Tag: alien

Rumor Control

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about sci-fi films in the late 1970s and early 1980s and I came up with a theory: for a time every sci-fi movie back then either wanted to be the next Star Wars or Alien. Released in 1977 Star Wars would quickly become one of the most influential movies ever, and while Alien didn’t do quite as well at the box office in 1979, it too would go onto become one of the most influential sci-fi movies in cinema history.

In 1978 there were such films as the dreadful Starcrash that was an Italian version of Star Wars and Battlestar Galacticawhich was the TV version of Star Wars that aired as a feature film in some countries. In 1979 Disney released their version of Star Wars with The Black Hole.

1980 saw the released of The Empire Strikes Back along with movies like Flash Gordon which, ironically, the source material from was influential to the creation of Star Wars while equally Star Wars was influential to the creation of the film version of Flash Gordon, as well as Battle Beyond the Stars which was Roger Corman’s low-budget version of Star Wars.

In 1981 there was Outland that was basically Alien minus the monster set on a mining colony and Galaxy of Terror that was Corman’s low-budget version of Alien.

Much like with Outland, Blade Runner from 1982 was essentially Alien minus the monster but set in a dystopian Los Angeles while The Thing also from that year was Alien only not on a futuristic spaceship but instead an Antarctic research station present day. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was more Star Wars than classic Star Trek in many regards with gigantic spaceships zapping each other while Disney’s Tron that year also owed a lot to Star Wars as well.

I think what changed things that year was the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial that was a huge box office hit in 1982. That movie broke the mold as it was a sci-fi flick set present day about a nice alien visiting nice people on the sometimes not-so-nice Earth and, other than special effects wizardry, didn’t owe a thing to either Star Wars or Alien.

After 1982 there would be a much more diverse group of sci-fi movies like Terminator, Dune and Enemy Mine to be released. While there were still movies like The Last Starfighter that were essentially versions of Star Wars and Creature that was essentially a clone of Alien, for the most part filmmakers were done with trying to make new versions of Alien and Star Wars.

For a while, at least.

The one major sci-fi movie from the late 1970s that doesn’t fit the “clone” mold was Star Trek: The Motion Picture from 1979. While that film relies on the special effects revolution created with Star Wars, in no way shape or form did Star Trek: The Motion Picture want to be Star Wars. I think that’s because Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was helming this first feature film version of the TV series and seemed to be an individual with a strong sense of how he wanted Star Trek: The Motion Picture to be. While I think he was fine with utilizing the special effects wizards that came out of Star Wars, at the same time he wanted his Star Trek to be something entirely different that Star Wars. Which, for better or worse it is.

TV

True Detective season 3 commercial

Comics

William Gibson’s Alien 3

Dark Horse Comics is releasing an adaptation of William Gibson’s script to Alien 3 in comic form starting this week. Gibson’s version would’ve been more of a direct sequel to Aliens than the theatrical Alien 3 was and would’ve featured both Hicks and Newt as well as Ripley and is considered by many to be one of the great unmade films of all-time.

After the deadly events of the film Aliens, the spaceship Sulaco carrying the sleeping bodies of Ripley, Hicks, Newt, and Bishop is intercepted by the Union of Progressive Peoples. What the UPP forces don’t expect is another deadly passenger that is about to unleash chaos between two governmental titans intent on developing the ultimate Cold War weapon of mass destruction.

What To Watch This Week

Out this Friday are two new films in theaters. First up is the fifth film to bring anti-social anti-hero Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) to the big-screen The Girl in the Spider’s Web whileOverlord features American paratroopers battling it out with Nazi zombies during World War 2 in a horror/action flick.

The Reading & Watch List

• Onboard Footage Of Last Month’s Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure
• ‘Deutschland 83’ Was a Hit Abroad but a Flop at Home. What About ‘Deutschland 86’?
• Stunted: How Hollywood’s Content Boom Is Leading to More Stuntperson Injuries and Deaths

Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week