{"id":2730,"date":"2016-02-06T22:17:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-07T06:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/?p=2730"},"modified":"2016-02-06T22:17:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T06:17:13","slug":"overlooked-gems-the-monolith-monsters-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/?p=2730","title":{"rendered":"Overlooked gems: The Monolith Monsters (1957)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0050720\/\">IMDB link<\/a>) (<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Monolith_Monsters\">Wikipedia link<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; contains spoilers)<\/p>\n<p>A meteorite delivers silicate crystals with a composition not found on Earth, that grow at alarming speed when exposed to water and then fall over and shatter, advancing them across the terrain. Essentially a simplified <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ice-nine\">ice-9<\/a> problem.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/tmm.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2731\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2731\" src=\"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/tmm.jpg\" alt=\"tmm\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I like this film for two reasons. For one, it&#8217;s a science fiction with an unusually credible alien threat. \u00a0The only presumption that falls outside known science is that such a substance could exist, and that&#8217;s enough to build a potentially world-threatening danger from. And given the amazing properties of some chemical reactions, it is easily believable.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, there are no stupid or venal characters. Everybody in the film behaves rationally and civilly and makes reasonable decisions based on the information they have. When someone needs convincing, it&#8217;s done easily by showing them the evidence. Nobody acts contrary to anyone&#8217;s best interests out of greed, vengeance or evil.<\/p>\n<p>In short, deliberate stupidity and malevolence are contrivances not needed to artificially drive the plot. I am hard pressed to think of a movie made in the last three decades that didn&#8217;t rely on those things to create plot points. I am increasingly driven to review science fiction movies from the 50s and 60s because of this &#8211; it&#8217;s refreshing to see some actual competent writing that expresses confidence in humanity rather than the cynical mistrust so common today.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and for the era the special effects in this film are amazingly good. The sound design is excellent too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(IMDB link) (Wikipedia link\u00a0&#8211; contains spoilers) A meteorite delivers silicate crystals with a composition not found on Earth, that grow at alarming speed when exposed to water and then fall over and shatter, advancing them across the terrain. Essentially a simplified ice-9 problem. I like this film for two reasons. For one, it&#8217;s a science [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-filmreviews","category-reviews","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2730\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}