vintage

Vintage articles and footage from the science fiction archives.

The Outer Limits: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart"
Poor William Shatner! He goes rocketing off to Venus and comes back possessed by the spirit of a space mermaid--a very ugly one to boot. It makes him ice cold, and we know this because he can drink whole boiling cauldrons of coffee, and likes to turn the thermostat up to 90.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers
1956 was either a stellar year to be an intergalactic flying saucer menace, or a bad one, depending on your perspective. We have Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Thing, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers. Whatever heavy trip the space brothers were laying on us that year (and it had more to do than just cleaning up the environment) the message was delivered by an iron fist in a velvety intergalactic space gauntlet. Or some such.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, is a film I well remember from childhood. At the Community Rec Center at Fort Clayton in Central America, Panama, area of the Canal Zone, they played it on an old-fashioned projection TV. It's the only other film I can remember seeing there, besides this thing with Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy as pirates. I can't remember which it was.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Metropolis: Adapted from the Novel by Thea Von Harbou
Note: We have elected, for various reasons, not to include images from the film within the text of this story. They are easily accessible online, and we have included an embedded video of our favorite version of the film, the one produced and scored by Giorgio Moroder.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Akira (Anime)
I vaguely remember seeing Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira as a child--and most likely not understanding a minute of it, but just sitting back and letting the animated images of a futuristic "Neo-Tokyo" wash over me. Decades later, watching it yet again, on a digital YouTube social media platform no one could have foreseen in 1988, I was struck by how modern and well-preserved it is, how much it set the bar for decades of similar anime films, having all the earmarks of the various conventions that define the genre.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Movie Review: The Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers.
Listen to this show wherever you stream or download your podcast. Welcome back to another episode of my podcast on 50s sci-fi. Today, I will be reviewing the classic movie, "The Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers". The film stars Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor and was produced by Charles H. Schneer, with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak, and directed by Fred F. Sears. The movie was released in Los Angeles on June 13, 1956, and has a runtime of 84 minutes.
By Edward German2 years ago in Futurism
Tron
Tron is one of my all-time favorite movies, a sci-fi feast that takes place inside a video game world ruled over by the MCP (Master Control Program), a world wherein gladiatorial "programs" battle it out for supremacy, riding rainbow-spewing laser bikes, and going up against floating robot menaces that transform their legs into giant crushing, killing presses. The world is stark, yet weirdly beautiful, an outgrowth of the imagination that conceived a cyberspace realm and brought it to life for the characters to occupy as alternate versions of their meatspace selves. It was groundbreaking stuff in 1982; hence, it flopped at the box office, only attaining cult status in the intervening years, as technology has caught up with and surpassed the virtual world envisioned by the filmmakers.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Devil Girl from Mars
Devil Girl from Mars is a 1954 British film about a flying saucer landing on the Scottish moors near a country inn. The residents are a professor, his assistant, an old couple that runs the place, another woman, some society dame, a young boy, a waitress, her escaped convict husband, and whew! I get tired just giving out that roster. Was there anyone I missed?
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
Whom Gods Destroy
I had a dream last night I shoplifted an old DVD of "Star Trek," so I got up this morning, signed into my telephone job, and watched the second episode (the second pilot, after "The Cage"), which by now featured familiar faces acting in familiar ways, including Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), a now emotionless Mr. Spock (the late, great Leonard Nimoy), Sulu (George Takei), Scotty (James Doohan), etc. However, still no Bones (the late, great DeForest Kelley, who died back in 1999). Instead, we have the brief (very brief) tenure of Paul Fix as "Dr. Piper."
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
A new kind of 3D-printed carrot, in the words of its Qatar-based inventors. Content Warning.
Qatari students aim to make ‘food accessible to people all over the world’ with their newly invented 3D printer. Innovation in the heart of Qatar has birthed a groundbreaking solution to the widespread issue of food insecurity. Two visionary students, Mohammad Annan, aged 20, and Lujain Al Mansoori, aged 21, both pursuing information systems at Doha's Carnegie Mellon University, have achieved an extraordinary feat - the creation of a 3D printer capable of mass-producing vegetables, offering a potential remedy to the global food crisis.
By nizam uddin2 years ago in Futurism
Outer Limits Season 2, Episode1: "Soldier"
Harlan Ellison sadly passed away at the age of 84, back in 2018. He was undeniably one of the most brilliant SF writers (hell, one of the most brilliant writers period), of his generation. He penned two episodes of the classic cult Sixties television sci-fi anthology show "The Outer Limits." One was "Demon With a Glass Hand," starring Robert "Greatest American Hero" Culp. I saw that one decades ago. The other, "Soldier," (Based loosely on Harlan's own short story "Soldier of Tomorrow") quite clearly inspired the mega-blockbuster action movie series The Terminator, starring Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold playing the titular cyborg assassin from Earth's apocalyptic, AI-generated nuclear holocaust of a future.
By Tom Baker2 years ago in Futurism
I PHONE ...THE END COMMING SOON
Limited camera upgrades. The iPhone 15's camera system has received some minor upgrades, but it is still behind the competition in some areas. For example, the ultrawide camera still lacks autofocus, and the iPhone 15 does not support 4K120p video recording.
By ARTIST2 years ago in Futurism