Old Sci-Fi Movie Drinking Game

Science fiction has been pushing the boundaries of human imagination for over a hundred years, always presenting us with "what if?" and "imagine!" Even when our scientific awareness of the universe could barely tell up from down, writers toyed with what technology might be able to do and what life on other planets might mean. While this is wonderful and commendable, it's also, a lot of the time, hilarious.

The golden age of science fiction produced a lot of very silly movies. They were ahead of their time, but looking back, cinematography has advanced as much as scientific knowledge. Once upon a time, my husband and I gathered a few classic movies, including Forbidden Planet and The Day The Earth Stood Still. They proved so wonderfully, lovably ridiculous, thus was born the Old Sci-Fi Movie Drinking Game.

Here are the rules.

Drink when you see...
  1. Random shots of the space ship
  2. Blatant sexism, including but not limited to: girl gets hysterical; girl is useless
  3. Use of human tech/guns vs alien tech to no effect
  4. Incorrect science fact (such as the "8 billion electron volts" defense perimeter in Forbidden Planet, which is less than a static shock from your fluffy cat, or the assertion in War of the Worlds that Venus supports life)
  5. A Washington landmark or, specifically, the Lincoln Memorial
  6. Alien character displays ignorance of human culture (such as in The Day The Earth Stood Still when Klaatu trades diamonds to the little boy)
  7. Robot on-screen
  8. "Look how cool the future is!" - shots or entire scenes that serve no purpose other than to make the audience marvel
  9. We pause the movie to complain about the movie
  10. Cringe-worthy acting
  11. Awkward action sequence/grappling
  12. Laugh-out-loud cheesy special effects
  13. Silly sci-fi music (this one is a personal favorite)  
Any sci-fi movie made in the 1950s - 1970s will hit all of these points. Logan's Run is one of my favorites. Feel free to appropriate these rules for your own entertainment! Also, if you can think of any obvious "sillies" that we missed, drop it in the comments!

Comments

  1. FranAugust 26, 2018 at 4:03 PM

    A recognizable object being used as prop, like old flashlight with a handle on it to make a ray gun

    The top one in my list is calling out the military to deal with anything alien

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownAugust 26, 2018 at 9:40 PM

      That's a really good one!! That reminds me of how there's a TOS episode where they have a terrier with a fabric horn strapped on its head to make it "alien."

      Delete

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