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Since the early days of motion picture production, film scores have helped define our emotional and aesthetic perception of stories on screen--particularly with space movies and television. The music from The Day the Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and others has helped define the public's awareness of space almost as much as the films themselves. In some cases, they have redefined the norms of film music. Star Wars not only revived the popularity of orchestral film scores but also helped stimulate an increased public interest in classical orchestral music around the world. This work explores the music and the composers who have helped define the sound of space for over a century, transforming how we perceive space and even inspiring greater interest in space exploration. This book also details how music has been performed and played in space since the early days of the'space race.'

Over the course of several decades, scientific fact has overtaken science fiction as humankind's understanding of the universe has expanded. Mirroring this development, the cinematic depictions of space exploration over the last century have evolved from whimsical sci-fi fantasies to more fact-based portrayals. This book chronologically examines 75 films that depict voyages into outer space and offers the historical, cultural, and scientific context of each. These films range from Georges Melies'fantastical A Trip to the Moon to speculative science fiction works such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, and Contact, and fact-based accounts of actual space missions as depicted in The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, Salyut 7 and First Man. Each film is analyzed not only in terms of its direction, screenplay, and other cinematic aspects but also its scientific and historical accuracy. The works of acclaimed directors, including Fritz Lang, George Pal, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Robert Wise, Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, Ridley Scott, and Christopher Nolan, are accorded special attention for their memorable contributions to this vital and evolving subgenre of science fiction film.

In sharp contrast to many 1960s science fiction films, with idealized views of space exploration, Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) terrified audiences, depicting a harrowing and doomed deep-space mission. The Alien films launched a new generation of horror set in the great unknown, inspiring filmmakers to take Earth-bound franchises like Leprechaun and Friday the 13th into space. This collection of new essays examines the space horror subgenre, with a focus on such films as Paul W.S. Anderson's Event Horizon, Duncan Jones'Moon, Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires and John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars. Contributors discuss how filmmakers explored the concepts of the final girl/survivor, the uncanny valley, the isolationism of space travel, religion and supernatural phenomena.

Filmmakers employ various images to suggest the strangeness of outer space, but protective spacesuits most powerfully communicate its dangers and the frailty of humans beyond the cradle of Earth. (Many films set in space, however, forgo spacesuits altogether, reluctant to hide famous faces behind bulky helmets and ill-fitting jumpsuits.) This critical history comprehensively examines science fiction films that portray space travel realistically (and sometimes not quite so) by having characters wear spacesuits. Beginning [A] with the pioneering Himmelskibet (1918) and Woman on the Moon (1929), it discusses [B] other classics in this tradition, including Destination Moon (1950), Riders to the Stars (1954), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); [C] films that gesture toward realism but betray that goal with melodramatic villains, low comedy, or improbable monsters; [D] the distinctive spacesuit films of Western Europe, Russia and Japan; and [E] America's spectacular real-life spacesuit film, the televised Apollo 11 moon landing (1969).

Space Oddities examines the representation of women in outer space films from 1960 to 2000, with an emphasis on films in which women are either denied or given the role of astronaut. Marie Lathers traces an evolution in this representation from women as aliens and/or'assistant'astronauts, to women as astronaut wives, to women as astronauts themselves. Many popular films from the era are considered, as are earlier films (from Aelita Queen of Mars to Devil Girl From Mars) and historical records, literary fiction, and television shows (especially I Dream of Jeannie). Early 1960s attempts by women pilots to enter the Space Race are considered as is the media drama surrounding the death of Christa McAuliffe. In addition to its insightful film scholarship, this is an important addition to current reassessments of the Space Race. By applying insights from contemporary gender, race, and species theories to popular imaginings of women in space, the status of the Space Race as a cultural construct that reproduces and/or warps terrestrial gender structures is revealed.