odd. It was beautiful graphically, and I loved the way it was "shot".2 very different movies there in terms of scope...
Exactly. I loved it on IMAX. HBO at home left a lot to be desired. It's also kind of a one night stand movie to me. I came, I saw, it'll never thrill me like the first time. Great movie but it's no 2001. Side ?: What's everybody's take on Interstellar?
I'm really excited for Interstellar. They managed to bring along Kip Thorne who is a huge contributor to gravitational physics and applying the theory of relativity to astrophysics. As he said in the below video the visual effects team was able to visualize a black hole out of a set of equations that Kip wrote and in his words "black holes are never showed accurately". So this brings my hopes up. A couple of links on this:
You're probably gonna love it. I would recommend either checking outGirl With Curious Hair or some of his short stories to help get a grasp on his style before diving into IJ.
ref and I were discussing it over here, if ya wanna go on ahead and throw your 2 cents in.
I've scanned the movies I have saved offline for future viewing, while I'm in nowhere Nebraska with not a lot of internet, and Solaris is the only relevant movie I have. I always assumed it was a space movie, but if it doesn't take place in space... then I'm out this round! That, and I own the recent Prometheus, though I can already hear the groans if I suggest it.
Well, let's define "space" shall we? I think a "space movie" has to occur, for the most part, somewhere without air in which the majority of the action occurs in an environment not bounded by any planet. Otherwise we're just talking science fiction. "Star Wars" would likely count as a "space movie", as would any Star Trek other than Into Darkness. However, Prometheus happens mostly on another planet, as does Forbidden Planet, as does Robinson Crusoe on Mars. By this definition, "Outland" is shaky... but as the majority of the action is driven by remoteness (it's set in the near future on Ganymede), low gravity and an utter lack of atmosphere, it's closer to being a "space movie" than Eolomea or, say, Screamers.
This list seems like a good starting point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_outer_space
"Silent Running" fits this definition pretty well. It's been a long time since I saw that one; not sure how well it holds up.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm indifferent, but I was just curious as to what kb and everyone else thinks about what role space needs to play to make a movie "about" space. I suppose everyone has their own idea. PotA is reliant on space travel to set up the plot, but that's as far as it goes. Space leaves the picture in about five minutes, and from then on it isn't a theme of the movie, even though Heston believes he's on some far flung planet for the duration. I would say Contact is far more of a space movie than PotA, as the mystery signal comes from space, and space itself is almost a character. Space represents a lot in Contact, whereas it's incidental in Apes, in my opinion.
Aye, I'm against picking either, just brought it up as a movie that could be interpreted as "spacey" but was primarily set on planet Earth. I'm still hoping for a ball out of left field that I haven't seen or heard of before. Barring that, I may just watch a movie starring this guy:
This is a good point. Planet of the Apes is definitely a space movie in my book.
Ha, wow. The juxtaposition between you and kb's answer goes to show, we need a definition of space movie.
He described his version a bit above but I still don't like it. What about Dune?
Haven't seen it, though I don't think I could get it this week or next (remote location, not a lot of internet). So I actually shouldn't be throwing any weight around this discussion. But I love watching movies and then coming back to these.
Well he's right I guess. At least as far as Planet of the Apes is concerned. To say why would ruin the ending.
It's a very interesting movie. I had pleasant experience, despite some of the plotholes that were endlessly "exposed" and beat to death on any reddit discussion. I found that the movie drew two opposite reactions, love or hate.
orrrrrr Wall-E which is awesome.
Honestly, watch Europa Report... but on your own. It's a really fun popcorn flick, and the idea excited me watching it, but there really isn't too much to discuss. The 'bad scientist' trope comes up, but at the least it makes some sense why. Definitely worth a viewing, but not a discussion much.
Okay will do, have to find some popcorn first!
Event Horizon was the first movie that crossed my mind. Goosebumps just writing that...Where we're going... we don't need eyes to see!
It's very pretty as a movie. Kind of predictable. I tried to read Alex Garland's Tesseract and found myself woefully unimpressed. Then I read his draft of Halo and was even less impressed. I'd put it this way: The Beach is the last Danny Boyle worth watching, which contains the best work Alex Garland ever did. Which isn't saying much.
Sunshine is a tough one, still so disappointed with how it ended but the fact that the great (Brian Cox)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_(physicist)] was a consultant on it helps a little.