It occurred to me over the weekend that there are several films that fall into this category. Ones that they really poured special-effects money into, without giving much thought to whether the thing made any sense or not. Sometimes these are lamentably bad science fiction. But, dammit, they look good!
The case that sparked this line of thought was This Island Earth --the book is pretty solid SF, with some nifty ideas. The movie jettisoned almost all of that, and dumbed down even the good oparts they kept. Much of the plot makes zero sense, and the offenses against common sense are frequent and blatant. But the matte paintings of Metaluna and its doomed cities, the big-brained mutant, the delta-winged Zaygon spaceships are all beautifully done. As long as you don’t think, it’s a gorgeous film. Starship Troopers – must have Heinlein rapidly spinning in his grave. Still annoys the hell out of his fans. I’m particularly annoyed that they took na piece of hard SF by a master of the genre and filled it with the dumbest and most elementary science and common sense bloopers. But those CGI ships and aliens look DAMNED good.
The Core – good-looking pulp-type SF brought to bread-dead life.
Independence Day – nifty FX in the service of cliches
Godzilla – the American “GINO” movie. They lifted the plot, not from Gojira, but from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, But it doesn’t help. Who’s gonna buy them losing The Biggest Monster in the World in the middle of Manhattan? Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers – not as bad as the others, but the science and characterization are still pretty superficial. The real draw of this fiolm is watching Washington D.C. gettiong gleefully destroyed by the aliens, as they chop the Washington Monument in half, crash into the columns of the Supreme Court, and take out the Capitol dome.
Any others? Despite all the bad things you could say about them, I don’t think any of the Star Wars pix fit in here. Fahrenheit 451 has the usual, opposite problem – pretty decent film, bad FX.
When I saw this opening night (a move I’ll defend because who expects someone to screw up a Godzilla movie; you’d have to be a phenomenally incompetent directory to botch it up) we were shocked at how sloppy the film looked. When the obviously rubber stamped Godzookis appeared we cracked up from the shock of seeing something that shoddy in a big budget special effects showcase.
The Chronicles of Riddick - the plot is derivative and the characters are cardboard cut-outs. There is potential for depth in the fantasy world but it is never really explored. etc.
But damn if I don’t love watching this film. The art work is compelling and the whole feel of the film is engulfing. Some of the acting ain’t so bad either. I can’t help but like it.
The Black Hole, a Disney cartoon, uh, I mean movie. Very stylish visuals, actually.
And, you probably never saw this gem from 1974, but another one is “Dark Star.” It has the opposite sweep of Black Hole to me, but the “cramped” and “future sleaze” look are great. The whole mission was kinda brain-dead, but hey! it has this planet-buster bomb which starts getting existential on them…what’s not to like?
Jurassic Park was acutely stupid in just about all respects. Those were some kind of dinosaurs all right, though.
Van Helsing was so dumb that it didn’t even rate a sequel. That’s pretty damning, considering it was by the same guy who did the new Mummy films. But it seemed pretty clear that the effects guys had a hoot re-envisioning the classic Universal monsters.
Judge Dredd was another film of the sort that has got to be a dream job for effects people: an unending series of bizarre freaks and sci-fi vistas to realize. Plot? Hell with you; you get none. I actually liked this movie.
The Fifth Element. A film adaptation of any given issue of Heavy Metal magazine. I have no problem with this in theory, but the magazine always takes the added step of providing constant breasts to further distract from the fundamental plotlessness. By contrast, the movie featured many scenes in which few or no breasts were visible. You don’t realize how critical the breasts are until they’re gone. Ultimately, the sad truth is that no amount of flying cars can substitute for breasts.
I think the first big warning sign was the giant cookie-cutter footprint “Zilla” left…that was featured promenantly in a big “reveal” scene.
The one that was featured promenantly in the commercials.
Not only was someone stupid enough to put it in there in the first place, but then they decided to actively draw attention to it.
That’s like having the teaser poster for a Batman movie being nothing but a closeup of a rubber nipple on the Batsuit, with “COMING THIS SUMMER” in BankGothic written underneath.
Ach…anyway, Sky Captain? Fun movie, yeah. But the thing that got me about the “lens cap” bit, (funny as it was)? That was an old, manually wound film camera, right? So…if you just popped the cap off and took another picture, you’d still have a usable picture left, right?
I nominated it as a classic that really would benefit from being remade or “reimagined”. When it was ripped upon by MST3K, they suggested that Metaluna was what Dali’s mind looked like, a comparison that’s not without merit.
I’d suggest Dune, silly plot, but nice production values on the props and costumes.
Minor nitpick, IIRC, the aliens were CGI, but the spaceships were actually models. IIRC, they made a bigass high-detail model of the Roger Young, three somewhat smaller less detailed models, one in each color we see the space cruisers in, and some smaller low-detail ones, along with models of the dropships, recovery boat, and bombers.
And yeah, that movie is so wonderfully dumb. Watching the third movie (“Marauder”), in anticipation of seeing the powered armor in action finally, but I’m somewhat disappointed in the camp-to-schlock ratio in the first 10 minutes that I’ve seen (there’s already been a musical number lead by the Sky Marshal! )
also agree with the OP about This Island Earth - oh for a remake of that! but they have to keep the best. line. ever. “I wouldn’t trust my own grnadmother in this place!”
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