You neglected to mention that "Battle Beyond The Stars" is actually a Sci-fi reskin of The Magnificent Seven, which (in its current Denzel-led incarnation) is a remake of a classic Western of the same name, which is ITSELF a reskin of the Akira Kurosawa epic The Seven Samurai. One fun fact about Battle Beyond The Stars being a Magnificent Seven (1960) remake is that it stars Robert Vaughn playing an almost identical character to the one he played in 1960. Also the planet they are defending is called "Akir" - a clear callout to Kurosawa himself, without whom the story likely never would have been told in the first place.
@ekulyarg What? Teletubbies? I feel pretty certain the dude that made this video knows what The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai are, they're seminal classics.
The Quiet Earth is a decent film from New Zealand. Doesn’t rely heavily on sci-fi but uses it as more of an exploration of characters and how they react to being the last people on earth. Poignant film.
I saw this one in the late 90s. I liked it but missed the start so didn't understand exactly what had happened. By chance I found it on DVD at a garage sale and was able to watch the whole thing. I still enjoy it. As a child of the 80s I am sad to say I haven't seen any of the movies in mentioned. I might have to see what I can dig up.
Really good film I like how the tone changes in different acts going along with the main characters emotions the end is stunning I just wish it didnt end at thr best part lol
One of my personal favorites. Very clever, funny, sweet, strange, and dark, all interwoven in an extremely natural way. Hard to compare it to any other movie. Singular. Definitely the kind of movie you can watch once a year or so and appreciate in new and different ways. Also an excellent Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
Well, damn, there's a core memory unlocked. There was a movie that was always on cable that I watched several times when I was a kid. I couldn't remember the name but the ending is seared into my memory.
The one guy in Night of The Comet, I can't remember his characters name or the actors name either, that was also in the original 1983 Valley Girl is the same actor who played Uncle Jack in the last couple seasons of Breaking Bad, that about flipped me out when I read it.
Just recently seen Night of the Comet on Tubi .. I was born in 1984, and I’ve seen thousands upon thousands of movies and films .. I own hundreds! How did this gem fly under my radar for the last 39 years?
@@clstile IDK. But it happens all the time. If you like a good mystery suspense and you can look past pop culture spoiling a twist before seeing a movie, Soylent Green is actually a great film.
Night of the Comet is in my all time top ten. Me and my friends said the quote “ I’m not crazy, I just don’t give a fuck!” for years after this movie came out.
Yo, SlipStream has to be the movie I've had in the back of my mind for decades. All I remembered wad Bill Paxton in the future in some desert cliff dwelling. I thought I was confusing it with Cherry 2000. Or was it 3000?
Thanks for covering these. I added them to my list of sci fi movies to watch. For me, THE WRAITH and MIRACLE MILE were both great movies that were so underrated at the time.
Great list- perhaps neither “overlooked,” nor “gems,” but I’d add Dreamscape (Dennis Quaid) & Runaway (Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons!?!?) to the must-see list!
I would add a movie that most people have never even heard of at all but which I found quite entertaining for the time ('83) called "Wavelength". Stars Robert Carradine, Cherie Currie (singer from The Runaways), and Keenan Wynn. It's also another score by Tangerine Dream. Under 90 minutes it wasn't a deep story, but sure as hell was better than "Battle Beyond the Stars" or even "Ice Pirates". It was in heavy rotation on cable at one point, but pretty sure it fell into total obscurity because it never got a home video release (probably disagreements about rights). Glad to see "Looker" and "Night of the Comet" on the list. Two of my favorite hidden-gem/guilty pleasures!
I was already a massive fan of Miracle Mile, but I never thought a B-movie like Night of the Comet would be so extraordinarily entertaining. I just saw it---it's awesome, and I don't understand why. There's no gore, a typical 80s cityscape, and cheesy 80s music---yet it's entertaining from start to finish; somehow it all works together--so much so that a big budget would have killed it. This is a truly classic example of what makes a cult movie, and it's not even horror-certified, has a PG! This movie shouldn't work...
never seen ads on youtube but they're doing something to work around blocking ad blockers. i think by next year we'll all be forced through. in which time a good chunk of viewers will leave youtube but they don't care.@@thebluestig2654
Looker fortold the rise of scanned actors and then AI using those scans to replace those actors. Isn't that part of what the writers strike is about now in 2023?
I own a DVD copy of "Liquid Sky" my ex got for me for Christmas one year. He said it was not easy to find...weird I mentioned that movie once to him, talking about the main actress. I was shocked he not only remembered it, but found a copy of it for me!
I sold a copy of Liquid Sky on VHS for $70 on ebay several years ago. One of the coolest VHS tapes I've owned, but the movie just isn't for me, couldn't even get through it.... and I tend to like weird movies.
@@GreyMatterPlatter Watched it for the first time tonight and my curiosity (I have to know how things end once it's started) made me finish it. I have never heard such an amount of weird disharmonic and strange music in a movie, apart from maybe Andromeda Strain whose soundtrack is just abrasive computer noises. The entire movie gave me weird and creepy vibes and i didn't like it.
I remember watching Ice Pirates on TNT, that came after Cartoon Network. I really liked that movie. It is filled with interesting and funny scenes and characters.
Young Sherlock Holmes was the first film to have an actual CGI character - Lookers 'CGI' was technically just a 3D model presented on a screen. The one in Young Sherlock Holmes (a stained glass window of a knight that comes to life) interacts with the characters as the camera pans around it.
Watched them both for the first time tonight. For both I feel like that Science Fiction means something different to me. Miracle Mile just drew me in, great movie! And Society... well... more like a documentary xD
Tobe Hoober's "Lifeforce" from is also a cool film. It has Patrick Stewart and space vampires. It's a pretty weird movie. Not for prudes though, as there's sexy space vampires
Interesting title .... it seems though you could have titled it "Movies from the 80's which were meant to parody society and the apocalypse but that now look like real life" I'm going to do a Saturday night showing of all these movies for my kids, and I don't know what to tell them after when they ask "If you all knew this was happening why didn't you stop it?" Perhaps I'll tell them that the 80's movie directors are some sort of genius theocracy, and "They tried to warn us"...
Looker is soo forgotten, but my brother and I remember watching it on HBO. Besides the predictive nature of the film (virtual models and computer generated content), there's this hypno gun that is the main part anyone who's seen the movie remembers; there's a car chase where one of the parties is using the gun, and since it makes you blank out for a couple seconds after exposure, the scene has what seem like jump cuts to one of the cars going off the road, or driving down stairs!
"A man made virus that is inadvertently released and subsequently causes a massive pandemic, resulting in riots and widespread civil unrest" Me while rolling my eyes super hard: "Yeah, that would never happen"
Night of the comet was awesome but one thing…. Katherine Mary Stewart wasn’t in flight of the navigator. She was in the last star fighter. Sarah Jessica Parker was in Navigator.
Ice pirates and Wraith were both great movies I remember watching as a young man in the 80s. I was young but had 2 older brothers so i got to watch grown up movies alot.
Battle Beyond the Stars - I've always liked this movie. If for no other reason, you should watch it to see the original movie that all of the space footage in Corman's other movies was created for. Liquid Sky - I started watching this once, but only made it about ten minutes in before the movie's style turned me off. Night of the Comet - "See? That's the problem with these things. Daddy would have gotten us Uzis." :) Looker - I always found it ironic that the evil corporation was using computer generated actors on real sets, while in real life, it's much easier to create and animate objects than it is to create and animate people.
Watched 4 of these movies tonight, first Liquid Sky, then The Wraith, then Looker and then Miracle Mile. I would put them in reverse order in terms of quality so I am glad my movie night only got better, because Liquid Sky is such a piece of crap xD Miracle Mile is quite the movie! No idea why I have never heard of it!
Nice video, very informative. I'll always remember 'the ice pirates' because it was the last movie I saw at the cinema in Newport Pagnell. The two darling old ladies that ran the cinema gave it up not long after, and another lovely provincial cinema in Britain disappeared. So sad.
Slipstream was great.. it's unfortunate that so few seem to have seen it. Flight of the Navigator is a wonderful flick.. it's awesome. Looker was really good and filled with cool ideas and.. EVERYONE SHOULD SEE Ice Pirates.. honestly, it's so sublime and weird and outstanding.
I saw Slipstream when it was new and hated it. Prolly because I wanted Hamil to be Luke. I saw it recently and thought it was great. Funny how expectations and time change your sensibilities.
Some good calls there, I've seen about half of them, Le Dernier Combat screened as part of a Post Apocalyptic series screened on BBC 2 I think, which also included A Man and His Dog with Don Johnson, I think that was in 87/88 as I was in uni at the time and I've not seen either since, but they were sufficiently memorable for me to recall them 36 years later!!
I just re-watched Looker a month or two ago on Tubi ( I think). Albert Finney did Wolfen that same year and both are favorites of mine from weekend re-runs in the late 80s
Un buen vídeo con abundante información y referencias. No obstante, y sin que tenga que ver con las películas, siempre me escandaliza el "esfuerzo" que muchos hispanoamericanos hacen por pronunciar el inglés con "acento tejano" o cualquier cosa que suene "muy yanqui", pero cuando llega una frase en francés, parece que no se tuviera pajolera idea de como pronunciarlo, por no hablar que claramente no se pone el mismo empeño. "Desyanquizáos" de una vez, coñe. Ni poner ese empeño estúpido en pronunciar "correctamente" en inglés os hace parecer mas modernos, ni cultos ni otra cosa que acomplejados... Fundamentalmente porque NUNCA pronunciáis los vocablos en otras lenguas con el mismo "empeño". Aún así, nótese la estupidez de esa forzada fonética. Pásenlo bien, hablen en español cuando hablen en español, hablen en inglés cuando lo hagan en inglés, y en otra lengua cuando corresponda. Y no lo olviden... Al gringo le importa UN CARAJO cómo se dice Guadalajara o Santiago correctamente.
Miracle Mille es excelente, pero no la veria dos veces, es demasiado estresante para mi. Otro merito de la pelicula es que lograron movilizar muchisima gente en el set y simular una situacion catastrofica con poco dinero. Sobre Michael Crichton: felizmente para el se canso de tener reconocimiento, vender novelas y guionar peliculas. Pero, pasan los años y la gente pasa a ver y leer otras cosas, transformandose hoy en un desconocido. Crichton fue doctor en medicina por Harvard, por eso parece saber lo que dice en "La Amenaza de Andromeda" y "Jurassic Park", y sabe lo que dice. "La amenaza de Andromeda", tambien llevada al cine, y muy fielmente, escrita en 1968, no envejecio un gramo.
A eclectic bunch with very little in common with each other. A few of these are mainstream, most range the gamut from art-house to indie to kitsch. I saw almost all of these in the theater (except Virus and Le Dernier Combat), and of all of these, Miracle Mile and Looker felt like, if not could-be-blockbusters at the time, at least solid movies that were on par with almost everything else at the time. But this whole video rewarded me with a movie I hadn't heard of, Le Dernier Combat. Awesome.
The movie Virus had such an implausible story. There's no way a manufactured virus could escape a lab and cause a worldwide pandemic. It could never happen. 😕
Le Dernier Combat is a brilliant film and fully illustrates the cinematic principle that one should be able to watch a good movie without the soundtrack, and still understand it. Since there is only one word of dialogue in the movie, it requires that we bring something to the interpretation of the story. I found that I had a interpretation of some scenes different from the other people watching it with me, each of who had their own ideas. In my opinion, probably Besson's best film.
JFC, Liquid Sky isn't the least bit cyberpunk. There's not a single computer or corporation (or mention of them) in the entire film. Did anyone at Looper actually watch it?
On the second Jay Leno show about the car used in the Wraith, Jay says that Charlie Sheen said that he couldn't remember making the movie The Wraith. I don't think that was a denial of the existence of the movie, but he just couldn't remember it. #TigersBloodSideEffects
Liquid Sky wasn't meant to compete with Blade Runner or any major Hollywood film, it was the epitome of a small-budget arthouse film and had a very limited release.
Having seen both Liquid Sky and Blade Runner, I don't recall seeing them as similar. And how could Blade Runner overshadow Liquid Sky? It was a flop. "Me and my boxxxx..." I really liked Miracle Mile. I went to see it just because I liked The Terminator and saw several movies just on the basis of their being Hemdale productions.
Dude.... why did I watch Liquid Sky? Why did I keep watching this clusterf*ck until the end? Why the hell does it even get recommended? There are so many real hidden gems (that are actually sci-fi and not just a bad excuse for the sci-fi genre) in cinema history and you recommend this?
Miracle Mile, buen soundtrack por Tangerine Dream, una premisa interesante, un inicio excelente, pero una pésima dirección, pésimas actuaciones y el tono de la película terminó en la payasada. Me pareció muy mala cuando la ví, después de un muy buen trailer esperaba mucho más de ésa película.
4:47 Catherine Mary Stewart was in The Last Starfighter as Alex's girlfriend, Maggie. You're probably thinking of Sarah Jessica Parker, who played the intern in Flight of the Navigator.
The best sci-fi movie that's not on this list is "The Hidden" (1987) with Kyle MacLachlan. Another one of those alien movies where if you explain the plot you'll spoil it. I will also recommend "Alien Nation" (1988), which is a little self-important, but if you put silliness like "The Wraith" on this list, then I feel better about it.
The wraith isn't all that original. It's a rehash of High plains drifter in a way. The ill-served Dead return to the town and the people that stood by while they died. It's not an exact analogy but if you've seen both films you'll get it. Also you can't give Charlie Sheen very much credit for Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He's in the last 10 or 15 minutes of it and maybe has 4-5 lines. That's probably the last time he only had four or five lines. Lol. YEHU joke.😊
Okay Hamill in a movie with Paxton is a must see period! But Ben Kingsley and former Prof of my alma mater Brooklyn College, F Murray Abraham also in the cast. From the director of Tron, sold!!!
I remember most of these movies. "Ice Pirates" was pretty awful. I'm a big fan of "space opera" scifi, but this movie never did anything for me. When I first saw "Battle Beyond the Stars", I really enjoyed it, but it didn't age well with me. Watching it many years later, I found it pretty silly. "The Wraith" is definately an underrated scifi movie. Sure, it doesn't have the highest production value, it is still a movie that really kept my attention.
The "inexplicable" zombies in Night of the Comet are fully explained in the film. They are the people not yet fully dehydrated by the comet. Whoever wrote this probably didn't watch the film.
