In Search of Tomorrow (2022) on Netflix

Plot summary

The documentary works through the 1980s one year at a time, revisiting the science fiction movies that decade put on screens and the work that went into them. Filmmakers, actors, effects and visual effects artists, composers, authors and technical advisors give interviews, describing how creatures, robots and spaceships were brought to life with models, puppets and animatronics, and how costumes, weapons and post-apocalyptic landscapes were designed. Chapters between the year-by-year segments turn to the heroes and heroines those movies gave audiences, to the way fantasy, action, horror and comedy mixed into the genre, and to the politics and technology of the period, among them tech advances, big business, Live Aid and the AIDS crisis. A chapter on legacy looks at why the genre remains relevant today.