Every Single Sci-Fi Film Ever*

As always there are spoilers ahead!
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First Men on the Moon was written by HG Wells and serialised in The Strand Magazine beginning in 1900. The book was published in 1901 a year before Georges Méliès kicked off science fiction cinema with La Voyage dans la Lune in 1902. (You can learn more about that film in episode number 2 The First Science Fiction Film Ever.)
 Then in the swinging 60s as the space race was heating up a collection of brilliant sci-fi filmmakers go together to make a story about a Victorian British scientist going to the moon with his anti-gravity material Cavorite! And yet even the amazing Ray Harryhausen stop motion special effects were not enough to make this film a success. My amazing guests break down the origins and outcomes of this mid-century oddity. 
Keith Williams is a Reader in English Literature at the University of Dundee where he runs the science fiction programme. He has a special interest in the pre 1945 period and is the author of the book H.G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies.
Matthew Rule-Jones is a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Exeter and author of the book Science Fiction Cinema and 1950s Britain: Recontextualising Cultural Anxiety.
At 6:09 Keith is about to explain the contraption that Robert William Paul was planning based on HG wells Time Machine. I interrupt him as we've covered this in two episodes priot. You can access more information about that on episode 37 The Time Machine: HG Wells' Legacy in 1960s Sci-Fi at timecode 23:07 or in episode 9 The Invisible Man Exposed at timecode 38:29.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:23 HG Wells, selenites and Georges Méliès Trip to the Moon
06:57 Balancing act: Producer Charles Schneer vs Writer Nigel Kneale.
12:44 Box Office flop
15:12 Dreams of Empire and international cooperation
19:40 Steampunk sensibilities
22:26 The backdrop of the Space Race
26:58 Bedford and Cavor
33:20 Ray Harryhausen
37:50  NASA and the moon landing
41:12 Ant colonies and sci-fi
46:42 Legacy
50:10 Recommendations
 
Recommendations:
The First Men in the Moon (2010)
The Stone Tape (1972) available to view on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHgcpzzZspw
 
NEXT EPISODE!
The next episode will feature two films:  Dr Who & the Daleks (1965) as well as Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966). These films are available to buy or stream on mainstream platforms like Apple and Prime as well as subscription services. The Just Watch website is a good resource for finding where films are available in your region.

I am very sorry but I have been unwell this past week. (But I am on the mend!)
Multiple visits to the hospital mean that although I have the next episode recorded I have not been able to edit it.
I've heard many podcasts serve up older episodes in this circumstance. Maybe an annoyance to those who have already heard all the episodes but for those who haven't since it is 2026 it's probably a good opportunity to watch Metropolis (1927) as this year is the year it was set. I have two remarkable and engaging academics speak about it.
Sonja Fritzsche is a professor of German Studies and an author/editor for many books about science fiction. She has taught courses on science fiction, utopia and Metropolis.
Noah Isenberg is a film historian and best-selling author. He is a professor at the University of Texas and editor of the book Weimar Cinema: An Essential Guide to Classic Films of the Era.
This episode was originally released in April 2024 and was episode 5 of the podcast. 
I will hopefully be back in great health soon and the new episode on First Men in the Moon will be edited for release in two weeks.

As always there are spoilers ahead!
 
You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky. 
 
If you would like to be a patron of the podcast you can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm
 
In 1958 the Peter George novel Red Alert was published about the dangers of nuclear war. A few years later when Stanley Kubrick was looking to make a (serious) film about the topic he was recommended the book.
 
Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was the resulting film. The film takes aim at military strategy, rhetoric and the people involved to give us one of the most famous satires in cinema.
 
It would be quite easy to double the length of this episode, but we've tried to fit as much as we can into the hour with my two remarkable guests.
 
Mark Bould is a professor of Film and Literature at the University of West England, Bristol. He has written/edited extensively about science fiction cinema.
 
Rodney F Hill is a Professor of Film at the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University and has written extensively about film.
 
This is the article I mention by Eric Schlosser: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/almost-everything-in-dr-strangelove-was-true
 
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:12 Source material
03:12 The threat of Lumet's Fail Safe
05:35 Herman Kahn, winnable nuclear war and the doomsday machine
08:25 Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip
13:55 Nuclear policy and the Cold War
17:23 Doomsday comedy
25:51 Masculinity, techno-eroticism and bodily fluids
33:21 Peter Sellers
38:04 1960s satire boom
40:11 Production design of Ken Adam
41:25 Music
43:27 The changes to the film
46:32 Legacy
54:34 Recommendations
 
 
Recommendations: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Fail Safe (1964).
 
NEXT EPISODE!
Next episode we will be talking about First Men on the Moon (1964). The film is based on the HG Wells novel and features stop motion animation by Ray Harryhausen.
It is is available to stream and rent from Apple. The Just Watch website can give you a list of where the film is available in your region.

Time for another detour! An introduction to Afrofuturism with two magnificent guests.
You can follow the podcast on social media on Threads, Instagram and Bluesky.
If you would like to be a patron of the podcast it would be greatly appreciated! You can join Patreon and for £3 or $3 a month you can get ad free version of the show. https://www.patreon.com/everyscififilm
The symbol mentioned in the podcast a few times is the Sankofa symbol which is a recurring symbol in Afrofuturism. It represents the idea that there are things that you go back for (and things you leave behind). You can read more about it on this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankofa
Julian Chambliss is a scholar and a professor at Michigan State University. He is the author of multiple books including Mapping Afrofuturism: Understanding Black Speculative Practice
Ytasha Womack is a filmmaker, cultural critic and author of the books Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture and The Afro Futurist Evolution: Creative Paths of Self Discovery.
 
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:18 Afrofuturism origin story
08:04 Afrofuturism and science fiction
11:44 Retro Afrofuturism: Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkinson
16:37 The diaspora and Afrofuturism
19:53 Dance and the individual as a nexus of time and space
23:24 Ancestry in Afrofuturism
25:32 Moving away from dystopia: Slavery as apocalypse
29:55 Optimism for the future
33:03 Holistic utopias and protopia.
35:43 Mystical frameworks
38:15 Alternative realities and the multiverse
41:38 Theory, practice and interconnectedness
46:21 Recommendations
 
Recommendations: 
The Afro Futurist Evolution: Creative Paths of Self Discovery by Ytasha Womack
(I would also thoroughly recommend her book Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture.)
Agharta by Miles Davis
Blake; or The Huts of America: A Tale of the Mississippi Valley, the Southern United States, and Cuba by  Martin Delany
Space is the Place by Sun Ra
Lee "Scratch" Perry
George Clinton
Mothership Connection by Parliament
Pedro Bell and Overton Loyd
Beyond the Black Panther exhibition at MSU
Rise podcast by Julian
Infinitum by Tim Fielder
 
NEXT EPISODE!
Next time we'll be talking about Dr Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and love the Bomb (1964)! You can watch the film pretty much anywhere and it is readily available to buy or rent online from many platforms. I would also recommend watching Fail Safe from the same year because it is excellent, affected the production of Dr Strangelove and due to their similarities.

As always there are spoilers ahead!
We've discussed Czech scifi before with Karel Zeman's gorgeous steam punk offering from 1958 Invention for Destruction (dubbed into the English language The Fabulous World of Jules Verne) and we've also covered Communists in Space with 1960s The Silent Star (AKA First Spaceship on Venus).
The Czech Ikarie XB-1 (1963) has connections to both of those films but also offers an aesthetic that seems to directly inspire Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey. The year is 2163, communism has won, and a crew of 40 are sent to find life on the white planet in Alpha Centauri with a journey fraught with sociological, psychological and physical challenges.
I have two amazing academics to help give insight into the film.
Evan Torner is an Associate Professor of German Studies and Niehoff Professor of Film & Media Studies at the University of Cincinnati.
Simon Spiegel is a lecturer of Film Studies at the University of Zurich. He has written extensively about Science Fiction and Utopia and has just released the book The Fear of Knowing about spoilers in film and media.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Stanislaw Lem's The Magellanic Cloud
04:28 Czechoslovakian New Wave and film industry
09:49 The striking introductory scenes and Kubrick's 2001
13:05 Cabin fever in spaaace!
15:13 Music by Zdeněk Liška
16:57 Communist utopia in spaaace!
20:57 The draw of sociological stories
26:19 A utopian party and a red alert
28:15 The capitalist ship and the 20th century
32:47 Putting science into sci-fi
39:30 Evan's Dark Matter Shenanigans
42:21 Post Stalin faith
43:41 The ending
45:39 The US edit
47:27 Legacy
52:18 Recommendations
 
 
NEXT EPISODE!
I will be taking a detour next episode to talk about Afrofuturism which I've been wanting to discuss since the very early days of research before I launched the podcast. Almost two years late but I hope you enjoy it. After that we will be discussing Dr Strangelove and I would recommend you also watch Fail Safe (also 1964) if you have time.