Editing Things to Come (section)

==Reception==
''Things to Come'' was voted the ninth best British film of 1936 by ''[[Film Weekly]]''{{'}}s readers.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52148556|author=Staff |title=Best Film Performance Last Year. |newspaper=[[The Examiner (Tasmania)|The Examiner]] |location=Launceston, Tasmania |date=9 July 1937 |access-date=4 March 2013 |page=8}}</ref> It was the 16th most popular film at the British box office in 1935–36.<ref>Sedgwick, John and Pokorny, Michael (February 2005) "The Film Business in the US and Britain during the 1930s" ''The Economic History Review'' New Series, Vol. 58, No. 1,  pp.79-112</ref> In 2005, it was nominated for the [[AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores]], a list of the top 25 film scores unveiled by the [[American Film Institute]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/scores250.pdf |title=AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores Nominees |access-date=2016-08-06 |archive-date=2013-11-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131106023410/http://www.afi.com/Docs/100years/scores250.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

[[Review aggregator]] website [[Rotten Tomatoes]] reports an approval rating of 93%, based on 28 reviews, with an average rating of 7.46/10. The site's consensus read: "Eerily prescient in its presentation of a dystopian future, ''Things to Come''<nowiki/>'s special effects may be somewhat dated, but its potent ideas haven't aged at all."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/things_to_come|title=Things to Come (1936)|publisher=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]|access-date=2019-08-20 }}</ref>

Writing for ''[[The Spectator]]'' in 1936, [[Graham Greene]] gave the film a mixed review. Although he made it clear that "a third of the film is magnificent", he felt that the second third (as the world of tomorrow reverts to barbarism and anarchy) seemed implausible, and began to lose interest with the introduction of the "Great Conspiracy" (an international force of airmen bent on restoring Earth's former glory) in the last third of the film. The optimism and idealism comes off as naive for him.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Greene|first= Graham|author-link= Graham Greene|date=1935-02-28 |title= Things to Come/Bonne Chance|journal= [[The Spectator]]}} (reprinted in: {{cite book|editor-last= Taylor|editor-first= John Russell|editor-link= John Russell Taylor|date= 1980|title= The Pleasure Dome|url= https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree/page/54|pages= [https://archive.org/details/pleasuredomegrah00gree/page/54 54–55]|publisher= Oxford University Press|isbn= 0192812866|url-access= registration}})</ref>

Science fiction historian [[Gary Westfahl]] has stated, "''Things to Come'' qualifies as the first true masterpiece of science fiction cinema, and those who complain about its awkward pace and uninvolving characters are not understanding Wells's message, which is that the lives and actions of individuals are unimportant when compared to the progress and destiny of the entire human race". He also considered that "the film's episodic structure and grand ambitions make it the greatest ancestor of [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]''".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sfsite.com/gary/well01.htm |last=Wells |first=H. G. |author-link=H. G. Wells|title=Gary Westfahl's Bio-Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Film |accessdate=21 January 2014}}</ref>

Indeed, during early development of what would become ''2001'', co-writer [[Arthur C. Clarke]] had Kubrick watch ''Things to Come'' as an example of a grounded science fiction film; Kubrick, however, disliked it.<ref>[[Arthur C. Clarke|Clarke, Arthur C.]] (1972) ''[[The Lost Worlds of 2001]]'' London: Sidgwick and Jackson.  p.35</ref> After seeing ''2001'', [[Frederik Pohl]] complained in a 1968 ''[[Galaxy Science Fiction|Galaxy]]'' editorial: {{blockquote|The science-fiction movie we've all been waiting for still hasn't come along.
We think it's a disgrace that the most recent science-fiction movie made with a big budget, good actors and an actual sf writer preparing the script, not aimed at a juvenile market and uncontaminated by camp, is ''Things to Come''... produced in 1936.<ref name="pohl196807">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Pohl
 |first=Frederik
 |author-link=Frederick Pohl
 |date=July 1968
 |title=The Week That Was
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v26n06_1968-07#page/n3/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=4
}}</ref>}}