The 10 Most Significant Sci-Fi Films

Advance tickets for a small indie film called Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (wink, wink) went on sale this week, smashing box office records for pre-sales and crashing movie theatre websites. The Walt Disney Company release, which doesn't hit theaters until December 18th, is expected to take in $2 billion globally making it the biggest mainstream science fiction film of the decade, potentially the biggest genre film of the century. But let's not forget how the film industry got here.

Douglas Brode is a screenwriter, playwright, novelist, graphic novelist, film historian, and multi-award-winning journalist who has written nearly forty books on movies and the mass media. His latest book Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents
The 100 Greatest Science-Fiction Films is a comprehensive list ranging from today’s blockbusters to forgotten gems, with surprises for even the most informed fans and scholars. We asked Brode to list the ten most significant science fiction films that established the genre as a global industrial powerhouse. The force is strong with this one.

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'The 10 Most Significant Sci-Fi Films'
By Doug Brode

The idea of doing a book on the 100 greatest science fiction films of all time had been dancing around in my mind for decades. Thank goodness I didn’t have the opportunity write it until very recently. While growing up in the 1950s, most of the sci-fi films that I stood in line to see were low-budget affairs, sometimes high-quality (The Incredible Shrinking Man), others less so (Cat-Women of the Moon) – though even the least ambitious films were appealing to the first true generation of American teenagers who became addicted to rock ‘n’ roll music, the then-new medium of television, and anything at all to do with outer space – in large part because that's when the US-Soviet space race began in earnest. So many films of that era played strictly at local drive-In movie theatres or downtown grindhouse bijous that many people forget a simple fact: when feature-length science-fiction premiered with Metropolis in 1927, the genre represented the biggest budget films of the time.

Today, the most important films being produced internationally as well as in Hollywood are almost exclusively science-fiction related. The mainstream has fallen in love with the sort of stories that way back when, in the Dick Clark era, were thought to be marginal. But how did the transition occur? One element of my book Fantastic Planets, Forbidden Zones, and Lost Continents is the manner in which step-by-step, high budgets (often accompanied by high quality) gradually returned to this genre.

Here, in their order of their production, are ten of the most significant:

1
Forbidden Planet (1956)

If there was one Hollywood studio that seemed unlikely ever to make a sci-fi film, it was MGM. Here was the home of the greatest musicals, the biggest epics, and more stars than there were in the heavens. Leave sci-fi to the likes of Universal-International, where such B items could be knocked out for about $500,000 per production, invariably in black and white. Then, the seemingly impossible occurred – MGM turned out a $2 million sci-fi color feature with a top star (Walter Pigeon), gorgeous color photography, a sexy female star who appeared in the near-nude (to make clear this was for adults as well as kids), and an irresistible robot named Robby. Here was an early indication of the shape of things to come.

2

The Time Machine (1960)

George Pal, the second greatest fantasy-filmmaker in L.A. (only Walt Disney surpassed him as to quality and quantity), wanted to move away from what remained the run of the mill stuff by mounting a full-scale interpretation of H.G. Welles’ The Time Machine. With young rising stars Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux, a smart script that updated the classic novel for a new generation, some superb state of the art special effects for the monstrous Morlocks, and the creation of a ruined future world brought to life in vivid color, he succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dream.

UT Press at the 2015 Texas Book Festival

This weekend, the University of Texas Press and 13 of our authors will enjoy the 20th annual Texas Book Festival on the Capitol grounds in downtown Austin and environs. We'll have a booth on Colorado Street with tons of titles for sale at a great discount, so please stop by. There are a lot of wonderful authors in attendance this year, so we’ve distilled our authors' appearances into a single UT Press schedule (browse the full schedule here):

Saturday

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

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The Jemima Code

Author: Toni Tipton Martin

Moderated by Addie Broyles
Location: Central Market Cooking Tent

Come see Toni Tipton-Martin discusses recipes and stories from her book, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, a comprehensive treasure.

Where to find the author online: @thejemimacode | Website

12:30 PM - 1:15 PM

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The Best I Recall: A Memoir
Author: Gary Cartwright

Moderated by John Spong
Location: Capitol Extension Room E2.028

Esteemed writer Gary Cartwright traces his career across Texas in his memoir, The Best I Recall. After working in publishing and journalism for over 60 years, Cartwright has acquired countless by-lines and numerous awards. Join the lively and talented author as he shares his stories.

2:45 - 3:30 PM

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Eli Reed: A Long Walk Home
Author: Eli Reed
Moderated by Steven Hoelscher
Location: The Contemporary Austin--Jones Center (700 Congress)

Eli Reed: A Long Walk Home presents the first career retrospective of Reed's work. Consisting of over 250 images that span the full range of his subjects and his evolution as a photographer, the photographs are a visual summation of the human condition.

UT Press Podcast Interview with Eli Reed:

UTP on IndieBound's October Next List

Brick-and-mortar independent bookstores are on the rise in the Amazon age largely because they foster a sense of community through engaging staff, author events, and book clubs. That's why it is so exciting to have Don't Suck, Don't Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt by Kristin Hersh on the October IndieBound Next List, a roundup of the best new books based on reviews by independent booksellers.

It's our third book to appear on an IndieBound Next List. First, the hardback edition of Jan Reid’s Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards (now a $11.36 paperback on our website), made a splash in 2012. Then in 2013, Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark landed on the list alongside Amy Tan, Wally Lamb, and Ann Patchett. Now Kristin Hersh's haunting ode to a lost friend Don't Suck, Don't Die has deeply moved booksellers across the country. Hersh's new book joins Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies, Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir, and other highly anticipated titles. Browse the full list here.

To celebrate, we've gathered all the bookseller reviews together and thrown in our book trailer, Spotify playlist, and fan zine!

Bookseller Quotes

"Add Kristin Hersh’s Don't Suck, Don't Die to the list of music memoirs that have little to do with music. A book about her friendship with the talented and tragic Vic Chesnutt, the style, tone, and quality of the very personal writing allow this work to sit nicely next to Patti Smith’s Just Kids and Kim Gordon’s Girl in a Band, but the unique tenderness between Vic and Kristin ensure that the book also stands alone. The book sometimes feels like a punch in the gut, and sometimes like a good hug, but it is always affecting. For anyone who is a fan of Hersh, or anyone who loved Chesnutt, or anyone who has a best friend."

— Frank Reiss, Owner, A Cappella Books (Atlanta, GA)

"Vic Chesnutt wrote songs so brilliant and powerful that they drew the attention of the likes of Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, and Jeff Mangum. His direct, bold, and uncompromising honesty through artistry are the very things that made him a legend that never broke into mainstream popularity. In Don't Suck, Don't Die, his longtime touring partner and friend Kristen Hersh draws a portrait of an artist so clear and unflinching that only a true friend could. Hersh takes time to focus on the importance of both the tragedies and joys of Chesnutt's life and art, never dismissing the important fleeting moments in exchange for rock star spectacle. No other book about a musician reaches the level of intimacy, respect, and love for a friend as Hersh's does."

— Kevin Elliott, 57th Street Books (Chicago, IL)

"Hersh's memoir of her time spent touring with the musician Vic Chesnutt is an intimate portrayal of a unique friendship faced with the harsh realities of life on the road. Hersh addresses Chesnutt directly in this book giving the reader the feeling of eavesdropping on a conversation that is still ongoing even though Chesnutt killed himself years ago. The method clearly reveals the open wound of Hersh's heart and the beauty of her love for Chesnutt."

— Arsen Kashkashian, Boulder Book Store (Boulder, CO)

 

“This is an amazing memoir. It paints a beautiful portrait of Vic Chesnutt, his unique friendship with the author and the sorrowful broken darkness they each deal with. The language is warm, intimate and poetic. It's so gorgeous it actually hurts to read. I have not been so moved by a piece of art, any art in years. Even with the inevitable tragic ending, Hersh keeps you hanging on with her delicate and sublime prose. You know you are circling a vortex but the water is so perfect you don't care. This story aches, laughs, stuns, pulls you into it like a siren song. You will put it down with insights that seem natural but impossible. You'll want more of both Chesnutt and Hersh and all the more brokenhearted at the enormity of the loss.”

— Bosco Farr, Bookstore manager, BookPeople (Austin, TX)

Spotify Playlist