Cinema of the 1980s was a fruitful time for science fiction and gave us many undisputed classics that will always be remembered changed the face of the genre. But while Darth Vader was telling Luke that he was his father, the T-800 Terminator was hunting Sarah Connor, and Marty McFly was mastering the controls of the futuristic DeLorean DMC-12. A whole host of talented sci-fi films passed by the general public unnoticed. We decided to correct this unfortunate misunderstanding and tell you about the most underrated sci-fi films of the 80s. For some people, they will allow them to take a nostalgic trip back in time, while for others, they may become a real discovery.
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The Last Starfighter
Year of release: 1984
Director: Nick Castle
IMDb rating: 6.7
The sci-fi action movie «The Last Starfighter» has everything we love about 1980s sci-fi. It has flying machines, blasters, aliens for every taste, and epic space battles. The plot centers on an ordinary teenager Alex Rogan, who lives in a trailer park and spends all his free time playing the scrolling shooter «Starfighter» on an arcade machine.
One day, he scores a record number of points, and then a strange man in a futuristic car offers him a ride. On the way, he tells him, who is actually a Centauri alien in disguise and the developer of a game that exists only to identify and recruit the best pilots for the Rylan Star Federation’s fighters.
At first, Alex, like his star predecessor Luke Skywalker, doesn’t understand why he has to save the Galaxy. But when the spies of the warlike Ko-Dans hunt him down in his hometown, he decides to join the Federation fleet. Together with a friendly reptilian named Grig, the hero enters the battle with the invaders to protect the Earth and thousands of other inhabited planets.
In 2018, the game was released informationthat Gary Vitta, the former editor-in-chief of the American magazine PC Gamer and the price-taker of «Rogue One», is working on a sequel to the classic film «The Last Starfighter». He also shared concept art depicting space fighters familiar to fans and said that the new movie will be a continuation of the original story, not a remake.
Enemy Mine
Year of release: 1985
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
IMDb rating: 6.8
In the universe of the movie «My Enemy», a bloody galactic war is also going on. But this time, the reptilian fighters are not allies, but the main enemies of humanity. Military pilot Willis E. Davidge hates the alien enemies as much as his fellow soldiers. But when he crashes and is left alone on a desert planet with the Drakh pilot he shot down, he realizes that the differences that divide them can give both of them the strength to survive.
To survive on the surface of the dangerous planet, the former enemies have to cooperate. In the end, they even become friends. Davidge is left to take care of the Drac’s child after the bisexual alien dies during childbirth. And then he risks his life to save the little lizard from slave traders.
In a post-apocalyptic future, the Earth is devastated by a world war. The air is toxic and masks are required to breathe outside. This forces governments to abandon the military solution to disputes and recall the old days of chivalry. Now, all conflicts between countries are resolved by a duel between giant humanoid robots (Mecha) controlled by their best fighters.
After the release of «Transformers» and «Pacific Rim», the visual effects of the film will no longer make the same impression as they did in the 90s. But it should be noted that almost all the models were created by hand, and instead of rendering on a computer, the crew used animatronics robots and painstaking frame-by-frame animation.
The fantastic ideas behind the film are also worthy of note. From post-apocalyptic politics inspired by the «Cold War» 80s to artificially created clone pilots and the concept that the future could look better if people from different countries stopped fighting and started working together for the common good.
Lifeforce
Year of release: 1985
Director: Tobe Hooper
IMDb rating: 6.1
The sci-fi film based on the novel by English writer Colin Wilson «Space Vampires» captivates the audience from the first minutes with its premise. According to the story, the crew of the shuttle «Churchill», which in 1986 goes on a research mission to Halley’s Comet, finds a spacecraft 240(!) kilometers long in the gas tail of the «evil star».
Deprived of contact with their superiors due to radio interference, the astronauts decide not to miss their chance, which comes once every 76 years (the periodicity of Halley’s Comet), and board the mysterious cyclopean structure. There, the four researchers find the dried remains of giant bat-like creatures and three sarcophagi with perfectly preserved humanoid bodies.
A month later, the «Churchill» returns to Earth’s orbit, but does not respond to communications. A rescue mission discovers that the crew died in a fire. At the same time, the sarcophagi with the aliens buried in them miraculously remained intact and are taken to the European Space Research Center. Before the autopsy, one of the aliens — a seductive extraterrestrial vampire suddenly wakes up and begins to absorb the life force of the people around her. This causes a real epidemic of vampirism and forces the British government to impose martial law.
Interestingly, the vampires created by the Gothic literature of the nineteenth century still continue to walk confidently through the pages of science fiction novels. In Peter Watts’s Hugo Award-nominated novel «Blindsight» (Blindsight), a genetically restored vampire pilots an Earthling spaceship. His lightning-fast reflexes and sharp mind make him an ideal leader in emergency situations, and the innate fear of vampires among humans allows the living dead to maintain iron discipline on board the starship.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
Year of release: 1984
Director: Walter Dach Richter
IMDb rating: 6.2
26 years before the genius, billionaire, playboy and philanthropist Tony Stark appeared on the screens, the future «RoboCop» Peter Weller played an outstanding neurosurgeon, physicist, martial artist and rock star Bakaru Banzai. The son of a Japanese and an American woman with a strange name did not inherit a corporation or head a spy agency, but his achievements are no less impressive. Even the President of the United States does not hesitate to ask Banzai for advice, and the research center named after him makes breakthrough scientific discoveries that the entire Galaxy watches with envy.
One of his latest developments is a car equipped with a so-called seismic accelerator that allows objects to pass freely through solid matter. Banzai personally tests the novelty by driving it through a mountain and finds himself in the eighth dimension. In addition to reporters and representatives of the military-industrial complex, this remarkable experiment is closely watched by a disguised spaceship of fierce lectroid aliens from Planet 10, who are just waiting for an excuse to start a world war.
«The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai» — is one of those sci-fi comedies that polarize viewers the most. For some, its sarcastic humor and many references to books and TV series will make them laugh for an hour and a half, while others will be left with a single question: «what was that all about?» The film failed at the box office, but later became a cult among geeks, comics and a video game were created based on it, and disputes over plot details on fan sites continue to this day.
Flash Gordon
Year of release: 1980
Director: Mike Hodges
IMDb rating: 6.5
The galactic emperor Ming the Merciless decides to destroy all life on Earth. After a series of devastating hurricanes and earthquakes, he forces the Moon out of orbit. And while NASA spokespeople stubbornly deny that anything extraordinary is happening (think «Don’t Look Up»), only the mad scientist Hans Zarkov realizes that the planet is under attack from space. To determine the true cause of the cataclysm, he sets off on a journey in his own spaceship, whose passengers happen to be the athlete and adventurer Flash Gordon and his constant companion Dale Arden.
The space opera «Flash Gordon» is an adaptation of a series of popular comic books published in the 1930s. Interestingly, due to numerous delays, the movie was released after «A New Hope». However, it was the cartoon stories about Flash Gordon and the vintage TV series based on them that became Lucas’s main inspiration for «Star Wars». At the same time, fans of adventures in a galaxy far, far away have every chance of being disappointed. True to the aesthetics of the original comic book, it looks more like a bright space fairy tale with strange scenery and a wonderful operatic soundtrack by Queen.
They Live
Year of release: 1988
Director: John Carpenter
IMDb rating: 7.2
The master of horror, director John Carpenter, has made many fantastic films. In the 1980s alone, he released a post-apocalyptic action film «Escape from New York», a sci-fi horror «The Thing», an interplanetary love drama «The Man from the Star», and a conspiracy theory-based film «The Philadelphia Experiment».
But compared to, for example, the often mentioned «Something» Carpenter’s film «They Live» remains criminally underrated. The film’s protagonist, an unnamed drifter played by wrestler Roddy Piper, accidentally finds an unusual pair of sunglasses. Through them, he sees the terrible truth about our world — most of the planet is ruled by aliens with skulls instead of faces, who do not allow people to see the true reality and bombard them with subconscious telepathic messages, forcing them to obey their will.
Short Circuit
Year of release: 1986
Director: John Bedham
IMDb rating: 6.6
Although «Alien» and «Blade Runner» had already introduced the audience to the cynical concept of a «rusty future» at the beginning of the decade, the 1980s gave us a number of good sci-fi comedies. They have been warming the hearts of viewers for 40 years in a row. One of these gems, the sci-fi film «Short Circuit», tells the story of a newly developed military robot prototype that loses part of its memory after being struck by lightning and escapes from its creators.
The generals are worried because «type #5» has enough firepower to level half a city. But a short circuit has an unexpected result: a seed of consciousness is born in the robot’s chips, forcing it to explore the world around it. On the streets of the city, the mechanical fugitive meets the good-natured Stephanie, who mistakes him for an alien but kindly invites him into her home. After a series of funny adventures, the girl meets the robot’s chief designer, Newton, and convinces him that the soulless mechanism has miraculously turned into an intelligent being.
Of course, the military cannot leave the «unpredictable» robot alone. They don’t want other killing machines to suddenly start watching TV shows (hello «Murderer») and admire the butterflies. However, the «fifth» manages to fake his own destruction and, like Rick Descartes, successfully rides off into the sunset with his friends Stephanie and Newton.
Year of release: 1986
Director: Randall Kleiser
IMDb rating: 6.9
The fantasy adventure film «Flight of the Navigator» introduces us to 12-year-old David, who falls and loses consciousness on his way through the forest. When he comes to, he discovers that some strangers live in his house. It turns out that eight years have passed since the hero left home. At the same time, he hasn’t changed a bit and doesn’t remember where he’s been all this time.
Interested in the strange case, scientists get permission from David’s parents to better investigate his health at a NASA laboratory. But everything goes awry when, following the voice in his head, the boy gets on board an alien ship controlled by a smart computer «Max» and embarks on an exciting journey around the Earth.
WarGames
Year of release: 1983
Director: John Bedham
IMDb rating: 7.1
Just like Alex Rogan from «The Last Airbender», high school student and hacker Dave Lightman is a big fan of computer games. One day he decides to steal unreleased games from a developer’s website. But something goes wrong, and the boy accidentally gains access to the US military command’s network of computers, which, thanks to AI elements, is able to track signs of a nuclear war and simulate its possible course.
Seeing the menu item «Global Thermonuclear War», Dave invites the computer to play. He chooses to control the Soviet missiles and sets the targets for the attack. At the same time, on the NORAD military displays, it looks like a real attempt by the Russians to start World War III. American generals are hastily preparing a retaliatory strike. However, the hero’s desperate attempts to stop the «game» are hampered by the military’s limitations and the AI’s directive to win under any circumstances.
It is noteworthy that the sci-fi thriller by «Short Circuit» director John Bedham has led to unexpected consequences far beyond the world of cinema. According to the information The GuardianOne June evening in 1983, US President Ronald Reagan watched the movie. Five days later, he turned to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and asked: «Can someone really hack into military computers?» The general’s answer shocked everyone present: «Mr. President, the problem is much worse than you think». This was the first attempt by the US leadership to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity.
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