Responding to some borscht
In responding to a comment on his LJ, fr_john asks, rather plaintively, Why is it that we have had precious little SF on film that isn't mindless fluff?
I suspect, fr_john, it's because you are looking at the empty part of the cup. Yes, there has been a lot of mindless fluff, but there has been a lot of good, thoughtful SF over the years, too.
Without consulting IMDB or any other resource, I'm going to list some, and as soon as I have to stop to think, I'll stop typing. So this is just what spills out without premeditation or research:
Things to Come, The Invisible Man, Pal's War of the Worlds and Time Machine and others 2001, Blade Runner, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fantastic Planet, Forbidden Planet, various Frankenstein films, the original, Japanese Gojira, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, A Clockwork Orange, Minority Report, The Fifth Element, The Truman Show, the second through fourth and sixth Star Trek films, Destination Moon...
Okay, not all of those are great movies, and for a couple of them you could argue their STFnality, but there isn't a one of them that I think you can legitimately dismiss as "mindless fluff," and it took me less than five minutes to come up with that list. I'm willing to bet that if I did a little homework I could come up with hundreds.
That said ... Why is so much filmed SF mindless fluff?
Look at my username. I mean ... duh.
I suspect, fr_john, it's because you are looking at the empty part of the cup. Yes, there has been a lot of mindless fluff, but there has been a lot of good, thoughtful SF over the years, too.
Without consulting IMDB or any other resource, I'm going to list some, and as soon as I have to stop to think, I'll stop typing. So this is just what spills out without premeditation or research:
Things to Come, The Invisible Man, Pal's War of the Worlds and Time Machine and others 2001, Blade Runner, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Fantastic Planet, Forbidden Planet, various Frankenstein films, the original, Japanese Gojira, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, A Clockwork Orange, Minority Report, The Fifth Element, The Truman Show, the second through fourth and sixth Star Trek films, Destination Moon...
Okay, not all of those are great movies, and for a couple of them you could argue their STFnality, but there isn't a one of them that I think you can legitimately dismiss as "mindless fluff," and it took me less than five minutes to come up with that list. I'm willing to bet that if I did a little homework I could come up with hundreds.
That said ... Why is so much filmed SF mindless fluff?
Look at my username. I mean ... duh.