Eitthvað hefur hér verið kvartað yfir mikilli deyfð þessa áhugamáls, og jafnvel að það sé í dauðateygjunum. Ég fór að hugsa um hvort ég ætti efni sem ég gæti sent hér inn, og viti menn, ég fann eftirfarandi texta úr gömlu skólaverkefni. Þetta var ritgerð um kvikmyndir á ákveðnu tímabili í sögu sögu Hollywood, og skyldi vera á ensku. Vona að það fyrirgefist.

Sci-Fi films had really fallen on hard times by 1967. The genre is almost as old as filmmaking itself, but had always had a hard time gaining respect as serious filmmaking. Indeed, in the 1940's and in it's “heyday” in the 1950's, most of the innumerable Sci-Fi films made were B-grade bubblegum fare, aimed at teenage audiences. Of course there were a few exeptions, but in 1967 there had hardly been a “decent” Sci-Fi film since Forbidden Planet in 1956. But that was about to change, mostly thanks to two films.

In 1968, The Planet of the Apes came out. A high-budget production starring Charlton Heston, this film had marvellous artistic sets, costumes and revolutionary makeup, as well as a highly experimental musical score by Jerry Goldsmith. The story was exiting and thought provoking, and related nicely to the new spirit of the times, as well as contemporary news events such as NASA's space program. The film was an instant hit (much to the relief of worried studio execs at Fox!), and is today considered a classic. It is not an overstatement to say that it completely revitalized the Sci-Fi film genre.

The following year another Sci-Fi film came out, that today is widely recognized as being nothing less than a milestone in filmmaking in general. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, is of course a film that needs little introduction. Having been in preparation by Kubrick and legendary Sci-Fi guru Arthur C. Clarke since 1963, it being produced owed more to the reputation of those men than to the success of Planet of the Apes. This is a film that whole books have been written about, and arguably the greatest Sci-Fi film ever.

With those two films, studio execs found new confidence in producing Sci-Fi films. In the early 1970's quite a few high-budget films were made in this genre, films such as The Andromeda Strain, Soylent Green, Westworld and Logan's Run. Unlike 2001, many of these films are quite dated and therefore look mildy amusing today. Even so, they are memorable enough to warrant remakes currently in preparation.

Thanks to George Lucas's Star Wars, the late 1970's saw a Sci-Fi -, or more specifically, a Space-Craze. (That film, along with Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is discussed in another chapter). Notable films that rode the wave created by those films were Robert Wise's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a slow-moving monster which for a few years held the title “Most Expensive Film Ever Made”; and Ridley Scott's Alien, a timeless classic which perfectly melded Sci-Fi and Horror. And just to show the extent of the late 1970's Space-Craze, it is worth mentioning that even James Bond 007 himself went into space in Moonraker, but that's another story!

On the whole, this was a good time for Sci-Fi films. The genre has continued to thrive, and it is hard to imagine it again sinking to such lows as in the mid 1960's.


Svo er bara vonandi að þetta áhugamál hressist eins og Sci-Fi “sjanrinn” í Hollywood á þessum árum!