To the Galaxy and Beyond

Rating:
Summary: Good Documentry, although it could have been better....
Review: To the Galaxy and Beyond, is both a good history lesson on science fiction at the movies. Much of this film shows clips from various pictures of each era, going into detail about the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells showcased the early of movies like Metropolis and Things to Come. The film does acknowledge that Science Fiction for the most part took a very dark look of humanity's future and saw aliens and monsters as the products of both science gone wrong and the fear and paranoia that humans have of things they do not understand. The movies(mostly B-Pictures) that followed World Wars I and II were for the most part, very dark movies indeed. Aliens from other worlds were the metaphors of the Red Scare of the 1950's, seen in The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Even B-Movies like Earth vs the Flying Saucers had this dark cyncical mood that humans (or at least Americans) always had to watch the skies and fear the day that we might be invaded. This cynical side of Science Fiction lasted well into the 70's and 80's as well. The Stepford Wives, The Fly, Terminator, Alien, Robo-Cop, Zardoaz, Logan's Run and Predator were all the product of a new generation of film makers that saw technology as a de-humanized force which gradually will destroy our ability to think and be compassionate and the real monsters that we had to fear may be the dark side of ourselves. These are very dark stories indeed. (No thanks to Scott and Cameron and Verhovwn and these 90's side of B-Movie Directors). It has also been a time when a lot of science fiction was also light hearted camp movies, thanks to Irwin Allen remake of the Lost World in 1961, and the various TV shows and movies he made after that, seemed to show that Hollywood was unable or unwilling to anykind of substance science fiction movies at all. In the end, while this film has it's moments, it mostly shows that science fiction movies have been B-Pictures (both with small and large bugets) and that alone makes you throw up.