Older Scifi Shows...

[Christopher]

The first time I saw Angry Red Planet was when I realized that the science fiction films of the 1970s were the first to consistently have orchestral scores. For most science fiction before that, the pop music of the day often served as inspiration, and four-piece house bands the execution of science fiction music. There are exceptions, of course, but not many.

No, that's hardly true -- I don't know why you'd believe that. There were plenty of SF movies with orchestral scores in earlier decades. The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, pretty much any Ray Harryhausen movie, Fantastic Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, even most of the low-budget films of Roger Corman or Bert I. Gordon. The exceptions were the films that didn't have original orchestral scores, like Forbidden Planet with its "electronic tonalities" or 2001 with its reliance on stock music. There were a number of great composers doing orchestral scores for genre movies back then, like Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa. As well as composers who did orchestral scores for lots of B movies, like Herman Stein, Hans J. Salter, and Albert Glasser. Yes, there were some movies that had jazz scores or pop scores later on, but there were many traditional orchestral scores alongside them, even if the orchestras were sometimes fairly small. (Which wasn't a bad thing. Herrmann's classic Psycho score was done entirely with strings.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

I saw 2001 when I was about 11. It was a couple years after it's release, at the theater on the Air Force base where my family lived at the time. I was blown away. It was a few more years before I read the book.

 

[Christopher]

I read the book of 2001 multiple times long before I ever saw the film, which makes for a rather different experience, because Arthur C. Clarke explained everything that Kubrick made a point of leaving unexplained. Really, if I hadn't read the book first, I don't think I would've had any idea what was going on in the movie, or any patience for it.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I read the book of 2001 multiple times long before I ever saw the film, which makes for a rather different experience, because Arthur C. Clarke explained everything that Kubrick made a point of leaving unexplained. Really, if I hadn't read the book first, I don't think I would've had any idea what was going on in the movie, or any patience for it.

For an 11 year old, I must have been very patience

 

[Greg Cox]

No, that's hardly true -- I don't know why you'd believe that. There were plenty of SF movies with orchestral scores in earlier decades. The Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, pretty much any Ray Harryhausen movie, Fantastic Voyage, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels, even most of the low-budget films of Roger Corman or Bert I. Gordon. The exceptions were the films that didn't have original orchestral scores, like Forbidden Planet with its "electronic tonalities" or 2001 with its reliance on stock music. There were a number of great composers doing orchestral scores for genre movies back then, like Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa. As well as composers who did orchestral scores for lots of B movies, like Herman Stein, Hans J. Salter, and Albert Glasser. Yes, there were some movies that had jazz scores or pop scores later on, but there were many traditional orchestral scores alongside them, even if the orchestras were sometimes fairly small. (Which wasn't a bad thing. Herrmann's classic Psycho score was done entirely with strings.)

Indeed. Some of my favorite old movie scores are from vintage genre movies: The Time Machine, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, The Power, etc. And let's not forget Max Steiner's score for the original KING KONG and Franz Waxman's score for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN back in the thirties.

Heck, Herrman alone wrote brilliant scores for Journey to the Center of the Earth, Fahrenheit 451, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Gulliver's Travels, The Day the Earth Stood Still, etc. (I listen to my collection of Hermann soundtracks all the time. Great writing music.)

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Just keep telling yourself, "It was directed by Stanley Kubrick. It was directed by Stanley Kubrick. "

2001 is, without a doubt, my favorite movie of all time, but I honestly have no idea WHY. I literally do not know why I love this movie so much.

I have never seen any other movies directed by Kubrick, and I'm not normally into "art films" (I'm mostly a pew-pew-pew action-flick kind of fan), but 2001 captured my imagination in a way that no other movie ever has, or probably ever will. And I have absolutely no explanation for this.

That said, I also like 2010 very much, and consider it a worthy sequel. I've heard talk that Tom Hanks is working on a film version of 3001 - I didn't care much for the novel but I admit I'm curious to see what he could do with it.

 

[Christopher]

And let's not forget Max Steiner's score for the original KING KONG and Franz Waxman's score for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN back in the thirties.

Indeed, King Kong was the first non-silent feature film in American history to even have a full original score, because before then the technology didn't exist to mix more than one audio track together on film. (Earlier films could only have music in the title sequences, or if it was played live on set during filming. That's why Frankenstein doesn't have incidental music but Bride of Frankenstein does.)

Waxman's BoF score got a lot of reuse, particularly in movie serials such as Flash Gordon. I actually became familiar with it in serials before I heard it in BoF.

 

[Nerys Myk]

2001 is, without a doubt, my favorite movie of all time, but I honestly have no idea WHY.

I have never seen any other movies directed by Kubrick, and I'm not normally into "art films" (I'm mostly a pew-pew-pew action-flick kind of fan), but 2001 captured my imagination in a way that no other movie ever has, or probably ever will. And I have absolutely no explanation for this.

That said, I also like 2010 very much, and consider it a worthy sequel.

I'd suggest A Clockwork Orange, but I'm pretty sure it's not your thing.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'd suggest A Clockwork Orange, but I'm pretty sure it's not your thing.

Based on what I've read about that movie...you're probably right.

 

[Greg Cox]

When I think about it, seems like I sort things into roughly three categories in my head. There's the vintage stuff made before I was born, which I probably caught on the Late Late Movie on TV: silent films, the original Universal monsters, the Marx Bros., Casablanca, Singin' in the Rain, and so on. There's the stuff I grew up on back in the sixties and early seventies: Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Planet of the Apes, Jame Bond, Hammer Films, and such, going up to Logan's Run, probably. Then the whole Lucas/Spielberg era kicked off in the late seventies, launching the "modern" era of genre movies, which roughly coincides with me graduating from high school and moving away to college.

So, basically, everything after LOGAN'S RUN is "new" . . . as strange as that may sound.

 

[The Wormhole]

Really, if I hadn't read the book first, I don't think I would've had any idea what was going on in the movie, or any patience for it.

As someone who has seen the movie but not read the book, I find this assessment is accurate to how I feel.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Indeed. Some of my favorite old movie scores are from vintage genre movies: The Time Machine, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, The Power, etc. And let's not forget Max Steiner's score for the original KING KONG and Franz Waxman's score for BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN back in the thirties.

Heck, Herrman alone wrote brilliant scores for Journey to the Center of the Earth, Fahrenheit 451, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Gulliver's Travels, The Day the Earth Stood Still, etc. (I listen to my collection of Hermann soundtracks all the time. Great writing music.)

Let us not forget Hermann's brilliant score for Jason and the Argonauts, or Laurie Johnson's potent work for 1964's First Men in the Moon, and Ernest Golds' for 1959's On the Beach. Always listenable.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I saw 2010 in the theatre, a decade before I saw 2001 on videotape.

My most extreme reaction was "Holy shit! It's Reggie Perrin!!!"

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Whenever I see a movie after I read the book I can't stop myself from getting annoyed by the changes. Except for Lord of the Rings.

I watch the Sophie's Choice movie and it drives me nuts that they changed a vague, low probability but nonzero chance that Jan was alive somewhere but raised as a German into a certainty that he was dead. Then French Lieutenant's Woman seems to completely miss the entire point of the multiple endings. But I digress.

If we're talking about older scifi shows and not movies cheapness becomes a bit too transparent. Older movies frankly did a better job when the weirdnes was being reacted to offscreen.

 

[Christopher]

Whenever I see a movie after I read the book I can't stop myself from getting annoyed by the changes.

If nothing were changed, there'd be no point in doing a new version. If you want something exactly like the book, that's what the book is for. The purpose of an adaptation is not just to redundantly duplicate the original, but to use the original as a starting point to build on and transform into a new creative work, a work that's intended to homage and supplement the original rather than replace it or compete against it. Of course, some of those transformations will be more successful than others, but the failure of some doesn't mean the entire practice is wrong. Some of the best novel-based movies ever made are profoundly changed from the source, like Blade Runner and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Of course, this doesn't quite apply to 2001, because that wasn't a movie based on a pre-existing novel, it was a movie and novel developed simultaneously and in close collaboration, both equally "based on" each other (although both were loosely based on an earlier Clarke short story).

EDIT: Although on second thought, there is some relevance there, because even though both versions of 2001 were developed in joint collaboration, Clarke and Kubrick still took them both in very different directions. Kubrick simplified the story to put the monolith at Jupiter, but Clarke's novel kept the original plan of having the Discovery slingshot past Jupiter to reach Saturn. And Kubrick's approach to the material played up the mystery and avoided explanations, while Clarke's approach was far more straightforward and explained everything. They were based on each other, but were consciously made highly different from each other, because it would've been redundant to make them the same.

 

[Jayson1]

One of the things I like about old films is they capture a moment in time. Like with music if you watched it as a kid they can make you feel young again. When I watch TNG I sort of feel like I did in 1994. Jason

 

[valkyrie013]

Well.. the "Classic Car" definition is 25 years old or older.. so.. today that would mean October 22, 1994 or before
Well now adays I do watch 2001 ocasionally, I skip the first part to the Spining wheel, then stop at the light show.. Now 2010! Thats a good movie that I rewatch often. But I have a thing for old sci fi, one of my most favorite movie is When Worlds Collide! made in 1953? or so.. (was a pain to find it on dvd while ago) Now the movie, The 27th Day.. That was one movie I couldn't find Anywhere!! but I first watched it on Cinimax or something like 10 years ago.. huh..

Well think that people joining the military right now were born After 9-11.. These people don't remember a time before the internet, most before Smart Phones, even Dial up internet..

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Let me elaborate some. If they COMPLETELY change the book and do their own thing along the same premise, it’s fine. Like with Minority Report.

The time it bothers me is when they make the movie just like the book, but make subtle changes that change the whole message. So it’s like you’re claiming your movie is just the movie of the book but you drastically dumbed down or inoffensified what it was trying to say.

Like, I don’t think I can ever see Breakfast at Tiffany’s after George Costanza’s book group informed me they made a gay character the love interest.

 

[Greg Cox]

Let us not forget Hermann's brilliant score for Jason and the Argonauts, or Laurie Johnson's potent work for 1964's First Men in the Moon, and Ernest Golds' for 1959's On the Beach. Always listenable.

Laurie Johnson's score for DR. STRANGELOVE is also memorable.

I have a "Best of Laurie Johnson" album that's another of my writing-music staples.

 

[Christopher]

The time it bothers me is when they make the movie just like the book, but make subtle changes that change the whole message. So it’s like you’re claiming your movie is just the movie of the book but you drastically dumbed down or inoffensified what it was trying to say.

On the other hand, there are adaptations that were mostly true to the books but left out their weaker parts and are generally considered improvements, like The Godfather and Jaws. Like I said, it's not about the category, it's about the individual cases. There are always going to be some attempts that work and others that fail, and it makes no sense to blame the failures on the entire category.