The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Space opera concerns stories that place an emphasis on intergalactic adventure. Space opera features a series of adventures in a variety of often exotic interplanetary locales, involving space battles and a variety of alien lifeforms all living in differing levels of coexistence.
The space opera was largely invented in the late 1920s by writers such as Jack Williamson and in particular E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith, as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs who came up with the Planetary Adventure, a space opera adventure that is restricted to a single planetary locale.
The first screen space operas were in the serials with the various adventures of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers and later with tv’s Star Trek (1966-9). The genre found enormous popularity with Star Wars (1977) and successive sequels, spinoffs and imitators.
The single most influential science-fiction film of all time, one that created a massive industry of sequels and spinoffs, not to mention copycats, and changed the way that people thought of science-fiction
George Lucas’s return to the Star Wars series after a sixteen year absence and a build-up rivaled only by the Second Coming. Instead most audiences went away disappointed. Lucas has used the interim to push the technology to its heights but the story and characters are lacking
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload
The last of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader
George Lucas’s first sequel to Star Wars and a work that holds up every bit as well as its predecessor, in many places betters it. The story darkens the mythos and introduces new characters, while the special effects sequences are the peak of the series
A disappointing end to George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy. The script lazily wraps up loose ends while sidelining the new characters introduced the last time, and the climax rehashes the climaxes of the two other films
It’s not another Empire Strikes Back but it makes up for the prequels. A good part fanservice to the original – if overly reliant on rehashing elements from Star Wars – this also does many things right
I’m not one of the haters on this. It’s the first Star Wars sequel since the 1980s to invigorate the series with fresh action sequences and place more focus on the characters instead of the action
The concluding chapter of the third trilogy of Star Wars films. After the critically divided The Last Jedi, J.J. Abrams opts for a return to the safety of familiarity and nostalgia
The tv special that George Lucas would have all copies destroyed, a work of legendary badness – a Star Wars Thanksgiving special featuring most of the original cast and a series of variety performances that are mind-boggling in their ineptitude, not to mention complete and utter fumbling of everything that Star Wars was
Theatrical spinoff from the Star Wars prequels, released to introduce the popular animated series. This shows it is time for George Lucas to move beyond recycling something that was successful three decades ago
An extraordinary example of the fan film where Finnish filmmakers created a parody of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5, with effects that rival those of A-list studio fare made on their home computers
The first animated film in 3D, a blatant copy of Star Wars that proves occasionally engaging
A planetary adventure from the director of Battlefield Earth. I waited 35 years to find a copy of this – it looked incredibly promising when I saw production artwork back in the 1980s
Sequel to Starship Rising, a space opera that does some amazing things with effects on a next-to-no budget
Modest space opera from British director Neil Johnson that achieves things with its effects on a low-budget that easily rivals A-budget films
Travesty of Robert Heinlein’s classic SF novel from Paul Verhoeven. Heinlein’s philosophical argument for militarism is junked in favour of blackly comic mindless violence
The importation of anime director Shinji Aramaki to helm the latest Starship Troopers film provides dazzling animation and hardware, along with some hard, furious military action that easily outstrips all the other films. On the other hand, the film never goes beyond being about soldiers shooting up bugs
The fifth of the films in the series begun with Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. The best of the series was the previous entry Starship Troopers: Invasion where they turned it over to anime director Shinji Aramaki. This is a sequel to that, although the same mix fails to work again
Sequel to the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was the second highest grossing film of 2023. From the people behind the Despicable Me films, this exists as little more than eye candy for five-year-olds
Beautifully colourful 1950s SF film about scientists who are abducted to take part in a war between two alien species
Rene Laloux, the animator who made Fantastic Planet, collaborates with cult fantasy artist Moebius and the result is a planetary adventure filled with trippily exotic backgrounds and creatures
Very nicely made space opera from animator Don Bluth, operating from a Joss Whedon script, that unfortunately proved a big box-office flop
Animated theatrically released spinoff from the original Transformers tv series. The film mostly serves to highlight the considerable number of characters where to the uninitiated it is frequently difficult to tell one side from the next.
Disney animated film that proved a flop, this lazily remakes Treasure Island set in space. The result is bad science-fiction with sailing ships in space, Ben Gumm as a malfunctioning robot and so on
A strong contender for Worst Film Ever. Rather than create any effects, it has simply uplifted footage from Star Wars, while the score is a mismash taken from popular films of the era. The dialogue is so bizarrely surreal it makes the brain hurt trying to understand it
An Italian space opera where a professor and associates are abducted after finding an alien craft. The film’s main distinction was being redubbed in English under the title Star Pilot to be released as a copy of Star Wars
Animated film based on the popular fantasy wargame. The set-up is a fascinating mix of SF and mediaeval religion but the plot rehashes Aliens without much payoff and the animation is B-budget
It was a box-office bomb but this is one of the most breathtaking and completely designed SF work to ever cross the screen. In terms of effects, sets and costuming, Luc Besson gives us a work that is an overwhelming treat for the eyes
One of the various Italian space operas of the 1960s from director Antonio Margheriti. This has a certain colourful ambition despite frequently being let down by cheap effects
One of the cheap Italian space operas of the 1960s from Antonio Margheriti. This has a certain colourful absurdity amid the mostly dull happenings and B-budget effects
Star Wars meets Top Gun – a concept it is surprising no one has thought of before – but alas this film adaptation of the popular videogame only regurgitates the cliches of either film
Enjoyable sequel to Jumanji and actually a much superior film in the hands of Jon Favreau. This expands the idea of the Jumanji boardgame that brings things from a jungle to life to a space theme