As I watch SpaceX's Dragon 'live' in 2020 arriving at the International Space Station. Here is a blog post from 2009.
Since childhood I have always loved science fiction films, being fascinated by the progress in space exploration and all the hardware that goes with it. This was the comic that I used to read…
– Well, I say read, but I mostly looked at the pictures and copied them using my amazing three-coloured Biro (whose story can be found elsewhere on this blog, if you are into Biros that is).
This was my badge from the Associated-Rediffusion Television Space Club from 1956.
I have put all of the sci-fi films that have impressed me most in chronological order starting with Destination Moon, 1950 directed by Irving Pichel. This was one of the first science fiction films to attempt a high level of accurate technical detail telling the story of the first trip to the moon. And the astronauts wore some natty coloured outfits…
Conquest of Space, 1955. Directed by Byron Haskin. A team of American astronauts leave their space station on the first mission to Mars, but the captain's religious beliefs cause problems…
Forbidden Planet 1956. Directed by Fred M. Wilcox. When Adams and his crew are sent to investigate the silence from a planet inhabited by scientists, he finds all but two have died. Featuring ‘Robbie the Robot’ and the stunning mini-skirted Anne Francis...
2001, 1968 Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Monkeys, monoliths, HAL (the willful onboard computer) ...
and the meaning of life made this film both pretentious and wonderful in equal measures. It created the benchmark for all sci-fi films that followed...
Silent Running, 1972. Directed by Douglas Trumbull. A lone crewmember of a spaceship harbouring Earth's last nature reserves goes ape when he is ordered to jettison his beloved onboard forest return to earth...
Dark Star, 1974 Directed by John Carpenter. The crew of the Dark Star are on a 20-year mission to create a highway in space by destroying planets that are in the way of navigation routes. (remarkably similar to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to come four years later as a BBC Radio drama) After a series of mishaps Mother (see HAL in 2001), the ship's computer, can no longer persuade Bomb not to detonate. Even the dead captain is of little help in arguing with Bomb who is bound to do his duty...
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977. The mother of all spaceships. A visual spectacle and I wanted to be up there in line with Richard Dreyfuss to leave the earth with those cute little aliens...
Alien, 1979 directed by Ridley Scott. ‘In space no one can hear you scream’ went the by line. But they certainly could hear you in the cinema. I saw this at a cast and crew screening without any knowledge of its content and was completely traumatized for days after...
Blade Runner, 1982. Deckard, a blade runner, has to track down and terminate 4 replicants who hijacked a ship in space and have returned to earth seeking their maker. Scott marked out the territory for the look of the future brilliantly.
Solaris, 2002. Directed by Steven Soderbergh. No not the earlier Tarkovsky version (which I admired) but the stunningly beautiful remake with a sublime soundtrack by Cliff Martinez. A troubled psychologist is sent to investigate the crew of an isolated research station orbiting a bizarre planet with hallucinogenic tendencies…
Sunshine, 2007 Directed by Danny Boyle. A team of astronauts are sent to re-ignite the dying sun 50 years into the future but are sidetracked by a signal from an earlier, believed to be, failed mission...
And I’m pretty sure that the diving suites used in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954, must have inspired the costume designers. Directed by Richard Fleischer…
See what I mean?
Moon, 2009. Directed by Duncan Jones. Astronaut Sam Bell has a bizarre encounter with himself at the end of his three-year stint on the moon, where he, working alongside, yet another HAL like computer, GERTY, sends back to Earth batches of a resource that has helped to alleviate our planet's ailing power problems. This film is a pure delight to any sci-fi movie fans because of the many references to early films of the genre. Pure self-indulgent pleasure...