Yeah, maybe. There was a big vote and ranking of SF movies several years ago on the Rotten Tomatoes forums and John Carpenter’s The Thing came in at #1. I was thrilled to see that; love that movie!
I would say that the 2011 The Thing is WAY underrated. I thought that was great too, and loved the way it almost perfectly dovetails into the 1982 one.
Enemy Mine isn’t the most underrated, but I thought it was fun.
Some underrated films I would recommend:
THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (original) - like THE MARTIAN, real “science” science fiction - the research team has to solve a problem, using real science and scientific methods, or the world dies.
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (original) - Completely bizarre and oblique but amazing. Probably a good vision if what would actually happen if a hypertechnical alien came to our planet. Plays with a lot of genre conventions.
THE BED-SITTING ROOM -Not many have seen this. Members of Britain’s premiere comedy teams (The Goon Show, Cook & Moore) in a comedic post-apocalypse Britain where the government bombs any remaining structures to deny them to the enemy and people spontaneously mutate into bed-sitting rooms.
LOS ANGELES AD 2017 - a made-for-TV movie that was part of the early 1970s TV series THE NAME OF THE GAME but was essentially a stand-alone movie, one of the first projects directed by Spielberg. A publishing magnate falls asleep at a roadside rest stop and wakes up in an L.A. that was devastated by ecological collapse.
WESTWORLD - Just rewatched this yesterday. Tight, lean film well directed and written by Michael Crichton. Yul Brynner was able to make a robot interesting as a character, First use of computer graphics in a major movie, very influential on films like THE TERMINATOR, every stalker film with an unkillable enemy, and THE CABIN IN THE WOODS. What did Crichton have against amusement parks?
THREADS - a very realistic depiction of a nuclear attack on Britain. Amazingly depressing ending. See also THE WAR GAME by Peter Watkins for a documentary-style look at what a nuclear strike on Britain would be like.
1984 - The version with John Hurt, actually released in 1984. The best, most accurate adaptation of Orwell’s novel.
FANTASTIC PLANET - an animated French production, with a bizarre alien ecology well depicted.
PRIVILEGE - Another Peter Watkins film about media manipulation of pop culture. A young pop star is used by a near-future British government to influence the young.
VIDEODROME - Cronenberg’s view of how we let media input influence and ultimately control us.
SECONDS - John Frankenheimer’s very disturbing look at a man in a mid-life crisis who contracts with a shadowy corporation to fake his death and give him (after surgery) a new hedonistic life. The best performance Rock Hudson ever did. Will Geer is memorably creepy as the corporation head.
THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (original) A PBS adaptation of Ursula K. Leguin’s novel, low budget but an excellent cast and very memorable.
Z.P.G. - Oliver Reed in a future dystopia which restricts the birth of children as a population control measure. See also THE LAST CHILD, a made for TV movie with a young couple in a similar, China-like future who has to flee to Canada to protect their child with an implacable Ed Asner in hot pursuit.
PUNISHMENT PARK - Peter Watkins, yet again, as a documentary crew follows a group of SoCal radicals who are given the chance to flee across the Mojave desert to reach a flag while pursued by police and National Guardsmen, in order to receive parole for their crimes. I don’t share Watkins’ political stance but its still a damn impressive movie.
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS - A classic from my youth. The science is passe but the sense of wonder is still there.
ROLLERBALL (1975 original) James Caan and John Houseman are excellent in a view of how sports can be used to control and divert the population, in a world where the nation states have vanished and corporations have taken their place.
Between Hawks’ film and Carpenter’s film, there was a 1970s adaptation HORROR EXPRESS with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing that is worth seeing.
Great movie and an incredible ending.
Dredd (the 2012 movie with Karl Urban, not the Sylvester Stallone version) , was a really underrated film. Probably one of the best sci-fi/action movies in quite some time. Written by Alex Garland (Ex Machina, 28 days later, Sunshine, The Beach). Karl Urban pretty much nails the character.
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Well, I’ll be durned, I was going to post this and take my lumps, figuring it was so cheap looking that no one would think it was worthy, despite the constant tension and excellent pacing. Good for you, CalMeacham.
Here’s where I take my lumps:
Millenium – Despite the title (what was wrong with “Air Raid?”) and the cornball last few minutes, I enjoyed this. A movie where you don’t hate Cheryl Ladd is an accomplishment.
This is a great and funny movie (God bless Mrs. Ethel Stoat) but I’m not sure I’d call it science fiction, not really. But well worth seeing.
But this definitely - I was just trying to remember the name. it is real science fiction in the sense that you get plopped down into a world without lots of explanations - something very rare in movie sf.
I’ll also second Wonderful World of Jules Verne and A Boy and His Dog, which told the Ellison story unflinchingly. But I have a soft spot in my heart for that one since I was the invited sf expert when the makers (including Mr. Kimble from Green Acres, Alvy Moore.)
There was a sequel to Fantastic Planet, which is somehow even less well-known than its predecessor, despite the fact that a.) It was much more recent b.) Christopher Plummer was one of the voice actors for the American version* and c.) Isaac Asimov (!) wrote the script for the American version. The film’s name was Light Years.
*Christopher Plummer has had a hugely broad range in films. He was, of course, Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music (a movie he made fun of) and the Incan emperor Atahuallpa in The Royal Hunt of the Sun, but he appeared in a lot of sf and fantasy, too. He was Klingon General Chang in Star Trek 6 (and some videogames), he was in Twelve Monkeys, the time travel fantasy Somewhere in Time, the pre-Inception Dreamscape and was Muntz in Pixar’s Up, besides doing the voice in Light Years. Of course, he was also The Emperor in the abysmal movie Starcrash, so we have to deduct points for that.
We have a winner, folks!
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Dark Star** was John Carpenter’s first project. I thought it was wonderful, although I was only 11 at the time. Not a great movie; frankly, a camp classic, should have attained cult status IMHO.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
–Cliffy
No mention of “The Postman”. If a movie is great and everybody only says it’s good, then it is underrated. But if a movie is OK and everybody says it stinks then I’d have to say it’s more underrated.
It did achieve cult status - but I think it has lost it somewhere along the way.
Did the last sentence get cut off? It sounds like what you were about to say was interesting…
I remember the actress in A BOY AND HIS DOG being really gorgeous. I don’t think she did much else, though.
I know the dog was also one of the dogs who played the family pet in *The Brady Bunch *series.
Alvy Moore and L.Q. Jones also made an underrated horror movie, THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN.
I really enjoyed it. The optical effects were quite good, considering the minuscule budget. They had guys who later made it big like Greg Jein working on it.
Having spent some time in Benson, Arizona, the theme song has always been a favorite of mine.
I was so busy looking up Alvy’s name that I forgot to finish the sentence!
This was on a radio program on the University of Illinois commercial college station. I co-founded an sf club one of whose members worked at the station, which was why I got on. The producers were quite serious about doing well by the work. Yes, she was gorgeous (and I suppose delicious). Jason Robards was also in the film.
I must admit that talking seriously to such a great comic actor was tough.
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).
Agreed. I saw Gojira at a festival a few years ago. Still had some campy elements, and Gojira was obviously a guy in a rubber suit beating hell out of cardboard buildings and model airplanes on wires; but watching scenes of Japanese people being treated for radiation sickness, in a film that was made in 1950 (IIRC), had an impact. I’m sure it resonated even more when in came out. It was much better than I had expected.
The professors battling over [strikeout]slaves[/strikeout] grad students was excellent.
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Boris:** That’s it? One course in “The Big Picture”. 12 credits.
Dr Harry Wolper: It’s very big. 12 credits probably isn’t enough, it’s so big.
It counts.
Last week I watched the re-edited 1956 version of “Godzilla” that had Raymond Burr to explain the movie in English. It was a lot better than I remembered. Probably lots of lousy sequels. Makes me wonder about the original all Japanese version.