Bruce Dickinson names his three favourite sci-fi movies of all time
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is one of the more colourful characters in music. In one part, he is one of the most revered metal vocalists of all time, with a distinct voice and commanding stage presence to boot. In another, he’s a renaissance man, a licensed commercial pilot, keen fencer, reader, petrolhead, and of course, lover of a good beer or two. Adding to his long list of favoured activities is that Dickinson is also a lifelong lover of films, with a penchant for those with a science-fiction edge. Luckily for fans, he once named his three favourite sci-fi movies.
Speaking to Revolver in 2018, Iron Maiden’s resident wailer picked 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1956’s Forbidden Planet and 1967’s Quartermass and the Pit as his favourite three titles in the science-fiction genre. He said: “They’re quite deep movies, all three. The human element and the plot are strong in all of them, though the science element in all of them is pretty cool, too. They’re all fairly predictive of possible futures.”
The earliest picture of the three that Dickinson chose is The Day the Earth Stood Still, one of the genre’s all-time classics. Directed by Robert Wise and coming with a score composed by the eminent Bernard Hermann, the man who scored some of Alfred Hitchcock’s most prominent titles, such as Psycho, and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, it stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe as well as other stars of the day.
Based on the 1940 sci-fi short story Farewell to the Master by Harry Bates, it’s set in the Cold War during the early nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. The storyline follows a humanoid alien who visits Earth accompanied by an imposing robot, Gort, with a vital message that concerns all humanity. Famously, the story was remade in 2008, starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly.
The next movie in chronological order from Dickinson’s list is Forbidden Planet. Directed by Fred M. Wilcox and written by Cyril Hume, it was based on an original movie story by Allen Adler and Irving Block. Starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and a fresh-faced Leslie Nielsen, it too is considered one of the all-time great science fiction films and one of the finest of the 1950s. Since its release, some commentators have likened its characters and setting to those of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with them remarkably similar.
A pioneering movie in many ways, Forbidden Plane set a precedent for what was to come in science-fiction cinema. It was the first in the genre to depict humans travelling in a faster-than-light starship, something we would see popularised by Star Wars over 20 years later. Interestingly, it was also the first to be entirely set on another planet, far from Earth, something too that George Lucas’s series would run off into the distance with. Famously, the character of Robby the Robot was one of the first to have a real personality and be a vital supporting character. Elsewhere, Forbidden Planet also used an entirely electronic score from Bebe and Louis Barron, a significant step for film soundtracks.
Dickinson’s final pick chronologically is Quartermass and the Pit. From Hammer Film Productions, it’s a sequel to the studio’s earlier titles, 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment and 1957’s Quatermass 2. Much like its forebears, it is based on a BBC Television serial, this one being Nigel Kneale’s Quartermass and the Pit. The movie was directed by Roy Ward Baker and stars Andrew Keir as the titular Professor Quartermass – replacing Brian Donlevy from the previous duo – with James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Goliver all in supporting roles.
The storyline is almost entirely faithful to the original TV series. It tells of a mysterious object buried at the site of a new extension to London’s Underground. Also found nearby are the remains of human ancestors from over five million years ago. Quartermass realises that the object is an old martian spaceship and concludes that the extraterrestrials have greatly influenced human evolution and intelligence. However, things start to unravel when the craft – which is sentient – starts to affect humans for evil means.
Bruce Dickinson’s favourite sci-fi movies:
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951)
- Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956)
- Quartermass and the Pit (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)
