Search - Tales from the Future 9 Movie Pack on DVD

Fiction is stranger than truth

Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 06/29/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In the 3-DVD set, TALES FROM THE FUTURE, the three oldest films (including two silent features) are without question the best known of the lot. What's left over is obscure and deservedly so.

Fritz Lang's masterpiece, METROPOLIS, always manages to look futuristic, even 80 years after its initial release. THE LOST WORLD has primitive special effects compared to modern cinematic techniques. It does however offer us a chance to see the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. The work of another famous British author, H.G. Wells is adapted for the screen in THINGS TO COME. The man's prescience was uncanny-- he foresaw a decade long second world war-- and turned out to be wrong only in the cataclysm's duration, and not by much.

Speaking of cataclysm-- the less said about the remainder of this collection, the better. These stinkers were near-cataclysmic career moves for Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, Paul Petersen (of the DONNA REED SHOW) and Dorothy Malone, among others.

For a much larger sample of public domain futuristic films, the SCIFI CLASSICS 50 MOVIE PACK is simply out of this world!

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The following alphabetized program list includes 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings for each title, plus country of origin (if other than USA), years of release and principal actors.

(4.0) The Day Time Ended (1980) - Jim Davis/Christopher Mitchum/Dorothy Malone
(4.6) Frozen Alive (UK/W Ger-1964) - Mark Stevens/Marianne Koch/John Longden
(2.3) In the Year 2889 (1967) - Paul Petersen/Quinn O'Hara/Charla Doherty
(3.1) Journey to the Center of Time (1967) - Scott Brady/Anthony Eisley/Gigi Perreau
(7.1) The Lost World (silent-1925) - Lewis Stone/Wallace Beery/Arthur Conan Doyle (as himself)
(8.4) Metropolis (silent-Germany-1927) - Alfred Abel/Gustav Fröhlich
(4.6) Slipstream (UK-1989) - Mark Hamill/Bill Paxton/Robbie Coltrane (minor role)
(6.8) Things to Come (UK-1936) - Raymond Massey/Ralph Richardson/Cedric Hardwicke
(4.0) Unknown World (1951) - Bruce Kellogg/Marilyn Nash/George Baxter (minor role)"

9 Movies of Public Domain Goodness

Charles J. Rector | Woodstock, IL United States | 01/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Tales from the Future is a collection of 9 science fiction movies that have only one thing in common: they are all public domain and as such it is possible for them to be presented in highly affordable collections. I paid $9.98 for my set and that comes down to about one dollar per movie. The way that movie tickets cost nowadays, you really cannot complain about this collection.

An added bonus of this collection is the fact that hardly any of these movies are available on other public domain collections. Additionally, there are a pair of silent movies, The Lost World & Metropolis, in this collection. Given the scarcity of good silent films on DVD, this adds to the luster of this collection. All in all, Tales from the Future is a great 9 movie collection.

Anyways, here is how I rate the movies in Tales from the Future:




Great:


The Lost World (1925)
Metropolis (1927)


Good:
Frozen Alive (1964)
Slipstream (1989)
Things to Come (1936)


Average:


The Day Time Ended (1980)
Journey to the Center of Time (1967)
Unknown World (1951)

Bad:

In the Year 2889 (1967)"

GOOD SCI-FI,GREAT PRICE

L. WHITE | 11/27/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"THIS BOX SET HAS 3 DVD'S. FILM QUALITY ON SOME IS SUB-PAR BUT CONSIDERING THE LOW COST, I AM HAPPY TO HAVE THIS AND RECOMEND THIS TO LOVERS OF OLD SCI-FI"