>>718787130
Good science fiction films have been few and far between. I suggest as a quality level toward which to strive, the following films:
>Charly,
>1984,
>The Shape of Things to Come,
>Wild in the Streets,
>The Conversation,
>A Boy and His Dog.
>And there are a few others. But they grow harder and harder to name. Because all the films that we thought were great, like 2001, become, in retrospect, merely exercises in special effects. There are damned few "people" stories that deal with what science fiction at its best and most valuable handles better than any other kind of story: the effects on human beings of technology, unusual happenings and the future. Discount films that make us tingle, like The Thing or Dr. Cyclops, because they are really only horror stories told with a pseudo-scientific flair. I'm talking here about stories where we care about the people, films that cast some new light on the human condition.

>Also notice, the films I select as the best are films you probably never even considered sf. Charly and The Conversation are classic examples. They weren't marketed or reviewed as sf, because they were free of overpowering special effects. They didn't look like orgies of bizarre technique, and they did very well at the box office, even with people who hate science fiction. Because they were "people" stories. They couldn't have happened without the scientific bases, but they took those technological advances—raising the I.Q. of an idiot by chemical means in one case, and electronic surveillance in the other—and dealt with them in terms of human angst.

>This important measure of worth is missing entirely from Star Wars. But before I enumerate the dangers of this classic simpleminded shootout movie, let me give you a few horror stories.