Pogo's remarks have a lot of resonance.
SF authors have bemoaned the 'cheap action and violence' in filmed sci-fi since the genre was created. And, renowned author Susan Sontag wrote a seminal piece called "The Imagination of Disaster" back in 1965 which references specifically a lot of 50s Sci-Fi films:
http://americanfuturesiup.files.wordpre ... saster.pdfFor me, the turning point in modern sci-fi cinema was ALIENS back in 1985. Ridley Scott's original certainly had violence and terror, but, it was so elegantly done and there was a rich undercurrent of ideas. But, to me, ALIENS was just a WWII War picture done with creatures instead of Germans. Hollywood took note and soon it seemed like most big-budget "Science Fiction" films were simply action movies (cops, war stories, action-adventure) with a few SF elements tossed in.
Don't get me wrong, I still a lot of them are terrific movies (ALIENS
not among them), but, my favorite genre pictures still tend to be ones about ideas first and foremost - DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, 2001, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3RD KIND, BLADE RUNNER (again, Ridley Scott's elegant filmmaking elevates it over the action tropes) etc.
As far as the Marathon is concerned, I will continue to champion smaller films with more pure SF aspirations such as MOON, FREQUENCY, EUROPA REPORT, SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, THE QUIET EARTH etc.