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Comment by dhosek | Hacker News Reader

I saw this movie as a kid and it haunted me. Somehow, when the internet was still in its infancy (pre-WWW), the title popped into my head—I still don’t know how—and I was able to rent it on VHS at the local video rental store. It was startling how much I remembered from seeing it on TV at the age of 6 or 7.

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I had a similar reaction seeing Logans Run as a kid on TV (it must have been edited pretty aggressively as the movie is very racy).

I had no idea what I had watched but I remember this show about these people who are stuck inside a mall and can never go outside ever. It really affected me incredibly deeply and filled me with melancholy whenever I thought about it.

Finally in College I was renting old sci-fi and watching it, and as I was watching Logans Run I suddenly realized that it was the show I had seen as a child about the people who couldn't go outside.

A lot of 70s dystopian sci-fi hits pretty hard to be honest. Two more that come off as incredibly prescient are The Network (about a media company that will do anything for viewership) and THX1138 (about people who take drugs to control all their emotions, confess their sins to chatbots, and masturbate to porn every night).

>about people who take drugs to control all their emotions, confess their sins to chatbots, and masturbate to porn every night

Woah. Prescient.

And, of course, being a film school movie by George Lucas if I recall correctly.

A Boy and His Dog is another one.

...which was written by author Harlan Ellison, also notable for the Star Trek (TOS) episode known as "The City on the Edge of Forever."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Boy_and_His_Dog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Foreve...

And the short story that gave me nightmares as a kid: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...

I keep calling it "A Dog and His Boy."

> I saw this movie as a kid and it haunted me.

Me too. I still to this day have an original theater poster from it hanging in my office, next to my Collossus The Forbin Project one.

I do remember as a kid being very confused when the forest ships from the movie showed up in the fleet of ships following the Battlestar Galactica.

> I saw this movie as a kid and it haunted me.

Same here, a very enduring memory. Although I had largely forgotten about it until I heard a song (well, some sort of psychill instrumental I guess) by Carbon Based Lifeforms, named Photosynthesis, that samples a couple of lines from this movie: https://youtu.be/KQE29az48gM?si=9q3aVxcvV7TLxBa4&t=770

For those who haven't seen the movie, here's a 16 sec non-spoiler clip that gives a little context to the lines in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6Xhzo6VAWg

Oh wow I've been listening to this song my whole adult life and never new where that line came from! That's an incredible connection, I love haunting scifi movies from the 70s, and Carbon Based Lifeforms! Thank you for this!

What a thread. I am enjoying the movie recommendations as well, and too like Carbon Based Lifeforms.

Glad this thread motivated me to finally write down the movie titles.

Same. I watched it on TV probably aged about 10 and was I think one of the first films that made me cry

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