What's in a Title? Sci Fi Films Vol II Quiz

Answer: A Trip to Mars

Although "A Trip to Mars/Himmelskibet" doesn't display great film-making, it does mark an important step in the development of sci-fi cinema. Prior to "A Trip to Mars" films about space travel had been quite whimsical flights of fancy, whereas here space travel is taken very seriously. The "himmelskibet" of the title, which translates as sky/heaven ship, looks like something Howard Hughes would build rather than the to-become standard rocket. Nevertheless, the scenes of the Excelsior, as the vehicle is called, flying towards Mars are among the most interesting visually.

Mars is shown as a utopia where everybody is vegetarian (rather ironic for a Danish film) and pacifistic. Their garb is somewhere in between druids and the Ancient Greeks. There are some impressive crowd scenes and a wonderful dreamy sequence involving the Tree of Love and glowing flowers. Having said that, what lets the film down as a work of art is the lack of innovative cinematography, the hammy overacting, and the overall stagy feel. Nevertheless, it's worth watching as a curio.

Answer: Woman in the Moon

"Woman in the Moon/Frau im Mond" is a fascinating film for many reasons. First of all, it is as artistically brilliant as you would expect from Fritz Lang. Lang just couldn't help but weave a crime thriller sub-plot into his films, and that's the first highly entertaining part of the film. As far as the later scenes depicting the space mission go, they are absolutely superb.

Second, it's scientific accuracy and uncanny similarity to the actual first landing on the moon forty years later are astonishing. Trailblazing rocket scientist Hermann Oberth gave his precious technical advice to Lang in return for the studio's spending advertising money on his underfunded rocket research. The deal was that he'd launch a real rocket on the film's premiere, but unfortunately the project got too expensive.

However, following the film's success, the government invested in rocket research again. When the Nazis gained power in 1933, they were so paranoid about foreign governments stealing their ideas that they banned the film. Furthermore, one of Oberth's team was the inventor of the deadly V-2 rocket used by the Germans in World War Two, Wernher von Braun.

Answer: The Invisible Man

The opening scenes of "The Invisible Man" are as good as sci-fi/horror gets. We see a frightening looking figure trudging through the snow towards a country pub. The convivial atmosphere inside the inn soon alters when the man comes through the door. We and the drinkers soon find out that the man is bandaged from head to toe. Although we have an advantage over the rural merrymakers as we know we are watching a film called "The Invisible Man", our curiosity is aroused right from the start.

Amazingly, we don't get to see Claude Rains, who plays the doctor who has worked out how to make himself invisible, until the closing scene of the whole film. Indeed, the real stars of the film are the special effects which are still great fun to watch all these years later.

Answer: It Came from Outer Space

"It Came from Outer Space" was based on an original idea by Ray Bradbury. According to film historian Tom Weaver on the DVD commentary, Ray Bradbury submitted two versions of the story to Universal studios: one with nasty aliens as requested, and one with benevolent aliens as he wanted. Luckily, the studio bosses realised Bradbury was right and chose his more novel idea. Bradbury also hoped the aliens would never be shown, but a 1950s Universal sci-fi film without a monster would have been a bit too radical.

In the film, several local people disappear only to reappear soon afterwards. However, these people behave oddly and seem addled. It turns out the aliens crash-landed on Earth by mistake and are eager to get their ship fixed so they can fly off again. They are just borrowing local people's bodies in order to walk around unobserved picking up the spare parts they need. Despite the rather comical plot, the atmosphere of the film is really unnerving.

Answer: The Incredible Shrinking Man

The screenplay for "The Incredibly Shrinking Man" was by Richard Matheson who wrote the novel it was based on, "The Shrinking Man".

The fascinating thing about the film is the idea of scale. At first it's quite amusing to see this fully-grown man struggle with simple tasks as he gets smaller and smaller, but that cruel comedy soon turns into a nightmare.

Another part of the film's charm is the lack of mathematical precison in the scale of the props. In some scenes there seems to be no coherent ratio at work and it looks as though the props department was just churning stuff out willy-nilly. While that might make it laughable, it actually adds to the unsettling atmosphere.

Answer: Westworld

Although "Westword" is no masterpiece artistically, the theme park concept is fantastic. Indeed, Crichton was so pleased with it he used it again in the hugely successful "Jurassic Park" book and films.

There are actually three adult theme parks on offer from the company Delos, West World, Medieval World, and Roman World. Most of the action takes place in West World but we do have snippets of the other two.

Apart from the great idea, what makes "Westworld" such a great film is Yul Brynner's superb performance as the Gunslinger android. He somehow developed an android gait and way of moving his head which is as brilliant as it is subtle.

Answer: Flash Gordon

Apparently, cinema big-shots such as Federico Fellini, Nicholas Roeg, and Sergio Leone were interested in directing "Flash Gordon". George Lucas was also sniffing about, but the producer went with Mike Hodges. As much as I like imagining what the first three might have done with it, Hodges did a pretty good job. The comedy in some of the quips might be a bit annoying, but the overall campy vibe is really entertaining. Some have complained that Flash Gordon isn't supposed to be that way, but hard cheddar.

However, to my mind there are two things that really make "Flash Gordon" stand out as something other than a fun space romp: the peerless Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, and the soundtrack by Queen. Von Sydow was already a hugely respected actor of serious cinema (he was in practically all of Ingmar Bergman's films in the 1960s and 1970s), and pulled off the role as the demonic emperor of the planet Mongo. The Queen soundtrack is mostly instrumental and sees them really experimenting with synthesizers and atmospheric sounds. They rock out too, mind.

Also worthy of mention are the inimitable Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan and Chaim Topol as the madcap Dr. Hans Zarkov.

Answer: Escape from New York

The city is New York, and however daft the idea is, it makes a wonderful premise, and setting, for a film. "Snake" Plissken is played by Carpenter-mainstay Kurt Russell who seems to think he's become Clint Eastwood, and the bloke who sends him in, the New York Police Commissioner, is Lee Van Cleef. If that wasn't enough to make you want to see the film, the cabbie in the high-security prison/New York is Ernest Borgnine, the President is Donald Pleasence, and the self-crowned Duke of New York (the prison, that is) is Isaac Hayes.

As ever with Carpenter films, the soundtrack is outstanding and really adds to the atmosphere. Plus, there are several siege scenes, a Carpenter trope, which are undoubtedly a homage to the Westerns Carpenter has often spoken about glowingly.

Answer: The Road

Nobody in the film "The Road" is given a name. The man was played brilliantly by Viggo Mortensen, and the boy, who must be about 13, by Kodi Smit-McPhee. The majority of the film centres on the relationship between these two characters although they do encounter others along the journey, and we also get several flashbacks featuring the boy's mother. One of the people met on their journey is an old man played splendidly by veteran actor Robert Duvall.

"The Road" is a strange film since it's frighteningly bleak in a way mainstream films rarely are, but also sickeningly sentimental and mawkish at times. It's a very unusual film since it is gruesome, although not graphically gory. At times it's very dark in its imagery but also nostalgic, and philosophically it's somehow both pessimistic and optimistic. The wonder is that it all works.

Answer: Gravity

"Gravity" was a huge success both critically and commercially. Visually, it's breathtaking and manages to get an atmosphere which is both eerie and gracefully fascinating. Almost the entire film was done using computer generated imagery, proving that CGI does have a place in cinema and can be great to look at.

"Gravity" doesn't have much of a plot, but the theme of a woman's survival against all the odds is reasonably well-executed. There are some unfortunate concessions to platitudinous mainstream American movie-making, in particular some of Bullock's lines, and I found the score nauseating, but even these flaws couldn't ruin such a visually absorbing film.