"Psychological projection is the process of misinterpreting what is "inside" as coming from "outside". - - In its malignant forms, it is a defense mechanism in which the ego defends itself against disowned and highly negative parts of the self by denying their existence in themselves and attributing them to others, breeding misunderstanding and causing untold interpersonal damage."

Soviet Movies, left to right:

Guest from the Future (Гостья из Будущего), Per Aspera ad Astra (Сквозь Тернии к Звездам)

Moscow-Cassiopeia (Москва-Кассиопея), Guest From the Future (again)

Kin-Dza-Dza (Кин-дза-дза), The Witches Cave (Подземелье Ведьм)

Moscow-Cassiopeia (again), This Merry Planet (Эта весёлая планета)

I don't know this one, She Fell from clouds (Spadla z oblakov)

  • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    The Soviet movies seem to be a fair bit older than the American ones on the right. Old Hollywood sci-fi movies also had aliens that were just dudes in silly outfits.

    Did the Soviets ever do giant big budget schlocky genre flicks? Where's the Soviet Commando, Indiana Jones, Aliens or Ghostbusters

    • HarryLime [any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Did the Soviets ever do giant big budget schlocky genre flicks? Where’s the Soviet Commando, Indiana Jones, Aliens or Ghostbusters

      To my knowledge, they didn't usually make movies like that. Even their adventure films tend to be sort of comic and meditative. White Sun of the Desert, a Soviet version of American Westerns, is an adventure film set in Turkmenistan during the Revolution, but its gunfights and action scenes aren't exactly exciting (though it is a good movie, and considered a beloved classic). One Soviet film that had a huge budget and enormous battle and action scenes, was Sergei Bondcharuk's 8-hour adaptation of War and Peace.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Both of those predate the post-Jaws, Alien and Star Wars blockbuster era though, and I wonder if it influenced their films at all.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Both of those predate the post-Jaws, Alien and Star Wars blockbuster era though

          I mean, the Soviet Union collapsed in the late-80s / early-90s. Hollyweird was still picking up steam back then.

      • cawsby [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Tarkovsky's Solaris was better than the American remake.

    • Tervell [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Not really schlocky, but they did have some big budget stuff:

      • Liberation is a series of WW2 films with some pretty big battles and lots of actual tanks. They start with Kursk, and then cover Bagration and eventually the battle of Berlin. Apparently they wanted to film the Kursk one on the actual battlefield, but gave up because of all the unexploded ordnance that was still lying around.
      • Waterloo and War and Peace by Bondarchuk both had an entire division's worth of actual Soviet soldiers as extras in order to reenact the battles, so you get shots like this and this

      And there's probably some others, these are just the ones I know of.

      • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That they never produced a blockbuster version of Master and Margaritta is the greatest indictment of the Soviet system imaginable.

  • HarryLime [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I mean, I get what you're saying, but the real takeaway here seems to be that US filmmakers had access to better creature effects than Soviet filmmakers.

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I don't think that's necessarily true, the soviets weren't that far behind on special effects technology. Especially in the practical realm. There was just a divide between what kind of media was consumed in America and the USSR.

      Most of the extra terrestrial body horror stuff of that era was absolutely meant to be a critique of America though.

  • budoguytenkaichi [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I get what this is getting at, but I feel like it doesn't help that on average the movies/series on the right are likely better/more entertaining films (Predator and The Thing alone even).

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      A fairly big part of Western UFO mythology holds that they're enlightened peaceful beings that are trying to save humanity from our evil ways though

      And the way do to that is to abduct lonely weirdos and having sex with them, apparently

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Pretty sure that's all The Thing. There are plenty of non-scary aliens in Western cinema.

      But this is propaganda, so fuck nuance.

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's just not at all true. They're all different movies. I've seen most of em

      • ambientmarxist [none/use name]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        USA, left to right, top to bottom:

        Predator, Slither, Alien: Covenant, Xtro (not a movie from USA but whatever), The Thing (1982), The Blob (1988), The Faculty, The Thing (1982), Alien Resurrection, The Thing (1982).

        Three are from the same movie.

      • guppyman [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah, there's a few I'm curious about as well. I can see The Thing, Predator and Alien Resurrection

      • LoudMuffin [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        can you name them all? I can recognize the obvious ones (the Thang, Pred-Ator) but the others I do not know

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Not all, there's a Xenomorph so Alien, From Beyond, Close Encounter of the 3rd kind. One is a Cronenberg movie that I can't recall

  • Vncredleader
    ·
    3 years ago

    I get the point, but also you could probably make a list with similar looking aliens from US films. Taking the most benign aliens from Soviet cinema and comparing them with mostly just villain monster aliens from western cinema is not a contrast.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Imagine this but its Soviet Aliens against Star Wars / Star Trek aliens, and the analogy doesn't work at all.

      Nevermind movies like ET or TV Shows like Family Guy.

  • morte [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Whats the movie on the USA side, left column, second from the bottom

  • ennuid [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    The one you don't know is the wizard of oz what am I missing

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Alaskaball do you still have this image? I want to use it for something but older images are broken sitewide right now.