I don’t know why this would irritate anyone; it’s a fantastic movie. It’s certainly among the best that can be classified as science fiction. My favorites:
**
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind**
Gattaca - I know some aspects are weird (e.g. business suits in space), but I really like the depiction of society, and it was well-shot and well-scripted.
2001 - It’s poetry.
The Empire Strikes Back - Best among the space opera movies, and hugely entertaining.
Terminator II - Best among the sci-fi action movies, and among the best action movies ever.
There is clearly a deep divide here that cannot be bridged. You use these words, but they don’t seem to correlate with my vision of reality. “chintzy spaceship”? I thjought it unusually elegant. The spacesuit probably could’ve been better (I’ve seen the original. I wouldn’t be caught DEAD in that suit. Or, rather, I probably would. You wouldn’t want to be in it if you had a hull breach). And I still can’t fathom what you mean by “B-Movie Production Values”, something you say twice in that paragraph. Watch a real B-movie some time, or, better yet, some of those 1930s serials that Joel and the 'bots did riff on.
The SFX in that movie was minimalist and as you said, elegant. Most of the movie relied on Michael Rennie’s own mannerisms, which seemed slightly in-human.
I have a soft spot for Outland, even though I usually can’t stand Sean Connery. The Day the Earth Stood Still always gets confused in my mind with Born Yesterday, probably because they use the same locations. The scene with Judy Holliday playing gin rummy with Klaatu would have been a classic.
This obviously is a tempest in a teapot, and you needent care about my opinion, but I just found the trailer on YouTube, and I just don’t know what else to say. The fabric space suit? The robot that’s just some dude in a rubber suit staggering around? The wooden acting? The alien with perfect American English (yes, I realize this applies to Star Trek too)? If I didn’t know better, I honestly would think it was a parody of hokey 50s movies. It’s almost as if the Onion were making movie trailers.
But I do remember it trying to be more than just some alien shlock, which is better than just not trying at all.
As I say, there’sd obviously a vast cultural gulf here. But my main objection wasn’t to your not liking the film --that’s subjective, and "De Gustibus… " and all. It was to your characterization of it as “cheap and chintzy”, which is demonstrably untrue. It was, believe it or not, a first class effort for the times. Even not “for the times”. But it doesn’t meet your standards for professionalism or believability, which is a different matter.
This movie is from 1951; it predates all the others mentioned here with the exception of Metropolis. Stuff you call cliche was invented in this movie. It is ridiculous to demean a movie that had its ideas stolen and rehashed a hundred times after.
And as for 2010; I would have enjoyed it had they not added that Soviet-USA tension nonsense. That and the “use these new worlds in peace” theme was heavy handed and not part of the novel, which ruined it for me (and I regret to say people sitting near me in the theatre as I kept muttering “this wasn’t in the book” over and over.)
Though Soviet USA relations were poor at the time this mvie was made, I felt it had no business being inserted into what should have been a nice escapism movie.
Also, the casting of Roy Scheider (RIP) didn’t feel right.
Could you spoil this one in a spoiler box? I doubt I’ll ever get around to seeing this movie, but I’m curious as to what the ending is.
I’m surprised there’s a warm reception for 12 Monkies. I liked it and seem to recall it as a consistent, logical time travel movie and how often do you see those? But I always got the impression that it was unliked.
The Day The Earth Stood Still has a great unintentionally funny scene. I can’t remember the specifics, but a doctor was talking to a soldier about how the alien was in such great shape. He says something like “he might live several hundred years… their medical knowledge is just so much more advanced than ours.” - the great part? While making this little speech the doctor is taking a cigarette out of his holder and offering one to the soldier.