where have all the rocket ships gone?

[molly1216]

but while digging through movie lists and looking at my collections, I always wonder where the rocket ships went? I may be wrong about this...but do we have FEWER hard science fiction films or do we now just have science fiction sprinkled through MORE films than ever before?

Obviously we have opened the flood gates of comic book to movie sci fi ..Iron Man, the Hulk, Watchmen, GI Joe, the Transformers etc.. and all the video game films seem to be science fiction in nature, even the first person shooters..Gamer, resident alien etc.. perhaps filmmakers are more in tuned with the science future just over the horizon than that in the next galaxy?

In the 80s every 3rd film was a space opera...star wars, star trek, 2010, Ice Pirates, Space Hunter adventures in the forbidden zone, flash gordon space balls for crying out loud. in the 80s and 90s we got a deluge of Alien meets earth films, from ET, to Contact to the Arrival, we even had a cluster of more realistic space travel on film: Blade Runner, Outland, Soldier then Misson to Mars, Red planet, supernova, Event Horizon, Pitch Black then not so much...

Where did our space travel stories go? did we just have an overload? as we did with Westerns? so many westerns were made from the 20s to the 60s, that after the mid 70s for a western to get made it had to have a catch that sold it as 'different' from what had been done before. Have we done that with Space Travel? is it now so commonplace that unless it has Apollo 13 realism we aren't interested?

I was thrilled with the latest Star Trek, not to mention Firefly, District 9 and Moon there was nothing about them I didn't like. Which reminds me I need to catch up on the remakes of Solaris and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy..sometimes i avoid remakes of thinks I like so i am not too disappointed.

Have I missed anything good?...(yeah i know war of the words with Cruise - i said anything good) or am i just imagining a rocket less conspiracy?

[Steve T Power]

I dunno, Avatar felt like a nice return to old school sci-fi for me. I know how most people feel about it, so I kind of regret bringing it up now.

[Gabriel Girard]

Well there's Outlander and not much else...

[Gabriel Girard]

There's also Sunshine of course... I think that sci-fi, like horror or musicals will always be there but will spark in popularity once in a while, it's a cycle thing. Personally I'd rather get one great sci-fi flick every few years than a lot of crappy ones on a daily basis...

And Joyce - you should check out the remake of Solaris, it's quite enjoyable. The less said about the recent Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy, the better...

[molly1216]

There's also Sunshine of course... I think that sci-fi, like horror or musicals will always be there but will spark in popularity once in a while, it's a cycle thing. Personally I'd rather get one great sci-fi flick every few years than a lot of crappy ones on a daily basis...

aw jebus....how did i forget Sunshine..i loved that! i own that one.
and i do agree with your statement about great ones instead of a lot of crappy ones.
i doubt 'hollywood' is thinking that way..perhaps once good cgi becomes available to low budget movie makers things will change.

[J.M. Vargas]

...we even had a cluster of more realistic space travel on film: Blade Runner, Outland, Soldier then Misson to Mars, Red planet, supernova, Event Horizon, Pitch Black then not so much...

Not one of these movies you mentioned was a box office hit ("Pitch Black" comes closest but it's still within the realm of 'cult' hit), many were outright bombs ("Supernova," "Mission to Mars," "Red Planet," "Soldier," etc.). That explains why the genre went away, and still dies when periodic attempts at reviving come by and flounder ("Pandorum" anyone?). Basically a new take on space travel movies has to capture the audience's imagination for studios to feel like poning the millions it would take to make the vision come to life (even with CG and miniatures these types of movies cost a bundle).

[yellow ledbetter]

not a huge sci fi guy, but I did really dig The Fountain and Children of Men

[ccb]

I dunno, Avatar felt like a nice return to old school sci-fi for me. I know how most people feel about it, so I kind of regret bringing it up now.

Well don't let the æsthetes get you down about Avatar. The star ship was beautiful, as well done as any of Cameron's ships. Remember, Cameron did the model ships for Battle Beyond the Stars (yes, I remember that ship too, let's move forward together). Roger Corman's commentary mentions Cameron could explain the function of all ships' parts. Probably can now as well.

[yellow ledbetter]

Love or hate James Cameron, people have to give him love for his attention to detail

[molly1216]

Caught Pandorum....another in a line of flesh eating mutant humans chasing a few people around sets that could be a munitions factory, an underground bunker or in this case a space ship. what could have easily been a video game film, but it was bookended into a story about a post apocalyptic flight to a new planet...la ti da. but the absolute worst thing is....i liked it. it had good suspense if predictable results...the science is kinda wonky i wouldn't advise overthinking it. but definitely i wasn't tempted to turn it off.

[Paul Kile]

Caught Pandorum....another in a line of flesh eating mutant humans chasing a few people around sets that could be a munitions factory, an underground bunker or in this case a space ship. what could have easily been a video game film, but it was bookended into a story about a post apocalyptic flight to a new planet...la ti da. but the absolute worst thing is....i liked it. it had good suspense if predictable results...the science is kinda wonky i wouldn't advise overthinking it. but definitely i wasn't tempted to turn it off.

I liked it as well. Granted with all the bad press this movie had, I wasn't expecting much. But it was good popcorn fodder for a Sunday afternoon. Having DVR'd it off of Starz, I wasn't out any money to see it.

As for your original question, I think I have several reasons why good hard SF is becoming scarce:

1. The gradual dilution of classic SF space operas with Sword and Sorcery/Fantasy. This has been going on for years in the literary world, and it makes it that much harder to find true SCIENCE fiction. I've always been a purist, and get turned off by the presence of magic, flying horses, and bladed weapons in a futuristic universe. Don't get me wrong, I like Harry Potter and the like, just give me scientists in my SF, not wizards.

2. The loss of interest in space exploration by the slack-jawed multitudes. We went to the moon 6 times, then turned our back on it because the public went "meh". Shuttle missions became (almost) routine, mostly because they were low risk, low orbit. Now our Fearless Leader has cancelled the bulk of the Constellation program, which pretty much cancels manned exploration outside of Earth orbit. The only part of the program that has survived is the "crew exploration vehicle" capsule, which is now mis-named because its only use will be as a lifeboat for the International Space Station, and even the future of that is in doubt. It will probably be left to decay in orbit and plunge into the atmosphere, like Skylab and Mir before it. Good job, America.

3. The lack of new ideas coming out of Hollywood, and the reticence to back any project that isn't a "sure thing". You end up with a bunch of lousy remakes (oh, sorry..."reimaginings") of classic films. A perfect example is "War of the Worlds" - the 1953 Gene Barry version was so quintessentially '50s, with those cool George Pal spaceships and the attempt to nuke them with...the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing! Great stuff. Then we get the Tom Cruise horror with his two sniveling kids that made the movie virtually unwatchable. As I watched, I kept wanting someone to slap whiny little Dakota Fanning upside the head and yell at her - We are in the middle of a !!@#@! alien invasion, so stop your bellyachen and SHUT UP!

So we will have to be content with the occasional throwback to classic SF, but it will never be the dominant force it was in the 1950's.

[Andrew Forbes]

Jesus, do people ever take Spielberg for granted. It's like they sit down and say, sure, there's more cinematic invention in a single scene than in most of the movies I've seen in the past year, but I sure wish those kids would sit quietly while their entire world is annihilated.

[Andrew Forbes]

As for hard sci-fi, I'm looking forward to Inception. The trailers look extremely promising.

[Dan Mancini]

The lack of new ideas coming out of Hollywood, and the reticence to back any project that isn't a "sure thing". You end up with a bunch of lousy remakes (oh, sorry..."reimaginings") of classic films. A perfect example is "War of the Worlds" - the 1953 Gene Barry version was so quintessentially '50s, with those cool George Pal spaceships and the attempt to nuke them with...the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing! Great stuff. Then we get the Tom Cruise horror with his two sniveling kids that made the movie virtually unwatchable. As I watched, I kept wanting someone to slap whiny little Dakota Fanning upside the head and yell at her - We are in the middle of a !!@#@! alien invasion, so stop your bellyachen and SHUT UP!

I don't know. When I think of hard sci-fi, H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds novel comes to mind, but the 1953 film does not. Cool spaceships and Flying Wings aside, the movie translates none of the speculative elements of the book -- the veiled examination of evolution, British colonialism, or science vs. religion (as a matter of fact, the movie pretty much up-ends the intent of Wells' original ending: In the book, it's clear that the Martians are killed by an accident of material existence, while the movie basically says, "Good thing God created viruses and bacteria in order to stave off pesky attacks by belligerent aliens. The End.").

The thing with seeing an adaptation of War of the Worlds directed by Steven Spielberg is that, yes, I want it to resemble Wells' book in some way, but I also want it to be a Spielberg movie. And if it didn't have a fractured family and a father pursuing his children, it somehow wouldn't be Spielberg.

Also, if I were Dakota Fanning, my response to you would be, "F&*^ off, you old bastard! I'm a child in the middle of a !!@#@! alien invasion. What do you expect me to do?" And then I would use my enormous financial resources and powerful Hollywood connections to crush you somehow. But that's just me.

Finally, a hearty "hear, hear!" to Inception. That looks like speculative sci-fi if ever I've seen it.

[molly1216]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/08/1 ... c=fb&cc=fp

Where Have All The Giant Robots Gone?
by ADAM FRANK

So enough about economics in the age of limits, the true relationship between science and religion or the fundamental nature of time. Lets talk about something really important.

Where are my dang summer science fiction blockbusters?

[Burson_Fouch]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/08/16/129229730/where-have-all-the-giant-robots-gone?sc=fb&cc=fp

Where Have All The Giant Robots Gone?
by ADAM FRANK

So enough about economics in the age of limits, the true relationship between science and religion or the fundamental nature of time. Lets talk about something really important.

Where are my dang summer science fiction blockbusters?

I have to think that much of it has to do with the popularity of super-hero based action movies supplanting space opera's as this generations special effects movie of choice.

That said, I recently read where Ridley and Tony Scott have purchased the rights to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. I'm hoping that Ridley is the brother who directs it and not Tony. This is hopefully a sign that the success of Avatar will lead to some more interest in making more hard science fiction genre films.

[Steve T Power]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/08/16/129229730/where-have-all-the-giant-robots-gone?sc=fb&cc=fp

Where Have All The Giant Robots Gone?
by ADAM FRANK

So enough about economics in the age of limits, the true relationship between science and religion or the fundamental nature of time. Lets talk about something really important.

Where are my dang summer science fiction blockbusters?

I have to think that much of it has to do with the popularity of super-hero based action movies supplanting space opera's as this generations special effects movie of choice.

That said, I recently read where Ridley and Tony Scott have purchased the rights to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. I'm hoping that Ridley is the brother who directs it and not Tony. This is hopefully a sign that the success of Avatar will lead to some more interest in making more hard science fiction genre films.

That's been kicking around for about two years now... It's an amazing story that would be very well suited to Ridley with some minor tweaks here and there (a more ambiguous ending wherein Mandella returns from his last assignment to a future where it isn't revealed to the audience that Marygay survived would be a must.)

It would undoubtedly mark a triumphant return to science fiction for Scott, if handled with the same sense of passion and ingenuity that went into Blade Runner.

I have my doubts that we will ever see it, but i'd be overjoyed if we did.

[Mitchell Hattaway]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2010/08/16/129229730/where-have-all-the-giant-robots-gone?sc=fb&cc=fp

Where Have All The Giant Robots Gone?
by ADAM FRANK

So enough about economics in the age of limits, the true relationship between science and religion or the fundamental nature of time. Lets talk about something really important.

Where are my dang summer science fiction blockbusters?

I have to think that much of it has to do with the popularity of super-hero based action movies supplanting space opera's as this generations special effects movie of choice.

That said, I recently read where Ridley and Tony Scott have purchased the rights to Joe Haldeman's The Forever War. I'm hoping that Ridley is the brother who directs it and not Tony. This is hopefully a sign that the success of Avatar will lead to some more interest in making more hard science fiction genre films.

That's been kicking around for about two years now... It's an amazing story that would be very well suited to Ridley with some minor tweaks here and there (a more ambiguous ending wherein Mandella returns from his last assignment to a future where it isn't revealed to the audience that Marygay survived would be a must.)

It would undoubtedly mark a triumphant return to science fiction for Scott, if handled with the same sense of passion and ingenuity that went into Blade Runner.

I have my doubts that we will ever see it, but i'd be overjoyed if we did.

It's too smart for any studio to cough up the budget it would require. Which sucks.

[ccb]

Speaking of spaceships, the one near the end of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was a period classic.