Fantasy about space - it's great!

The cinema genre of space fiction has been in demand for a long time already. Just think, almost 90 years have passed from Protazanov's masterpiece "Aelita" to the recently released "Gravitation" and "Ender's Games"!

Do you remember how it all began

A very courageous step was to take in the hungry and cold Soviet Russia and withdraw (after just one year after the release of what Alexei Tolstoy's "Aelita" became, as it is now called, the best-selling work of Aleksei Tolstoy) the first full-length feature film in the history of world cinema. However, this happened. And the infernal beauty of Julia Solntseva (Martian), and the nobility of the engineer Los (Nikolai Tseretelli), and the remarkable debut of the great Igor Ilyinsky, as well as Mars himself (as represented by Soviet artists), depleted by the civil war Moscow-all survived on the film. Is not this a miracle? So began a cinematic fantasy about space.

Middle-aged people probably remember with infinite nostalgia the work of Richard Viktorov "Moscow-Cassiopeia" and the "Youths in the Universe" filmed after them. Today the adventures of schoolchildren of the early 1970s on the expanses of other worlds and the then special effects seem naive. But then it was also an achievement! After all, films about space are fantastic and rare at that time. American masterpieces from the USSR are still so far away (the "cold war" in full blossom).

Subgenre classics

If we talk about contemporary foreign cinema, the incumbent authorities, the "fashion legislators" of the subgenre "fantasy about space," were several directors at once. One of them - Stanley Kubrick and his repeatedly quoted (especially the scene of weightlessness for the immortal waltz of Strauss) tape "2001: Space Odyssey." Maybe someone is annoyed that only the 25th minute of the timing gives the first word. However, the fact that this is a good fantasy about space and a cult thing is indisputable. Another classic is George Lucas, the creator of the "Star Wars", who removed more than 30 years ago three parts of the franchise, and after years returned to the topic and put the top three other series of prequel to the already beloved episodes. Ahead is the continuation, the premiere is scheduled for 2015. In the list of actors you can see familiar surnames: "veteran" Solo - Harrison Ford, the legendary Leah - Carrie Fisher, Luke - Mark Hamill. As everything will be difficult to imagine. Ridley Scott started the saga of "strangers", James Cameron brilliantly continued, a gloomy third part put David Fincher. The completion of the franchise was not triumphant, despite the presence of the same Weaver and Winona Ryder. However, these are all examples, what a fantasy about space should be.

Through hardship to the stars

A list of interesting and exciting representatives of this subgenre of film fantasy is great. Utopia of Tim Burton with Mark Wahlberg "Planet of the Apes". Sparkling tape "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where the audience first drew attention to the British Martin Freeman (future Watson and Hobbit Bilbo). Remake of Steven Soderbergh "Solaris" with George Clooney (the picture did not become a complete impression of Tarkovsky's work, it was uneven, but also respectable). The epic "Armageddon" of Michael Bay with one of the best roles of Bruce Willis. It is impossible not to recall parodic films, which, too, are fantastic about space. "The Sixth Element" with Leslie Nielsen, the mischievous "Space Eggs" of the sparkling Mel Brooks, the German "Space Watch. Episode 1 ».

The ratings and fees of Alfonso Cuaron, who recently appeared on the screens of "Gravitation", are already over the top. So, the genre is alive and in demand. For its development there are forces, means and desire of the directors to dare further.