INTRODUCTION

What is this thing?

At the beginning of 2009, I decided that I might as well watch the many classic science fiction movies that I’d never seen yet. After a little thinking, this evolved into a plan to watch at least on sci-fi flick from every year between 1950 and the present. I also thought it would be fun to watch the movies (as much as possible) in chronological order to get an idea of how things have changed over the past sixty years.

I’m starting with 1950 partly because it’s a nice round number, and partly because the fifties were the first decade when the movie industry really started churning out sci-fi flicks with any regularity. There are obviously some great sci-fi movies from years long before 1950 -- TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA in 1916, THE LOST WORLD in 1925, METROPOLIS in 1927, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN in 1935, MODERN TIMES in 1936, and so on. But after doing some research, it didn’t seem likely that I’d be able to find enough promising sci-fi movies that were readily available if I started any earlier than the fifties.

In reality, I’m often watching more than one movie for each year since there are often quite a few that sound interesting that I haven’t seen yet. There are also several well-established classics that I feel like I ought to watch again, since I haven’t seen many of them in ten years or so. But I am trying to pick some less well-known ones for the movies I write about. I’ve been pleased and a little surprised to see how many good sci-fi flicks there are that I’d never really heard much about before.

I’m not claiming that the movies I plan to write about are long lost secrets that nobody else knows about. Anything that’s available on DVD has some degree of notoriety, after all. But in picking a movie from 1958, for instance, it didn’t seem terribly interesting to write the thousandth article about THE FLY or THE BLOB or ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN -- all of them classics either outright or of the cult variety. So wherever possible, I’ve tried to dig a little deeper and find some lesser known movies that sound promising as well. Of course, by not sticking to the established classics I’ll likely come across a good many duds that aren’t really worth watching at all. But I’m expecting the pleasant surprises will more than outweigh the disappointments.

Having said all that, there are some years where I had trouble finding anything that sounded good but wasn’t already a classic of some sort. But it’s my hope that some other people will have seen some of the movies I write about and share their own opinions, so it’s not so bad to stay on the main roads at least part of the time.

So why science fiction?

For the most part, the qualities that make a good movie are the same in practically any genre. So, in that sense, choosing to watch only science fiction movies is arbitrary. I want to see some good movies, and the fact that these will be sci-fi movies is more or less incidental. But be that as it may, there is undeniably something unique about science fiction that accounts for at least part of its attraction for fans (just as there is something unique about any other genre).

The promise of science fiction is very often the promise of seeing something astounding, or weird, or mysterious, or frightening. Something, in short, beyond the realm of usual experience. This extraordinariness can be manifested in countless ways -- I won’t even attempt to list them here. But sci-fi might show us a sober view of where we are headed, or a satirical one of what we are now, or a brain-bending one of what we could become, or a fantastic one of worlds that will never exist. So, to that end, I do believe there is a different yardstick on which sci-fi often partly is (and frankly should be) judged. In other words, every great movie -- sci-fi or otherwise -- should constantly keep me wondering what will happen next. But a great sci-fi movie should also move me in some extraordinary way, and hopefully show me something new that I’ve never seen before. Or, at the very least, a new way of looking at something familiar.

In terms of what exactly “counts” as a sci-fi movie, I tend to be pretty lenient. In my mind there is a lot of overlap between science fiction, horror, and fantasy -- one genre often bleeds almost seamlessly into the next, and many movies either fall into more than one genre or don’t fit neatly in any. Therefore, I don’t intend to spend much time worrying about what is exactly science fiction and what isn’t. I usually know it when I see it, but if I do end up straying once or twice beyond the usual bounds of the genre -- well, so much the better. I believe that science fiction as a genre works best when it is a big tent that allows for many different styles and topics, rather than when it is narrowly and rigidly defined based on largely technical criteria.

But, Matt, aren’t most science fiction movies pretty bad?

There’s a famous axiom attributed to sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon that ninety percent of anything is crud. That was his way of refuting charges that the quality of science fiction is usually inferior to other kinds of stories. For the most part, I think what Sturgeon says is right. But there is no doubt that there are also special circumstances surrounding science fiction that has sometimes made it more susceptible to low-quality product than many other genres.

For one thing, there have been times when sci-fi stories were thought to be exclusively children’s stories. And often even today, sci-fi is called “escapist” in a way that’s not meant to be flattering. There are also certain factions of fans and creators within the genre who have very clear ideas of what they personally think qualifies (or, more often than not, doesn’t qualify) as “real” science fiction. For evidence of this, you need only check the letter columns of any sci-fi magazine to find angry letters from readers annoyed that such-and-such a story was printed in a science fiction magazine even though it didn’t match what they think science fiction ought to be.

So, yes, there is a lot of bad science fiction. Some of it’s created cynically by people who think that those who are interested in sci-fi don’t care about (or can’t judge) quality. Some of it’s the result of writers complying with arbitrary constraints that have nothing to do with telling a good story (and often get in the way of it). And some of it’s simply the ninety percent of crud that Sturgeon was talking about. Over time, that crud usually gets lost and forgotten -- but sci-fi again is a bit unusual in this respect as well. Midnight movie showcases like MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 and theaters that show cult movies have kept alive an interest in “bad” sci-fi movies -- often old movies made on low budgets and often touted as “so bad it’s good”. And now that the DVD format has made it cheaper than ever to bring movies into homes, there are whole companies devoted to issuing these kinds of movies.

I’m not really much for the “so bad it’s good” philosophy, but I do find that I have a pretty high tolerance for what we might call B-movie or low budget defects. I can’t say that I delight in bad acting or silly props or embarrassing dialogue or nonsensical science, but I’m more than willing to look beyond them if there’s something really imaginative or unique going on at the core of the movie. Whenever possible, I prefer my sci-fi movies to be entirely good. But if they deliver where it counts, then I can turn a blind eye to the defects that come from small budgets, tight timetables, or non-professional crews. Having said that, there is a big difference between cheap special effects that are creatively deployed, and those that are dull and derivative. The same is true of implausible scripts, actors with limited ranges, recycled sets, and so on. I also ought to mention that I feel the same way about the low budget basements of practically every genre -- I have just as big a soft spot for the cheap western, the cheap horror flick, the cheap noir, or the cheap war movie that delivers the goods despite its shortcomings.

In any event, I know not everybody has the same tolerance for these B-movie defects as I do. So where movies seem to fall into the generally “bad” category, I’ll do my best to be honest about that -- even if I happen to think the movie is pretty darn good for other reasons. But, likewise, if I’m recommending a movie that I admit is low quality, you can bet that there’s something pretty imaginative or interesting about it nonetheless. I’ve seen enough sci-fi flicks with no imagination and no redeeming qualities to appreciate the ones that manage to wring a sparkle of creativity from the most limiting ingredients.

Well, that’s all I have to say by way of introduction. I hope you enjoy reading about my experiment in sci-fi films! And I hope to hear what other people think about these movies too!