[OS X TeX] Kudos to everyone -- more OT SF

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 27.02.2006 um 16:17 schrieb Gerben Wierda:

> "Solaris" (both the Tarkovsky and the Clooney versions, parts of  
> the Tarkovsky
> version were shot in Japan and displayed in mirror image because  
> there was
> not enough traffic in the Soviet Union :-),

These Japanese sequences with traffic on many levels (stories) made  
me think the movie could really come from the future! And instantly  
(by instinct?) I was so sure this could only be Japan (because of the  
compact cars?).

The author of the novel is Stanisław Lem from Poland, who might have  
invented virtual reality or avatars, too. Weren't the ideas to  
"Who?" (The Man with the Steel Mask) or the "Six Million Dollar Man"  
by him, too? He asked the question when a human being ends and a  
cyborg starts. He had the idea to warn before an atomic war and the  
Defa-Studios made „Der schweigende Stern” (First Spaceship on  
Venus, Silent Star, Spaceship Venus Does Not Reply) by Kurt Maetzig.  
The "star ship" which takes an international crew a few km to Venus  
is named "Cosmocrator!"

Some special effects of 2001 are by Douglas Trumbull. Later he could  
make "Silent Running" -- and more: "Brainstorm." Have you ever seen a  
recumbent in a movie? Christopher Walken is riding one: the "Avatar"  
by Prof. Chester Kyle. (Trumbull, too, is responsible for some  
special effects in Andromeda, Close Encounters, Blade Runner, or Star  
Trek: The Motion Picture. And for "The Towering Inferno!")


What about Robert Wise's "The Andromeda Strain?" (He also did "The  
Day the Earth Stood Still" with Klaatu and Gort, or "Star Trek: The  
Motion Picture")

Anybody seen at least once Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me  
Deadly" (Rattennest)? Mike Hammer, a private detective with an  
automatic answering machine! Albert Dekker (do you remember him in  
"Old Lace And Arsenic," in 'King Kong' Ernest B. Schoedsack's "Seven  
Sinners" with Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne, or as "Dr.  
Cyclops" [The Microcosmic God, maybe]) is a mad scientist with bald  
head who searches for a real hot box with after a hand's breadth lead  
some Americium, or such. Mickey Spillane wrote the pulp novel. He or  
Aldrich seem to love very special women ...

Karel Zeman made wonderful mixed-media movies, mostly after novels by  
Jules Verne ("The Stolen Airship," "On the Comet," "A Deadly  
Invention," and an original work: "Journey to the Beginning of Time").

Ray Bradbury not only wrote "Fahrenheit 451" which François Truffaut  
screened. A few of his short stories were filmed under the title of  
"The Illustrated Man" with Claire Bloom, as the illustrator, and Rod  
Steiger, her book.

Great that someone remembered where the Krell once lived ... but who  
has seen the model for Alien? Mario Bava made "Terrore nello spazio"  
or "Planet of the Vampires" (1965). With a Brazilian beauty queen and  
Barry Sullivan as members of the crew on space ship Galliot. As  
uniforms they wear Latex ...

Videodrome? eXistenZ? (both David Cronenberg)

Then there is "The Thirteenth Floor" after the novel "Simulacron-3"  
by Daniel Galouye. Rainer Werner Fassbinder first screened it as  
"Welt am Draht" (World on a Wire). He played the role of the cop  
Jansen in "Kamikaze 1989" (Kamikaze 89) after a novel by Per Wahlöö  
(the other half is Maj Sjöwall). Here the 31. floor is the important  
one.

Who has seen "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th  
Dimension" from 1984?!

Or "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"


> "Stalker"

Another SF film by Andrei Tarkovsky after a novel of the brothers  
Strugatsky, who describe the debris that is left from a picnic some  
extraterrestrials held beside the road.


And then there is Jindrich Polák's "Ikarie XB 1" (Voyage to the End  
of the Universe) that inspired Stanley Kubrick to make 2001 ...  
Author: Stanisław Lem.

And it also gave some ideas to a great, great German TV series from  
the mid-60's with incomparable music: "Raumpatrouille -- Raumschiff  
Orion" (Space Patrol).

--
Greetings

   Pete

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and  
I'm not
sure about the former" - Albert Einstein


------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/