Star Wars episodes 1, 2, and 3, anyone?

Mmmm, Hitchhikers Guide. I've got to get that on DVD. Fantastic movie. A pity Adams never lived to see it. I hope they finish the series.

Sci-fi in terms of eye-candy? Hmm, Minority Report. The computers were beautiful. (Gimme a break. I'm a computer geek.)

Avalon and Casshern are two that spring to mind, as does
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

hellboy! ok, it's more fantasy than sci-fi, but while i didn't love the movie i thought the artwork, costumes, set design, makeup etc were all phenomenally cool.

I agree with Casshern. Many asian scifi movies and anime have that, in fact.

The Cell is another big one for me.

Yeah, I dug the Hithhikers movie. And it looked good too.

Let's not forget the ultimate Great Design/Terrible Movie, The Cell.

Bad sci-fi movies that look good are okay, but good movies with less interesting design are better. Better still is, of course, good movies with good design.

I laugh and swoon at the first Flash Gordon serial. Many early movies just have a great detail here and there, like "Devil Girl From Mars", "This Island Earth", even the 1931 "Frankenstein"-- but that is a piece of work however.
I love old cheese.

Chronicles of Riddick was pretty gorgeous.

I vote for "Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow" it was all about the Look. The "Golden Compass" was very pretty as well, but I guess that would be more fantasy than SF.

Not gonna add my two cents to this- too many "list threads" going on in here lately- but I must say that the WhiteChapel message board is pretty damn nuts.
A good read even if you don't like Ellis' Freak Angels comic.

Just about all the current generation sci-fi action flicks have great visuals (and sadly, in many cases, little regard to story). Take most of the comic re-hashes, or Aeon Flux, or The last two Matrix movies.
As I often say...It makes great fodder for the big screen at goth-industrial-techno dance clubs. Neat two look at, and no one's going to complain that you can't hear a bloody thing.

The very pretty stuff seems universally accepted for what it is. I just watched the Wizard of Oz and like to look at all the color. And Bladerunner had such an increadilbe cityscape and such great street lighting with the rain. I love the Star Wars' effects, the great landscapes and skyscapes. I just saw Stardust and really enjoyed it--thought is succeded on every point.

Dune, Life Aquatic

Dark city is much more than just a pretty face. What an excellent movie. Its still possibly my favorite sci-fi movie.

@NefariousNewt:
The way I read it, these are talking about something that is somewhat different from just special effects. It is about design as part of suspension-of-disbelief. When the total aesthetic of the movie, including costumes, set design and effects engages you then the whole thing becomes better.

And like anything else in films, if enough of the production is strong, it can carry the rest. Some movies and great actors and direction that makes up for a poor script. Some movies have a strong enough script and visuals that wooden acting is forgivable.

So, I like things that are big. Huge.

And, so, something about Alien: Resurrection (and Aliens) fit the bill for me. Even though I haven't seen it in years. Just the giant industrial complex populated by, what, a dozen people?

Mmm, megascale engineering.

The Cell looked awesome, but was awful.

anyone who thinks Blade Runner is all surface and no substance has attention deficit disorder. Or they're mighty stupid.

The Star Wars prequels have only surface going for them, so much so that you leave feeling like you were on a roller coaster and only a half hour later, once you can hear and see again, realize that you just watched Yoda do Kung Fu dueling light saber ballet with Christopher Lee. What was the point? There is none but it sure was impressive while you were watching it.

Demolition Man is the first I can think of (that hasn't been mentioned already). Hmm, I'll have to think and see if I can recall any others.

Easily the "prequel" Star Wars flicks.

And the 1980 Flash Gordon was just gorgeous in a three color comic sort of way.

@Stephanie A Fox: Maaan talk about an underrated movie.

@Gyrus: "Splash" was pretty~

With SF fans like that, who needs haters? No plot = SFX porn.

There is no emoticon for the rage I feel about this subject!!!

@AmericanExpress: They got typewriters over at Amblin'?

Awful eye-candy = Ultraviolet

Annalee, we need a new Interstellar post--

I'm going with Silent Hill (the movie). I liked the look of the movie and though it portrayed the "feel" the games went for.

Unfortunately, it felt like most of the cast came from some softcore porn (especially the female cop). I always said that movie should come with a special feature where they digitally removed the actors and just had the creatures roam around the town.

How's about some "Brazil"? Terry G has a very unique, almost signature style to his visuals that is immediatley identifiable.

Also, you can't go wrong with the R Geiger sets in the first "Alien". Absolutley brilliant. I wanna say he won an oscar for those sets, but I'll let somebody else do my homework and prove me wrong. Still, very real, tangible, alien-like quality. One of the few movies you can watch over and over again, just for the sets.

I agree with most of these (and the ones mentioned in the comments). Also, how can I be the first to mention the Clooney remake of Solaris? Not the best movie, but it sure was nice to look at.

Dark City, however, is far far more than just a pretty face.

@Niteowl: I totally agree, thought I've always felt that the costume and set designers need to work on any new "Dune" adaptations.

The HitchHiker's Guide film was a 'godawful abortion' if there ever was one. They somehow managed to take source material you couldn't possibly go wrong with and...went horribly wrong with it.

The humour was excised in favour of slick design elements resulting in a boring, unfunny, expurgated and muddled story taking place in a polished, plasticky, overdesigned Steve-Jobs-wet-dream universe.

The Hitchhiker's film was a 'godawful abortion' of a film if there ever was one.

The humour was excised in favour of slick design resulting in a boring, muddled, expurgated story taking place in a slick, plasticky, overdesigned Steve-Jobs-wet-dream of a universe.

I was amazed that something which has successfully appeared in so many wildly different formats and retained its charm managed to be so thoroughly charmless a film.

Oh, heavens, I do apologize for that. Especially with such a negative comment! I'm really not that grumpy!

As RyanH notes, what's really at issue here is overall artistic design of a film -- not just SFX.

On this score, you can't argue against Lynch's _Dune_. While, yes, the plot was hatcheted to death, the film did achieve a frighteningly dark, neo-feudal feel. It stemmed almost solely from the design, too, since we know the acting and brutalized storyline did *nothing* for anyone!

Think of how disgusting and creepy Geidi Prime felt, or the vaulted golden opulence of the Emperor's throne room, or Castle Caladan's watery-draculoid charm. And the costumes were appropriate as well, unlike the ridiculous distractions presented in SciFi's _Dune_.

In many ways, I feel that Lynch's Dune taught us how a creepy, dark, but NON-post-apocalytlic future would look. So, I vote Lynch's _Dune_.

This is less a comment than a confession, but the scenes of Superman soaring above the clouds into the light of the sun, in Superman Returns, stayed with me a lot longer than the things about the movie that I complained about.

The Fifth Element, costumes, sets, etc. for it's "over the top" feel and Gattaca for it's subtlety (who says good design has to be expensive?).

A SF movie with eye candy? Hmmm.

Chronicles Of Riddik. The Movie sucked, but it did have visuals that were staggering at times.

@Stephanie A Fox:
Oh God, how I love Demolition Man. It's like Stallone gets thrown into a city full of fags just to beat them up.

Forbidden Planet has to be one of the greatest looking sf films of all time. I'd love to own a house like Morbius's pad with its sculptures and garden and a great view of a cemetary.

A film that was made on a low budget but I think looks fantastic is Cypher, the 2002 Jerermy Northam/Lucy Liu Matrix "sidequel". The underground data storage facility in the cornfield is a masterpiece of no-budget trickery. Plus I awlays get a kick out of the design and costumes of the various attendees at the various conferences and conventions in the first half of the movie.

@Klappstuhl: Never before have I heard a movie so appropriately summarized. Kudos.

I noticed that nobody mentioned Lost in Space or Red Planet! Both of those movies had strong production design, especially the spacesuits.

I agree with the general notion that most modern sci-fi is heavy on production design and light on character development and themes. That's what puts the people in the seats, so that's what gets made.

I loved H2G2, and also Solaris.
Both films proving in their own way that sci-fi doesn't need "eye candy" SFX.

Graeme, i'm happy you mentionned Talbot's score for H2G2.
Great soundtrack. Very funny and poetic.
Nobody never mentions "ear candy" :o) !

mirrormask. excellent visuals. also liked the story. and the movie 8 1/2 by fellini. The opening scene where the guy is floating above the traffic jam, and then gets pulled down by a kite string will stick with me all my life.

Don't forget Gunhed, the live-action mecha film set in a blasted industrial wasteland.

"Electroma" by Daft Punk is gorgeous in a very understated way. You might assume it is a musical or music based music movie, it isn't. A story of robots learning the cost of not staying true to themselves.

Most of my favorites are already gone, but I thought I would add "Event Horizon" (the poor's mans "Sunshine") . Horrible movie, but the sets were complete (no green screens) and designed from blueprints from gothic churches. Oh, and that scene in the tunnels with the pulsing green lights... freaking creepy.

Flash Gordon, the 1980 version. The costumes are amazing, and the colored clouds roiling make up at least somewhat for the incredible cheesiness.

On the fantasy side, I'd nominate Mirrormask. The plot is weak, but the visuals are gorgeously animated.

I always loved how the movie Immortel looked. The story was so so but it sure was beautiful.

Science Fiction is Pretty!
At least according to this 12-year-old girl's blog:
[www.tvscifi.com]

Starship Troopers

Both Appleseed movies are quite visually compelling. And they are absolute abominations in terms of plotting.