By Jeffrey Siniard 7/30/10.
I'm going to poach an idea I saw on a blog that I read rather frequently. John Kenneth Muir is a terrific genre critic, and he received a challenge that has been spreading from blog to blog, starting with Checking On My Sausages. The challenge here is to select a theme and provide images from films that express that theme.
I don't know if anyone else who sees this blogs about movies on their own time, but if so, I'd like to see what someone else has to contribute.
Myself, I'm choosing the theme of The Vastness of Outer Space. I've always found that in their rush to provide excitement, many filmmakers(and audiences, unfortunately) never pause to consider just how vast and unknowable space can be. I've selected images from films going back to the 1950s, up to films that are very recent in our history. Hopefully, the shots I chose can give you a moment of pause.
Images with captions follow below...
The Martians consider Saturn. The War of the Worlds (1953).
Directed by Byron Haskin.
Earth cruiser C57D passing behind an eclipse of Altair. Forbidden Planet (1956).
Directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox.
The Discovery navigates the Asteroid belt. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
The Discovery approaches Jupiter, and the Infinite. 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Nostromo approaches LV-426. Alien (1979).
Directed by Ridley Scott.
The Nostromo, passing behind a moon of LV-426. Alien (1979).
The V'ger cloud, in Klingon space. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).
Directed by Robert Wise.
A refitted Enterprise, passing Jupiter. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).
The Frontier. The Last Starfighter (1984).
Directed by Nick Castle.
The Lewis and Clark approaches Neptune. Event Horizon (1997).
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.
Wall-E catches a shuttle to the Axiom. WALL-E (2008).
Directed by Andrew Stanton.
The Venture Star approaches Pandora. Avatar (2009).
Directed by James Cameron.
Very interesting choice of theme and beautiful images too.
Loneliness and wonder.
Posted by: Stephen | July 31, 2010 at 01:22 AM
Jeffrey:
Wow! You have assembled a great gallery here, reflecting cinema's fascination (across the decades...) with outer space imagery and the vastness of the final frontier. I love this gallery! I will post a link to it today on the blog.
Thanks for posting this!
regards,
John Kenneth Muir
Posted by: John Kenneth Muir | July 31, 2010 at 05:05 AM
This is a beautiful post. I really enjoyed your selections. You not only gave us images of space, but the sense of unending loneliness, vastness, and sheer expanse of the great black. Lovely.
Posted by: The Sci-Fi Fanatic | August 01, 2010 at 06:15 AM
Great idea - and all without a certain obvious candidate! Btw, if your readers are interested, here is the post where I kicked off the meme:
http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-beginning.html
I'm also linking up to all the participants at the bottom of the post, so anyone who takes this up is invited to drop a comment there letting me know, and I'll slot them in...
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