They Might Be Giants … Movie Review

George Pal's production of The War of the Worlds (1956), featuring amazing special effects for its day, adapts the classic novel by H. G. Wells, setting it in the mid-twentieth century and turning the epic battle between humans and Martians into an almost religious morality play. The team of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich produced the adventurous Stargate (1994), a story that offers an explanation for the Egyptian pyramids and that features a villain who is none other than Ra, the ancient sun god. The characters are somewhat comic-book inspired, but the visual effects and the story's premise are intriguing. Devlin and Emmerich also produced the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, an alien invasion film that celebrates the power of a united humanity but also a movie that basically retells every other science fiction movie that came before it. Director Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997) features a visual smorgasbord of fascinating imagery that includes the ancient past, a quirky, fast-paced future, bizarre aliens, campy villains, and a storyline that is hard to follow but has something to do with an ancient mystery that is the only key to humanity's future survival. The second film to feature the cast of television's Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jonathan Frakes' Star Trek: First Contact (1996) combines a heroic, epic battle to save mankind's future with an obsessive quest for revenge inspired by Moby Dick. In the footsteps of Star Trek, the latest science fiction television series to be turned into a film is Lost in Space (1998), a visually exciting, darker version of the 60s TV show that tells the story of a family whose mission to establish a colony on another planet is sabotaged and who must struggle to find their way in unknown, dangerous territories of space.