High-concept sci-fi movies - S & D

The Thirteenth Floor, which got lost somewhere in the middle of the auteurist eXistenz and blockbuster Matrix. I'm not sure it's necessarily better than either of them -- they're all three different movies playing with a similar pitch. But I'd call it Search-worthy, in any case.

Brazil, but that's probably one of the ones you meant by "several Gilliam titles." (Does Fisher King count as sci-fi? Not really, I guess, but it really cracked my skull open as a teenager, in the best and Gilliamest of ways. I haven't seen it since, though.)

Vanilla Sky and Open Your Eyes (the movie VS is based on) are both very much movies about perception and identity.

I don't remember a damn thing about City of Lost Children, because I don't think I've watched it with the sound on, so I don't know if it was high-concept -- but Christ was it pretty.

Destroy:

Dark City. Nice concept, nice moodiness, limped on the follow-through.

Nothing else is coming to mind for Destroy, but that's because I'm looking at my DVDs to jog my memory..

Not sci-fi, but very much about the relativity of reality: Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (one of the best films ever).

Destroy:
Matrix, eXistenZ, Strange Days, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dark City, almost every big budget sci-fi flick made in Hollywood.

does Being John Malkovich count as sci-fi? if so search

also search: The City Of Lost Children, THX-1138, Starship Troopers (is it 'high-concept'? kinda), Event Horizon

I liked these movies not because of how original they were, or of how great the acting or plot was but rather, um... mostly because of the great visual setting combined with a kind of "campy" feel. It was both slightly creepy and slightly funny. Which is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for in a movie.

In hypercube as one of the characters jumps they let out a totally ridiculous sound "uhh" which may be a result of bad acting, but I thought was hilarious. Some of the other lines in the movies may be horribly written, but come out as so funny.

did you like Minority Report or Vanilla Sky?

Yeah, they aren't really good because of thier high-concept, but I think they would be considered high-concept films.

A.I. was awful but it publicized the "A.I. stands for artificial intelligence" meme so it is good in this respect.

(I think the term high concept is being misused here - its usually applied to comedies)

and A.I. had a lot of neat touches - whatever Kubrickian influences remained, dud film tho of course

City of Lost Children, by being as innocent and childlike as it was, I think it came off as very powerful and raw emotionally, kinda like a 6-year-old's nightmare. Plus the story is very fresh and creative. (Honestly, I think it's the most Gilliam-ish non-Gilliam film evah, which only makes me like it more.)

Matrix, on the other hand, now that the special effects are getting dated, is showing how lame it was.

As an action movie, it was so-so. The not very-special-anymore effects just get in the way nowadays. Total Recall was a better action film.

As some kind of intelligent sci-fi film - yeah right. When the guy at end gets SUPER KUNG-FU POWERS and beats up the bad guy, that pretty much trashes anything intelligent in the movie. It could still make for a good action movie, but like I said, its not even that.

If I want just the intelligent parts of the movie w/o the cheese, I can read some PKD.

But they way this control is expressed - via kung-fu - is cheesy. If you can control space and time, he could have simple stared at the bad guy and made him disappear. Visually, that wouldn't have been too exciting, and I can understand that and why they had a big fight at the end. One reason you can be smarter in books is you don't always have action.

The one-armed kung-fu at the end was the best part for me: a sense of humor with your apotheosis.

No one has mentioned Tarkovsky! So Solaris and Stalker then. Especially Stalker.

All of them?

close but no cigar...too busy thinking about the cigar that it caught 'phantom lung cancer' and died on its arse

I regard him with a sort of stunned awe.

The Matrix is less of a film and more of just a big stupid smormasboard of every idea ever - no less enjoyable for that tho - does anyone really care about the whole chosen one/Zion/machines takeover crap? no we've heard it all before just bring forth the bullet time and hyper-kung-fu pa-lease. i can't wait to see Neo having a big brawl with 100 Agent Smiths.

All too true.

If anything, it's usually applied to action movies, but it's really not about genre as much as marketing. High concept is a pitch term -- pitches that can be summed up quickly and with an obvious hook ("it's 'Run Lola Run' meets 'Tarzan'!").

I don't know if that's necessarily the way James meant it in the question, though.

Even the Ministry concert and the animated Robin Williams?

Speaking of which, I can't imagine anyone wanting to destroy 2001: A Space Odyssey. This film is so smooth and gorgeous and harsh and enormous, I don't really know what to say...although, of all the films I've seen in my life, I think it tested my patience the most, so I could see the urge to destroy it.

introduced my friends to eXistenZ over the weekend

fyi, Silent Running on Film4 today UKer's

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B4vLmgNCAAA6dQH.jpg

anyone know this Polish guy from the '80s?

https://www.filmlinc.org/series/sci-fi-visionary-piotr-szulkin/#films

no but looks interesting

a couple of his are on YT in goodlooking subtitled form

Surprised neither Interstellar nor Edge of Tomorrow were mentioned in any revives.

last action hero sounds unbelievable if you describe it -- basically the gremlins 2 key and peele sketch.

last action hero is more like a no concept scifi movie

just watched a brilliant sci-fi visual essay based on Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men narrated by Tilda Swinton, featuring lots of doomed monuments 2 billion years in the future. good stuff.

I was hoping that would be great. It isn't streaming anywhere, is it?

in the unfilmable pre-1940 science fiction dept, I saw the 1982 german TV version of Zamaytin's 'We' on youtube a few weeks back. they do a lot with video feedback to suggest the crowds of thousands eating and exercising in perfect synchronization in endless glass tunnels. probably only for severely dedicated fans of the book but I had a good time grabbing screen captures with the bad english subtitles.

I got it off the torrents and it looked like a dvd rip. It does so much with so little it's quite a trip.

i saw Upside Down last week (Sony Movies?). two planets, 100 or so metres apart, but with gravity affinity so things from planetA always gravitated towards planetA etc. and there was one skyscraper that bridged the two planets and on floor 0, the middle floor, people were working on the floor and the ceiling. (oh, and one planet was poor, the other rich, so there's a class thing there as well)

i lost interest about an hour in.

oddest thing was never having heard of such a film before. was released in 2012 and had name stars in it but...

that isn't so much high-concept as unforgivably stupid tbf

That's the kind of premise that would get you rejected from every short story market going on the grounds of extreme implausibility and poor physics.

I dig Jóhann Jóhannsson's score for 'Last and First Men', need to find that film.

didn't he direct it as well?

ah yes he did!

i saw Upside Down last week

I saw it years ago. absolute trash, the nadir of that brief period where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting some "cutesy indie sci-fi". even worse than Another Earth somehow

xxp
I'd read some comment that it was more like a movie you'd see as part of an art installation, but the simple narrator and images of imagined monuments combo was quite powerful and evocative and much more than just "experimental film" imo

.. and the score as well of course

not deriding "experimental film" there, just meant I wouldn't want to watch a bruce nauman vid in my living room when I'm in the mood for a movie!

Looking forward to seeing it. It was Jóhannsson's only (completed) film, before he committed suicide in '18.

xp lol

Anyone see "Coherence?"

There's also Triangle, Time Crimes, Source Code ...

coherence was great

Mr. Nobody and Mood Indigo maybe also in this category as well?

(thinking of Simon H's summary specifically)

Timetrap on Netflix is kind of neat, don't let the beginning put you off.

i loved it!

I dig Jóhann Jóhannsson's score for 'Last and First Men', need to find that film.

If you're still picking up physical releases, the film is packaged with the score cd. I don't remember ordering my copy as a 'deluxe' edition, so pretty sure it's the standard. Going to watch it by the weekend.

Anyone see "Coherence?"

There's also Triangle, Time Crimes, Source Code ...

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 27 May 2020 13:39 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ARQ, Endless, ...

oops, The Endless

If you ever get to see Hitoshi Matsumoto's Symbol, I would highly recommend it. It starts out like one of those Cube-style ontological mysteries, where a dude wakes up in his pajamas in a completely empty room with bright white walls and floor, and he has no idea how he got there or how to get out... But it gets way weirder than these kind of stories usually do, it's just an unique piece of high-concept film-making that's also very entertaining. And the less you know about the plot before starting the film, the better.

Been hearing good things about The Vast Of Night, a super lo-budget sci-fi flick on Amazon.

what are some low-concept sci-fi movies

surely like Dark Star

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

fwiw the Wikipedia definition of "high-concept" is pretty different than what the OP is asking for here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-concept

This thread might as well have been called Sci Fi Movies tbf

been rolling my eyes at the title/initial post discrepancy for years but hey, love some science fiction over here

The more completely you can imagine the entire movie from one brief phrase or sentence, the higher the concept. The purest example of any 'high concept' movie was "Snakes on a Plane". Some other strong competitors would be "Hobo with a Shotgun", "Cowboys vs. Aliens", or "Alien vs. Predator". Not many sci-fi films fit that mold. There's usually too much exposition required compared to true 'high concepts'.

My bad for reviving this thread but it was for a sci-fi movie based on writing that was considered unfilmable with no cast other than Tilda Swinton's fabulous voice and I found it a very powerful and unique movie, it wasn't some Netflix cack and erm it was late and there are loads of shite threads!

It's fine I was just confused

The high concept of many sf films is “(x) in space”

The Vast of Night was really good xps

The Vast Of Night

the first 20 minutes has some of the most unbearable, tinnitus inducing, phoney blabber i have ever witnessed in a movie. guess the screenwriter wanted to fill some 'atmospheric gaps' or whatever.

now let's see the rest.

loved the long tracking shot from parking lot to the basketball match and back. something between steadycam and drone shot.

the whole thing felt more like a (successful) job application than a complete movie.

Magic spoiler: apparently four different shots in different locations seamlessly spliced, and no drones used at all. It was iirc go kart and gimbal, and if you tried to walk the shot it's not physically possible.

Limited The Vast of Night discussion across a smattering of threads.

I really liked this movie, though it wasn't perfect. The pacing was so deliberate and I liked the in media res opening established the world of the small town so nicely. Also interesting how they used different shots/editing for different scenes. The meta TV scenes were cut like a sitcom or other old TV show, while the proper movie had some really interesting long tracking shots. The two leads were good, but I wasn't sure the actor playing the elderly mom in the house was up to it.

The budget must have been microscopic.

Love that movie. Great comfort viewing.