Strange Science-Fiction Films

The Bib-iest of Nickels

06-06-14

Question: What is one of the weirdest science-fiction movies that you recall seeing? (COME ON! ANSWER! I MADE PICTURES AND EVERYTHING.)

Science-Fiction has always been a major staple in film. Not only film either. There is just something about it that captures the childlike wonder in all of us. It pokes and prods at this curiosity that is inside all of us. There are movies that will capture the imagination, (Star Wars) and those that work to exploit our humanistic fear of the unknown. (Alien) There are films that will twist and contort everything around us, (Inception) and ones that are just fun. (Men in Black)

Some of them are also very, very bizarre.

Fantastic Planets: A French 1973 cutout stop-motion science-fiction film. Fantastic Planets tells of a place where humans are treated as pets by these mystical blue-people called Draags. Eventually, the humans begin to evolve and rebel against their masters, creating colonies and hiding from the Draags while reproducing at a rampant rate. The film is bizarre, but it also has a very creative story and a lot of inspiration can be found in the illustrations. I really like it as a film.

The Sci-Fi Slob

BANNED

06-06-14

I've seen the film about 10 times and I still don't understand what the hell is going on.

bouncingbrick

Registered User

06-06-14

I am a fan of Science Fiction novels and it's the thing that I am the snobbiest about. The majority of the films that get tagged with that label are barely sci-fi, a lot of them aren't at all. Star Wars isn't sci-fi in the true sense of the genre. I don't think Men in Black is either, though it touches on the themes for one whole scene.

Hollywood doesn't make sci-fi like I would love to see and when they take a chance with it, it usually flops or doesn't work or both; Dune and Cloud Atlas, for example.

That said, two films came to mind (I'm sure there's more if I try harder

).

Primer is a good one, but Shane Carruth's other film, Upstream Color is a way more interesting and engaging film, IMO. And it's quite strange!

The other one is Eden Log. This isn't the greatest film I've ever seen, but I love the style and the mystery and I have a weird obsession with it. I don't love it or think it's that great, but it's still fascinating to me. If you are into reading, Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear is a novel that reminds me of Eden Log but it has a more coherent story.

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Holden Pike

One Ornery Sumbitch

06-06-14

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Last edited by Holden Pike; 06-06-14 at 10:44 AM.

Deadite

Badash Mofo

06-06-14

Years ago I saw a weird indie sci-fi film about a genius teen girl inventor/chemist who hangs around her town having surreal conversations with (I think they were supposed to be) aliens/extradimensional beings/angels but they looked like homeless people... and anyway the main point of the film is she creates a drug that causes people to become blissful/peaceful/enlightened. It wasn't great but it was interesting at the time... I can't recall the title though...

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Captain Spaulding

Defending Champ

06-06-14

Originally Posted by The Sci-Fi Slob

I've seen the film about 10 times and I still don't understand what the hell is going on.

Boredom.

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Letterboxd

McConnaughay

The Bib-iest of Nickels

06-06-14

Originally Posted by Captain Spaulding

Boredom.

That's what I've heard too from friends, however, I still want to send down and watch the movie sometime.

Here's One:

In this film, a knight sets out to rescue a princess from a vicious and ferocious dragon. Most unpleasantly though, the dragon turns out to actually be an alien spacecraft.

I could probably give a better description than that, but I am choosing not to...

lynchian

Registered User

06-07-14

UPSTREAM COLOR
BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

Nausica�

Registered User

06-07-14

^ One I've seen recently, excellent film.

kkl10

Registered User

06-07-14

Sun Ra: Space is the Place

Last edited by kkl10; 06-07-14 at 08:47 PM.

Hit Girl

Msg

Registered User

06-07-14

D�nyayi Kurtaran Adam (The Turkish Star Wars) - 1982

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182060/

So horrible, you can't look away!

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Last edited by Hit Girl; 06-09-14 at 02:27 AM.

Guaporense

Animation nerd

06-09-14

Some science fiction anime get's really weird. Though the weirdest I know is a TV series, Serial Experiments Lain, which I still regard as one of the weirdest things I have watched. Very complex and hard to figure out:

Another very weird one is Texhnolyze, though at 24 episodes and 10 hours of animation is a bit of a stretch to call it a movie though I haven't watched sci-fi anime movies that are as weird as these two series (they are more cinematic, visually complex and psychologically sophisticated than western sci-fi TV so I think we can compare with movies):

Tarkovsky's sci fi films: Solaris and Stalker are also very weird, psychologically complex movies:

Weird not in the crude sense but in the sense of invoking a sense of uncanny.

Last edited by Guaporense; 06-09-14 at 02:32 AM.

Guaporense

Animation nerd

06-09-14

Originally Posted by bouncingbrick

Dune is sci-fi while Star Wars is not? Why? I think they are quite similar (the novel and the movie) in many ways, being mostly character driven stories set in a galactic civilization and the presence of (de-facto) magical powers among certain characters. Dune though at least touches in the themes of the impact of ecology on society in a desert planet and other pure sci-fi themes while Star Wars does not directly address any sci-fi themes instead it's only the sci-fi setting.

Usually we call a movie sci-fi if it has a sci-fi like setting involving technology that appears to be like magic to us.

McConnaughay

The Bib-iest of Nickels

06-09-14

Speaking of anime:

It's called FLCL. It's only six episodes, but it's absolutely surreal. Loved it.

bouncingbrick

Registered User

06-09-14

Originally Posted by Guaporense

Unless you buy the medichlorians crap, the Force is magic. The psychic powers in Dune are products of drugs. I consider the original trilogy more fantasy than science fiction. Dune is borderline, but it still fits the mold IMO. Full disclosure, I haven't seen the Dune film, I've only read the novel. Maybe the film is far more fantastical than the book...

EDIT: Also, in Star Wars, they have earth gravity everywhere, even in an asteroid. Ships/explosions make noise in space.

McConnaughay

The Bib-iest of Nickels

06-11-14

Hollow Man isn't exactly strange in the sense that there's something so absolutely bizarre about it. I mean, anybody who has seen the movie can say that it's actually not that, .. you know, we've seen invisible people before. There's a bunch of films that use the idea. I even remember reading some book in elementary school involving electric blanket where a guy turned invisible. However, Hollow Man is strange in the sense that they took amazing visual effects that looked genuinely bad-ass, a capable cast, and decided they were going to wreck it all to hell. The film started as an interesting science-fiction, but quickly became a mindless slasher film.

Oh, and ...

Hollow Man 2 feels like simple horror. The special-effects are gone, and so is Kevin Bacon.

With that being said, ... fingers crossed for a Hollow Man 3.

lynchian