Local science fiction fans may be well aware of the Cinerama’s upcoming Science Fiction Film Fest, but how many of you read the book first? Interestingly, most of the films started out as books of one kind or another, and they are worth a look. Here’s a rundown.
Metropolis: no source book for this one, but this is a great opportunity to point you to Karel Capek’s R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots, a Czech science fiction play from 1920 that introduced the world to the word “robot.”
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Possibly a case of the film being better than the book, but the novel is good, and the differences between film and text are interesting. If you can believe it, Stanley Kubrick had to simplify the science of Clarke’s novel to make this film more accessible to a general audience.
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
The book shows a great example of invasion literature (which was quite common in 19th century England), but marked the first time Earth was invaded (rather than England, Wells’s homeland).
Barbarella was likely the first film to be based on a graphic novel, in this case a short series of French “bandes desinees” by Jean-Claude Forest.
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
One of the first zombie apocalypse novels, this book proved surprisingly influential, spawning comics, more zombie novels, and a few more movies.
Brazil
This might be the only movie based solely on a song, which director Terry Gilliam thought perfectly defined the escapist, yet totalitarian atmosphere of this dark, beautiful film. The song can also be found in our Freegal service (try searching for Brazil or Aquarela do Brasil, since it is covered by many artists).
Forbidden Planet:
The inspiration for this classic 1956 film is Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, but in this case the wizard Prospero is more of a mad scientist trying to control alien forces on a distant planet.
Planet of the Apes:
The original 1963 novel, Planete des Singes, was written by Pierre Boulle, and that is what the library owns. What better time to brush off your high school French?
The Matrix
This film may have more print influences than any other film in this festival, and yet there is no original book that it claims as a basis. William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk work Neuromancer is a good start, as is the philosophical work of Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simluation. Wikipedia has a good list of influences on this film.
Dune by Frank Herbert:
David Lynch did his best to capture the alien strangeness of a desert planet populated by religious fanatics and their alien messiah, along with monstrous sandworms and a powerful drug known as the Spice, but many fans of the book consider the film a disappointment.
Soylent Green:
Harry Harrison, worried about the effects of overpopulation, pollution, and even the greenhouse effect, wrote the rarely read classic, Make Room, Make Room! which was turned into a classic police procedural-science fiction film in 1973. The library only owns the e-book edition.
Solaris:
Stanislaw Lem, the prolific Polish science fiction writer, wrote this classic in 1961. Solaris is an oceanic planet that is so intelligent its attempts to communicate with the humans who hover above its surface are utterly doomed. The book explores the futility of this encounter in great depth. The Cinerama is likely showing the 1972 Tarkovsky film, but the library owns that and the 2002 Soderbergh version with George Clooney.
Flash Gordon, by Alex Raymond:
The library owns one 5-volume set of the old comics on which this campy movie was based.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
It’s great that Kubrick has two movies in this film festival. Where 2001 is a meditation on human destiny, A Clockwork Orange focuses on the nature of free will and how we may use it. Both the movie and the book are classics.
Here is a list of the books in our catalog.
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