Science Fiction Video Reviews

    As a big fan of science fiction in books and video, for 40+ years now, I could not keep myself from devoting some part of my site to an overview and review of the field and its many creative productions. My first love was books, for the most part, but as the video technology evolved along with cable tv in the 70s and 80s, access to science fiction in video became easier and as a big fan, I could not get enough of it.

   In my time, in the late 70s and early 80s, tv programs such as Space:1999 and The Incredible Hulk were quite popular, and reruns of The Twilight Zone were still being aired, much to my appreciation. It wasn't until after the popularity of Buck Rogers in the 24th Century, however, that Paramount decided it was time to give Star Trek another chance. That was, for myself, in the late 80s, one of the most reasonable and intelligent decisions that anyone in Hollywood had made for quite some time.

   When Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired in 1987, it was like an answer to a dream that i had for many years and I immediately became one of its most devoted fans. I caught it every time it was on, never missed an episode, and actually sat there and taped every episode, one after the other, on my very first VCR, even pausing it during commercials, because I couldn't tolerate the damn things and knew that they would spoil the recordings, rendering their replays intolerable. 

   The continual reproduction of Star Trek serials has actually been one of my favorite forms of sci-fi entertainment on cable tv, for the past 20 years, and i have appreciated every spin-off as often as I have had the chance. But as ST:TNG was in its final season, I lost my job when the store I worked at closed, and had trouble finding another working position, so I was into hard times when Voyager and Deep Space Nine were in their first seasons, and missed much of those programs.  I did get to see most of it in reruns, eventually, but I never got the chance to record them all so well as I did with ST:TNG, so my appreciation of those serials lack the same detailed refinement as with TNG and the seasonal orderly passages are full of holes.

   As for serials such as The X-Files, Farscape, and Lexx, my appreciation for these are even more lacking, for many different reasons. During the airing time, I had no access to cable tv for long periods of time, as it was with Voyager and DS9,  and reruns were even harder to find.  Farscape and Lexx were aired on the Sci-Fi Channel only, and I lost that in 1999 after the cable tv company suddenly decided to rearrange the packages, such that the sci-fi channel was placed in a more expensive package, which I simply could not afford at the time ($30 a month).  I managed to catch the X-Files on Fox and on the Sci-Fi Channel until I lost it, it was quite good. I enjoyed Farscape very much and also Lexx for a short while before access to the  Sci-fi Channel was terminated again in 2002  by the same kind of change that occurred in 99.

  Big Screen movies, in my opinion, have for the most part not been all that great for science fiction in these past 20 years, with few exceptions. I think the problem with the big screen productions is they try too hard to blow people's minds away with sensationalism, all the while losing touch with the heart of the story, and this is no where more of a problem than with science fiction. Sci-fi movies that include wars are most guilty of this sin, because science fiction was never meant to be dominated by the war-theme, as it has been with the evolution of technological special effects. The producers of such movies know that the audience are suckers for things that go boom and all the bright colorful explosions that go with it, so they get carried away with the pyrotechnic displays. Little kids and big kids love it, but personally, I'm more interested in a really good storyline with fantastic other-worldly sites and mysterious aliens on distant planets.

   The Star Trek big screen movies were okay, but no where near as good as i hoped. I think they could have done a lot better than they did. I must admit to some disappointment there. In fact, I think some of the old classics actually were much better than most of the Star Trek movies, with the exception of the very first,  Star Trek: The Movie, which was really very good, compared to the sequels. The odd thing about the Star Trek series is that the 2-part episodes broadcast on tv were actually better than most of the big screen movies, and that says a lot about the problems with the production industry.

   Forbidden Planet, a classic from the early 60s, is, in my opinion,  actually a much better movie than most of the Star Trek movies, with the exception of the first. Sure, it may be a bit corny and lacking in realistic future tech, but for its time it really was good sci-fi and the plot and storyline are excellent. Another excellent classic is First Men on the Moon and another The Time Machine, both based on stories by
H. G. Wells.

   Frankly, I'm amazed that science fiction movies were done so well in the 50s and 60s and that they have been done so poorly in the 80s and 90s. It strikes me as odd that despite the advances in technology, the producers haven't really been able to capture the greatness of some of those early classics. As i have said, howvever, there are a few exceptions. Star Trek: The Movie was quite good actually, especially the scenes inside the huge alien monstrosity where they eventually located the early Voyager probe with its evolved intelligence.

   Other exceptions include Stargate, The Time Machine (2000), Hanger 18 (1980), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and Brazil. In the early 2000, there was also Matrix and Dark City, but there hasn't been much else aside from Aeon Flux that passes as good sci-fi on the big screen.   

Nick Zentor, 2/8/07