ALL SCI-FI

Bud Brewster · Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2015 11:37 pm Post subject: Zardoz (1974)

In the year 2293 life on Earth has reverted to total savagery, with virtually no technology in use. Sean Connery is an "Exterminator", a member of a quasi-religious group who, armed with modern rifles, kills everyone who procreates (!).

Connery recieves both his weapons and his religious dedication from Zardoz, a giant, surrealistic statue-head that floats down from the sky periodically to spit guns from its mouth while booming inspira??tional messages about how killing is good and sex is bad.

Connery begins to doubt the wisedom of this doctrine, so he stows away aboard a floating head and infiltrates the Vortex, the hi-tech residence of the Eternals immortal intellectuals who discover that Connery is genetically superior to them and therefore must be eliminated.

Director John Borman provides enough action to offset the sometimes confusing plot, which is loaded with symbolism and social commentary. Unlike too many sci-fi films, the future society is not so rediculously simplified that it resembles a children's story.

"Zardoz" (a contraction of "The Wizard of Oz") didn't perform well at the box office, perhaps because it worked too hard to be "intelligent" and not hard enough to be "fun".

Three years after "Zardoz" was released, "Star Wars" showed Hollywood that science fiction had a lighter (and more profitable) side.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Randy · Space Ranger Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 126 Location: Ohio

Saw this in a theater during it's "first run" ...

I deemed it a disappointing movie ...

orzel-w · Galactic Ambassador Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865

Unusual, to be sure. It fell into the long dry spell between the worthwhile sci-fi fare spawned by the success of 2001 and the premiere of Star Wars. Back then many of us were craving something different and at least superficially deep.
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WayneO
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scotpens · Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:33 pm Post subject: Re: Zardoz (1974)

Brent Gair · Mission Specialist Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466

In my collection of 830 Blu-rays, I have exactly ONE biography:

Rocky Jones · Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 8:56 pm Post subject:

I'm not quite sure I've ever actually seen this movie, entirely, anyway. However back during it's release period I picked up the paperback novelization, which was written by director John Boorman and kind of liked it. It had it's quirks, for sure. I did like the wacky flying mean guy masks quite a lot, though.

I downloaded and glued together this paper model of it. It's not easy to design a paper sculpture that forms a face shape, but this guy did a fair job. It's two-sided, as was the the craft in the film. It doesn't have the interior, though. Perhaps I'll build another one sometime and include that.

You can download it, yourself if you want at:

http://godzillu.daa.jp/zardoz/

Bud Brewster · Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2023 6:45 pm Post subject:

That is remarkable, sir. Great picture, too.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

ralfy · Mission Specialist Joined: 23 Sep 2014 Posts: 473

The ending is fascinating, and it's often the only thing I think about when the movie is mentioned.

Krel · Space Ranger Joined: 19 Feb 2023 Posts: 190

ralfy · Mission Specialist Joined: 23 Sep 2014 Posts: 473

I thought it was something like the idea that all that is solid melts into air.