My current project, DEAD METAL (https://www.therpgsite.com/design-development-and-gameplay/fixating-productions-dead-metal-notes/), is set on a giant factory spaceship, bereft of all plant and animal life aside from humans and metal-eating worms. What films and TV shows feature such exclusively manmade environments?
The only ones coming to mind are the ALIEN films (minus the cat). I'm not a big movie and TV watcher, so perhaps there are more, if not many more. Anyone?
How about Red Dwarf?
Matrix?
Silent Running: inside a starship
Cube: inside a 3d techno maze
The Werewolf Game series: inside a building
An old one called Laboratory: inside a building
Starlost: might count. Inside a huge generation starship carrying sozens of large habitat domes. Each one a different society or environment.
Theres more if branch into anime. Lilly CAT, Megaroad, etc
Space Mutiny.
Space Cop
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets comes to mind first.
Logan's Run, too
A really weird one is the anime/manga Blame! Set in "The City", an endless set of buildings and machinery the result of an automated Dyson Sphere project gone out of control.
Quote from: ForgottenF on February 14, 2025, 04:18:33 PMValerian and the City of a Thousand Planets comes to mind first.
Logan's Run, too
Logan's Run ends up outside the domes in the final act before getting back to said domes. Till that point it is indeed all self contained.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on February 15, 2025, 12:58:55 AMA really weird one is the anime/manga Blame! Set in "The City", an endless set of buildings and machinery the result of an automated Dyson Sphere project gone out of control.
I was going to suggest this as well. Dami Lee has done a video on the architecture of
Blame! (as well as other fictional settings) and gives some wonderful insights that could help you in setting creation.
Other sources you may want to check out are the anime/manga
Knights of Sidonia (also done by
Blame! creator Tsutomu Nihei) and available on Crunchyroll. The YouTube channel
Science and Futurism with Issac Arthur is also great for harder science fiction ideas of human-only interstellar futures (it helps that he is a gamer as well).
The Expanse (both TV series and the books by James S.A. Corey) deal with a humanocentric future and the Belter segments may be of particular interest to you. Finally, I'll suggest the book
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds which deals with a humanocentric STL interstellar civilization.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for all the ideas, folks!
Lots of space flicks are all inside stations or ships; Event Horizon, Outland, Saturn V, etc.
There are a ton of low budget sci-fi movies that are shot entirely in rooms because it's cheaper. That's why The Asylum loves submarines so much.
Blade Runner
edit: i mean, rain does fall in that one, but i don't think the sky is ever visible >_>
There's a Korean movie called "Space Cleaners" IIRC that's pretty close. It's been a while since I saw it but I think it's about 90% ships or space stations, the other 10% (and it's probably actually less than 10%) is EVA. Decent flick.
Cowboy Bebop comes to mind too. Even when they're not in a ship or space station, they're on a terraformed Mars.
It, Terror from Beyond Space takes place near totally on the rocket. Alien ganked alot of ideas from it.
Atomic Submarine is mostly the sub crew chasing the undersea UFO around.
Doomsday Machine becomes confined to the rocket for just short of the remainder of the movie once launched.
The original Andromeda Strain is another that is largely confined to the lab once it gets rolling.
Same for Sphere. Though there is some brief excursions.
The Big Bus takes place mostly on the Cyclops, the atomic powered super bus. Think this movie dod Airplane before Airplane? Mot really sci-fi. But the bus is atomic so theres that. aheh.
Virus takes place mostly on a sea lab ship.
At least one episode of Outer Limits take place on a space ship.
Dark City may be alien-made, but perhaps it qualifies?
The UK sci-fi horror movie Inseminoid takes place almost totally within the mines and base stationed on an alien moon.