# What's the most underated Sci-Fi movie? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2016, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782 "2016-03-03T02:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Tinker\_Grey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tinker_grey/32/8136_2.png) [@Tinker\_Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinker_Grey)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/81 "2016-03-06T05:25:46Z")
Equilibrium is underrated. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/82 "2016-03-06T06:19:29Z")
> [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > Very cool. > > I know that L.Q. Jones adopted that stage name because it was the name of a character he played in a Peckinpah film (Can’t remember which one). Justus E. McQueen played L.Q. Jones who was one of the Marines in the movie “Battle Cry” from the novel by Leon Uris [Battle Cry on IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047860/) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/83 "2016-03-06T06:26:54Z")
A 1997 Canadian movie called “[The Cube](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cube_%28film%29)”. Alot of people didnt but I liked it. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/84 "2016-03-06T06:38:42Z")
Another childhood memory this brings back of watching “Silent Running”. Bruce Dern was bothersome, but I remember getting all choked up at the very end, seeing the cute little robot Hewey(?) tending to the greenhouse, all by himself.☹ ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/85 "2016-03-06T16:04:32Z")
> [@CGav8r](#): > > (Snipped for brevity) > “Brazil”, the Terry Gilliam-directed film that won the LA Film Critics award for best picture the year it was released? The one written by Gilliam, Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown that was not an adaptation of “1984” in any way shape or form, other than being British and dystopian? It is incorrect to call it a “remake,” but it was perceived to be related. > [@Roger Ebert](#): > > Just as George Orwell’s 1984 is an alternate vision of the past, present and future, so “Brazil” is a variation of Orwell’s novel. The movie happens in a time and place that seem vaguely like our own, but with different graphics, hardware and politics. Society is controlled by a monolithic organization, and citizens lead a life of paranoia and control. Thought police are likely to come crashing through the ceiling and start bashing dissenters. Life is mean and grim. Though, in the end Ebert doesn’t seem to really get _Brazil_, and doesn’t like it. > [@This Ruthless World](#): > > It is a jumble of soulless concrete towers, whose inhabitants dress in 1940’s fashions, ruled over by a “Ministry of Information”, a ruthless organization that does not seem to promote any kind of ideology, other than unquestioning obedience to itself. As the name implies, the Ministry is obsessed with possessing information about everyone and everything, and employs a massive centralized bureaucracy to manage its never-ending tzunami of paperwork. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/86 "2016-03-06T16:45:11Z")
> [@Eddie The Horrible](#): > > Another childhood memory this brings back of watching “Silent Running”. > Bruce Dern was bothersome, but I remember getting all choked up at the very end, seeing the cute little robot Hewey(?) tending to the greenhouse, all by himself.☹ I liked it, too. The robots, which Trumball designed based on the ability of the legless man in _Freaks_, were an influence on Joel Hodgkin’s concept of the “robot pals” trapped on a space station in MST3K. He said another influence was the scene in _The Omega Man_ of Charlton Heston watching _Woodstock_ over and over in the empty theater and talking to the screen. Combine Heston’s movie-watching and the robots from\* Silent Running\* with some snark and you get MST3K. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/87 "2016-03-06T17:01:02Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > One? Damn – there are lots of them most people haven’t heard of. > > **It! The Terror from Beyond Space** – 1950s epic by Jerome Bixby\*. They absolutely stole the plot of _Alien_ from this film\*\*. Made on a low budget. Some of the things are hilariously outdated (The women in the crew are the ones who serve the food and coffee – but at least there _are_ female crewmembers. The ship also carries guns and grenades. And they smoke cigarettes on board), but overall it’s till a good piece of work. I watched that movie over andover as a kid on the Saturday morning SF/horror movie series, _The World Beyond_ in Phoenix. The setting and fossilized crash-landed alien crew of Mario Bava’s _Planet of the Vampire_s is also often cited as an influence on _Alien_. > [@](#): > > **Panic in Year Zero** – LA gets nuked, and Ray Milland and his family are lucky enough to be out of town at the time. They see the mushroom cloud and realize that Things Have Changed. It becomes a story about survival, with some nonobvious questions – how do you cross a line of traffic of panicked people escaping the city? --answered. This film feels to me like a Heinlkein short story, although he had nothing to do with it. Never thought about it before, but you’re right about the Heinleinian feel - Ray Milland seems a lot like the father in “Farnham’s Freehold.” There were quite a few borderline novels at the time set after a nuclear strike, and encouraging people to toughen up and do what had to be done - Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank being one that comes to mind. Heinlein got ripped off quite a bit by low-budget SF films and TV (even though he was willing to sue, and sometimes won). The Puppet Masters has to hold some kind of record for being plagiarized, everything from _The Brain Eaters_ to Star Trek to Outer Limits to\* Independence Day.\* When it was finally adapted by Disney, it didn’t have the snap it would have had if made before all the copies. I still have a fondness for it, though. Donald Sutherland was good and I always liked Julie Warner. The SF/Horror hybrid, _X- The Man with X-Ray Eyes_, also with Milland, had a very memorably creepy feel to it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/88 "2016-03-07T13:08:08Z")
> [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > I watched that movie over andover as a kid on the Saturday morning SF/horror movie series, _The World Beyond_ in Phoenix. > > The setting and fossilized crash-landed alien crew of Mario Bava’s _Planet of the Vampire_s is also often cited as an influence on _Alien_. It was. In fact, _Alien_ looks as it it was cobbled together from ideas from 1950s-1960s films. The plot and many details and the ending from _It! The Terror from Beyond Space_, the Foggy, windblown planet with crashed alien spaceship, and the Skeleton of the Dead Alien Pilot, from _Planet of Vampires_, and the Alien Creature deposited its alien babies inside the human, like an ichneumon wasp from _Night of the Blood Beast_\* \*The idea of the “Alien Monster Loose on a Spaceship” appears to have first been used by A.E. vanVogt in his first published story, _Black Destroyer_. The meme of “Alien Creature Lays its Eggs in a Living Human” seems to have first been used by van Vogt in his _second_ published story, _Discord in Scarlet_. Interestingly, both were combined into a single novel when van Vogt wrote bridging material to form these and others stories in a “fix-up” (his term) called _The Voyage of the Space Beagle_, first published in 1950 (well before _Alien_, or even _it!_) [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?8401](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?8401) So Dan O’Bannon and company could’ve gotten a couple of key ideas from one piece of literary SF. But I get the feeling that they were more cinematically influenced, and so argue that their influences wwere the above films. In any case, the films have more of Alien in them than van Vogt’s book. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/89 "2016-03-07T14:51:06Z")
Zardoz, granted it was weak in places…at times it was down-right fun. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/90 "2016-03-07T15:47:11Z")
I also liked Quiet Earth out of proportion to its general success, and I liked Until the End of the World a few years later also. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2016, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/91 "2016-03-07T23:38:02Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > Zardoz, granted it was weak in places…at times it was down-right fun. Last time I dropped acid (Dec, 23/93) I watched that, and seriously regretted it. My synapses are still awry. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/92 "2016-03-08T00:06:03Z")
“THEM!” The film had a cast oozing with talent, & the director really did some fun things with lighting & shadows. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/93 "2016-03-08T01:09:11Z")
> [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](#): > > I also liked Quiet Earth out of proportion to its general success, and I liked Until the End of the World a few years later also. Still trying to figure out the ending. I think I settled on …damn i don’t know how to make spoiler boxes. ---
**Author:** ![Nefario](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/59ef9b/32.png) [@Nefario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nefario)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/94 "2016-03-08T02:27:56Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > **Dark Star** was underappreciated, IMHO. I saw this as a midnight movie about 1980. I found it on a DVD a couple years ago and they had deleted the “Insert the navigation tape” beginning…maybe too few viewers would have understood… Plus - I’ve ridden a Greyhound through Benson, Arizona and my '67 Mustang has the same gearshift as their spaceship! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/95 "2016-03-08T02:43:02Z")
A relatively recent movie that didn’t get a lot of attention: _ **Predestination** _, with Ethan Hawke. It’s a twisty tale–and a bit gimmicky for that–but well done. I also enjoyed _ **Under the Skin** _, starring Scarlett Johansson, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Moody and weird and trippy. Unsettling, in a good way. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/96 "2016-03-08T02:51:07Z")
I’m not sure if these count as science fiction, but I really liked: Coherence - A meteor passing by the earth causes unexpected weirdness. These Final Hours - It’s the end of the world as we know it, Australian version. Related to the above, Mine Games is a horror movie very reminiscent of Coherence. So good. ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/97 "2016-03-08T03:06:24Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > A relatively recent movie that didn’t get a lot of attention: _ **Predestination** _, with Ethan Hawke. It’s a twisty tale–and a bit gimmicky for that–but well done. > > I also enjoyed _ **Under the Skin** _, starring Scarlett Johansson, but it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Moody and weird and trippy. Unsettling, in a good way. I also enjoyed both of those. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/98 "2016-03-08T10:23:40Z")
How do we all feel about _Outland_? I’ve heard the “High Noon in Space” criticisms but I rather enjoy it. I was somewhat disappointed to discover that the recent _Outlander_ series did not in fact take place in a mining colony on Io. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/99 "2016-03-08T12:39:07Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > How do we all feel about _Outland_? I’ve heard the “High Noon in Space” criticisms but I rather enjoy it. > > I was somewhat disappointed to discover that the recent _Outlander_ series did not in fact take place in a mining colony on Io. **Outland** [ is kinda fun, but seriously dumb. Seriously. It starts with the bodies exploding when they get into vacuum (doesn’t happen – Arthur C, Clarke had been on a mission to disprove it, and this film came out well over a decade after _2001_) and continues with the idiocy of Connery’s character disposing of evidence for no good reason, the space suits with lights _inside_ the helmets, and the by-now standard idiocy of guys shooting at windows in a vacuum environment. But if you really want to see a good takedown of this film, Harlan Ellison pretty much eviscerates the entire psychology and concept in a wonderful piece published in **Omni: Screen Flights, Screen Fantasies** in 1984. Sadly, it has not been reprinted ( [Title: Outland: Out of its Mind But, Sadly, Not Out of Sight](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?715169) ) “Outland: Out of its Mind, but , Sadly, Not Out Of Sight” is cathartic. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2016, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782/100 "2016-03-08T13:20:28Z")
Looking up _Outland_ on IMDB I notice that the first guy to explode (due to “spiders”) was played by John Ratzenberger. It amuses me to imagine the character as Cliff Clavin, calmly explaining why opening your suit to let imaginary spiders out is perfectly rational. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-underated-sci-fi-movie/747782.md?page=6)