Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Julian Blaustein and directed by Robert Wise. It stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe, Billy Gray, Frances Bavier and Lock Martin. The screenplay was written by Edmund H. North, based on the 1940 science fiction short story "Farewell to the Master" by Harry Bates. The film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann.
Alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether. It can be considered as a science-fiction subgenre of the invasion literature, expanded by H. G. Wells's seminal alien invasion novel The War of the Worlds.
Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, dinosaurs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.
Speculative and science fiction writers have often addressed the social, political, technological, and biological consequences of pregnancy and reproduction through the exploration of possible futures or alternative realities.
During the 1950s and 1960s the Soviet space program used dogs for sub-orbital and orbital space flights to determine whether human spaceflight was feasible. In this period, the Soviet Union launched missions with passenger slots for at least 57 dogs. The number of dogs in space is smaller, as some dogs flew more than once. Most survived; the few that died were lost mostly through technical failures, according to the parameters of the test. A notable exception is Laika, the first animal to be sent into orbit, whose death during the 3 November 1957 Sputnik 2 mission was expected from its outset.
The planet Venus has been used as a setting in fiction since before the 19th century. Its impenetrable cloud cover gave science fiction writers free rein to speculate on conditions at its surface; the planet was often depicted as warmer than Earth but still habitable by humans. Depictions of Venus as a lush, verdant paradise, an oceanic planet, or fetid swampland, often inhabited by dinosaur-like beasts or other monsters, became common in early pulp science fiction, particularly between the 1930s and 1950s. Some other stories portrayed it as a desert, or invented more exotic settings. The absence of a common vision resulted in Venus not developing a coherent fictional mythology, in contrast to the image of Mars in fiction.
It Came from Outer Space is a 1953 American science fiction horror film, the first in the 3D process from Universal-International. It was produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold. The film stars Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush, and features Charles Drake, Joe Sawyer, and Russell Johnson. The script is based on Ray Bradbury's original film treatment "The Meteor" and not, as sometimes claimed, a published short story.
First contact is a common science fiction theme about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient species' first encounter with another one, given they are from different planets or natural satellites. The theme allows writers to explore such topics such as xenophobia, transcendentalism, and basic linguistics by adapting the anthropological topic of first contact to extraterrestrial cultures.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a 1956 American science fiction film from Columbia Pictures. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer, directed by Fred F. Sears, and stars Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor. The stop-motion animation special effects were created by Ray Harryhausen. The storyline was suggested by the bestselling 1953 non-fiction book Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Maj. Donald Keyhoe. The film was released as a double feature with The Werewolf.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 American horror science fiction film from Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Gene Fowler Jr., that stars Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott. Paramount released the film as a double feature with The Blob.
Jiří Voskovec, born Jiří Wachsmann and known in the United States as George Voskovec was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director who became an American citizen in 1955. Throughout much of his career he was associated with actor and playwright Jan Werich. In the U.S., he is best known for his role as the polite Juror #11 in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men.
Many works of fiction have featured UFOs. In most cases, as the fictional story progresses, the Earth is being invaded by hostile alien forces from outer space, usually from Mars, as depicted in early science fiction, or the people are being destroyed by alien forces, as depicted in the film Independence Day. Some fictional UFO encounters may be based on real UFO reports, such as Night Skies. Night Skies is based on the 1997 Phoenix UFO Incident.
Visit to a Small Planet is a 1960 American black-and-white science fiction comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Jerry Lewis, Joan Blackman, Earl Holliman, and Fred Clark. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, it was produced by Hal B. Wallis.
Mimi Gibson is an American real estate agent and a former child actress, from 1951 to 1968.
WALL-E is a 2008 American computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The film was directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, produced by Jim Morris, and co-written by Jim Reardon. It stars the voices of Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, with Sigourney Weaver and Fred Willard. The overall ninth feature film produced by the studio, WALL-E follows a solitary robot on a future, uninhabitable, deserted Earth in 2805, left to clean up garbage. He is visited by a probe sent by the starship Axiom, a robot called EVE, with whom he falls in love and pursues across the galaxy.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 2008 American science fiction film serving as a loose adaptation of the 1951 film of the same name. Directed by Scott Derrickson from a screenplay by David Scarpa, it stars Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien sent to try and change human behavior in an effort to save Earth from environmental degradation; this version replaces the Cold War-era theme of nuclear warfare with the contemporary issue of negative human impact on the environment. The film co-stars Jennifer Connelly, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, and Kathy Bates.
The Day the Earth Stopped is a 2008 American direct-to-DVD science fiction action horror film produced by independent studio The Asylum, directed by and starring C. Thomas Howell. Thomas stars as the protagonist, soldier Josh Myron, who witnesses the arrival of giant alien robots that threaten to destroy the Earth unless they are shown the value of human existence.
Space Battleship Yamato is a 2010 Japanese science fiction film based on the Space Battleship Yamato anime series by Yoshinobu Nishizaki and Leiji Matsumoto. The film was released in Japan on December 1, 2010. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan on June 24, 2011, and in the United States by Funimation's live-action client, Giant Ape Media, on April 29, 2014.
Stranger from Venus is a 1954 independently made UK black-and-white science fiction film, produced by Burt Balaban, Gene Martel, and Roy Rich. The film stars Patricia Neal, Helmut Dantine and Derek Bond. It is a low-budget remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), which also starred Patricia Neal.
