Movies & Books that Changed SF

[Nacho]

How about a topic on movies and books that you think changed the face of SF .. and forced movies/books that came later to step up to a new plateau; besides Babylon 5 and the original Star Trek. And those that were ballyhoo'ed, but fell short.

1) The first to me was Alien. Heh, an alien that doesn't care one iota about human life over any other life, and wants them only to propogate their species. Plus turning it all around to make a so-far supporting female character to be the hero .. can't be all that bad. I'll always remember watching it when it first came out and the unexpected scene where alien sprouted out of that guy's chest, and laughing at my wife at that time cause she never lifted her eyes from the floor for the rest of the movie! This one set the standard for all movies to follow.

2) Movies like Spacehunter [Peter Strauss & Molly Ringwald]. Bad movies, but they're so bad that they are good, in that they are still SF, but they reject the mold that they have to be "teckie" SF to be entertaining. This kind of movie spawned a lot of similar movies, some more successful than others. Like Mad Max and Spaceballs, as apposed to Waterworld.

3) Never did give any mind to Arthur Clark's Space Odyssey movies. Very boring.

[The Puzzled Pak'Ma'Ra]

A few candidates

... The novel, "Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep", by Phillip K. Dick (one of my all-time favorites), later made into the film, "BladeRunner", must be a contender.
... The novel, and later the film, opened a whole new world of Sci-Fi - "Near Future Sci-Fi". No spaceships, no aliens, but oooohhhh so good!

... Then there's the book, "Neuromancer", by William Gibson. This was "The Matrix" over a decade before Keanu Reeves (sp?) went to war with the machines on the big screen.

... Lastly, "Foundation", by the eternal Isaac Asimov. Originally serialized for magazine publication and later put together for release as a novel, this book might take the all-time prize for setting the foundations (pun intended) for things to come.

... One man's opinion.

[David Panzer]

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- the first trilogy in 5 parts, which added large amounts of humor to Sci-Fi.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. Great books which I cannot attempt to summarize in a sentence or two.

[SpooRancher]

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy- the first trilogy in 5 parts, which added large amounts of humor to Sci-Fi.

"Stranger in a Strange Land" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. Great books which I cannot attempt to summarize in a sentence or two.

GREAT choices!

[Jan]

Definitely agreed with the Robert Heinlein books.

I'm not sure they really changed things, but perhaps they should have: John Brunner's "The Sheep Look Up", "Stand on Zanzibar" and "Shockwave Rider" are eerily prophetic in places.

Jan

[Shr'eshhhhhh]

Frankenstein, The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, Brave New World, 1984,Starship Troopers, Dune, The Martian Chronicles, 2001, Wetware. These I'd add to those already mentioned.

[Endymion]

Dan Simmons' Hyperion. Literary SciFi. Great perspective and charachters, amazing scope and very well written. There's nothing like it. If you liked Foundation you'll probably like Hyperion and it's lesser sequels.

[Nacho]

Some of yall have mentioned Robert Heinlein books. Years and years ago I was at a bookstore and looking to see if I could find a Heinlein book cause I had heard about him. Somehow I got confused on the name, and bought a book called "The Final Encyclopedia" by Gordon R. Dickson, thinking I was getting a Heinlein book.

LOL, that was the most gawd-awful boring book I've ever read! It's like 700 pages of very small type. I swear it took me 3 weeks to get thru the first chapter .. it put me to sleep so fast, and I couldn't remember anything about what I read the next day. I defy anybody to read that first chapter in 1 setting, and remember anything about it or even care about it! Actually, you have to read the whole book, and then re-read that first chapter for it to make any sense.

So, if anybody wants to some real cheap sleeping aid, and doesn't want to take drugs for it, I'd recommend finding that book.

[Jan]

So what did you think of Heinlein once you actually found the right one? And which did you find?

And speaking of Heinlein, Spider Robinson has turned in the manuscript for 'Variable Star' based on a 1955 outline RAH did. Look for it to come out in the fall of 2006 from what I've heard. Yippee!

Jan

[Nacho]

Jan,

The only Heinlein book that I know for sure I've read is "Glory Road". After the "Dickson" "accident", I didn't persue his books. I don't even remember too much about "Glory Road" now .. must be time to re-read it. I might start on it again tonight.

BTW, another bad read is "Contact" by Carl Sagan (bless his departed soul). My ex-wife bought it for me when I was in the hosptial about 10 years ago with a heart attack and nothing to do .. possibly to torture me .

What books by Heinlein would you recommend .. I can try to find them and put them back for when I get through the jms stuff.

[David Panzer]

Although I don't have them in my collection, yet... , "Dangerous Visions" a collection of Sci-Fi short stories where Harlan Ellison served as editor. Just flipping through the tables of contents, you're presented with a virtual who's who of Science Fiction, although the book originally came out almost 40 years ago.

The second book- "The Essential Ellison: A 50 year retrospective".

[Jan]

What books by Heinlein would you recommend .. I can try to find them and put them back for when I get through the jms stuff.

About the only one I didn't care for was "Job, a Comedy of Justice". I highly recommend his stories of the Howard Families (Methuselah's Children and Time Enough for Love), Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Number of the Beast, I Will Fear No Evil...that should be enough to keep you occupied for a while. Just keep in mind when they were written and how things have changed since then. For their time, some of them were *very* progressive (particularly Stranger and I Will Fear).

Hmm...while I'm waiting for my script book maybe I should pull out a Heinlein.

Jan

[Nacho]

Jan,

Thanks for the list ..

Methuselah's Children

I knew there had to be at least one more. I've read that one I'm pretty sure, but I don't have it on my bookshelves, and I keep all of my old books except ones I loan out/give away to a friend to read. And, I don't remember the story ....

[Jan]

'Methuselah's Children' is about a long-lived group of people and what they had to do when their longevity was discovered. Lazarus Long is the oldest one of them and so becomes their leader. 'Time Enough for Love' is a collection of his stories from a vantage of hundreds of years later and (I knew I forgot one!) 'To Sail Beyond the Sunset' is the story of Lazarus's mother. And at some point pretty much all of these books start to do crossovers...

Jan

[DGTWoodward]

Ooooooh, here we go...


Both versions of The Thing (the Hawks/Nyby and the John Carpenter ones).


The STAINLESS STEEL RAT books by Harry Harrison (Well, the first 4 anyway)


The Night Of The Living Dead


The Day the Earth Stood Still


Forbidden Planet


Frankenstein (1931)


And (of course) STAR WARS - or A New Hope...as we're supposed to call it now.


The DUNE boooks (Young boy on a sand planet, finds out that he has strange powers, overthrows a corrupt empire, and becomes the most important person in the galaxy....er hang on, we're back to STAR WARS, erm, aren't we?)