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Summary: This is real Science Fiction.....
Review: Things to Come and Metropolis are Science Fiction movies in the purest sense of the words. Taking what we know about science and technology and placing them in the future which is consisent with what we know of human progress through history. These two movies endeavored to do just that and some of what they talked about have come true for both good and bad reasons. These movies predicted the airplane, the submarine, the city and the subburbs, Television, rapid transport systems, information that would be available at the touch of a few buttons...Stuff that we are quite familar with today although the designs of the technology have turned out differently. It's interesting that in the years since these movies have been made, Science Fiction (at least as H.G. Wells wrote it) has largely given way to movies that are more fantastic in design and may not be consistent with science as current research and discovery tells us. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact it was the space age and the landing on the Moon in 1969 that gave film makers the change to create new stories with new characters on film that have been called "The Mythology of the Space Age." But it has also gone more further away from what Science Fiction originally ment as done by these two movies. Depending on how you look at it, the changes have either been for the best or not at all.
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Summary: One of the most arty and least popular classic sci fi films
Review: "Things to Come" is really of much more interest as prediction and propaganda than as performance and plot. The 1936 film is based on H.G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come," which certainly goes as far as any of his works in talking about what the future would look like because of the advancements of science. However, this is also Wells at his most pessimistic, as he predicts a global war made more horrific by new weapons. It is interesting to look at this film and see the strong anti-war stance that it takes, remembering where England and the rest of Europe stood at that time, on the brink of World War II. Certainly the depiction of the coming war, as Everytown (a.k.a. London) is destroyed by air raids, would be proven realistic within a few years. "Things to Come" is very much of a paradox for viewers. On the one hand the production designed by director William Cameron Menzies (best known for his work on "Gone With the Wind") is superb, using art deco to represent the progress of the future; a visual counterpart to "Metropolis" to my mind. Menzies even shows himself a student of Eisenstein with his use of montage, especially during the opening sequence and the air raids on Everytown. But the film leaves you curiously cold. The overall effect is not so much wonderment (cf. Dorothy opening the door in Oz, which alone blows away this entire film), as it is the conviction that you are looking at a clinical portrait of the future. The performance of Raymond Massey as John/Oswald Cabal is key because you almost always get the feeling he is lecturing not acting because he is not so much a character in the movie as he is the Basil Exposition of his day. Furthermore, the movie clearly falls into two halves: the first dealing with how humanity rebuilds itself and the second generations later with a backlash rising up against the launching of a ship to the moon. The problem is that the two halves fit together awkwardly. The rhetorical messages end up being embrace technology as a means to peace for the first half and do not turn upon the technology you have embraced as a means to peace in the second half. You would think that the first lesson there would be the point and that the second would be a bit premature at that point in time. Certainly you have to see "Things to Come" once in your life if you are a student of science fiction films, but prepare yourself for the same ambivalent feelings that so many of us are expressing here.
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Summary: GREAT movie, LOUSY video transfer
Review: "Things to Come" was the "2001" of its day. In the late sixties, I saw a clean print of this movie in a New York theatre and it blew me away. Although it is in black-and-white, it is visually spectacular; the story is exciting; and it has a wonderful score. The sound was mono optical sound, but it was crisp and clear and capable of delivering the impact of the Arthur Bliss music. For years, I've owned a disappointing VHS copy, which looks as if it were made made from a dirty, blurry, over-contrasty 16mm print, and the sound quality is poor. I've yearned to see a clean copy. So when I got my DVD player, one of the first things I did was to buy this release, which says that it "features a pristine new film-to-video transfer from original source materials." I am sorry to say it looks EXACTLY like the cruddy old VHS version, and the mushy sound is completely unworthy of the composer and music director. So, I don't know what to say. If you've never seen the movie _Things to Come_, I recommend the movie highly. But the image quality and sound on this DVD have, alas, that "lousy old 16mm print look."
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Summary: GREAT movie, LOUSY video transfer
Review: "Things to Come" was the "2001" of its day. In the late sixties, I saw a clean print of this movie in a New York theatre and it blew me away. Although it is in black-and-white, it is visually spectacular; the story is exciting; and it has a wonderful score. The sound was mono optical sound, but it was crisp and clear and capable of delivering the impact of the Arthur Bliss music. For years, I've owned a disappointing VHS copy, which looks as if it were made made from a dirty, blurry, over-contrasty 16mm print, and the sound quality is poor. I've yearned to see a clean copy. So when I got my DVD player, one of the first things I did was to buy this release, which says that it "features a pristine new film-to-video transfer from original source materials." I am sorry to say it looks EXACTLY like the cruddy old VHS version, and the mushy sound is completely unworthy of the composer and music director. So, I don't know what to say. If you've never seen the movie _Things to Come_, I recommend the movie highly. But the image quality and sound on this DVD have, alas, that "lousy old 16mm print look."
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Summary: Visually, a stunning movie
Review: Before post-apocolyptic war movies became common and overdone, Things to Come was a stunning cinematic masterpiece that had breath-taking special effects for the 1930's. A technique using mirrors at different angles to project the actor's image onto a miniature model, the sets for the future are quite impressive. The special effects really are great. The montages of the advanced technology in the future, and the scene of thousands of people swarming around the rocket are mind boggling when you think about the year this movie was done. Raymond Massey is excellent, as always. If you don't want to watch it for the special effects, just watch it for him. This is a must for a Raymond Massey fan.
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Summary: Things to Come: Fantastic Movie at Many Levels
Review: Every non-war decade seems to produce a for me a definitive Science Fiction Classic. The 20s-Metropolis, The 30s- Things to Come, The 50s- Forbidden Planet, The 60s- 2001, The 70s- Close Encounters, The 80s- Blade Runner. That's the level this movie reaches in my mind. It's a visually stunning movie and with all of it's flaws its a chance to see the great H.G. Wells put his own stamp (and not Hollywood's) on his writing. Actually, the flaws (o.k. it gets "preachy" and "wordy") add to its interest. Because this makes you think. Isn't this what science fiction is about anyway? This movie gives you a vision of the future through the past.
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Summary: HE AIN'T HEAVY, HE'S MY BROTHER
Review: First - the review posted here is for the IMAGE WADE WILLIAMS release of THINGS TO COME - this edtion sports a remastered print. There are several releases out there, and if you're not looking carefully you can easily get confused - look for the WADE WILLIAMS logo in the upper right hand corner to be sure. With that out of the way I can say that this DVD release is by far the best on the market right now. The film has been remastered and despite a few artifacts and scratches, it is balanced and holds together very well throughout the entire film. And what a film - preachy, heavy handed, intelligent, witty and downright entertaining. THINGS TO COME is more than sci-fi, but poli-sci - a massive recounting of the stages of war and the human struggle against not only their nature, but themselves. While the dialouge may be stilted, and the performances fit more for the stage than the screen - there are moments of outright shock, terror and pure chills than most films combined in the same genre (I dare you not to feel a general unease as we launch in the post war, plauge ravaged EVERYTOWN where people barter for food and their lives admist the rubble and shadows of their once great supermarkets and stores - where the shop signs remain, but the goods and good will have long since been worn away). This film shoots for the moon - so much so that it ends on that high note. THINGS TO COME is a well meaning and entertaining gem of a movie. For fans of the genre, it's a must for any collection - for the curious you'll find a surprise that bears repeat viewing. Highly recommdned.
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Summary: A Good Movie Made Unviewable
Review: Having seen Things To Come on VHS, I looked forward to buying it on DVD. When I received it, however, the reproduction was so poor as to render it essentially unviewable. In the initial scenes the images are so murky that I was often unable to make out the faces of the principal characters. I only knew who was speaking because I'd seen the movie before. In all scenes the image is extremely fuzzy, looking exactly like the background when a camera is tightly focused on a face in the foreground. Sadly then, this DVD is worthless and you should wait for a better version. Note that the movie itself is a science-fiction classic, and ought to be seen by anyone interested in the part of the genre that was not usually shown in drive-ins. Note carefully, however, that most of the reviews are based on the VHS version, not the DVD. These reviews of course give no hint of the unacceptably low technical quality of the current DVD release. Just as an aside, I hope I'm not one of those people who spots a speck of dust and declares the room filthy. I'm actually being kind to the folks who made this DVD!
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Summary: Madacy DVD ruins classic movie
Review: I guess you get what you pay for. I would recommend AGAINST buying the Madacy Entertainment version of Things To Come. This inexpensive DVD uses an extremely poor print of the original movie and is very hard to watch. I've learned my lesson and bought the Image Entertainment version. It's significantly more expensive, but the quality of the print is SO much better that's it's very much worth it. As far as the movie itself? Gotta have it! This is a classic that should be in every Sci-Fi fan's collection. It's full of bang-on predictions, wonderful 1930's art-deco imagery and that amazing pre-WWII sense of mankind being able to pull itself through to a technological utopia - even to see that tarnished in the end.
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Summary: Buy the VHS From Englewood!
Review: I have loved "Things To Come for over twenty years and have taught it in my classes. It is slow and talky for many viewers, but it is also indisputably a great film---in fact, with "2001: A Space Odyssey" and a few others, it is that rarest of works: a genuine, serious science fiction movie. However, be warned. Most of the public domain prints out there are simply horrible, as many of the reviews on this page attest. I have viewed numerous prints of this film and had long ago given up hope of ever seeing the movie in anything resembling reasonable condition---and then came the Englewood Entertainment video, with its glorious "neon" packaging. The picture has been cleaned up a good deal, and is much less shaky and spliced than other versions;but the glory of this edition is the soundtrack. Major work has been done here, eliminating hiss and pops and rendering the dialogue easily comprehensible for the first time in my lifetime and revealing the fully rich beauty of Arthur Bliss's magnificent score. You simply have not seen "Things To Come" until you've seen the Englewood print! Perhaps someday the British will take it upon themselves to restore "Things To Come" to its full glory, with a complete 113-minute print (the Englewood is the standard 90-or-so minutes).That will be a great day for fans of science fiction film. But until then, Englewood has rendered a tremendous service to lovers of this movie. Get it. Cherish it.
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