SPACE ON SCREEN.

Byline: - Greg Hernandez

Since 1936's ``Flash Gordon's Space Soldiers,'' movies set in space have entertained audiences, long before the advent of any actual space travel.

Moviegoers have experienced everything from horror (``The Angry Red Planet'') to comedy (``I Married a Monster From Outer Space'') to camp (Zsa Zsa Gabor in ``Queen of Outer Space'') as filmmakers have long been attracted to extraterrestrial stories.

Earlier films like ``Invaders From Mars'' and ``The War of the Worlds,'' both released in 1953, often featured Martians taking over Earth. But by 1968, the year before astronauts had actually walked on the moon, a more artistically ambitious era began with Stanley Kubrick's ``2001: A Space Odyssey.''

Space films hit their stride with the masses in 1977 with the blockbusters ``Star Wars'' and ``Close Encounters of the Third Kind.''

The real-life space program led to a different kind of film, from 1978's thriller ``Capricorn One,'' featuring a mock space mission designed to fool the public, to the true story of the astronauts of ``Apollo 13.''

The series ``Star Trek'' made the unlikely transition from cult television show to enduring movie franchise starting with 1979's ``Star Trek: The Motion Picture'' to last year's ``Star Trek: Nemesis.''

But nothing matches the popularity of the ``Star Wars'' franchise. From the original film to last year's ``Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones,'' all five of the films rank among the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time.