1996 started with Dragonheart in May that features a knight who teams up with a dragon voiced by Sean Connery. It was nommed for Best Visual Effects, but the CG dragon lost. The film spawned three sequels. In June, there was the movie based on the Lee Falk comic strip, The Phantom. “The Ghost Who Walks” is a hero fighting crime and protecting the mystical Skulls of Touganda. The next month was Independence Day from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. Will Smith played a fighter pilot which accelerated him to a marquee actor. It had a weak script with stereotypical characters, but audiences were impressed by the visuals which won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It was nommed for Best Sound and was the top film of the box office. There was a superior sequel 20 years later.
The Crow: City of Angels opened next, the sequel with a grown up Sarah, the girl from the earlier film, and a new Crow.
The end of the year had Star Trek: First Contact, Picard overcoming his captor’s influence, the Borg, Zephram Cochrane, this is the most audience friendly Trek film, you don’t have to have pre-knowledge of anything Star Trek. It was nommed for best make-up. 1997 started with Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element in May. It was a startling mix of sci fi, action, with designs by Moebius and Jean-Claude Mezieres. Mezieres mentioned that Besson should direct a Valerian and Laureline movie, but the director felt that the special effects would not be able to properly capture the graphic novel’s world. It was ten years later that Besson would direct a Valerian and Laureline movie. The movie was nominated for best sound effects editing. Later, there was Lost World: Jurassic Park, based on the Michael Crichton follow-up book, it was set on Isla Sorna where the dinosaurs were created. A very silly sequel, it was nommed for best visual effects at the Academy Awards.
Joel Schumacher returned to direct Batman & Robin which had George Clooney in the Bat suit with bat nipples. It is not a bad superhero film, very silly, but not unwatchable. This basically finished off the Bat films until eighty years later. Sequels aside, there was a sci fi film based on a comic book by Lowell Cunningham, Men in Black. It was cleverly directed and given energy by Barry Sonnenfeld and starred Will Smith as Agent K. He is recruited into the secret organization to protect the Earth from hidden alien threats. The alien effects won the film for best make-up. It was nommed for best original score and art direction, but lost them. 1997 started with Contact is a brilliant film directed by Robert Zemeckis based on the Carl Sagan novel. It followed Jodie Foster as Eleanor Arroway who receives a signal at the Very Large Array in New Mexico which leads to the blueprints of The Machine that will be able to make contact with extraterrestrial life. At the Academy Awards, it was only nommed for Best Sound.
There was release of Spawn based on the Todd McFarlane comic book; it is more horror than fantasy. What was a superhero movie was Steel starring Shaquille O’Neal. It was directed by Kenneth Johnson who created V. Panned by fans, but it is not a bad film for me. Next, was a fantasy film, in the Robert E. Howard Hyberborea world, Kull the Conqueror starring Kevin Sorbo. Kinda goofy, it was playing off of Sorbo’s Hercules success. In October was Gattaca, directed by Andrew Niccol, it stars Ethan Hawke as Vincent Freeman who lives in a genetically pure future. The film picked up an Academy Award Best Art Direction nomination. Lastly, there was Starship Troopers, directed by Paul Verhoeven, and loosely adapted the Robert E. Heinlein novel. It lacks the book’s social commentary and instead follows the interstellar war of Johnny Rico’s Mobile Infantry vs. the alien Bugs. It was nommed for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards, but all of the films were overshadowed by Titanic.
1998 began with Sphere based on the Michael Crichton novel. A mysterious sphere is found that may have time traveled through a black hole. Later, there was Alex Proyas’ Dark City about a man who is pursued by Strangers in a city that is always in night. It said to be an influence on The Matrix. Next, there was the movie Lost in Space adapting the television series that ran from 1965 to 1968. There is a new series that debuted this year and continues on Netflix. The X-Files movie was filmed between the fourth and fifth seasons of the television series. There was a sequel ten years later in 2008, The X-Files: I Want to Believe and also the series continued in 2016 and 2018. The summer hit was Armageddon with Academy Award nominations in best song, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, sound effects editing, best sound, and best visual effects. In August, the movie Blade opened in theaters, based on the character created in the Tomb of Dracula comic book by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. It was one of the first films with a Marvel character that was a success. There were two sequels and a 2006 television series.
Next, was the fantasy film, What Dreams May Come, directed by Vincent Ward. It adapts the Richard Matheson novel and follows Chris Nielsen (played by Robin Williams) as he explores the afterworlds to save his family. An intensely beautiful film it was nommed for Best Art Direction and was the winner of Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards. Star Trek: Insurrection finished off the year, but it was more like the preachy episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 1999 started with a groundbreaking sci fi film, The Matrix, created by the Wachowskis. Neo (Keanu Reeves) is of course the character who finds his world, The Matrix, is part of a computer program, and the Real World is an apocalyptic future ravaged by the war with the Machines. It won the Academy Awards for Sound Effects Editing, Best Sound, Film Editing, and Visual Effects especially for it’s rendering of Bullet Time. The Matrix pointed the way to the future of effects and films. The Wachowskis at a Comic Con panel said that the film was about philosophy.
Next, was the first of the prequels, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It had the adventures of Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) and the plight of Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) with her world, Naboo, occupied by the Trade Federation. It was nommed for Sound Effects Editing, Sound Effects, and Visual Effects, but lost to The Matrix. Next, we had the Bicentennial Man, which had Robin Williams as the robot Andrew who is placed into a family. It was based on an Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg novel and nommed for best make-up. At the end of the year was Galaxy Quest which parodied and respected Star Trek and it’s actors. It had the actors of a sci fi show led by Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) at a convention, but mistaken for an actual starship crew, taken into a recreation of their ship, the Protector, and having to save the Superhero films had Superman and Batman taking new forms and Marvel starting it’s success, but it will be a few years until the true Marvel superhero movie. Fantasy is stretching the genre. We got the new direction of sci fi films with The Matrix and a powerful movie in Contact. Onto the next decade!
#StarTrekFirstContact,#WhatDreamsMayCome, #TheMatrix, #StarWarsThePhantomMenace
No comments:
Post a Comment