Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Movie and scifi

Upstream Color Explanation

mnemonic — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:45:28 -0800

What is the significance of the unhappy couple (wife is hospitalized) midway in the movie Upstream Color?

What was this movie that I thought was Futureworld?

disconnect — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 11:23:09 -0800

Sci-Fi movie identification halp. Watched a movie when I was a kid that I thought was Futureworld, viewed Futureworld recently, beginning and ending are totally different. And yet certain things/scenes meshed. Am I imagining things? Maybe meshing two different films? As near as I can pin it down, I viewed this on regular broadcast TV sometime between 1979 and 1983. Started out with a guy running away from something at night, guy crosses a perimeter and is zapped by a laser fence. Movie segues to a reporter in his apartment narrating a story to his automatic typewriter (at one point, typewriter beeps and guy has to spell out a word). At the end of the film, guy has to escape whatever facility with girl in tow, he gets them outside the perimeter by smashing the laser fence pylon with a tree branch, and once outside he realizes she's the robot double and has to go back to get the actual girl.

So, yeah, that's clearly not Futureworld. But! I remember some scenes in the middle of the movie (skiing on Mars, robot boxing, guy using a disembodied robot arm to scare the girl, maintenance guy putting the robot face on a welding mask so as to bypass the security), and the storyline is pretty much the same (reporter goes to this cool facility, finds out the truth of the operation and must escape to tell the world).

IMDB and wikipedia contain some information on a short-lived series titled "Beyond Westworld", but none of the episode descriptions match what I remember.

Do you remember anything like what I described in the first paragraph?

Name that Sci Fi Story

Apropos of Something — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 15:01:42 -0800

Name that science fiction story / movie: Two people in love with each other are trapped in a box. The box is possibly in some alternative dimension with a Panopticon-type God person. I think the story was written by a famous sci fi author. So, the above is basically all I remember. I know I saw the story adapted into a movie (maybe just a television movie?) where two people were trapped in a translucent box. The idea was, if I remember correctly, that their new reality consisted of living this life in this isolated universe forever, overseen by this God-type figure. All this may be central to the plot, or completely incidental.

If you can produce a movie still, that'd be great, because it's most likely to jog my memory.

Looking for short film featuring mysterious black cube

cthuljew — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 08:17:36 -0800

I'm looking for an online video from a couple years back. It is a short scifi movie shot in the first person, which features a scientist waking up in a lab, looking out the window to see a giant tower shooting a beam into the sky, and then grabbing a black cube with lights on it, which appears to have some sort of strange powers. It was hosted on a website which had some other seemingly related material. I don't know if it was from an ARG, or a standalone video, or what, but I'd really like to watch it again.

Having crossed over, unseen by most, from another dimension of the the inner mind to the outer limits of the night gallery, where do I go next?

windykites — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:09:47 -0800

I've seen The Twilight Zone. I've seen The Outer Limits. I've seen Tales From the Darkside. I've seen (and, puns notwithstanding, was bored by) Tales From the Crypt. I've seen Night Gallery. What else is there for me to see? I want bizarre, strange, weird, unsettling, offbeat. I want kitschy, campy, hilariously bad. I want downright what-the-fuck, this is so weirdly confusing that I just don't even know how to respond. I want surprising, unusual, unexpected. I want spooky, eerie, unnerving. I want, now and then, social or political or moral messages. I want, occasionally, touching or provocative or sincere. I want creative. I probably don't want lots of: bloody gore, typical teen-horror themes, or monsters. I want shows or movies of any length, from any age, probably in anthology format. What I should watch next?

A SciFi film with or about pipes or tubes?

ts;dr — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 03:18:21 -0800

Name This Film: I'm trying to remember the name of a dystopian/SciFi film I saw years back in the 90s, could have been from the 80s. The premise must have been similar to City of Ember, with a kid or teen in an underground city. I remember pipes or tubes featuring prominently, and think they were in the title too. I thought it was called 'city of tubes' or something similar, but I can not find any mention on IMDB or Google. Has anyone seen this film and can remember the name?

Help me find this movie!

masters2010 — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 18:09:07 -0800

How can I view or purchase the scifi TV movie Target Earth / Taken Away (1998)? As the question states, I very much want to view or purchase the TV movie entitled Target Earth, otherwise known as Taken Away, which was released in 1998. IMDB

Thanks!

What hatched from this thing's belly button?

shortyJBot — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 05:57:02 -0800

What strange sci-fi movie or show am I sort-of remembering from ~20-22 years ago featuring a woman giving birth to an egg through her belly button? My uncle was the best. My parents were pretty religious and wouldn't let me watch The Simpsons or sci-fi growing up. But when I visited my uncle and my cousin, all bets were off with TV! I remember one show where there was a female woman/alien species who gave birth by a long rope-like thing coming out of her belly button. The woman pushed and pushed, and a white (I think) egg popped out and hatched. That's all I remember, because the show was even too weird for my uncle and he changed the channel.

I think it was about 20 years ago, it was on TV (not sure if they had cable) the same night as The Simpsons (or a Simpsons rerun) in the evening. I'm thinking it could have been anything from a Star Trek episode to a made-for TV movie.

Any ideas? Thanks, guys! Sorry I don't have more to go on.

Transfer questions

lorimer — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:22:12 -0800

Transfer, the 2010 German movie: questions! (big spoilers inside; avoid if you haven't seen this awesome movie) Woah!
What a movie.
Questions (I'd love help with any of these):

Sarah and Apolain stay bound by their contracts in the end, right? Clearly Anna and Hermann return to their old bodies, but is that just a gesture for their own consciences? (They know someone will use S and A but they themselves don't want to be the users?)

What about creepy security guy? We see him taking the medication, so we know we're not seeing his original body, but are we supposed to understand who he really is? Maybe he was an early experiment that didn't quite work?

Does the inventor of the technology now live in the body of the sales director/supervisor lady?

Finally: do you know any interviews or articles online about this movie? (Could be in any language; I can use Google Translate.)

Help me identify the names of these three movies.

coolxcool=rad — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:05:42 -0800

Please help me find the names of three vaguely recalled movies from my past: a teen flick from the 80s, a dubbed (possibly Italian) horror film from the 70s, and a scifi adventure from the 60s (maybe)? The 80s movie: three male teens go on spring break (maybe summer) trip, possibly to Florida. One might be a little jockish, one needs to finish a paper or something for school, and one of them is fat. I remember that they steal a sandwich from a sandwich shop at one point and then eat it along the beach. At another point the jockish one of them meets up with his ex/current girlfriend and they have an emotional talk in a park or somewhere outside. The movie ends with an antagonist teacher confronting them outside about the one boy's paper and something about a dumpster.

The 70s horror movie: This movie was in color and had a title that was maybe something like "The House of Dr. " or "The Mansion of ". I'm pretty sure that it was dubbed and possibly Italian. All I can remember is the final scene where a male and female protagonist's eyes turn white and, as the camera pulls out, it reveals that they are on some kind of hill where there are many other people (zombies maybe) with their eyes also white. Where are they? Are they in hell? I don't know.

The 60s/70s ish scifi movie: I think this movie was in color but it might have been in black and white. I woke up only to see some kind of recap sequence as a kid. This came at the end and showed abbreviated scenes of what must have been these different adventure sequences that the male protagonist went through during the course of the film. Of these sequences I can only remember one where the guy was in a police car with some kind of alien cop (or the cop had a blank face or something) and I remember one where the guy is fighting some kind of large humanoid type creature.

Also, why isn't there a website that specifically deals solely with these "What is the name of this movie?" questions? I remember the Onion AV club did this kind of thing for a while but, after looking into it, it seems they don't anymore.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your help.

Movies set on a single ship

lewedswiver — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 00:24:51 -0800

Movies set predominantly on a single spaceship? Please come up with any movie you can think of that is set predominantly on a single spaceship. I'm most thinking of thrillers, in which there are a handful of characters who are picked off one-by-one by some outside intruder, in which the contained setting of the ship functions like a haunted house that the protagonists cannot leave (or, alternatively, the very limited resources such as oxygen or water or time-before-destruction are the characters' main antagonist), but please come up with any such movie you can think of.

(It need not be horror, it need not be a thriller, and, really, it need not even be a spaceship -- bonus points for similar movies set on an airplane or a boat or what-have-you. Hell -- it need not even be a movie! If you know of a book or play, let me know!)

Movies like Sunshine, Solaris, Event Horizon, or Apollo 13 are what I'm looking for. Movies in which a hefty or important section are set just on a single space ship, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey or Alien, are also appreciated.

The hamsters go in this end and the cans of stew come out the other

XMLicious — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:40:07 -0800

What is this machine appearing in a 1950 space exploration movie? From the context, designing a rocket in an engineering office, I would assume that it's some sort of mechanical calculator or mechanical computer. I was hoping that the hive mind could confirm or deny that and give some more specifics - manufacturer, model, is this the same kind of thing as the 50s fire control computers from this MeFi post or maybe a more general-purpose machine?

Do you know your sci-fi?

scamper — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:17:23 -0800

Can you name the movie or TV show this image is from? Looks like a classic sci-fi film, though I can’t tell if the set is a spaceship or a submersible.

Name that film!

FatherDagon — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:06:02 -0800

What's the name of that upcoming retro-ish sci-fi movie? This is driving me mad - a few months ago I saw a trailer (here or elsewhere, not sure) for a very very atmospheric, indie-looking sci-fi movie with a sort of chilly 80s aesthetic and a minimalist electro soundtrack (I think). I don't believe it was out yet at the time that I saw the trailer, but may have had a limited release via film festival circuit since then. This ringing any bells for anyone? I couldn't tell thing one about the plot from what I saw, but that's part of what intrigued me.

Movie ID Filter: Colored Bodies?

bug138 — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:06:39 -0800

Asking for a friend: vaguely remembered movie filter. Something about bodies and colors... - Futuristic setting, although friend (in her early 20s) thinks that the technology in the film looked "really old"
- Bodies were tagged with colors and depending on their color something happened to them
- Very serious female doctor or nurse
- Strong medical/anatomical themes/visuals
- Perhaps a kid (or someone/something) causes a mix up with the body labels and something bad happens
Thanks!

Movie from the '80s with a floating alien brain who lives underground?

qbject — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:18:06 -0800

Can you help me find a sci-fi movie from the '80s with a floating brain in it? I only saw bits of it at the video store. I've got a dusty memory of a live-action move (in color so it's not The Brain From Planet Arous) that I saw bits of on the big rear-projection TV at the VHS rental store when I was a kid. I was intensely curious but never actually saw it, and I have no idea what it was called.

I just have a few vignettes that I remember:

- Aliens in an underground base on Earth

- A floating brain with a face emerging through a wall made of black tentacles

- A female schoolteacher-type character under control of the floating brain

- The floating brain opening its mouth and eyes widely and something blinking or burning on the back of that character's neck

- Two people in white coveralls searching for something in the desert, then suddenly falling into a hole which opens beneath their feet

Does this ring any bells with anyone?

Twenty years before The Matrix

yiftach — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:40:48 -0800

I'm looking for a movie: Scifi, set in space/on a spaceship, probably late 70s release, that has as a plot element humans hiding from a nefarious computer or machine that would stick a needle in the back of the person's head (possibly into a port) when person was caught.

Finding an old 80's sci-fi flick.

ninazer0 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:46:57 -0800

Sci-Fi Movie Filter: Trying to locate the title of a movie I saw in the late 80's. It was set in the US in the near future. A private eye or cop was trying to track down someone smuggling a deadly drug or chemical that - when it came in contact with the human body - dissolved it in a fantastically gruesome fashion with smoke and screaming. The first person you see dying this way is a shuttle pilot. I remember very clearly a scene in a post-mortem where the ME says "We recovered his hand" and picks up the hand, only it is brown and mushy and comes to pieces on his glove.

And then later, one of the baddies injects what he thinks is his fix of some amazing drug but - you guessed it - he starts smoking and screaming.

There's one other scene I clearly remember when the PI/cop steals some sort of nifty shuttle that an old lady had illegally stashed in her garage.

Any ideas? It was definitely low budget and had a faintly Logan's Run style to it. Possibly it was released directly to video. I don't remember any of the actors.

Please help me identify this scifi movie!

jbenben — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:58:29 -0800

Please help me identify this scifi movie from my childhood? Please help me identify this scifi movie from the 50's, 60's or 70's. (I'm guessing the film is late 60's early 70's.) I saw it a few times on TV when I was really young (mid 70's) but I've not seen it on TV since.

I can only remember the end of the film....basically, the world (or spacecraft?) the folks in the movie are on is in some kind of very grave danger (explosion? alien attack? I can't remember!) and there are only 2 small groups of humans left at the end. One group decides to take their chances and escape through a "space-portal/doorway-type-thing", even though it is a HUGE risk and they don't know what is on the other side of the portal. The group that escapes through the portal is dropped into a peaceful, serene world with hyper-colored landscape - yay, they live! It is assumed the other group died when they opted to stay behind. The end.

I was maybe 6 years old when I last saw this movie, so some details could be inaccurately remembered. But I am certain about the portal/doorway escape.

Thanks!

MovieID: I fell asleep during an action/sci-fi movie in the 70s.

anelsewhere — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:54:54 -0800

I remember going to see a movie in the 70s, falling asleep in the theater. I woke up during a confusing, killer-death-ray-satellite takes control scene. What the hell could I have been watching? I've always wondered what movie this was that I saw before I was 10. I can't date the film exactly (post or pre-Star Wars, I'm not sure). I'm pretty certain that this wasn't Logan's Run or any of the other biggies. The most I can remember is something about laser death rays being shot from satellites in orbit, maybe aliens or artificial intelligence involved, and something about a cabal of military leaders. And stuff blew up. It was kind of low budget, but I really dug the weird satellites.

MovieFilter: Alien ship abducts kid, gives him galaxy map?

theiconoclast31 — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 01:52:00 -0800

1980s-90s movie: An alien spacecraft had to upload the galaxy's map into the 90% of a kid's brain that was unused. There was an alien ship, and it was silver. It spoke to the child, I think the ship may have abducted him. The ship had "a stealth mode thing going on."

What is the title of this movie?

What's the title of this B-monster movie, possibly starring Kurt Russell?

shoseph — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:25:53 -0800

My friend is searching for the title of a low-budget B-monster movie. The plot: The crew of a spaceship find a derelict spacecraft and awaken a demon/alien creature who possesses the crew one by one. Also, the movie might star Kurt Russell. At the end of the movie the protagonist (Russell?) is the only crew member left alive, and the demon/alien has possessed another crew member. After a conversation, the protagonist fires a missile at his own ship from somewhere, blowing up the creature and himself.

Clearly this film was a rip-off of The Thing, Alien, Lifeforce, etc. And, no, it's not Event Horizon. My friend saw it as a kid (in the 80's), so he can't remember any more details.

Best soundclips from sci-fi films?

jdroth — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:53:10 -0800

Remember my request for sci-fi music? Six months later, I'm finally ready to make my CD mix. Almost. Last night I figured out how to record mp3 audio from DVD on my Mac, and now I want to rip key dialogue snippets from classic sci-fi films. I went for Khan spitting at Kirk from his grave, but there's too much incidental music. I think maybe I can get Ripley signing off. What other short, iconic soundclips from sci-fi films should I look for? The intro to the old Battlestar Galactica? Something from Logan's Run? Blade Runner bits? Eerie, ethereal, otherworldly, outer-space stuff is best. (Bonus points if you can direct me to a source that's already done the work for me; right now I'm looking at a several-week Netflix slog.)

Help me ID cheesy sci fi movie with stolen soundtrack

edjusted — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 21:57:31 -0800

I'm trying to remember a cheesy sci fi flick from...the 80's maybe. I can't remember much except there was something about a spaceship that crashlanded somewhere, and there was a "sci fi babe" on board...there was probably some sort of talking robot too. The most memorable thing about the movie was that the music was (stolen) from the movie Somewhere in Time was used...or at least something similar. Can anyone help me identify this movie?

So theres this guy right, and....

lowest.common.denominator — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 10:16:19 -0800

I'm looking for the name of a movie i once saw half of. Ive talked to some friends about it and some of them seem to remember it to - its all a little vague though, sorry bout that. This whole thing is spoiler-ridden, for obvious reasons, so if you start to read it and a) havent seen the movie before and b) would kind of like to i'd suggest you stop when you think it starts to get good, because i've put down what i THINK the ending is. It was on British television maybe ten years ago - it starts with a man lying in bed - hes completely naked and a bird is singing outside his window. Its early in the morning and i think theres a shot of his alarm clock. Maybe theres a bright flash, but anyway, he wakes up. He gets dressed and goes about his day but everyone's disappeared. As in, there are no people anywhere, they all seem to have just vanished.

He starts to get used to it - he raids a supermarket in a golf cart and sets up his house in a mansion - i think he also rigs up some kind of radio set or loudspeaker repeating some message. Sometime in the movie he meets two(?) others and they try and figure out where everyone else has gone. The rest of this is hearsay and what ive been able to piece together from other people who may or may not have seen the movie. Seriously, this is reaching an obsessional status with me, please help!

So, these three people think that it must have something to do with where one of them works (maybe the main character), which is at some kind of computer or power station or something, very experimental. So they go there and they manage to figure out what happened.

All of them died at the exact time this computer/power thing went "off", or exploded, or something. So it basically defibrillated them or something and they registered as dead so they didnt disappear.

They decide to reverse it, or that they cant go on living, or something - anyway, they decide to make the machine do it again. Or maybe the machine is already set to do it again and they want to stop it. So, anyway, they break into the machine (theres some kind of lock or something keeping them out) and one of them swings an axe into the machine - causing it to go off. As it goes off again, he dies from the electric shock. He wakes up, but alone this time.

I think it was made in New Zealand or Australia - it just seems a little too dark and drenched in realism for an American movie, and the scenery didnt look English. Anyway, please help! I'm desperate to see this movie!