Back in 1977, who mistook this garbage as a movie?

[Deja Q]

(What were you thinking, some b-flick so-called "sci-fi" with pretty special effects, with pretty people of which most of them couldn't act? :D )

[NJmaverick]

1. Isn't that a drug ad?

[Zavulon]

2. That was my thought on Star Wars.

:hide:

[DBoon]

3. wasn't that a new age thing kind of like EST?

nt

[Xipe Totec]

4. Nevah Sawr it

Or even hoid of it.

[amerikat]

5. It's been putting me to sleep since 1999.

I don't what I would do without it.

[Orrex]

6. Just out of curiosity, and excluding 2001, can you name many better sci-fi films prior to May 1977?

And I'm talking about one set in space, rather than Soylent Green or Planet of the Apes.

For instance, I wouldn't call Forbidden Planet a better film, though it's great for its time.

[csziggy]

7. Silent Running - depressing as hell but good

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/

[Orrex]

8. Yeah, but find me 50 people at random who've seen it

Heck, find me 50 people at random who've heard of it or can recall any lines from it.

As a standalone object, I'll concede that it's a better film, but for its impact on the genre itself, Star Wars takes the crown, and that boosts its cred as a film substantially.

[csziggy]

9. I only know one other person who has seen it

And he's the one who insisted I see it. I can't disagree with you though, Star Wars certainly had impact even if it sucks as real science fiction.

[Mythsaje]

10. Star Wars isn't and has never been "science fiction."

It's a space fantasy.

[Orrex]

13. Tell me the solid, unambigous distinction between science fiction and fantasy, and we'll talk

Otherwise, you're just expressing an opinion.


Which is fine, of course, but so is the opinion of the person who says that is science fiction.

[cemaphonic]

17. yeah, the line is just too blurry - speculative fiction is a good catchall

For me, if it has sci-fi props (robots, spaceships, etc), it's on the sci-fi side of the line. Then there's stuff like Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun" which has a bunch of fantasy tropes, but in a (slightly) disguised science fiction setting, which later turns out to have some distinctly unscientific elements, like resurrection and divine intervention.

As for Star Wars, it's a hodgepodge of Western/Samurai/WWII dogfighting movies.

[Mythsaje]

18. It's pretty simple, actually.

The primary thread holding everything together isn't science, it's mysticism. It's "the Force." Science is incidental, background. Its not about engineering, or even social science. It's about magic. That's fantasy.

[Orrex]

19. By that token, almost all "soft" science fiction is fantasy

That would include the entire body of PKD's work and just about all of Gibson's that I've read so far. Even a good deal of Clarke's and Bradbury's stuff, and they're credited as grand masters of science fiction.


I suppose that's not an unreasonable definition, but it IMO complicates the matter more than clarifies it!

[Withywindle]

21. There is no hard and fast line.

Because "technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic."

Most people will say, though, that science fiction draws more of its narrative thrust from science, and fantasy from magic and mysticism.

But you just have to go into a GD thread on "alternative medicine" to see how differently people interpret THOSE concepts, and how acrimonious it can be.

Star Wars, plotwise, is a classic fantasy story if you look at its plotline. It's Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter with lasers and spaceships instead of rings and wands. It's character-driven and the characters are straight-up Joseph Campbell archetypes. (But the prequels are closer to sci-fi, if you buy that "midichlorians" excuse for Force sensitivity that made many old-school fans hurl....on the other hand, apparently Anakin had an immaculate conception, which is the sort of in-your-face mysticism that makes even Da Vinci Code fans queasy, so maybe it's six of one, half dozen the other).

At any rate, it's all about George Lucas's inner space more than it is about outer space.

[Orrex]

22. On a side-note, I think that Campbell is over-cited

Not blaming you or any one person, or even Campbell himself, but I've been through enough "serious" discussions of Star Wars and the like to have had enough of The Power of Myth to last me for several whole legend-cycles.

The problem isn't that he codified the archetypes; the problem is that many people in his wake have turned analysis of speculative fiction into nothing but a scavenger hunt wherein every significant character is forced into an archetypal mold. It's a pedestrian exercise, and I find it anticlimactic, at best. If it were truly that simple, we'd all read The Epic of Gilgamesh over and over, to the exclusion of all else.


:rant:

[Withywindle]

23. Well, Lucas himself crawled pretty far up Campbell's ass in tribute before the latter died.

That's not necessarily a bad thing - all Campbell did really was codify the humongous literature of human mythology and conclude that there are things about these stories that are important to us as a species, universally, for some reason.

He was kind of following in Jung's footsteps, and Jung, for all his immense flaws, really did have a lot of good things to say about why mysticism will never be eradicated, and why it really doesn't need to be.

Then again J.R.R. Tolkien didn't give a fig for psychological theories: his Luddite ass just created his myth cycle as a personal doodle project starting with a notebook when he was a kid in the WWI trenches, and developed it all his life with info from his professional studies of Old English, Norse, Celtic, and Finnish stories while being a tweedy Oxford medieval-lit nerd...and completely to his utter shock, became one of the best-selling writers of the 20th century. Because people wanted what he was so surprised to be selling.

Meanwhile, I completely agree with you. Enkidu is an individual character in his own right, as is Rhiannon, as is Hanuman, as is Lemmenkainen, as is Gudrun, as is Éowyn. I happen to agree with Tolkien that we're better off reading myths as literature--as poetry and as the stories of the people in them. Yes, there are repeating patterns, but who gives a shit? As with all our lives, the play's the thing.

[Orrex]

25. Can I recommend a book that you might enjoy?

http://www.amazon.com/Tolkiens-world-Randel-Helms/dp/0395184908

I'm not 100% on board with everything Helms has to say here, but it's a fun--and light--read. He specifically explores--and praises--Tolkien's call to read myths as literature. Your library probably has a copy, though it appears to be out of print.


You're also right about Lucas--he made a conscious effort to attach his myth structure to the archetypes. I meant to refer more generally to the way that Campbell is too quickly applied to s/f and fantasy, as you note with Tolkien.

[conscious evolution]

12. Hughie,Dewey and Louie

I have Silent Running in video collection somewhere.Its a great movie.

I need to get it out and watch it again.

[Tikki]

20. We went to the big Hollywood Premiere at the Cinema Dome...

in March of '72...I remember because we were in line behind
Bill Daily (think, I Dream of Jeannie) and his beautiful wife.
That important movie was on a really big screen (for that time period) with a really big sound.



Tikki

[Robeson]

24. I guess I'm one of the 50.

[Orrex]

26. Only if you were chosen at random

[old mark]

11. Great movie - I loved "louie", and Bruce Dern was at the top of his game.

I really enjoyed the names on the space craft as well.
I'd like to see it on a TV movie channel or maybe rent it from Netflix.


mark

[rebel with a cause]

27. Loved Silent Running.

Thought it was better than 2001: Space Odyssey. I liked the darkness of it and probably the depressing part also. What can I say, those were my soul searching, tragic days of artistic exploration. :hippie: :rofl:

[jeff30997]

14. Capricorn One !

Oh,wait...It was made in 1978,nobody went to space and it was a stinker.

[Orrex]

16. LOL! You totally roped me in on that one!

I saw your subject line and prepared a ten-paragraph rebuttal before I even read your post.


Nicely done!
:rofl:

[Doc_Technical]

15. This poster produces no response from my memory synapses.

[rebel with a cause]

28. Me either.

and it is not on IMDB that I can find. ???

Edited to add: Ativan/Lorazepam is a drug that came out in 1977. It is what "House" is hooked on. Was there a movie based on this? I admit I am naive and I am totally lost on this one. :shrug:

[UndertheOcean]

29. 77? wasn't even born

[UndertheOcean]

30. dupe