We don’t ask much from science fiction movies: entertaining plot lines, competent acting, huge explosions, and accurate predictions of the future. Many films fail to deliver on that final request, prognosticating about the world to come and screwing it up again and again. Many of these movies rely on the believability of their premise, but when that premise involves a prediction about the state of the world at a specific future date, they’re setting themselves up for failure when that day comes to pass without incident. Here are five films that forecasted doom and gloom that did not happen.
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Fanzine pioneer (and credited coiner of the term “sci-fi”) Forrest J. Ackerman died last week at the age of 92, so I thought it appropriate to showcase a bittersweet clip from the documentary The Sci-Fi Boys. Though I panned the film when it premiered at Tribeca a few years back (and got a lot of crap from readers as a result), I do recognize it as primarily a showcase for Ackerman’s celebration of and influence on genre filmmaking. If you’re looking for something to watch to pay tribute to the guy, this may be it.
Or, you could use this as a springboard with which to begin a marathon of Forry’s favorite sci-fi films. He lists them in this clip as being Metropolis, Things to Come, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man and The Time Machine. Also in this clip, filmed in 2003, Ackerman visits the grave of legendary sci-fi filmmaker George Pal and mentions that he’d recently almost joined the producer/director in the afterlife. Fortunately, fans got to enjoy Ackerman and his memorabilia museum home (the “Acker-mini-mansion”) for another five years. Now, though, “Forry” has gone and met up with Pal, and they’re likely having great conversations about H.G. Wells and the current state of sci-fi/fantasy.
Check out the clip of Ackerman and Sci-Fi Boys director Paul Davids after the jump.
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(Image: Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” via Pink Tentacle)
The latest news from Wall Street seems to indicate that a complete financial meltdown is only a few weeks away. Before you violently horde every morsel of food from your local supermarket or begin a hostile take-over of your corner gas station, there are several movies you should watch in order to prepare for life after the downfall of Western civilization. There have been plenty of films in which the world we know is nothing but a burned out shell of its former glory. Nuclear holocaust and virulent plagues are common Earth-clearing disasters, but there’s no reason to think that a global economic collapse would be any less destructive. Let’s not forget that one of history’s most common causes for war is a desperate grab for resources during tough times. So without further ado, seven lessons from the movies, essential for surviving our impending doom:
1. Hoard gasoline!
Plenty of people are already getting a jump on this one, apparently upping demand to the point where falling oil prices are not translating to the pump. If you think waiting 15 minutes in line to buy gas at $4.50 a gallon is bad, watch The Road Warrior again. From the opening sequence where Mel Gibson gingerly harvests every precious ounce of fuel from an abandoned vehicle to the final deadly battle over a tanker truck, it’s clear that in a post-apocalyptic world, gas is gold. Sure, we’re working on becoming less dependent on the stuff, but what good is a Chevy Volt going to do you if the power grid is in shambles?
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