h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When i was a kid Gremlins was always on over xmas and it used to scare the pants off me.. Just like Jaws did.. Odd that Jaws is a PG..

Ok, obviously strayed from the sci-fi track.. What do you guys think was the most under-rated sci-fi movie...??

There's a little Aussie flick called Encounter at Raven's Gate which I like a lot...

Yeah, whats it about.. Never heard of it myself..

It's a movie about a possible alien landing in the Australian outback.

It's a very strange film.

I find most of the lowish budget sci-fi alien movies are quite odd.. Also i've seen alot of films like that and because they're usually sort movies they can do pretty much what they want with the movie. For instance they blow the earth up. I think with sort movies they have alot more shock value and thats what alot of companies that mike them go on.. None of the whole Americans save the earth every time

I meant 'short movies'

There's a Canadian (?) movie called The last Night in which the world is set to end at a given time, and the film deals with the reactions of the characters leading up to the event. I liked that as well...

Was that the one where they thought the alien ship was a meteor at first..??

You have me beat...

Too many sci-fi flicks...

I must admit, I love 'Plan 9 From Outer Space'.

What makes it even funnier is that Ed Wood never saw the joke himself.


Geggs

"Gremlins" is a particularly good example of a bad movie.
My nineteen-year-old girlfriend cried during a first run of it.
She was very distraught over the crucifixion of the good Mogwai on the dart board.
I found it particularly distasteful.
The recycling of the old EC comics gag about the dad stuck in the chimney in a Santa suit should have made the flick unsuitable for Christmas viewing.

Yes, Blues Shark. Yes, yes, yes.

In our household, there are several categories that we use to label movies:

1. Postcard: Good scenery, not much else.

2. Costume.

3. Art for confusion's sake.

4. Everybody Got A Check: Cast of thousands of cameos. A la "Airplane", but much much worse.

5. Rip-off: Like a remake, but made almost simultaneously with the original.

6. Straight to video.

7. Wanna-be movie: Which means it ain't. Also known as,"Huh? What was that?" and "I can't believe we watched the whole thing!"

8. Waste of potential guitar picks: Worse than #7.

9. Chick flick.

10. Sick Flick: Gross-out city.

11. Blinded by Science: Wants you to think it is important, so it has blinking lights, lab coats, wierd lighting and a lot of plastic thingies, like entire buildings made of Plexiglas!

12. Bruce Lee would have been ashamed: Bad chop socky.

13. Stunts, Stunts, Stunts: and more stunts.

14. Ran out of plot before they ran out of effects money.

15. Best-selling book became best-sucking movie.

16. The Strange Case of the Magic Gun: Shot up half the western world and didn't reload once.

17. Military masturbation: war flick so bad that war should be declared on the people who made it. Historically inaccurate, technically incompetent, and written by people who think Agent Orange is a Power Ranger.

18. Let's watch it again, soon!

So is there anything you do or did like..??!!

Getting back to the science fiction coversation, there were two good Antipodean flicks I particularly liked- not Mad Max and Mad Max 2- but This Quiet Earth and The Navigator. This Quiet Earth was about a man who suddenly, inexplicably finds himself alone- everyone has dissapeared in a global catastrophe, or have they? I saw it about 12 years ago, and really enjoyed it. But it hasn't been on TV since. At the same time (and equally absent from the television) is the Navigator, which featured a plague ridden medievel village which sends a group of non plague sufferers down a pit to try and find a cure (if I remember rightly). They emerge in a modern day (1988) city, and are nonplussed by the 'future' world. This world has its own plague to contend with- AIDs. They're both cracking films- IMO.

I think I remember Quiet Earth. If I remember correctly there's two other people alive. And it's all the fault of the central character. Of whom there is a gratuitous full frontal shoot in the opening minutes of the film. Shame he's so ugly.


Geggs

I vaguely remember The Navigator, Yeah wasn't a too bad movie,it had its moments....can't remember the ending tho

Helelou

They crawled back thru the hole. Back to the dark, dreary, black and white Dark Ages of a scorched and dying Europe, carrying their wounded and dead. Once unhappily at home the kid dies of the Plague. The End.

My first impressions of the opening sequences was so grim it reminded me of early Bergman films but with an even lower wardrobe budget. I was hard pressed to keep watching these ragged and dying people struggle in a meaningless landscape of darkness, ash and death. When they started digging their way out of Europe I groaned rather loudly. But I sat thru it and was totally surprised and delighted when they popped up in late 20th century Australia.

For cinematic continuity the motorway crossing was as horrific and startling and gruesomely realised as any Dark Age impalement. Then the fun started and the guy on the nose of the speeding train was worth the price of admission. The church steeple business was only slightly gratuitous and had a justifiable medieval (if not Dark Age) context that had a mildly satisfying resonance on the educated mind.

The 'science' of it was non-existant and yet I would still call it 'scifi' because the premise is based on our ability to imagine possibilities, the same foundations as Science. Because time is still a scientific mystery, we don't know what it is, how it works, or how many perceptions of it are possible. But we can imagine all sorts of anachronisms and non sequiturs and create artifical scenarios, in which two 'times' collide for example, and safely call it science 'fiction'.


~jwf~

Yeah, I'd back Quiet Earth and The Navigator as well - very strange films, but very good and intelligently written.

Yeah they are quite different to the big budget, gizmo filled, extravaganzas produced today

P.s I've always liked "The Last Starfighter",-corny I know, please forgive me