Time After Time

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 12 of 12

Time After Time, 1979. H.G. Wells chases Jack the Ripper to 1979. Written & directed by Nicholas Meyer. Story by Steve Hayes, based on a novel by Karl Alexander. Starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner & Mary Steenburgen.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Very good design, bad effects.
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). If only it had been the chess game that the movie's own recurring metaphor wants to believe it is. In the few parts where it lets itself be the suspenseful thriller it should be, it's quite good. But for the most part, it's an implausible, tedious love story. Hard to believe this was written by the same guy behind the best Star Trek movies.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.5/4 (Okay)

And that's the end of another Very Slow Marathon. But did we win the marathon? That is what everyone wants to know, right? Well, the movies were, on average, pretty damn mediocre. Subjective ratings: 5.4/10; Objective ratings: 2.2/4. It's ever so slightly on the positive side of the scale, though, so yes. We win. But it was close.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 11 of 12

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978. Plants from space are replacing people. Directed by Philip Kaufman. Written by W.D. Richter, based on a novel by Jack Finney. Starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright & Leonard Nimoy.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent). And now... we will run away for 45 minutes.
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Great effects, bad design.
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). I guess they couldn't think of an ending (even though the ending is one of the few great things about the book); instead it just turns into a zombie movie. Still good, though. Plenty scary, with an entertaining cast.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.6/4 (Good)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 10 of 12

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977. Space aliens visit Earth. Written & directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr & Melinda Dillon.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). The last half hour or so is great, as are a number of other scenes throughout the movie. But I couldn't care less about Richard Dreyfuss or his mashed potatoes.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.9/4 (Good)

Logan's Run

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 9 of 12

Logan's Run, 1976. Two people escape from a city where no one's allowed to live past 29. Directed by Michael Anderson. Written by David Zelag Goodman, based on a novel by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson. Starring Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan & Peter Ustinov.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). It's pretty good for the most part, but falls apart right at the end.
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent). Good design, bad effects.
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). It doesn't meet its potential, but it's still perfectly good. Ustinov's character is fun.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.4/4 (Okay)

The Stepford Wives

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 8 of 12

The Stepford Wives, 1975. A town's housewives happily do nothing but housework. Directed by Bryan Forbes. Written by William Goldman, based on a novel by Ira Levin. Starring Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss & Peter Masterson.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good). Great toward the end. Bad in the first half.
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Surprisingly suspenseful (especially surprising since the mere fact that this is in a science fiction marathon spoils the plot) and intelligent.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.6/4 (Good)

Fantastic Planet

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 7 of 12

La planète sauvage, 1973. Humans are an invasive species on a planet of giants. Directed by René Laloux. Written by Roland Topor & Laloux, based on a novel by Stefan Wul. Starring Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin & Jean Valmont.

Concept: 4/4 (Great)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Some excellent design, but I expected a lot more.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad). Acting from the voices is fine. Acting from the animators is nonexistent.
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). For the most part it's interesting but not engaging. The ending is awful enough to cancel out the rest of the movie's value.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.0/4 (Indifferent)

Westworld

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 6 of 12

Westworld, 1973. At an Old West-themed resort, robot cowboys have real guns, and nothing could possibly go wrong. Written & directed by Michael Crichton. Starring Richard Benjamin, James Brolin & Yul Brynner.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). It's a crappy movie, but it's the kind of crappy movie that's fun to watch.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.0/4 (Indifferent)

Soylent Green

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 5 of 12

Soylent Green, 1973. A murder investigation leads to uncovering a conspiracy. Directed by Richard Fleischer. Written by Stanley R. Greenberg, based on a novel by Harry Harrison. Starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young & Edward G. Robinson.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Serviceable entertainment. It never bothers to do anything beyond what it needs to to work. I suppose the plot might have been more interesting if you somehow didn't know the ending, but of course everyone knows it.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.1/4 (Okay)

Solaris

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 4 of 12

Solyaris, 1972. An alien ocean is a mind capable of fabricating reality from thoughts. Directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy. Written by Fridrikh Gorenshtein & Tarkovskiy, based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem. Starring Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Jüri Järvet & Anatoliy Solonitsyn.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 0/4 (Terrible)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). What's there is mostly great, with a couple glaring exceptions. However, a number of scenes that would have been expensive to shoot are conspicuously absent.
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 2/10 (Terrible, 0/4). Every now and then, the plot will inch forward, ever so slightly. When that happens, it's interesting, and seems to have potential. It happens very rarely, though.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.9/4 (Eh)

Silent Running

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 3 of 12

Silent Running, 1972. A mad ecologist tries to save Earth's last plant life... in space! Directed by Douglas Trumbull. Written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino & Steven Bochco. Starring Bruce Dern.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 0/4 (Terrible). With three writers - not including Trumbull - they still couldn't manage to come up with more than twenty minutes of material.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 0/4 (Terrible)
Cinematography: 1/4 (Bad). Mostly fine, but the (crucial) model photography is terrible.
Special effects/design: 1/4 (Bad). Ever notice how sometimes when an expert specialist is put in charge of a project, his/her area of specialization suffers? It's the "Don't worry, he's got this" effect. Or, in this case, it could be more specifically identified as the "Where's Douglas? Oh, playing with his robots again" effect.
Acting: 1/4 (Bad). It's not Dern's fault, though. There's no way to not be bad with this material.
Music: 0/4 (Terrible). What... I just... what the fuck?
Subjective Rating: 1/10 (Eew get it away, 0/4). It is shockingly awful. I was literally shocked by how awful it is. It made me angry.
Objective Rating (Average): 0.7/4 (Very bad)

THX 1138

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 2 of 12

THX 1138, 1971. A man in a far-future dystopia is arrested for not taking enough drugs. Directed by George Lucas. Written by Lucas & Walter Murch. Starring Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Don Pedro Colley & Maggie McOmie.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 1/4 (Bad). I expect the original film would get an overwhelming "great" in this category. But instead I had to watch the new version with cartoons drawn on top of everything.  Because George Lucas is a dick.
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). It's a speculative rating, really. Since the DVD just has the director's "cut," I can only guess what the original was like.  It seems very interesting, and surprisingly intense for such an eye-roll-inducing set-up.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.4/4 (Okay)

The Andromeda Strain

from my 1970s Science Fiction Marathon, part 1 of 12

The Andromeda Strain, 1971. Scientists in a secret lab fight a disease from space. Directed by Robert Wise. Written by Nelson Gidding, based on a novel by Michael Crichton. Starring Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson & Kate Reid.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad). It doesn't help that half the lines are accompanied by gestures like whirling around, or pulling off glasses.
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 1/4 (Bad)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). Wise tried valiantly to make a serious science fiction film emulating A Space Odyssey.  Any possibility at taking it seriously, though, is undermined by extreme corniness.  Combining Space Odyssey's pace with a B movie level of intelligence is a fairly disastrous recipe. Of course, luckily for me, that didn't stop Wise from using that same recipe again to make Star Trek: The Motion Picture - but that film had enough grandeur and spectacle to make it work, while Andromeda Strain is forced to fall back on its half-baked plot to hold your interest.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.0/4 (Indifferent)

VSM: 1970s Science Fiction

Mostly this list is limited movies we haven't seen (except for Logan's Run, which we saw about a decade ago, and Close Encounters, which I think I saw once but too long ago to remember), which is why obvious choices like Star Wars and Alien aren't there.

Very Slow Marathon #7 - 1970s Science Fiction
[note: You can find this from the sidebar, under "Very Slow Marathons."]

1. The Andromeda Strain, 1971
2. THX 1138, 1971
3. Silent Running, 1972
4. Solaris, 1972
5. Soylent Green, 1973
6. Westworld, 1973
7. Fantastic Planet, 1973
8. The Stepford Wives, 1975
9. Logan's Run, 1976
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977
11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1978
12. Time After Time, 1979