Watch This! Space!

Jim brings another Drew on to talk about 1984’s The Last Starfighter, computer graphics in the 1980s, and video games in the movies, while Alan tries to tie in The Music Man with no success.

Derek drops in from the future (ouch!) to talk about 1981’s Time Bandits with Alan. #timebandits #timebandits1981 #timebanditsmovie #watchthis!space! #watchthisspacesf #watchisspace_sf #watchthisspace_sf_podcast #watchthis_space_sf

Alan, Jim, and Drü talk about Galaxy Express 999. Tetsuro, orphaned by Cyborgs, lives in a slum in the shadow of their megapolis. With the help of his little band of thieves, he steals a boarding pass for Galaxy Express 999.

Alan and Jim talk about Tron. Tron premiered in 1982, the same year William Gibson’s short story “Burning Chrome” and novel Neuromancer were released, more or less birthing the whole cyberpunk genre and introducing the concept of cyberspace.

Alan and Paul are joined by Jim Purcell, who can't believe that neither of them have seen Mad Max before now!

This week, Alan and Paul dive into yet another movie from 1979 as they discuss the oft-maligned Star Trek the Motion Picture. You can write to us at watchthisspacemail@gmail.com, follow us on Instagram at watchthis_space_sf, or find us on Bluesky at watchthisspace-sf

Alan and Paul look at another film from the late 70s/early 80s. This time it's The Black Hole as Paul breaks out his cereal toys and... wait, isn't that Norman Freaking Bates?!?

Alan and Paul talk about 1980's Flash Gordon. One of them loved it the other less so. Somehow it devolves into an argument about Zach Snyder's DC films (one of them hates them, the other MUCH less so), before coming back to say not everything is perfect, but there's fun to be found everywhere!

Derek Binns joins Alan and PJ from the future as the three of them talk about Rian Johnson's Looper

Alan and PJ take a look at Luc Besson's The Fifth Element.

Alan and Paul look at 2010: The Year We Make Contact. It's the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Alan and Paul are joined by Derek from Tasmania to discuss Stanley Kubrick's seminal film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Summary: Audience meets ape man. Ape man meets big black slab. Big black slab apparently teaches ape man to hit with a bone. Bone turns into spaceship. Spaceship docks to bicycle wheel while slow old music plays. Nondescript American man walks on, calls very British-sounding daughter, walks to a bunch of other nondescript people, and finally goes to a briefing where there may be evidence that this movie has a plot. Nondescript man goes with yet more nondescript people to Tycho Crater and sees another big black slab. Black slab makes nasty noise. Cut to spaceship. Much yadda yadda. AI misbehaves and three extras go bye-bye. Captain Kirk’s buddy dies…again. Last actor standing goes through acid trip and ends up in room where he watches himself get older and older until he turns into a very strange baby. The end.

Alan and Paul are joined by Jim Purcell of the Savage FinCast and Legion of Substitute Podcasters to discuss the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. One reason Planet of the Apes is significant today is that it spawned a sci-fi franchise before either Star Trek or Star Wars (despite Star Trek having premiered on television in 1966). Planet of the Apes begat four sequels (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes) and two TV series (the live-action Planet of the Apes and the animated Return to the Planet of the Apes).

Forbidden Planet was not the first sci-fi film of the 1950s, but its influence cannot be denied: Filmsite lists a number of firsts that Forbidden Planet achieved: the first film to be set entirely on a foreign planet in interstellar space, arrived at via hyperspeed travel on a flying saucer moving at more than 16 times the speed of light the first Hollywood film to have an all-electronic music score the first film in which a robot had a personality (and sense of humor), was more than just a boxy 'tin-can', and was given his own onscreen credit the first high-budget sci-fi film from MGM studios, with first-class special effects the first sci-fi film with a widescreen scope aspect ratio the film that initiated many genre ingredients for future sci-fi films (and TV shows)

Staying on the HG Wells theme, we look at Time After Time, in which Wells is the main character, and he's got a time machine! This film is Nicholas Meyer’s directing debut. Meyer had already started to make a name for himself as the writer (both novel and screenplay) of The Seven Per-Cent Solution (1978), which was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1982, Meyer became part of Star Trek “royalty” when he wrote and directed Star Trek II, the movie considered to have “saved” the Star Trek franchise.

Last week, we looked at HG Wells's reaction to Metropolis. This week we look at a movie made from one of Wells's own works, The Time Machine!

Things to Come began when H.G. Wells saw Metropolis…and hated it. Some choice bits from his review of the film: "Originality there is none. Independent thought, none…. The word Metropolis, says the advertisement in English, 'is in itself symbolic of greatness'- which only shows us how wise it is to consult a dictionary before making assertions about the meaning of words." (H. G. Wells on "Metropolis" (1927)) Harsh words! Listen in for more!

Metropolis was an attempt by Universum Film (Ufa) to stave off bankruptcy in the days of Weimar Republic Germany, Unfortunately, the film ended up bankrupting Ufa anyway. American film distributors were interested in distributing Metropolis in the US as a means of getting their hands on the import certificates that would allow the US studios to distribute films in Germany. American film distributors cut about a quarter of the film out right off the bat because they believed that American audiences wouldn’t sit through a two and a half hour film. For decades, large chunks of the film were thought lost forever, as it was cut and recut for art film houses and TV. Around 2001, a newly restored print of Metropolis, which included pretty much everything except that quarter cut out by the American distributors, was entered into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register as a significant cultural artifact of the 20th century ("without doubt famous testimony of German silent film art, a testimony that made history"). In 2008, a copy of the complete film was discovered in Argentina; however, because it was a “safety print” made when a negative started to disintegrate, there are still some sections of the film that are deemed too damaged to be restored…for now. The most complete version of the film, including the original score written for the movie, was released around 2011. Metropolis is now in the public domain thanks to its age. Hitler loved Metropolis, and it convinced him to send Goebbels to recruit Lang for the Ministry of Propaganda–and Lang left for America.

In which we learn all Alan and Paul's secrets.

You may be wondering why we’re talking about Nosferatu on a podcast about science fiction films. I added this movie to our list for a couple of reasons: As with its German Expressionist “siblings,” The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis, Nosferatu has influenced subsequent horror and science fiction films, including “the post-apocalyptic scavengers in I Am Legend, the ravaging blood-suckers in Guillermo del Toro's Blade 2 and TV series The Strain, the Pale Man in del Toro's Pan’s Labyrinth, and the gliding, grinning Gentlemen in ‘Hush,’ the spookiest episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Nosferatu: The monster who still terrifies, 100 years on). The list of characters influenced by the design of Count Orlok also includes Petyr from the film What We Do in the Shadows, Baron Afanas from the TV show of the same name, Kurt Barlow from the 1979 version of Salem’s Lot—and who can forget the Vorvon from the old Buck Rogers TV series? But it isn’t just Nosferatu’s influence on later cinema that prompted me to suggest it. Stories of vampires, like all folklore, were an attempt by people to make sense of phenomena they didn’t understand—almost an allegory, in fact, like Star Trek’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” (among so many others).