The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a 1953 American science fiction action horror film directed by Eugène Lourié, with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film stars Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway, and Kenneth Tobey. The screenplay is based on Ray Bradbury's 1951 short story "The Fog Horn", specifically the scene where a lighthouse is destroyed by the title character. The film is about the Rhedosaurus, a dinosaur that is released from its frozen hibernating state by an atomic bomb test in the Arctic Circle and begins to wreak a path of destruction as it travels southward, eventually arriving at its ancient spawning grounds, which includes New York City.
Theatrical release poster
Drive-in advertisement from 1953.
Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, interstellar travel, time travel, or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.
Metropolis (1927) by Fritz Lang was one of the first feature length science fiction films. It was produced at Studio Babelsberg, Germany. (Photo shows the statue depicting the Machinenmensch before it is given Maria's soul, at Filmpark Babelsberg).
Transformers characters at Universal Studios Hollywood