Science Fiction Films: 1970-1979
With some stragglers from the 1960s omitted by Phil Hardy in The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction (The Overlook Press, 1995). With the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, and Planet of the Apes, science fiction had suddenly become a big-budget genre. Special effects came to the fore, and Hardy laments too often drove the films, citing examples such as Earth II, Slaughterhouse-Five, Rollerball, and Logan's Run, and culminating in Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Sexploitation and escapism abounded, with a few exceptions such as A Clockwork Orange, The Big Mess, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and Stalker. Hardy considers the best films of the period to be out of sync with their time--Glen and Randa, It's Alive, Dark Star, and Blue Sunshine, to which I would add The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow, Idaho Transfer, and Prophecies of Nostradamus.
avg. score: 43 of 273 (16%)
required scores: 1, 10, 22, 31, 68
