Be Excellent To Each Other

So there are tons of war films, good ones and bad ones.

There are tons of sci-fi films, good ones and bad ones.

Why is the only sci-fi war film I can bring to mind Starship Troopers? There's bits in other films, like the "THIS IS THE FUTURE" scenes from the Terminator films, but where are all the rest? Would the SFX really be that costly to put on a decent futuristic war movie, or even series? I'm thinking Band of Brothers with space aliens would be bloody marvellous.

Erm.. Star Wars.

Not a war film, though, is it? It's an action movie. It's much more Die Hard than The Thin Red Line.

The War of the Worlds.

Dammit, Hollywood! Film Stephen Donaldson's "The Gap" series!

Aliens

always described as Vietnam movie in space.

Star WARS


I contribute to the conversation.

Mars Attacks!

BATTLEstar Galatica.

bit racy for hollywood mind...

Malc

Heh. Alien was a high concept pitch, someone wanted 'Jaws in Space' and it led to Platoon in space

Empire Strikes Back was a war movie, though. It had that feel, Lucas made one of is better decisions when Irving Kershner wa hired for that job. Why he gave Jedi to Marquand I'll never know. At least he didn't do it himself. In fact he dd have his reasons but I've forgotten them.

Anderson/Herbert's Dune trilogy which concerns tself with the Butlerian Jihad woud make some good 'war scifi'.

How about Star Trek, with yer Klingons? Fairly warlike. Dr. Who Peter Cushing 'gaiden' stuff with Daleks?

Last Starfighter? Enemy Mine? Galaxy Quest? Krull? Transformers? Wing Commander? All of which are sc-fi (Krull is set on an alien world where aliens are invading and waging war...) and all of which exist within the conext of a state of war, I'm trying to think of an Earth Historical war film whic features an individual from each of two warring factions a la Enemy Mine.

I see Craster's point. In all of the above films any space-based fighting is an incidental element of the plot, rather than the plot itself.

The main problem of BSG as a 'war' concept is that the humans have no replenishable resources. In other words, they can't fight any proper war because they can't replace anything they lose.

Bingo. I want fleets, I want massed armies, I want guns, armour, artillery, spaceships. I want strategy, I want tactics. I want generals, I want captains, I want squaddies. I want boot camp, grizzled sergeants and mess huts.

I don't want futuristic aliens attacking present day Earth - that's not a war film, it's an alien invasion film.

I don't want scary aliens leaping out on people in the darkness - that's not a war film, it's a sci-fi horror.

Not that I don't love these other genres, I'm just surprised at the lack of epic military scifi out there. Starship Troopers is literally the only one I can think of that really fits the bill.

Even Empire - sure it had some great army bits in it, but again the film was mostly about the characters involved avoiding the warfare as best they could.

Yeah, aside from Starship troopers the only pure sci-fi war stuff I can think of is Babylon 5. Basically the Earth civil war arc being the strongest element. Despite some occassionally appalling dialogue its a pretty spiffy back-and-forth war. I wasn't a Deep Space 9 fan so I don't know how they did the Dominion War.

The Wing Commander film was stunningly bad.

Space Above & Beyond I never liked due to the staggering cliche shallowness of the characters and the empty ideas, but some people like it for their space-war kicks I guess.

There's an amusing Babylon 5 / Star Trek spoof made by a big bunch of Finns that has a Star Trek away team stranded on Earth who decide to fuck the prime directive, take over Russia, start a new space empire and find Babylon 5. They decide to occupy it and enslave alternate Earth. Incompetence, cowardice, drunkeness and stupidity is displayed by pretty much all characters on all sides. I was drunk when I saw it at a mate's but it was quite funny, I think you can get it for free on their website. The SFX are Babylon 5 standard.

I must try to track down Geordie Star Wars again at some point.

I've got it. Give me the webspace, I'll upload it.

There's Soldier - except that doesn't actually have a war. Erm. Good question.

Pete - the Dominion War was surprisingly well done. I suspect it might hold up better today than Babylon 5 does. It definitely 'looks' better. I watched DS9 for the first time a couple of years ago, and it's very good. Best to go into it not really expecting too much though. Also! It has the same fault as B5 does as regard its final season. I recommend you do as I was told to, and watch from the last episode of the second series onwards. Many episodes of it are at least as good as the best individual episodes of Babylon 5.

DS9 was full of wishy washy shite until the Dominion war came along. They must have (thankfully) realised early on that the same basic arcless episodes weren't going to cut it and the introduction of a continuous plot theme was fantastic and something modern star treks should learn from. They realised this after a couple of seasons of shite 'Enterprise' too, and again that arc was very good and held together fairly well, but was implemented too late to save the series. However I still hold a grudge against 'Enterprise', firstly for it's very name (PICK ANOTHER SHIP NAME FOR FUCKS SAKE), and the stupid non-trek theme music.

As not a massive fan of Star Trek, I have to agree. When the Dominion War heats up, it's riveting.

Star Wars, Episode 2 had large war scenes.
The Matrix 3 might fit the bill also, but these are both poor war films compared to Starship Troopers.
I would suggest Starship Troopers 2, but I haven't seen it, and don't plan to.

I've been trying to think of an anime sci-fi war film, and I'm still drawing a blank.


How big is it?

Starship Troopers 2 is vastly shite. It looks as if it was filmed in a warehouse. In the dark. In fog. It's awful.

Is it Sci-fi war, though?

It's more like sci-fi BORE! A-ho!

I'm very tired.

You said it

You could probably argue that the last of the original Planet of the Apes films is a war film (albeit a crap one). There's also Screamers, which is more of a squaddie film. Doom is another, as is Resident Evil (kind of a zombie movie/squaddie movie hybrid), but those are more tenuous. Battle Royale? The Shape of Things to Come?

I suppose part of the problem is that war films (the Band of Brothers type film, anyway) are fiercely character-driven, whilst sci fi films tend to be more concept-driven. It would be difficult to flesh out the characters in a sci fi war film enough to be able to say something significant about war whilst at the same time fully exploring the sci fi concept. Star Wars and Aliens don't pretend to make any profound statements about war; Starship Troopers does, but as its whole purpose is to be satirical I think that's an aberration.

I can't think of a war film that I'd rate that doesn't try to say something about war through its characters, even if it's just "war is great!" like the 40s propaganda pieces.

On the other hand, there must be dozens of sci fi/war novels. Perhaps the films are just technically difficult to do?

I'm writing one! Well, it looks like being a long time before I get to the war bit, and it looks like being excruciatingly long, too. I can't imagine how it would translate to film. Maybe a long-running tv series, but even that wouldn't really work. I think you're spot on with that concept/character conflict. I'm very much a 'character' person, and while the story I have in mind concerns a lot of science fiction stuff and a civil war, it's driven by the people and really about what happens to them rather than about how terrible war is (The necessity of the war is in fact debatable, depending on whether you believe the fascists who amongst other things suppress news of an epidemic and get thousands of poor people killed, the mercenary protecting people for money, or the popular revolutionary who kidnaps and possibly murders a general's children to manipulate the government, or something else entirely. So having a solid message about war at large isn't really the deal there, and I suspect that's the nature of most relevant science fiction). War is essentially a backdrop or plot device, typically.

A fictional war, particularly one in an imaginary future, just doesn't have the same impact as seeing a Vietnam flick and knowing that stuff exactly like this happened more recently than the recording of your favourite album (if you have any taste, that is).

It could also be the likely nature of future wars - we're already at the point where open conflict between nations and groups is diminished in favour of espionage, machinery and nukes. If you add enough science fiction to that, you'll get to the point where traditional war stories are harder to fit in. Dune is a pretty ood example of how to get around that, but even Dune portrays guerilla warfare and isn't really about the war, but about prescience and psychology.

Yeah, not only does it get quite dark, bloody and broody at times, but you've got a blad headed black captain with a beard KICKING ASS in a pretty sexy ship as far as trek standards go. It's like Shaft in space, or something.

The enemys are basically Klingons for the modern trek generation. But c'mon, which sci-fi doesn't have hairy, angry dudes who LIVE FOR BATTLE AND HONOUR! It's like the sci-fi implementation of feudal Japan or contemporary grindcore fans.


ps: The film Dune? Yeah. Proper shit. I recently re-watched it and it's a bit of an abortion, to be honest. It's completely rushed but at the same time dully paced. The characters seem to just emote (Futurama: "You can't just have your chararcters SAY how they feel! OH that makes me ANGRY!") with inner monolouges and talk about things that are entirley plot pushing devices. Also, it makes no fucking sense at the best of times.

I also downloaded the ment-to-be-fab sci-fi channel series of dune. I've only watched an episode though, so I can't comment.


Additionally....the kids TV program Reboot was a bit dark and warry in the final series..... What?!!!

Also:
Re Sci-fi being mutually exclusive to story telling. PAH.

I just raed this:
http://fidgit.com/archives/2008/06/deus ... p-cast.php


Yeah sure, it's about games, but it's still a very good point. Star Wars is great for one reason: It's basically a normal film "in space!". That is, you take a strong, character driven plot, which could easily be any of those WWII war films, and make the guns lazers. Done. You've Sci-Fi'd it up. At no point during the first few Star Wars films do they try and be technical. whilst watching the characters interact with each other there just happens to be fancy glowing swords and guys in power armour, etc.

A final though there is about Warhammer 40k. Personally I never got into the story side of it all that much. But that's basically one massive war story and I believe it does it really well. The sci-fi is there, but most of the stories are character related or theme drive (war is bad/good). They could easily make a film out of any one of the W40K backstories. Infact, I don't know why they haven't.

Same goes for some of the 2000 AD stuff. I'm not a huge fan of Rogue Trooper and VCs, but both are popular with the comic's readers, and are overtly future war.

It's shit. Have you read the books? You should read the books. The series is very poor indeed.

The series has brilliant bits and the odd ropey bit, but is in general far closer to the book than Lynch's horrid film. Then there's your Children of Dune sequel series, which is aces. I heart Ghanima.

But yes, read the books first, certain Dune, Messiah and Children.

Hell in the Pacific
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063056/

I also like S:A&B. Kill the chigs!

I have it on DVD. The SFX have suffered somewhat and the whole 'tank-racism' thing seems even more clunky and shoehorned in, but other than that it's ace.
James Morrison was a great captain

Dune is one of the best books ever written, it's fucking excellent. The rest of the series I recall being intermittently great, but I haven't read them for years so can't remember much more than that. The cash-ins by his son can fuck off, but the original is just breathtaking. I read it again last year, having read it about six, and then ten years ago previously. I hadn't realised just how profoundly it had affected my writing and thinking and understanding of psychology and philosophy. Wonderful storytelling in a richly detailed, imaginative world, with real depth of character and an excellent balance of direct exposition and subtle implication.

The film was utter crap, though. Kind of visually interesting, and ambitious, but didn't convey the spirit of the story at all, would be totally incomprehensible if you hadn't read the book, and missed the point of half the characters. And what the fuck was all that "heart plug" shit?

When I saw him in '24' I jumped up and down and pointed, but the feyonce had no idea what I was on about.

About 300Mb, I think.

Is that the one with the "spot the deliberate mistake" DVD menus?

Here ya go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etmzP-OmZFA

and I know the second one was toss, but as straight to video fare goes this has to be worth a punt... and JONNY MOTHFUCKING RICO is back. No Doogie Howser or Mrs. Sheen though, alas. If she were she'd probably have gotten them out and then we'd be sorted.


Gosh, I hope Goatboy arrives soon... I need jizz on my face...

Halo.

I don't get it?

Is that Cameron Diaz on the left?

Ooh! I get it! That man's head is a 1/4 of the size of the planet! Stupid mistake!

His head is bigger than a neighbouring galaxy.

Unless I'm falling for that 'These are small... but the ones out there are far away' Father Ted trick.

The man on the right has no legs, or he's some sort of giant burrowing worm-man and is emerging from the planet's ocean.

Also, big head man might be the sun from Teletubbies when he's grown up.

That's fantastic! I'm now imagining this 'Space Above and Beyond' to be a series of hour-long Whack-a-Mole games where random dudes pop out of holes in planets and take pot-shots at gigantic players of the game.

I hope the programme is as much fun as the title screen.

That might not be a mistake - I used to work with a bloke who was the same.