Category Archives: Science Fiction

There Will Come Soft Rains: Ray Bradbury Machinima Film

by Cimaxion

Ray Diaz made this machinima version of Ray Bradbury's 1952 short story about an automated house continuing on with its comfort duties for a nuclear family even after war has stripped the earth of all life. It's a simple and eerie little film. The soundtrack is provided by an NBC radio broadcast dramatization of the story.


There will come soft rains from Ray Diaz on Vimeo.

 

Aelita Queen of Mars: First Russian Science Fiction Film 1924

by Cimaxion

This is regarded as being the first Soviet science fiction film. Made in 1924, it’s an operatic scenario involving a mysterious radio signal sent toward earth, a scientist who builds a spaceship to get to the red planet only to find a totalitarian state, and a dictator’s daughter who wants to lead a revolution. There’s even a hammer and sickle to go along with the establishment of a socialist republic on Mars.

The film combines outlandish stage scenery representing Mars with the gritty streets and factories of Moscow. There’s some really beautiful photography and truly absurd costumes throughout.

Directed By Yakov Protozoan
Written By Aleksei Fajko and Fyodor Otsep
Based On A Play By Aleksei Tolstoy

All six parts of the film can be seen in this YouTube playlist.

A Clockwork Orange: BBC Radio Drama of the Novel by Anthony Burgess

by Cimaxion

This is a BBC radio dramatization of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The book is still a shocking satire of Western culture gone to the youthful dogs of violence and mayhem. Burgess played with language by inventing a detailed and comically expressive slang for his criminal hero and the gang he leads.
 
The best info I can find about this recording dates it somewhere around 1997. It stars Jason Hughes as the murderous 'droog,' Alex.
 
 

Ray Bradbury Has Died at 91

by Cimaxion

It’s a sad day for writing and for science fiction. Legendary and iconic author Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91. We should count ourselves fortunate that we had him for so many years, firing the imaginations of children and adults worldwide. I will never forget reading his ‘Martian Chronicles,’ ‘Fahrenheit 451,’ and ‘The Illustrated Man.’ I recently re-read 451 after many decades and thoroughly enjoyed it to the same extent that I had as a teenager. He was one of those writers more interested in the life of the imagination than in hard-core science fiction. He wrote not about the spaceship, but more about how one thought about a spaceship.
 
He provided much material for the movies, including the peculiar and not entirely successful Francois Truffaut adaptation of ‘Fahrenheit 451.’ He will be sorely missed and probably never equaled.
 
Here is a 1963 television documentary about Bradbury produced by David L. Wolper. It contains a film version of one of his short stories called ‘Dial Double Zero.’
 
Video found via Paul Gallagher at Dangerous Minds.