And while there’s an alien threat at work in the film, it’s literally a tiny one, though no less dangerous for its size. Very much the model of the restrained sci-fi film - there’s very little eye candy on display, including the star-free cast who play the rare movie scientists who look like scientists - “ The Andromeda Strain” marks the first movie adaptation of a novel by doctor-turned-novelist-and-filmmaker Michael Crichton, the author who’d later bring us the worlds of “ Jurassic Park,” “ Congo,” “ Sphere” and “ Timeline” among others (and who’ll figure several times elsewhere on this list). Check out our list below, and let us know your own favorites in the comments section below.Ĭharlie Hunnam Opens Up About Being a Finalist to Play Anakin Skywalker in the ‘Star Wars’ Prequels And so we thought this felt like a good opportunity to run down 20 of our favorite - or in some cases, least favorite - odd ’70s sci-fi movies. One such example, Michael Crichton‘s curious western/sci-fi hybrid “ Westworld ,” hits Blu-ray for the first time this week, and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The result is one of the most distinctive and self-contained periods of sci-fi movies in the history of cinema, one where the films proved weirder, more distinctive and trippier than at almost any other time.
Storytellers, perhaps inspired by the fizzling out of the hippie counter-culture, the still-dragging-on war in Vietnam and post-Watergate disillusionment, began to look at the future in a somewhat darker, more idiosyncratic way than had been the case before, shifting focus to recurring themes of environmental disaster, utopias gone sour, and the end of all things. Somewhere between 1968’s “ 2001: A Space Odyssey” and 1977’s “ Star Wars,” something happened in the culture.