Wetlook World Forum

I agree. "Forbidden Planet" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still" are sci-fi classics. By today's standards, the special effects and even some of the dialog may seem a bit cheesy, but underpinning the scripts were some very interesting ideas and a pretty good representation of scientific knowledge for their day. I only saw This Island Earth once a long time ago, so I can't comment. I've read a synopsis of the story - which would put it right up there as one of the classics.

I wouldn't be so harsh about "Contact". The book was excellent sci-fi; the movie made a few disappointing departures from the book, but otherwise captured the essence of both the story and underlying ideas. The Tom Cruise version of "War of the Worlds" was a masterpiece of special effects and filmmaking technology, but I'll take the 1953 version over it any day.

By the way... Gene Roddenberry borrowed heavily from "Forbidden Planet" when he created the original "Star Trek". Kirk, Spock, and McCoy very closely parallel the 3 principal characters in FB, which itself is a re-telling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest". For that matter, a lot of Star Trek borrows from Shakespeare, either retelling/re-interpreting the stories, quoting or paraphrasing lines, or re-enacting scenes from the Bard's plays. Likewise, you can see ideas presented in a fairly original way in the classic movies which have since been borrowed, copied or co-opted into subsequent material.

I think most of today's sci-fi crap comes about from action/adventure stories being grafted onto a sci-fi setting, rather than developing an original story out of one or more interesting ideas or situations.