jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I've gotten hooked on those cheap sci-fi disaster movies on YouTube. They tend to be unintentionally amusing. "Fiction" definitely belongs in the description. They seem to ignore actual science completely.

For example, one had the sun about to go supernova, something it will never do. There is always one person who sees the problem coming, but no one believes him/her. Two causes for many disasters are the military testing a new weapon and Big Business experimenting to make money. Someone always goes behind the back of the boss to try to solve the problem. Many of these movies use the same "special effects," and I've been recognizing scenes that were used before.

Nuclear weapons are usually suggested as the solution, and they are sometimes deployed. In one movie, a group of people was going underground set off 100 megatons of nukes. Of the six people going down, only two had the codes. Naturally, they both died. Simple solution: get inside the control panel and touch the blue wire to the yellow wire - Boom!

A rather common problem is the earth's core stopping, but there is always a way to get it spinning again - using nukes.

Some of these movies are pretty good - with good actors. Others are so bad that I switch them off after a few minutes.

Oh, this was a good one. They had to set off nukes at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Since solar flares had disabled electronics worldwide, they used an old diesel Russian sub to deliver the weapons. Fortunately, the old Russian sub was able to make the trip - 36,000 feet below the surface.

Although these stories supposedly take place in the U. S., the speed limit signs are often in KPH (as in Canada).

srron Loc: Courtice,On.

Hollywood just keeps telling the same stories over and over and few keep my attention.

srt101fan

Did you ever see a movie called "Killdozer"?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That sounds like a bulldozer version of "Christine."

I'll look for it.

Wow! Clint Walker! 1974 - I might have seen this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r3y-SRsNPI

Burtzy Loc: Bronx N.Y. & Simi Valley, CA

Actually, I've recently seen one on Amazon Prime called "Future '38" and it's both fun and pretty original. It's a film based on a future as imagined by someone alive in 1938. And it doesn't take itself too seriously at all. It's kind of just the right mix of sci-fi stuff and humor. It's also less than ninety minutes long. I'm a lifelong science fiction fan and this one actually is different. It's more akin to Woody Allen's "Sleeper" meets "The Man in the High Tower" than anything else. And it has as tongue-in-cheek intro by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thanks. I'll take a look.

srt101fan

One of the great "dumb fun" movies! 😋

fourlocks Loc: Londonderry, NH

And part of their charm is the over-acting by mediocre actors although a good actor will occasionally join the mix (I always say they must have needed to make a couple of mortgage payments).

Inevitably, there will be a "manly man" law enforcement or military type who teams up with the brilliant and beautiful physicist or biologist and both end up close-quartered in some ridiculously impossible craft heading to space, the bottom of the ocean or the center of the earth, to save the world. The last scene is usually the two of them wrapped in each others' arms and in a lip lock as the sun fades on a beautiful, new world.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Exactly!

mindzye Loc: WV

Now you guys have me laughing. Mostly at myself and, well, my wife - But Don't Tell Her!
Some time ago, for some unknown reason - couldn't be sanity' sake, for pete's sake - we got hooked on some of the most ridiculously funny and stupid movies - like Sharknado - in all their various formats and iterations.

THE best, imnsho, is Trailer Park Shark. Man, what a hoot. Gonna be a cult classic of all the B rated movies.
All the stereo type casting, good guys (dumber than Cooter Brown), the cafe waitress, family squabbling, friends livin' it up, evil ego driven real estate business owner who wants the trailer park for investment, the flooding of the trailer park..........and then enters the Shark!

Best line of the whole movie_ billy bob goes to jump off the roof of the trailer they were on, into the flood waters and claims : I'm gonna kill that dang shark! He ate my horse!!.....

Now, just to let everyone know we haven't lost our collective minds, when a Godzilla movie comes out, We're Watching it :}

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes! Those movies were ridiculously funny.

bikinkawboy Loc: north central Missouri

Oh yeah, those are always entertaining in one form or another. That old Russian sub must have been built like a brick outhouse. The water pressure at that depth is 15,584 psi. If they had the bunker loaded with coal, it could have been turned into diamonds when they got back.

Don’t forget that the good looking well endowed young woman always dies. Sometimes by sharks swimming in snow on mountaintops and other times by sharks that are actually swimming in the ocean believe it or not. And when monsters are about, the cop, sheriff, deputy or otherwise good guy that comes to save the day always dies, usually before the eyes of young women. If you’re an actor and they are going to cast you as the big chested screaming blonde or the good cop, you know your character won’t make it to the end of the movie.

The only movies more predictable are the old Japanese B&W Godzilla. You know that a lot of stuff is going to get torn up.

EdJ0307 Loc: out west someplace

Here's a preview of KillDozer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM-tGXGO1-8

john451 Loc: Lady's Island, SC/Columbia, SC

But then there was "Gort klaatu barada nikto".

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

[quote=jerryc41]I've gotten hooked on those cheap sci-fi disaster movies on YouTube. They tend to be unintentionally amusing. "Fiction" definitely belongs in the description. They seem to ignore actual science completely...."

One of my favorite sci-fi movies is "Lifeforce" from 1985, a not-so-cheap ($25 million) film from Cannon Group and Tri-Star Films that has become a cult classic. Directed by Tobe Hooper with a musical score by Henry Mancini and starring some famed British actors of that time including Patrick Stewart!

"Lifeforce" is currently showing for free on Tubitv.com and features a nude human-formed alien called the "Spacegirl" played by Matilda May, a French actress who's still around and attractive at 58!

A retrospective review is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHB-_pDeM4

The film for that time had pretty good special effects and acting and has been nicely remastered.

Be well all! Happy New Year. Ed

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