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FEATURED THREADS for 4-26-22

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17016
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2022 6:46 pm    Post subject: FEATURED THREADS for 4-26-22 Reply with quote



If you're not a member of All Sci-Fi, registration is easy. Just use the registration password, which is —

gort

Attention members! If you've forgotten your password, just email me at brucecook1@yahoo.com.
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Well, hell . . . I must confess that today's Featured Threads are about three less-than-classics from the 1950s. Sad

The first one is about an underground civilization which, frankly, just isn't very impressive. A bunch of elitists albinos enslave a group of non-human "mole people". Sad

The second one is about a space program that sends rockets into space to capture meteoroids — completely ignoring the fact that the damn things fall to Earth all the time! Shocked

It's a bit like some crazy man jumping into his car and chasing down the mailman before he gets to the man's house and puts the mail in his mailbox! Rolling Eyes

And finally, the third one is about a Venusian invasion that sends clunky robots to take over just one American city . . . only to be defeated when we discover that the right sound wave can disable the clunky robots!

Here's my revised version of the robots. I'm rather proud of it



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The Mole People (1956)

alltare wrote:
I saw this the first time as a kid. Two 3D scenes were impressive enough to me that I still remember them vividly today. The first was at the beginning of the movie, when Carlson and Rush were looking through his telescope. He swung the scope around toward the camera and I flinched out of its way.

The scene of the floating tray with a beer bottle and a glass in Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth / The Bubble is so amazing it makes that bad movie almost worth watching! Laughing

alltare wrote:
The other memorable scene was when Sawyer was working at the top of the telephone pole. The camera looked down on Sawyer from above, and past him down the ladder to the people on the ground. The depth of the 3D image was very effective. Another of Bud's stills is from that scene, but taken at a different angle. Both of these scenes are still on the flat DVD, but it's pretty obvious that they were intended for the 3D camera.

This is an example of how effect 3D keeps us fully engaged in the movie, even when mundane ordinary things are being shown. We're so surprised by the illusion that we feel we're "right there" and our suspension of disbelief is fully engaged! Very Happy

alltare wrote:
I don't know where I read or heard the following about the flaw in the meteor footage:

The incoming meteor prop was reportedly a heavy metal sphere with hexagonal cutouts, with some kind of flare or sparkler inside. From a distance, it was slid down a long wire toward the camera as it burned. The "post" seen above the meteor is the equipment suspending it from the wire. Cameras are expensive, so it was actually a mirror that the meteor crashed into, while the camera viewed the meteor's reflected image at a safe distance.

The square thing to the left of the approaching meteor is actually part of that mirroring system. I can't quite figure out the relative positions of camera, mirror, and meteor in that shot, but this explanation makes more sense than anything else I've read.

Orzel-w did a masterful job of explaining how that worked (complete with diagrams that will boggle the mind) on page 2 and 3 of this thread.
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Riders to the Stars (1954)

alltare wrote:
There is something special about Tors' scifi movies and TV shows.

I saw all of these Tors products as a kid, and that's about when I became interested in "hard" scifi books, too. Authors like Asimov and Clarke were my favorites. All of these movies and books had one thing in common: they were very "scientific" and had a sense of wonder that others didn't have.

Steve, you're singing my favorite song! Very Happy

I only remember a few episodes of Ivan Tors Science Fiction Theatre from my actual childhood viewings, but I've enjoyed all the episodes in recent years, sharing them with the late Bulldogtrekker while we chatted on Facebook.

Coincidentally, Riders to the Stars was a special favorite of his, and I shared it with him a few times just as favor, despite my own lack of enthusiasm for the movie.

It's a shame that vintage science fiction movies and TV series were so hampered by low budgets, not to mention studio heads who just didn't have any real respect for science or science fiction.

Part of the problem, as we all know, is the fact that so much of science fiction is dependent on good special effects to present the elements of the stories that are well outside of normal reality. That was really tough to do in the era before CGI.

So, the audience wouldn't get a very good appreciation for the wild ideas being pitched to them, because the scenes which depicted these wild ideas sometimes looked so fake.

Ah, well . . . times change.

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Target Earth (1954)

alltare wrote:
I can't explain it, but I have a fondness for this movie. Enough so that I bought the DVD in 2003 when it was first released.

TARGET EARTH is based on the short story DEADLY CITY.

You can download DEADLY CITY from
http://www.feedbooks.com/book/4852/deadly-city.

Here's the link to Archive.org's wonderful scan of the issue of IF ~ Worlds of Science Fiction which includes Deadly City.

I might post the entire story in our Sci-Fi novels and short stories forum. It's 33 pages long, but they won't require much enhancement to make them extremely easy to read when I post each page at 700 pixel wide with an embedded link to a 1,500 pixel version.

If anyone would like for me to do that, let me know. Cool

Meanwhile, here's the cover of the March 1953 issue of IF — restored and enhanced.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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