Phil: Looking for a photo album a couple of days ago, the book Sci-fi Now fell off the shelf. As soon as it hit me (literally) I remembered how much I enjoyed reading it many years ago.
Published in 1978, the pages are basically a list of films, loosely clumped together in genres and commented on by critic Alan Frank. At the time, the big news was the first Star Wars film, which he reckons to be a masterpiece. I can’t disagree, but even I felt at the time it was given a disproportionate amount of space in the pages, probably just to sell copies.
What I also found were details of dozens of other films that I’d never heard of. In the pre-VHS, at least in our house, land, there was little or no chance of me seeing these obscure and dated films. I could dream though, that and scan the TV listings in case any ever turned up. Remember, these were only 3 channels in the UK back then, so the chances were slim but sometimes I got lucky. The arrival of the slightly arty Channel 4 helped, but the chances are anything would be on so late that I couldn’t watch and get up for school the next day.
Re-reading some of the reviews, I was reminded of the curse of science fiction films – real life catching up with the film-makers imagination. Punching keys to work a computer? Why, when we can just ask Alexa (or Siri or whatever the thing on my phone is called) now.
Worse, how futuristic and distant the year of 2018 must have seemed back in 1978 when the makers of Rollerball chose to set their dystopian world in it.
The future is great, until it starts to look dated.
nolanparker 