Sneak Previews (TV Series) Take 2: Invasion of the Outer Space Movies (1980) User Reviews

"Invasion of the Outer Space Movies" was another fascinating edition of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert's "Sneak Previews"

[tavm · 9/10 · 6 September 2010]

Just watched this, another rare episode of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert's "Sneak Previews", on YouTube. In this special "Take 2" edition, Gene and Roger review the trajectory of Sci-Fi movies from George Pal's Destination Moon to Robert Wise's original The Day the Earth Stood Still to Pal's version of The War of the Worlds from the '50s. The '60s is represented by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Then it's on to 1977 with George Lucas's Star Wars (now known as Episode IV: A New Hope) and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. All these got praise from Siskel and Ebert both for their storytelling abilities and-in the case of TDTESS and 2ASO-for their intellectual content. Then they discussed what they considered not-so-good impersonations: The Black Hole, Star Trek-The Motion Picture, and Alien, all from 1979. It's a bit odd that Roger considered the latter just a "Haunted house in space" picture when he just praised Star Wars as a "Western in space"! Still, their insights on the various films they commented on-especially when Gene recounted sitting next to astronaut Neil Armstrong and him saying how 2001 was most like what it was going to space-was spot-on for the most part. And what a treat to see a clip from George Melies' A Trip to the Moon as the first of the iconic Sci-Fi images as the way to close the show. Also nice to hear the original closing line from these two before settling on "The balcony is closed" which was, as said by Gene here, "See you at the movies". Well worth looking for on YouTube...