Solaris

The film based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem (1961) could have been great. However, the version by Andrei Tarkovsky (1972) had a painfully slow pace for my taste, while the last version from 2002 was a bit better.
My book cover illustration (below) was published in Sci-Fi Art Now (2010)

My interview

Alien inspiration

When I first saw the film "Alien" I was thrilled. It really blew me off. However, a couple of decades later, I have found a movie that had a strong (mildly said) influence on Ridley Scott and Giger:
"Planet of the vampires". Although the acting is rather poor, the film is filled with cool visual effects, design and sound.

Art deco in vintage sci fi films

Although, heavily influenced by the prevailing art style of the respectful decades of their production, these movies are still incredible, when measured by the imagination and craftsmanship of their creators: German "Meropolis"(1927), Russian "Aelita:Queen of Mars"(1927) and British "The shape of things to come"(1936).

Other old sci fi films

These vintage sci fi movies are not on my "A" list, but in general, they were produced rather good for their time. One is a Russian "Planeta burg" from 1965, with some nice footage, cool robot (influenced by Robby the robot from Forbidden planet) and hardware designed, but also with some poor dinosaurs (people in rubber suits).
The other is "The first men in the Moon" after the novel by H.G.Wells. Some nice scenes and design, but something was missing to make this a great movie.
At last, there's also one film after the Wells's novel: "War of the worlds". In order to update it to the present time, the movie makers eliminated the Victorian feeling and the atmosphere that the original novel had. Spielberg tried to fix that flaw it in his remake, but rather unsuccessfully.

 

In 1968 "Planeta Burg"was butchered, by the new editing, adding some illogical scenes of some hippy-looking women standing beside the sea of the Venus. Supposedly they were the inhabitants of the planet. The movie as such, was "prepared" for the American audience and renamed into Voyage to the "Planet of Prehistoric Women". If you are intrigued, you can see the rubbish here.

Sci Fi milestones of the late 60's

The late 60's, to be precise the year 1968, gave us the two very important movies in the science fiction genre: The planet of apes and 2001: Space Odyssey.
I must admit I was a bit annoyed by the rather crude, inflexible ape masks in Planet of apes and an introductory part of 2001: Space Odyssey, playing with some highly dubious scientific premises (the pre-human hominids looking unconvincingly and living in the barren desert, hunting South American rain forest tapirs).
However, when I put aside these rather technical, minor flaws, the movies were spectacular and left a lasting impression on me.

 

Time Machine

The next couple of films which I loved as a kid were the Time machine and Journey to the centre of the earth. No need to say that I love watching them from time to time.

Although, the special effects are today light years away from the ones used in this film, they still look believable and the fact that the story and good acting are much more important than the effects themselves is very obvious in this case.

Forbidden Planet

This is one movie that blew me off when I was 6. I still love watching it. This Sci Fi film was way ahead of its time (filmed in 1956) and I still consider it to be the best Sci Fi movie of the previous century. I still haven't decided which one is the best in this century.