Off the Planet: Music, Sound and Science Fiction Cinema

Over the last decade, music and sound have been increasingly recognized as an important―if often neglected―aspect of film production and film studies. Off the Planet comprises a lively, stimulating, and diverse collection of essays on aspects of music, sound, and Science Fiction cinema. Following a detailed historical introduction to the development of sound and music in the genre, individual chapters analyze key films, film series, composers, and directors in the postwar era. The first part of the anthology profiles seminal 1950s productions such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, the first Godzilla film, and Forbidden Planet. Later chapters analyze the work of composer John Williams, the career of director David Cronenberg, the Mad Max series, James Cameron's Terminators, and other notable SF films such as Space Is the Place, Blade Runner, Mars Attacks!, and The Matrix. Off the Planet is an important contribution to the emerging body of work in music and film. Contributors include leading film experts from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Distributed for John Libbey Publishing

Philip Hayward is Professor of Contemporary Music Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, and co-editor of Perfect Beat―The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture. He has written and edited several other books, including Widening the Horizon: Exoticism in Post-War Popular Music (John Libbey, 1999).