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This essay was inspired by my research for my Charlton Heston essay.
70s Sci Fi: From 2001 to BLADERUNNER
The 1950s are often lauded as the era when Science Fiction cinema grew up. Until then, SF was mostly low budget “b-movie” stuff and cheap serials… primarily kiddie fodder. But the neuroses of the nuclear age and the cold war brought a more mature style of SF stories to the local bijou.
By the 1960s, however, it was once again a virtual wasteland for science fiction cinema. Movies of that period were either holdovers from the 1950s, like DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, which presented thoughtful, narrative-driven SF stories, but with primitive SFX and dull visuals, or campy, colorful Euro-trash compost like DR. GOLDFOOT & THE BIKINI MACHINE and James Bond super-spy movies and their progeny (like the “Matt Helm” and “Flint” movies), which were only tangentially SF. There was little in the way of thoughtful, literate SF films that took advantage of the advances in movie-making technology to create new state-of-the-art SF movies that appealed to both the mind and the eye.
Until 1968.
In 1968, the Apollo missions put the first men in orbit around the moon, and brought the first transmissions from space. Meanwhile, civilians were being massacred in My Lai, King and Kennedy were being assassinated, Columbia University students were taking over the campus, “Hair” was opening on Broadway, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, black power salutes were offered from the winner’s podium at the Mexico City Olympics, the Beatles released the “White Album”, the police rioted in Mayor Daly’s Chicago, and the country elected Nixon to get us out of Vietnam.
It was a watershed year in our culture, and, for SF movies, the films of ‘68 set the stage for the era to come.
1968: The Shape of Things to Come
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Kubrick’s masterpiece was unlike anything that had come before. Both literate and visual, it was simultaneously a cinematic work of realism, romanticism and expressionism. Ambiguous and dreamlike, it was also meticulous in its attempt to render realistically the images of Man at the dawn of time, Man in space, and Man transcending his limitations. It was also very much about Man’s relationship to his tools as an impetus to our growth and evolution, and Kubrick’s mastery of his own tools is very much at the heart of this landmark movie.
But the relationship of man & machine was only one thread of SF cinema that continued through the 70s. The other films of `68 set up or described other thematic tropes that would wind their way across the silver screens of the years to come.
Charly (1968) – This adaptation of the classic short story “flowers for Algernon” earned Cliff Robertson an Oscar for best actor, the first (and last) for an SF film since Fredric March’s portrayal of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in the 1930s. It gave the genre more credibility as grownup subject matter. It also dealt with the psychological impact of the “mad scientist” oeuvre, rather than just its technical or biological aspects.
Wild in the Streets (1968) – This wild “youth culture” pic from AIP is the quintessential 60s social statement, as adults are imprisoned in LSD camps while teens take over the country, though the victory of youth culture it depicts is pyrrhic, in the end. It seemed very hip then; now, it’s just campy weirdness. But it anticipates 70s-era “dystopian future” pix like LOGAN’S RUN and the political paranoia that was a staple of later films.
Barbarella (1968) - Jane Fonda gives it her all in hubby Roger Vadim’s 60s psychedelic Eurotrash campfest. Though its pop-art style and libertine attitudes are very 60s (similar to 1965’s THE 10TH VICTIM, with Ursula Andress and Marcello Mostrianni), Dino DeLaurentiis’s later adaptation of FLASH GORDON (1980) is almost identical in style and substance, and the soft-core porn elements also anticipate such 70s eroticism as Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), Flesh Gordon (1974), Heavy Metal (1981) and Café Flesh (1982). It is also the first feature length adaptation of a comic book superhero (as opposed to the serialized treatments of the 30s and 40s), anticipating the explosion of the superhero genre in the 1970s.
Night of the Living Dead (1968) – Not even AIP would take on Pittsburgh’s enfante terrible George Romero and his little indie horror/sf film that could, but Romero birthed a sub-genre and, more importantly, became the first indie auteurist of the burgeoning 70s film scene, followed soon by bio-horror/sf master David Cronenberg and SF/actioner John Carpenter, as well as the twin towers of Lucas and Speilberg.
Though primarily a horror filmmaker, Romero gets SF cross-over points for “NoftLD”, since the movie’s zombification process is instigated by radiation from a crashing NASA satellite. His next, The Crazies (1973), is also SF-based horror, where bio-weapons make a town go nuts. While Martin (1977) , a compellingly weird little vampire movie, is pure horror, the grandmaster of Grand Guignol returned to his zombie-verse with Dawn of The Dead (1978), a gloriously entrail-laden full-color sequel to his b&w original, which goes even further in its black humor and social satire. Before producing 1985’s DAY OF THE DEAD (later making LAND OF THE DEAD in 2005 to conclude the tetralogy), he collaborated with Stephen King to make the SF-tinged horror anthology CREEPSHOW (1982) , as a sporadically effective homage to the EC comics of the 1950s.
Planet of the Apes (1968) - The big SF Blockbuster of ’68 had both literary antecedents and great makeup and SFX for its day. It spawned an “ape” industry that would dominate the genre for years, including 4 feature film sequels, TV series and movies, comic books and merchandise. It set the stage for the type of cultural saturation of STAR WARS and STAR TREK and other SF properties of the 70s. Not bad for an anti-nuke story in the “dystopian future” and “time travel” sub-genres. It also repositioned screen icon Charlton Heston as a 70s SF hero.
For more on Heston, including an annotated filmography, see http://cranepoolforum.qwknetllc.com/php ... c&start=20
The rest of the series: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - terrible; Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) - decent; Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) – not terrible; and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) – pretty bad
Two films in 1969 also laid some additional groundwork for 70s SF cinema:
VALLEY OF GWANGI (1969) was a “cowboys vs dinosaurs” story that, while not the first of its kind, was a solid forerunner for the “lost valley” concept that played out in the mid-70s, including ,The Island at the Top of the World (1974), and the cheesy adaptations of E.R. Burroughs’ Land That Time Forgot (1975), At the Earth's Core (1976), and People That Time Forgot (1977), all starring Doug McClure.
In Marooned (1969) , 3 astronauts are stuck in space and the world must cooperate to retrieve them. Oscar-winning FX and no musical score (just ambient sound) makes for a realistic, tense spaceflight thriller, released at the height of the space age. While similar to 2001 insofar as it’s a “hard SF” men-in-space adventure, the film was itself a precursor of things to come. Capricorn One (1978), where NASA fakes a mission to Mars, is a slick conspiracy thriller by cameraman-turned-director Peter Hyams. Hyams would go on to do the excellent Outland (1981), a remake of HIGH NOON, with Sean Connery as a sheriff on a space station, and 2010 (1984), a decent but unexceptional sequel to 2001. Like Marooned, all these films focus more on the socio-political dimensions of men in space, rather than the technology itself.
1970s & beyond
The success of the auteur directors of the 60s combined with the disintegration of the Hollywood studio system to create a power vacuum in the American film industry in the 1970s. As a result, the asylums were taken over by the inmates, as filmmakers gained unprecedented power. It is no surprise, then, as we turn to the SF movies of the 70s, that they represent a flowering of the genre.
Since an era’s cultural output doesn’t divide neatly based on arbitrary dates, analysis of the films and evolving themes of the period indicate that the “decade” may be best understood if one continued through 1982, which seems to signify an appropriate cutoff to mark the end of one era and the beginning of another.
MAN & MACHINE: the space babies of 2001
2001’s essential SF concept was that the interface between man and machine would become the impetus for either our evolution or our destruction. Over the course of the next generation of movies, the echoes of 2001 reverberated and, like a Phillip Glass opera, the sound repeated, built and variated.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) - this obvious precursor to the TERMINATOR and MATRIX series dramatizes the dangers of a computer-controlled weapons defense system that becomes sentient and makes all of humanity its slave. The ultimate killer computer, it makes HAL 9000 look like a tinker toy. The movie looks made-for-TV, but it is still chilling.
Westworld (1973) – Novelist turned filmmaker Michael Chrichton wrote & directed this, his first feature, where the battle of Man vs Machine is played out in a fantasy vacation world where nothing could go wrong… go wrong… go wrong… 2001’s “killer robot” theme is seen again in adaptations of other Chrichton books in this period, THE TERMINAL MAN (1974) and STEPFORD WIVES (1975), as well as the lame sequel to WESTWORD, the Chrichton-less Futureworld (1976).
Dark Star (1974) – 80s auteur John Carpenter started this SF spoof as a student film with writer Dan O’Bannon. It mocks a lot of elements from 2001, but its low budget cheese has wit, and shows affection for the genre. Many of its elements could be found in later films, like O’Bannon’s script for ALIEN (1979).
Demon Seed (1977) - HAL 9000 spawns Rosemary’s baby, as killer computer Proteus rapes Julie Christie, wife of his mad scientist inventor, in order to perpetuate and evolve. Robert Vaughn’s vocal performance as the computer is creepy, though other elements seem laughable today.
Black Hole (1979) – Mad Scientist Maximillian Schell and his robots try to fly a ship’s crew into a black hole, which was pretty much what this movie was for Disney, though the SFX were state-of-the-art for their day.
While we’re on the subject, Saturn 3 (1980), with its mad scientist and killer robot, couldn’t cash in on the pop iconography of Ms. Farrah Fawcett to make their movie work, either. Nor could Playboy centerfold Dorothy Stratton’s presence save Galaxina (1980), where boy loved android, from its deserved obscurity. On the other hand, the little, low-budget indie Android (1982), in the “mad scientist/ killer robot/isolated spaceship/space station” category, is much more interesting and emotionally effective than any of the aforementioned turkeys.
TRON (1982) – Computers are as evil or benign as their users, and so “MCP”, the movie’s HAL 9000, is treated more sympathetically. But the notion of an entire universe within the computer’s own “virtual reality” was a bold new vision. While Disney’s first feature to make extensive use of CGI was a flop, the video game based on it was a huge success, outgrossing the movie, and demonstrated that a new generation’s attitude towards its own technology had evolved since Kubrick’s 2001. While its initial commercial failure may indicate that its time may not have yet come, TRON’S eventual success as an arcade game is one of the signifiers that a new age had begun.
The other “killer robot” movie of 1982 that indicated the end of one era and the beginning of the next is BLADE RUNNER, but more about that one later.
DYSTOPIANS `R’ US
While WILD IN THE STREETS didn’t invent dystopian visions (and, ironically, may have seen itself as actually utopian in outlook), the dystopian adventures of 70s SF films were a signature style of the era
A Clockwork Orange (1971) – Kubrick goes beyond 2001 with an x-rated explosion of the old ultra-violence and Ludwig Van. His adaptation of the acclaimed Burgess novel portrays a future of youthful gangs plaguing British society, but the government’s cure is worse than the disease. Controversial and much acclaimed, this contemplation on the nature of free will is one of the greatest films of this or any other era.
THX 1138 (1971) – George Lucas’s student thesis was produced as a feature by his mentor, Francis Ford Coppola, and it depicts an underground world where people are pacified by drugs and religion to deny their basic sexual and aggressive natures. In as much as the world is controlled by computer programs and robot police, you could see THX as offspring to 2001 as well. But Lucas’s themes are more socio-political than technological.
Omega Man (1971) - This second adaptation of Mathewson’s novel, I AM LEGEND, is pro-science, with messianic hero scientist Charlton Heston, as a survivor of a bio-weapons world war that killed off or mutated most of the human race, fighting off the anti-science quasi-religious mutants out to kill him. This is the middle chapter of Heston’s classic SF trilogy of the period.
Silent Running (1972) - After the success of EASY RIDER, Universal Studios decided to let young filmmakers make "semi-independent" films (no studio interference and directors had final cut) for low budgets (under $1million) in hopes of generating similar profits. On this basis, 2001’s SFX wizard Doug Trumbull was given this project to direct, about a pollution-ravaged Earth sending out a space-ark comprised of various interlinking Earth eco-spheres, tended to by the growingly demented groundskeeper Bruce Dern and his cute little robot buddies, Huey, Dewey and Louie (precursors to R2D2). The movie’s “green” message is heavy-handed, and the Joan Baez score is dated, but it’s still worth seeing.
Soylent Green (1973) – The 3rd chapter of Heston’s 70s SF trilogy, this one adapts Harry Harrison’s cautionary novel about overpopulation, where suicide is encouraged and people are on an interesting diet. A gritty, tough little movie. The line "Soylent Green is people!" was voted as the #77 movie quote by the American Film Institute
Zardoz (1974) - As in SOYLENT GREEN, Death is still a sleep devoutly to be wished for… this time by bored immortals. And Sean Connery, as a death-dealing “brutal”, is happy to oblige … all in the name of Zardoz. This trippy pic by Brit filmmaker John Boorman is quintessential 70s filmmaking, with an auteur dealing incoherently with social issues amidst visual pyrotechnics. It’s become something of a cult classic.
A Boy and His Dog (1975) – Harlan Ellison’s great short story is perfectly adapted, with the young Don Johnson trudging through a post-apocalyptic landscape with his psychic dog, just trying to find food and pussy. The underground world he is ensnared by suggests THX 1138, and the above-ground world feels like ROAD WARRIOR, but the story is pure Ellison. One of my absolute favorites of the era.
Rollerball (1975) - Sport is the arena for corporate control of our society, which feeds our violent urges in exchange for our subservience and conformity. But James Caan’s “Jonathan E” becomes a star and rises above the herd, and so must be destroyed. With its depiction of corporations replacing governments and the suppression of individuality, accompanied by bone-crushing action and startling visuals, it is vintage 70s SF. A 21st century remake proved the superiority of 70s auteur-driven cinema over the soulless corporate endeavors critiqued by the original.
Death Race 2000 (1975) – Racers get extra points for running over pedestrians in indie filmmaker Paul Bartel’s low-budget black comedy which, like ROLLERBALL that same year, uses “sport” as the arena for depicting a dystopian future Bartel, like Romero, was an indie filmmaker who made his mark with this one, and the subsequent EATING RAOUL.
Logan's Run (1976) – An antiseptic future requires anyone over 30 to participate in “carousel”, a ritualized murder ceremony. Like WILD IN THE STREETS, the victory of youth culture is pyrrhic, and Michael York and Jenny Agutter go on the run. Apparently, the future is a shopping mall in Houston, but its still worth a look, if just for the awful performance of the young Farrah Fawcett, seen later to equally bad effect in SATURN 3 (1980). She was much better as a famous wall poster than as an actress, until she developed some skills later in her career.
Damnation Alley (1977) - This failed attempt to adapt Roger Zelazny’s post-apocalyptic landscape features intrepid heroes fighting off mutant cockroaches from an armored RV. Not worth watching, except out of historical curiosity. Director Jack Smight had earlier butchered Ray Bradbury’s Illustrated Man (1969)
Quintet (1977) - Auteur Robert Altman’s reviled SF indie flop presents a future ice age, where Paul Newman and others play a bizarre and deadly game of “quintet” to pass their dwindling days. “Sport” is once again the arena, and survival the reward. For Altman completists only.
Wizards (1977) - Ralph Bakshi’s animated tribute to (or “rip-off of”) Tolkein and underground commix creator Vaughn Bode’ is an epic battle of magic (“good”) vs science (“evil”). Bakshi captures the look and feel of 70s comic art and post-Vietnam anti-war zeitgeist. He would later do the rotoscoped animated feature of LORD OF THE RINGS.
Mad Max (1979) – George Miller’s dystopian future from down under, the 1st Mad Max plays out as an adrenaline-fueled DIRTY HARRY in a car culture on the fringe of the present. However, his followup, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), is pure post-apocalyptic fury with a world gone to hell over a tankful of gas. Western in spirit, Mel Gibson’s Max is a Shane-like hero who begrudgingly looks past his self-interest to save an outpost of civilization. Later, in Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, he becomes a biblical messiah, leading the children through the desert to a new world. One of the greatest trilogies in SF history (literary or cinematic), its hero evolves to fill the expanding dystopian worlds he confronts. ROAD WARRIOR is one of my top 10 faves of all time. THUNDERDOME, however, with its Tina Turner MTV pop single, seems like another era.
Escape from New York (1981) – One of Carpenter’s best, Kurt Russell is Eastwoodian anti-hero Snake Plisskin sent into a NYC that has been turned into a walled-in maximum security prison populated by strangely evolving criminal subcultures. The cynical nihilistic payoff is total 70s… depicting a distrust of authority and political institutions so acute, that the world might just as well go to hell.
1982’s “dystopian future” movie is BLADE RUNNER, but, like I said before, more about that one later.
Horrors of the Body
As with 1968’s CHARLY and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, there was an ongoing theme of 1970s SF cinema that depicted the horror and power of our own biology, and certainly the “mad scientist” theme is an ever-present one in the history of SF.
One can’t discuss this theme without dealing with FRANKENTSTEIN. Mary Shelley’s SF/horror story is the Ur-text for this theme, and the 70s had a variety of takes on it: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), Horror of Frankenstein, The (1970) , Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971) , and most notoriously, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein (1973). Most notable, however, was Mel Brooks’ spoof, Young Frankenstein (1974), amongst the gag master’s best works. In fact, after THE PRODUCERS (1968), THE TWELVE CHAIRS (1970) and BLAZING SADDLES (1974), it could be considered the high water mark and last great film of his career. Everything else he made after that was various degrees of crap, especially his only other SF film, the “star wars” spoof SPACEBALLS (1987).
In contrast to Brooks, the leading 70s auteur in this “vein” is David Cronenberg… Canada’s bio-horror king. His films are horrific meditations on disease and the physical manifestations of our darkest psychic states.
Shivers (1975)...aka “They Came from Within”… was Cronenberg’s first feature, where a “mad scientist” infects the tenants of a Canadian apartment building with a sex-hungry parasite. As is often the case with Cronenberg, he depicts the interwoven relationship between EROS (sex, life) and THANATOS (destruction, death). That relationship is played out again in his vampire horror film RABID (1977), with former porn-star Marilyn Chambers as a sexual predator with a penis-like syringe growing out of her armpit (I shit you not). The Brood (1979) is the embodiment of Cronenberg’s divorce, as an ex-wife is birthing strange murderous devil children, manufactured by her own psychic rage while undergoing experimental treatments, and subconcsciously siccing them on her ex-husband. With Scanners (1981), Cronenberg broke through in the U.S. with a low budget hit about powerful killer psychics who can blow your head apart, and the mad scientist trying to control them. Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME (1983) seems of a distinctly different period, however, as it takes on Rod McCluhen and the effect of media on society, which was a more common theme of the 80s.
On the subject of SF auteurs, we turn once again to Michael Chrichton and his adaptation of his own novels, TERMINAL MAN (1974) and COMA (1978), and his original film LOOKER (1981), where, in each film, mad scientists and corporate conspiracies have bio-horrific consequences.
In a similar mode, there is the low-budget cloning/political conspiracy thriller THE CLONUS HORROR (1979), but the less said about it the better. I think there was an MST3K version that is preferable.
Day of the Dolphin, The (1973) – the “Graduate” team of director Mike Nichols and writer Buck Henry produced this slice of political paranoia about scientist George c. Scott, who teaches his dolphins to talk and, unwittingly, involves them in a presidential assassination plot. “Fa loves Pa” indeed, but is it a love that dare not speak its name?
Island of Dr. Moreau, The (1977) – This remake of Charles Laughton’s ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is likewise adapted from HG Wells and falls squarely in the “mad scientist” bio-horror theme. The last remake, with Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, was a disastrous misfire, but this Burt Lancaster / Michael York version holds up pretty well.
Boys from Brazil, The (1978) – This adaptation of Ira Levin’s novel makes for a good SF/thriller, with Gregory Peck cast against type as a Nazi scientist cloning the Fuhrer all over the place. Political paranoia + bio-horror = classic 70s SF.
Fury, The (1978) - The poor man’s Hitchcock, Brian DePalma’s “killer psychic” movie came out a few years before SCANNERS and on the tail of his other classic ESP horror film, CARRIE (1976). It’s got the requisite levels of gore and paranoia, but I have little patience for DePalma’s derivative shtick.
The whole “killer psychic” theme, which even has a 1968 antecedent with George Pal’s little seen THE POWER, is finally parodied in ZAPPED(1982), where Scott Baio uses his telekinetic powers to see naked high school girls. If anything would indicate the terminal point of an idea, it’s a Scott Baio spoof.
Some of the other awful “bio-horror” monsters of the era include the Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, The (1971), Thing with Two Heads, The (1972) , Incredible Melting Man, The (1977), Shock Waves (1977), and Incredible Shrinking Woman, The (1981)
But all these creatures are nothing compared to the chest-bursting bio-horror of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), one the best horror/sf movies ever made. Our bodies are so fragile in space… where no one can hear you scream. It was said that Galaxy of Terror (1980), a low-budget Corman cheesefest, was an "Alien" ripoff, but it has its own unique charm, where a space crew’s darkest psychic fears are brought to life in an alien ziggurat, including a worm-phobic space hottie getting raped by a giant maggot.
Bio-horror then took a new turn when presented in the form of alien invasion:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) – This excellent remake of the 50s Sf classic is a 70s parable of paranoia, where your neighbors and loved ones are not who they pretend to be. This time, even the hero succumbs. The bio-horror dimension of alien invasion in this one recalls Chrichton’s Andromeda Strain, The (1971), in which a virus from space invades our world.
In Phantasm (1979), we are invaded by a mortician from another dimension, stealing our dead and reanimating them as slaves in his alternate universe. This one knocked the top off the bizarro-meter, and there were eventual sequels. Anyone who ever saw those flying bladed spheres had nightmares for years thereafter.
Like Body Snatchers, Carpenter’s gory remake of the The Thing(1982) is another alien invasion movie that focuses on paranoia and the unreliability of our physical forms as markers of our true selves… our bodies ARE our monsters. Carpenter also composed the haunting Morricone-like score, effectively replicating the human heartbeat. Carpenter’s film is a smart gore-fest miles ahead of the original.
Liquid Sky (1982) – This quirky little indie film about aliens that kill us at the height of orgasm brings us back to Cronenberg’s Eros/Thanatos symbiosis theme, but its post-punk NYC sensibility really anticipates the indie film scene of the 80s, and so `82 again becomes a good boundary marker for the end of one era and the beginning of the next.
As for the other “alien invasion” movies in the 70s:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The (1975) was a flop adaptation of a hit stage musical, but it went on to great reknown as one of the earliest midnight cult movies. In fact, the “midnight movie” was itself a 70s movie phenomenon worth noting, fueled in part by the SF films of the period.
Man Who Fell to Earth, The (1976) – Brit Nick Roeg’s UK art film features David Bowie as the man who fell to Earth, an innocent alien, eventually corrupted by our ways. David Bowie as an alien? There’s some typecasting for you. It remains a fascinating critique of 70s social values.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – After JAWS, Speilberg gave us his epic contemplation of an alien invasion of nice little fellas who just want to jam. And 5 year later, Spielberg’s vision is even more gentle and benign, even achieving a spirituality and certain grace in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). But the Reeses Pieces? Product placement is so “80s”, man.
Speaking of utterly benign, lets not forget Disney’s The Cat From Outer Space (1978). On the other hand, lets. And Hangar 18 (1980) is a low budget take on a UFO in Area 51, from Sunn pictures, which mostly did nature documentaries. This creepy indie predates Scully & Mulder.
Of course, no discussion of the “horrors of the body” or invasion of Earth by alien cyborgs would be complete without BLADE RUNNER… but you already know the drill on that topic.
Man v Nature
On the subject of Bio-horror, there is also the biology of other living things to consider. And the 70s had its share of killer animals and insects, usually as a result of Man’s screwing with the environment. The best of these was Phase IV (1974), directed by graphic designer Saul Bass. This “killer ants” movie is strange, arty, and almost documentary-like in its ant photography, as ants form a collective intelligence and begin to wage war on some desert inhabitants.
But most “killer bug” or “monster” movies of the period, like their antecedents in the 1950s, were pretty lame affairs, including: Frogs (1972), Night of the Lepus (1972), Sssssss (1973) , Bug (1975) , Giant Spider Invasion, The (1975) , Food of the Gods, The (1976) , Empire of the Ants (1977) , Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) , Piranha (1978) and Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981) , Swarm, The (1978) , Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978) , Prophecy (1979), Humanoids from the Deep (1980), and Alligator (1980).
Speaking of Piranha and Alligator, let us also mention Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), which put the “7 samurai / magnificent 7” in outer space, as the third of the SF screenplays of the period by auteur filmmaker John Sayles. He used the fees for writing these genre films to finance his indie films, like RETURN OF THE SECAUSCUS 7, LIANNA, BABY ITS YOU and an excellent SF film some years later, Brother From Another Planet (1984).
Time travel: From Lady Liberty to British midgets
The time travel concepts played with in PLANET OF THE APES can also be seen in:
Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) – this interesting adaptation of Vonnegut’s novel, about young Billy Pilgrim unstuck in time, has a distinct 70s aesthetic and a literary pedigree. It was an anti-war film made and released while we were still hip deep in Vietnam.
Sleeper (1973) – This is Woody Allen at the peak of his powers, where he wakes up after 500 years in a sterile, de-sexed future with really big vegetables, orbs and orgasmatrons. As much a consequence of “mad science” as time travel, it still is a movie worth mentioning and is very much near the top of the Woodster’s career.
Time After Time (1979) - H.G. Wells travels forward in time, chasing Jack the Ripper to present day (then) San Francisco. The kicker? While the Victorian Wells is a stranger in a strange land, Mad Jack fits right in to our society. Nick Meyer’s excellent film depicts our present as the dystopian future of Wells’ nightmares.
Altered States (1980) - A mad scientist uses technology, not to time travel, but to de-volve his human form into a more primitive state. It’s a silly movie, with some cool visuals and interesting ideas. Director Ken Russell has the cast reciting Paddy Chayevsky’s dialogue so fast, it becomes a self-parody. But the whole 70s “self-actualizing” movement is really the target here.
Final Countdown, The (1980) – Big budget Hollywood adventure where nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz gets sent back in time to Hawaii, just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Do they launch a pre-emptive strike and change history? Nobody cared. The Kirk Douglas trilogy of THE FURY, SATURN 3 and FINAL COUNTDOWN didn’t exactly make him Charlton Heston.
Time Bandits (1981) – This Python-esque black comedy has a British lad traveling with midgets who’ve stolen God’s map of time, falling into one era after another. Funny and utterly bleak in its outlook, both in its depiction of heroism and of family.
BLOCKBUSTERS
The “blockbuster” was a 70s phenomenon. Sure, there had been big hit films in the past, but the baby boomers went back to JAWS again and again, creating the “$100m” blockbuster feature, and this vein was tapped over and over, especially by Spielberg and Lucas, the twin towers of modern SF cinema.
Star Wars (1977) – After Spielberg’s JAWS, Lucas’s epic space opera kicked the table over. Repeat viewing, cultists, merchandise, multi-media tie-ins, sequels like Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) , became the new way of doing business. None of which should distract from the greatness of these movies and their influence on the next generation of filmmakers.
For more on SW and EMPIRE, see http://cranepoolforum.qwknetllc.com/php ... c&start=20
The other wunderkind, Spielberg, gave us the alien invasion blockbusters Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), as previously discussed, but always worth mentioning twice.
Superman (1978) – After BARBARELLA, SUPERMAN was the next superhero to get the big screen treatment, leading to Superman II (1980) Superheroes have become a genre unto themselves, and this is where they got kickstarted. Of course, they got buried again with Swamp Thing (1982), but were resurrected for good with BATMAN in 1989.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) - After merchandising, comics, novels and cartoons, the long awaited sequel to the 60s TV series finally made it to the big screen by the end of the decade. While it is a snooze, the next sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) lived up to the promise and all was forgiven. A dozen feature sequels and 3 TV series later, the property has seemed to finally run out of steam, but it may yet rise again, like Excalibur, or Dr. Phibes.
And, of course, 60s icon James Bond had not yet run his course as a genre unto himself, with two entrees in the 70s: Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Connery’s first “last Bond film” (before his last “last Bond film”, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN), and Roger Moore’s Moonraker (1979), which was perhaps the most SF-ish of the entire series, seemingly trying to cash in on the success of the genre after STAR WARS. The same year, Connery starred in Meteor (1979), a big budget Hollywood ARMAGEDDON / DEEP IMPACT-type story that didn’t work on any level.
The Outer Rim
Blade Runner (1982) - After the success of ALIEN, Ridley Scott was given the reins to direct a new “blockbuster”… an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP. He took the themes of 2001 (“killer robot”, and “technology as impetus for evolution”) and the 70s “dystopian future” trope, along with standard “mad scientist”, “bio-horror” and “alien invasion” concepts, and created an iconic film that became the visual and thematic template for the next generation, from TERMINATOR to MATRIX and beyond. Like TRON, this film was a financial flop at first before finding new audiences in the decades to come, indicating a film ahead of its time that could represent a marker for the end of one era and the beginning of the next.
For more on Blade Runner, see http://cranepoolforum.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=7590
conclusion
From 2001 to Blade Runner, the SF films of the 70s era are marked by the socio-political views of the day: paranoia, dystopia, science that kills, bodies that betray us, invaders from without and within… but executed by a new breed of filmmakers coming into their own, with greater technology at their behest and greater control over their filmmaking process. With the failures of Blade Runner and Tron (as well as the studio-destroying fiasco that was the western Heaven’s Gate), the auteur cinema of the 70s era ended, and multimedia companies seized control of the various studios. Feature films of the subsequent decades have demonstrated a homogenized, screen-tested, focus grouped approach to Hollywood filmmaking.
As a result, more interesting SF work has been done on TV, where the writer/producer “showrunner” has greater control than is currently in vogue on the big screen. As a result, SF TV is in a renaissance…
... but that’s another story.
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