The Seventies had been one of essentially the most overtly political many years for science fiction filmmaking. Humor author Tom Gerencer grew up watching films similar to Logan’s Run, Silent Running, and Beneath the Planet of the Apes, all of which comprise clear political messages.
“We were watching industrialization do what it’s continued to do now, getting worse and worse and worse, and we had a lot of voices back then saying, ‘No, we have to stop this,’ and rightly so,” Gerencer says in Episode 543 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast.
Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley was impressed by the continued relevance of many ’70s science fiction films, whether or not it’s the thought of a lethal new virus in The Andromeda Strain or the risk of synthetic intelligence in Colossus: The Forbin Project. “If you look at some of the issues they’re dealing with—pandemics, AI, ecological collapse, youth culture, nuclear war—you would have to say that they did a pretty good job of honing in on some of the issues that were going to be important over the coming decades,” he says.
Unfortunately many examples of ’70s science fiction don’t maintain up right this moment as entertaining tales. TV author Andrea Kail finds films similar to Silent Running and Beneath the Planet of the Apes to be slow-paced and preachy. “I don’t think any of these really hit the sweet spot between ‘here’s a message’ and ‘here’s a good movie telling us that,’” she says. “You can make a message movie and it can be interesting. These do not do that.”
Science fiction creator Matthew Kressel loved seeing how ’70s science fiction films impressed future filmmakers, similar to Silent Running influencing Red Dwarf or Colossus: The Forbin Project influencing Wargames. “One of the coolest things was just to see how future directors came along and took pieces of these and made them their own,” he says. “You could just see how a really good director and storyteller can take any premise and make it great.”
Listen to the whole interview with Tom Gerencer, Andrea Kail, and Matthew Kressel in Episode 543 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And try some highlights from the dialogue under.
Andrea Kail on Silent Running:
There’s three writers on it. One of them is Michael Cimino, who wrote The Deer Hunter, and Deric Washburn, who wrote The Deer Hunter with him. Michael Cimino gained a number of Academy Awards for a lot of films. And then the third author is Stephen Bochco, of Hill Street Blues fame, one of the most important TV producers of the ’80s—of hit reveals. So that is the beginner outing of three of the most important writers of the ’80s, and it’s stunning how horrible it’s. Cimino gained I don’t know what number of Academy Awards, Steven Bochco dominated the ’80s tv. It’s stunning.
Tom Gerencer on The Andromeda Strain:
A pal of mine who I grew up with mentioned, “Hey, you know that movie Disclosure? The book was written by this guy Michael Crichton, who also wrote The Andromeda Strain.” And I used to be like, “Holy cow,” as a result of the 2 of us each actually beloved The Andromeda Strain. We noticed the film, and had been blown away by it. To an eight-year-old, the science was flawless, and the film was tremendous cool. The complete idea of the important thing, and having to climb up this ladder, and go to totally different ranges and attempt to get to 1 of the stations the place you can flip the important thing was fascinating. We used to behave that out on a regular basis, climbing bushes. “Duck!” This film actually made an impression on me as a child.
David Barr Kirtley on Colossus: The Forbin Project:
I actually favored at first how Forbin is so assured and guaranteed and competent, and all people seems as much as him, and he simply at all times is aware of precisely what to do. Then you simply see him unravel over the course of the film till by the top he’s simply this damaged particular person, and I believed the way in which the film portrayed that was very well carried out. … Any time Colossus was doing something, I simply thought it was so chilling. I simply had such a sense of doom by means of the entire film. I believed it actually captured the relentless, implacable nature of machine intelligence.
Matthew Kressel on cautionary tales:
I don’t know if it’s simply my private expertise—I is perhaps generalizing—however I really feel like viewers right this moment are much more discerning about stuff that they watch. I don’t assume you will get away with these sorts of hitting-you-over-the-head messages. I believe it’s important to be extra delicate along with your messages and let the viewer come to their very own conclusions about what this stuff imply. I’ve type of misplaced my religion in science fiction as a cautionary story. We’ve had half a century or extra of these cautionary tales, and we’re nonetheless heading headlong into the apocalypse. But they actually make you assume, and perhaps scare you a little bit bit, and entertain you.
