THX 1138 (1971)

A somewhat slow-paced, thought-provoking, atmospheric and artistic ground-breaking dystopian sci-fi film

Directed by George Lucas
Screenplay by George Lucas, Walter Murch
Story by George Lucas
Based on "Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB" by George Lucas
Produced by Lawrence Sturhahn
Cinematography: David Myers, Albert Kihn
Edited by George Lucas
Music by Lalo Schifrin
Production company: American Zoetrope
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 86 minutes
Budget: $777,777
Box office: $2.4 million

Cast

Robert Duvall as THX 1138
Donald Pleasence as SEN 5241
Maggie McOmie as LUH 3417
Don Pedro Colley as the hologram actor SRT 5752
Ian Wolfe as the old prisoner PTO
Marshall Efron as prisoner TWA
Sid Haig as prisoner NCH
John Pearce as prisoner DWY

James Wheaton as the voice of OMM 0000

A dystopian future in which people are controlled through the use of android police and mandated use of drugs to suppress emotions.

A uniform and homogeneous world that suppresses

individuality and love.

A sterile bleak future where unquestioning conformity is the rule.

THX 1138 is a citizen of that future society living the reality imposed by the State until the time arrives when his perception of that reality begins to change.

Trailer

Read on for more.....

Planet of the Apes (1968)

An imaginative ground breaking sci-fi film with biting cultural commentary

Happy New Year to everyone! I thought that I might begin the year with another Charlton Heston post-apocalypse sci-fi film, The Planet of the Apes (1968), the first of the three films that also features, The Omega Man and Soylent Green.

Trailer

Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
Screenplay by Michael Wilson, Rod Serling
Based on “Planet of the Apes" by Pierre Boulle
Produced by Arthur P. Jacobs
Cinematography: Leon Shamroy
Edited by Hugh S. Fowler
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Production company: APJAC Productions
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Running time: 112 minutes
Budget: $5.8 million[2]
Box office: $33.4 million

Cast

Charlton Heston as George Taylor
Roddy McDowall as Cornelius
Kim Hunter as Zira
Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius
James Whitmore as President of the Assembly
James Daly as Honorious
Linda Harrison as Nova
Robert Gunner as Landon
Lou Wagner as Lucius
Woodrow Parfrey as Maximus
Jeff Burton as Dodge
Buck Kartalian as Julius
Norman Burton as Hunt Leader
Wright King as Dr. Galen
Paul Lambert as Minister
Dianne Stanley as Stewart

Thrust into the year A.D. 3978!

Three astronauts emerge from deep hibernation…

Their vessel crash-lands on a mysterious planet!!

One of the crew has accidentally died in space!

The space craft sinks under the waters of a lake.

The three survivors head off to explore their new home:

With limited rations

&

A hostile arid desert plain,

They trek in search of food, water and evidence of life,

Only to discover that they are not alone,

and that their troubles have only just begun…….

Read on for more......

Soylent Green (1973)

An intelligent and engaging sci-fi detective story with a disturbing vision of the future.

Directed by Richard Fleischer
Screenplay by Stanley R. Greenberg
Based on “Make Room! Make Room!” by Harry Harrison
Produced by Walter Seltzer, Russell Thacher
Cinematography: Richard H. Kline
Edited by Samuel E. Beetley
Music by Fred Myrow
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 97 minutes
Box office: $3.6 million

Cast

Charlton Heston as Thorn
Leigh Taylor-Young as Shirl
Chuck Connors as Fielding
Joseph Cotten as Simonson
Brock Peters as Hatcher
Paula Kelly as Martha
Edward G. Robinson as Sol Roth
Stephen Young as Gilbert
Mike Henry as Kulozik
Lincoln Kilpatrick as The Priest
Roy Jenson as Donovan
Leonard Stone as Charles
Whit Bissell as Santini
Celia Lovsky as the Exchange Leader
Dick Van Patten as Usher #1

Trailer

• 2022 AD: A dystopian future world beset by climate catastrophe in the form of dying oceans; year-round greenhouse-caused heat and humidity; air, land and sea pollution; poverty; overpopulation and depleted resources.

• Population of New York City: 40.000.000

• Only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water and natural food at exorbitantly high prices. Their homes are gated and fortressed and they are provided with private security, bodyguards and slave / concubines referred to as "furniture."

• The bulk of the population has to contend with shortages of food, water and housing.

• NYPD detective Frank Thorn is tasked with investigating the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a board member of the Soylent Corporation.

• What is eventually uncovered could be more than Thorn or anyone else had bargained for…..

Read on for more......

The Ωmega Man (1971)

A time capsule of a sci-fi movie that is enjoyable to watch but lacks the impact and sincerity of its 1964 predecessor, "Last man On Earth"

Directed by Boris Sagal
Screenplay by John William Corrington, Joyce H. Corrington
Based on “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson
Produced by Walter Seltzer
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Edited by William H. Ziegler
Music by Ron Grainer
Production company Walter Seltzer Productions
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 98 minutes
Box office: $4,000,000

Cast

Charlton Heston: Neville
Anthony Zerbe: Matthias
Rosalind Cash: Lisa
Paul Koslo: Dutch
Eric Laneuville: Richie
Lincoln Kilpatrick: Zachary
Jill Giraldi: Little Girl
Anna Aries: Woman in Cemetery Crypt (not actually shown in the film)
Brian Tochi: Tommy
DeVeren Bookwalter: Family Member
John Dierkes: Family Member
Monika Henreid: Monika Henreid
Linda Redfearn: Family Member
Forrest Wood: Family Member
Rachel Benson: Family Member
Stewart East: Family Member
Steve Goldstein: Last Boy
William Henry: Stricken Man
Henry Kingi: Family Member
Tanya Samova: Family Member
Fred Trombley: Family Member

Trailer

(Spoilers Follow Below......Please excuse the liberties taken with characters, dialogue and events!)


Robert Neville’s Audio Diary

Entry

Another day and another way to blow off steam and sooth my nerves by burning rubber in my (now deceased) convertible. Popped in an 8-track tape and let the music and the breeze flush the cares away when instinct suddenly slammed on the brakes and long practiced intent fired a few rounds of automatic fire at a shadowy figure flitting by a window inside a building.

Anyway, off I roared in the convertible but soon after I rounded a corner and as I tried to avoid junk lying scattered on the street, I crashed the car and got a flat tire for my troubles. Well, never mind. Cars are there scattered around ready for the taking, much like everything else: money, gold, you name it. No value, no-one to guard it all and no body to clean up the goddamn mess!

Not to worry. Just a short stroll to a dealership and hey presto – a new car! I found myself a nice little convertible in the showroom but “can’t say I’m crazy about the paint job.”

I also wasn’t too crazy about the corpse sitting at his desk in the showroom or the sight of the three-year old 1975 calendar mockingly marking the final days of civilization, together with the picture of a scantily clad woman. How may more reminders do I need that I’m the last remnant of humanity and of my solitude and loneliness?

Nothing like a visit to the cinema to cure feelings of loneliness so off I went to catch “Woodstock” screening "for the third straight year." Sure I know all the words and the goings on in the film by now – but I also know what those young, poor, naïve, dumb bastards on the screen and those in the audience back then didn’t know. All the peace, love, happiness and flowers in the hair, the new explanation, the people in motion; ALL of it would soon turn to shit ‘coz no-one bothered to listen or see what was goin’ on. And now the message of youth is endlessly repeated to an audience of one in a deserted cinema.

“The fact that if we can't all live together and be happy; If you have to be afraid to walk out in the street; If you have to be afraid to smile at somebody, right? What kind of a way is that to go through this life?” Well, we sure as hell found out, didn’t we? “They sure don't make pictures like that anymore.”

As I sat alone in the darkness of the cinema pondering and ruminating on what has come to pass, sure enough I failed to notice the approach of darkness outside with the setting of the sun. Night-time always heralds the approach of something too dark and terrifying to contemplate – something which can only be held at bay by the light!

Read on for more.....

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

An important and innovative sci-fi classic film but one that is often overrated

Trailer

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke
Produced by Stanley Kubrick
Cinematography: Geoffrey Unsworth
Edited by Ray Lovejoy
Production company: Stanley Kubrick Productions
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Running time: 142 minutes
Budget: $10.5–12 million
Box office: $146 million

Cast

Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman
Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole
William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood Floyd
Daniel Richter as Moonwatcher, the chief man-ape
Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov
Margaret Tyzack as Elena
Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen
Sean Sullivan as Dr. Roy Michaels[3]
Douglas Rain as the voice of HAL 9000
Frank Miller as mission controller
Edward Bishop as Aries 1B lunar shuttle captain
Edwina Carroll as lunar shuttle stewardess
Penny Brahms as stewardess
Heather Downham as stewardess
Alan Gifford as Poole's father
Ann Gillis as Poole's mother
Maggie d'Abo as stewardess (Space Station 5 elevator)
Chela Matthison as Mrs. Turner, Space Station 5 reception
Judy Keirn as voiceprint identification woman (Space Station 5)
Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter, "Squirt"
Kenneth Kendall as BBC announcer

Opening sequence

The film opens with pitch blackness – a complete absence of light and matter as if at the moment before the universe came into being. On this science and religion can agree: in the beginning there was darkness until...until….until, and that is what the sustained musical note sets us up for as it gradually rises to a crescendo of sound.

Our expectation is then met with the view of our planet suspended in the inky void of space with the sun seeming to emerge from behind and above it. Celestial gases and gravity have long worked their magic gradually coalescing to form light and life-giving stars and planets and solar systems, so many of which come together to form constellations.

By some miracle, this single planetary jewel (perhaps one might be forgiven thinking - the only one in the universe) has been blessed with the addition of a single seemingly unique and miraculous element – LIFE!

Read on for more

SILENT RUNNING (1972)

A melancholy sci-fi film that makes you think about what could happen, and is in fact happening to our planet, along with the consequences for us all if no action is taken.

Directed by Douglas Trumbull
Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco
Produced by: Michael Gruskoff, Marty Hornstein, Douglas Trumbull
Cinematography: Charles F. Wheeler
Edited by: Aaron Stell
Music by: Peter Schickele
Production company: Universal Pictures
Running time: 89 minutes
Budget: $1,350,000

Cast

Bruce Dern: Freeman Lowell
Cliff Potts: John Keenan
Ron Rifkin: Marty Barker
Jesse Vint: Andy Wolf
Mark Persons: the Drone
Steven Brown: the Drone
Cheryl Sparks: the Drone
Larry Whisenhunt: the Drone
Joseph Campanella: Neal - Berkshire' Captain (voice)
Roy Engel: Anderson (voice)

Trailer

Spoilers follow below....

The viewer is at first treated to a close-up view of a slice of nature in all its colorful and vibrant splendor. The camera takes us on a journey through water droplet speckled plant-life along with glimpses of its insect, amphibious and other denizens.

As the camera pulls out, our view is jarred by the sudden appearance in the shot of a section of an artificial surface feature which appears to be a metal foot-ramp. Next we see a monk-like robed human figure and behind and above him a star-strewn view of space. This is not what might at first have been expected.

The robed individual is Freeman Lowell, one of four crewmen aboard American Airlines space freighter Valley Forge. Lowell is the resident botanist and ecologist who maintains the various plants, cultivates the crops and attends to the animal life, all of which are contained in enormous, geodesic greenhouse domes attached to his and other large spaceships.

The lush foliage being framed against the pitch black of outer space and contained within a marvel of human technology makes the existence of the flora and fauna all the more remarkable and miraculous.

“On this first day of a new century, we humbly beg forgiveness and dedicate these last forests of our once beautiful nation, in the hope that they will one day return and grace our foul Earth. Until that day, may God bless these gardens and the brave men who care for them.”

This is the not too distant future, where all plant and animal life on Earth is becoming extinct. What remains has been preserved in the domes of the 2000 meter long orbiting space freighters. The plan or mission is to eventually return the preserved plant and animal life to earth. The Valley Forge, is part of a fleet of freighters currently located just outside the orbit of Saturn.

Freeman Lowell is passionately and one might say obsessively dedicated to his work of preservation and conservation. Not so, however his crew-mates whose main priority is to return to Earth after their one-year deployment to space.

“Do I have to put signs up here to keep you guys off my grass?”

The tranquility of the scene is rudely disrupted by the antics of Lowell’s crew-mates who burst in on Lowell driving motorized buggies, tearing up the soil and nearly bowling Lowell over. Blowing off steam and having fun is a lot more appealing to Lowell’s crew-mates than dedication and respect for what’s around them and their responsibility toward it.

In the next few scenes featuring his interaction with his crew mates, Lowell comes across not just as some hippie drop-out intent on merely shunning civilization. Instead, this is a man who appreciates the natural world and all that it offers, who is adept at working in partnership with technology as a tool and one who can play a mean hand of poker which suggests skill at strategy and bluff. He probably just prefers the natural world and technology to his fellow ass-hole human beings and is fully committed to the ideals behind the forest preservation mission.

More importantly, Lowell appears to be a hopeless and naive optimist who fervently believes that the authorities back on earth have indeed paid attention to his communications and that “they're about to re-establish the parks and forest system” with him as director. After all, he’s spent the last eight years dedicated to the project and that “here's no way they're gonna announce cutbacks, not after this amount of time.”

“You don't think that it's time that somebody cared enough to have a dream?”

What Lowell doesn’t seem to understand is the fickle and self-absorbed nature of human beings as alluded to by crewman Wolf who tells him, “it's been too long, Lowell, people got other things to do now.”

This sentiment is underscored by a radio transmission from Con Central in which their boss, Anderson informs the crews of the fleet that orders have been received to “abandon, then nuclear destruct, all the forests and return our ships to commercial service.”

It is at this point that something within Lowell’s psyche seems to snap and begins to unravel. It is as if there is no place in the universe anymore for logic, reason, for rationality, for a sense of right and wrong. To him, such a destructive course of action as the blowing up of the Earth’s last remaining forests in space is just “insane.”

"Rejoice in the Sun"

♪ Fields of children ♪

♪ Running wild ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Like a forest is your child ♪

♪ Growing wild ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Doomed in his innocence ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Gather your children ♪

♪ To your side ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Tell them ♪

♪ All they love will die ♪

♪ Tell them why ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

♪ Tell them ♪

♪ It's not too late ♪

♪ Cultivate one by one ♪

♪ Tell them to harvest ♪

♪ And rejoice ♪

♪ In the sun ♪

(Joan Baez)

A future time where all flora and fauna is extinct on Earth.

The planet's ecosystems exist only in large pods attached to spacecraft.

Commercial interests have now taken precedence.

The pods are to be jettisoned into space and destroyed by nuclear devices.

The crew of Valley forge and other ships can return home to earth.

Botanist and crew member Freeman Lowell has tended the plants for eight years.

How will the dedicated Lowell take the news?

Is the earth destined to lose the last of its forests and living creatures?

Read on for more....

Demon Seed (1977)

A chilling prescient and deceptively complex sci-fi thriller of a film

Directed by Donald Cammell
Produced by Herb Jaffe
Screenplay by Robert Jaffe, Roger O. Hirson
Based on novel, “Demon Seed” by Dean Koontz
Music by Jerry Fielding
Cinematography: Bill Butler
Edited by Francisco Mazzola
Production companies: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Herb Jaffe Productions
Distributed by United Artists (United States), Cinema International Corporation (International)
Running time: 94 minutes
Box office: $2 million

Cast

Julie Christie as Susan Harris
Fritz Weaver as Alex Harris
Gerrit Graham as Walter Gabler
Berry Kroeger as Petrosian
Lisa Lu as Soon Yen
Larry J. Blake as Cameron
John O'Leary as Royce
Alfred Dennis as Mokri
Davis Roberts as Warner
Patricia Wilson as Mrs. Trabert
E. Hampton Beagle as Night Operator
Michael Glass as Technician #1
Barbara O. Jones as Technician #2
Dana Laurita as Amy
Monica MacLean as Joan Kemp
Harold Oblong as Scientist
Georgie Paul as Housekeeper
Michelle Stacy as Marlene
Tiffany Potter as Baby
Felix Silla as Baby
Robert Vaughn as voice of Proteus IV

Film Clip

A human has created

a machine…

Now the machine

wants to create

a human!

*********

“A beautiful woman…

A master computer…

The most shocking act

Of creation ever imagined!!”

*********

A woman...

imprisoned

and

forcibly impregnated

by an

artificially intelligent computer!

“Fear for her!!!!”

Read on for more.....