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The Wired Top Twenty Sci-Fi Movies
blamanj writes "The June issue of Wired includes a list of the top 20 Sci-Fi movies, based on ranking a combination of Adrenaline, Vision, and Precision. Somehow, they came up with (yawn) Gattaca as the #2 SF movie of all time!?! Their rating system was based on one by Josh Calder, who also uses a three-point (Futurism, Entertainment, Plausibility) system, and has the same movie at #2, BTW. Clearly, I think using such a scale gives odd results, but what if it were weighted differently, e.g., Vision is worth 2x Adrenaline, would it be a better list? And, more importantly, what are the real top 20 films? And wouldn't that list have to include Forbidden Planet?"
Hells yeah, it would have to include Forbidden Planet. Id, Krell Metal, Leslie Nielson as a starship captain, ROBBIE!
And GaTtaCA? I rarely use it myself, sir. It promotes rust.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Cheers
, Ian
Any list of sci-fi that does not include either Forbidden Planet or Fantastic Voyage in the top 20 cannot be correct. Likewise, as much as I do love Bladerunner, it cannot possibly be rated as the number one sci-fi movie of all time by any sane person. Altered States has to be in there somewhere too. Finally, the fact that Barbarella even appears anywhere on the list only serves to remove any shred of credibility for the author...
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Yes, i disagree. I think "Precision" is not that important. (Read: Bugs in matrix does not make it a bad movie. It's rated #3 though.)
BTW, Sci-fi does not mean a "Vision" of future. Take Star Wars. It says "a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away".
So genetic reconstruction of dinosaurs ranks above blurred virtual reality and a revolt against videogames in plausibility? I think there are some serious omissions in this list :(
a viable scale should put Science fFirst, fFiction second. just as the genre name implies. (sorry, star wars fFans) however, also important are vision, and precedent.
fFor example, fForbidden planet earns more points than any star trek movie, simply because it is more ground-breaking. essentially, they are similar concepts. so the one which is older gets higher points.
of course, age isnt necesarilly a winner. AI should get a high score based on it's clarity of concept.
see, there's a lot more categories fFor scoring than these people are allowing. so of course it will come out weird with uncommon movies with high ranks. they arent taking into account the Cool fFactor, and the directoring skill and all those things that make a movie into a Good Movie.
Excellent! At last someone recognises that Terminator is superior to Terminator 2. I have to wonder, though, how could anyone rate Jurassic Park higher than Star Wars?
What a shame the write-ups are so cursory. A few sentences more and maybe a few images wouldn't have hurt.
It would be interesting to see the top20 when setting both Vision and Presition to 4, and Adrenaline to 2...
IMDB have a much better weighted ranking system based on user votes. Their top Sci-Fi movies are:
1 Star Wars (1977) 8.7/10 (77559 votes)
2 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 8.7/10 (31705 votes)
3 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 8.6/10 (58919 votes)
4 Matrix, The (1999) 8.3/10 (69300 votes)
5 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 8.3/10 (36486 votes)
6 Metropolis (1927) 8.2/10 (5187 votes)
7 Donnie Darko (2001) 8.2/10 (3590 votes)
8 Alien (1979) 8.2/10 (32155 votes)
9 Clockwork Orange, A (1971) 8.2/10 (32662 votes)
10 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) 8.2/10 (11199 votes)
11 Blade Runner (1982) 8.1/10 (42768 votes)
12 Spider-Man (2002) 8.1/10 (10504 votes)
13 Aliens (1986) 8.1/10 (35399 votes)
14 Iron Giant, The (1999) 8.0/10 (6877 votes)
15 Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) 8.0/10 (44823 votes)
16 Abre los ojos (1997) 7.9/10 (2873 votes)
17 Brazil (1985) 7.9/10 (17398 votes)
18 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) 7.9/10 (39419 votes)
19 Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951) 7.9/10 (5131 votes)
20 Back to the Future (1985) 7.8/10 (34951 votes)
Yes, as a few others have said, this list leaves out some obvious classics in favor of some obvious blockbusters. eXistenZ is definitely a great movie, and Jurassic Park was a waste of time. Shiney and pretty, yes - good movie, no.
But, come on, Gattaca being a "yawn" ?? Gattaca is an excellent film, and it is science fiction. It's one of the most "real" science fiction films I've ever seen. The acting is superb, and the ending is terribly emotional. No, it doesn't have lasers and battles and monsters and millions of dollars of special effects, but as a sci-fi film I've always thought everyone should go see it. People who complain that sci-fi is just for geeky teens who never really grow up would do themselves a favor by seeing that film. It's quite brilliantly done.
Ed: Fuck! Readership is down, we're becoming irrelevent!!!
Guru: Write another list of top SciFi - wind em up and watch em go!
Ed: But thats so old hat!
Guru: NOT if we have a seemingly scientific rating system!
Ed: I think I've just come!
Of course I think that Forbidden Planet was to be in, yet I also think that Metropolis is absolutely outstanding from most points of view (Moroder's re-edition is more suitable for our times).
In general, "classics" seem to be forgotten from this list, apart from "The Day Earth...", and there seem to be a strong bias toward recent titles.
Apart from that I'm obviously convinced that no schema could ever list a proper parade for what is inherently a matter of taste and opinions...
To paraphrase: "If I've never heard of it then it can't be any good."
Your logic is impeccable; judging the world this way must make your life very easy. I also salute you for declaring once and for all that a movie widely hailed as one of the best ever made isn't any good because "it's boring as hell." I suggest that you avoid the "classics" section of the bookstore - some of those books take HOURS to get through, and they don't even have any sex scenes!
Anything with many written words visible on screen should be disqualified and burnt. All that does is confuse prople.
I vote for Ferenheit 451
Warmest regards,
Guy Montag
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Having said that, Robocop deserved to be higher on the list, and I wouldn't have included Jurassic Park at all in terms of the criteria given.
Of course, the criteria are bullshit. Futurism? that excludes every time travel movie ever made (probably). The same could be said for plausiblility. That means Terminator made it in by Entertainment values alone.
Anyway, all kidding aside - I realise I'm the only person on Earth who thinks that Spaced Invaders (aka Martians!!!) is a truly great movie - I would've included a few other movies...
Ghost in the Shell
A far more visionary peek at the future, IMO, than anything listed (except, perhaps, Gattaca). For the sake of brevity, I'll list this as the only anime, even though I could fill the list with better films than these
The Abyss
Not just included cos it's Cameron's last good movie. There may have been better First Contact movies, but I can't think of any offhand.
Star Trek: Generations
Only kidding.
From the article:
But what makes a truly great sci-fi flick isn't just popcorn appeal; it's how well a world is conceived, developed, and realized. Wired's team of serious science fiction fans - led by Josh Calder, who rates films in depth at Futuristmovies.com - determined our rankings by three calibrating factors: a film's power to enthrall and excite (Adrenaline), how well it presents a scenario for the future (Vision), and whether the science behind the fiction holds up (Precision).
The reason why I think they have it nailed can be seen in the superb replay value of most of those films - and the endless debates that they still provoke. It's not that there aren't others which are more exciting, more vision or more precision, but that the combination of the three in the ones chosen is something special.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
First of all let me just say that I support Gattaga being in the #2 slot.
I think that Plausibility above everything else should matter in a SciFi movie. It helps to suspend our disbelief, and truly get inmersed in the movie. For example, it is much easier to see myself, or my future children, living in a world like Gattaga rather than a world like Star Wars or Trek.
Of course, there are many other factors involved in that, and I would say that Vision/Futurism should be a very close second, with Adrenaline being the last. That does not mean that it is not important, just that I like movies that leave me thinking after I watch them.
Accuracy does not mean that bugs in the movie make it bad. It defines the movie as SCIENCE fiction, instead of just fiction/fantasy. That is the beauty of SciFi, the possibility that one day all the things and ideas presented in the movie will come to pass.
1. Solaris
2. Metropolis
3. Until The End of Time
4. Demon Seed
5. The Lawnmower Man
6. Slaughterhouse 5
7. Fahrenheit 451
8. 1984
9. Final Fantasy
10. They Live
Who in their right mind would rank Barbarella on a Top 20 list of anything? It wouldn't even rank well on a soft pr0n list. For that matter, Sleeper doesn't belong on the list either, and much as I may have enjoyed Tron in the day, it's not a great movie.
On the other hand, IMHO, the other movies on the list are great movies, and would make reasonable candidates for a Top-20 list, even if you or I wouldn't agree with their ordering. Just keep in mind that Top-X lists are just tools that you can choose to use or ignore them as necessary.
We call it art because we have names for the things we understand.
1. Blade Runner
2. Gattaca
3. The Matrix
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. Brazil
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Alien
8. The Boys From Brazil
9. Jurassic Park
10. Star Wars
11. The Road Warrior
12. Tron
13. The Terminator
14. Sleeper
15. Soylent Green
16. RoboCop
17. Planet Of The Apes
18. The Day The Earth Stood Still
19. Akira
20. Barbarella
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There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
The dialogues were often too pathetic and there were too many monologes of the actors.
One of the main figures was played by a bad B-Movie actor which ruined much of the fun. The figures of the "evil" side were played by much better actors but for some reason they switched over 3 different opponent figures in the whole movie, making it impossible to build up a decent character.
One can argue about the special effects. Some were rather good but others plainly sucked. Mainly because they were created by early 80ies computer graphics which were just shaded polygons floating in the infinite void.
Personally I like the old 60ies presidencies better. The H-bomb tests special effects were much better and there was more tension on the whole plot.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
...if plausibility was a major factor in it's ranking. Think about it, wouldn't employers love to use DNA testing to see if you would be a good employee? Employers can interview people in person to see what they are like but the result is just an opinion saying if the person would work well at the company. DNA testing gives you cold hard numbers though. These numbers may not represent your actual abilities but that won't stop employers from using them. Why? Employers like numbers and statistics. When employers are dealing with a 1000 employees, statistical averages is the only way employers can understand what everyone is doing, they can't look at every individual employee. Employers can say "99% of our employees have the XYZ genome sequence which means they are great workers." as oppose to "Our hiring staff only hires the best people, even though they all have different opinions about what is the best and would rather hire someone because they are fans of the same sports teams instead of actually knowing how to program...".
Remember, you're not a person when you walk into a corporation, you're a "human resource".
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
...based on ranking a combination of Adrenaline, Vision, and Precision
...but not Writing, Acting, Direction. Don't bother flaming this folks, the premise is flawed and misleading. The article (actually a sidebar) should have been titled "Top Twenty Sci-Fi films, quality aside"
The biggest problem with a list of the "best movies of all time", in whatever category is that things change. The quality/realism of effects has obviously changed over time, but also taste (people like different sorts of movies now than they did twenty years ago), plausability (things that seemed highly probable twenty years ago look very dated now), and what's allowed to be shown (the censors have gotten more lenient over time), so that at the end of the day the best movies of all time - especially in the Sci-fi category - are going to be a highly subjective, and likely to change over time as well as from person to person.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Obviously, the absence of Forbidden Planet destines the Wired list for the dustbin of history.
An ominous sense of Kafkaesque suspense actually can evoke more adrenaline than ten speeder chases. Vision and sociopolitical relevence should be weighted much more heavily than "adrenaline", anyways. The movie version of Orwell's "1984 " is a case in point, on the strength of the story and its continuing social relevence, it deserves a place on the list. Also, on my list, the 1973 cult classic Zardoz blows Robocop away.
Where are:
Ice Pirates
Spaceballs
Mars Attacks
The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai
Weird Science
? Any and all of these would make my top 20.
He doesn't like a film; he finds it boring. But no! He's wrong, as you point out, because lots of other people like it. Well, lots of people like Vengaboys, but that doesn't mean I'll join them in their appreciation.
Oh, but they don't count, because important people don't like them. I bet you only like jazz, classical music and reading the works of Dickens and Shakespeare - after all, they are the culturally acceptable things to like for people who don't want to go against the grain, arent they?
Of course these lists are only done as a piece of trollery, which is fine, but what annoys me is when they claim some psudo-scientific system behind it all - such as this ratings "system". Adrenaline, fine, that's excitement, but the other two? "Vision" - how well it presents a scenario for the future, and "Precision", whether the science behind the fiction holds up. Well, most of the movies on this list fail those two.
I mean, take The Matrix: great film (IMHO). But vision - yeah, I can just see a near-future where man and machines fight a war, the machines win and enslave us all as power generators while building a convincing virtual world. Oh yeah, and the science holds up on that as well. Pfffft.
Yeah, Alien as a precise and visionary view of the future: we are going to be chased around space ships by huge monsters. That works on so many levels (Homer Simpson). Terminator - yes, I can see the day (soon perhaps) when metal killing machines are sent back through time. In fact it's probably happening now, and the cyborgs are all working at Wired writing crappy ersatz movie ratings. Based on these ratings, Soylent Green shouldn't be on this list at all because none of the things it predicted for right now have come true: it's Malthusian "vision" made in the 70s turned out to be way off beam for the 21st century - unless you count playing Asteroids.
On the other hand, under vision and precision, Robocop should probably come tops.
Don't get me wrong, I like all the movies on the list, but all this "precision" and "vision" crap is mere justification for someone's sci-fi movie tastes.
I agree largely with Wired's list, with the exception of Brazil and The Boys From Brazil, neither of which I have seen. (The two don't appear related.)
:)
Call Gattaca a snoozer if you must, but I would place it in the top 10 SciFi films that I have seen; definitely top three on the scale they used for futurism and plausibility.
I caught Gattaca on HBO by accident (before they jacked up the price to $13.95 a month... I don't like HBO *that* much). By the end of that month I had seen it 4 times. From the cameo of Ernest Borgnine as head janitor to the all-telling final scene; it was so completely and totally plausible that it scared me. (I won't spoil the ending if you haven't seen it, but the good doctor gives us hope that the human spirit will not be overcome by science and "genetic discrimination.")
Rent it! Or if you are a cheap bastard, er, sorry, "poor college student with 10 megabit bandwidth and several hundred gigs of storage," download it. Some put the poo-poo on the film because it does not have enough action (AKA fight scenes and explosions), but the suspense does honor to the memory of Hitchcock. And it is a good story, despite the cardboard cut-out performance of Uma Thurman in the female lead.
Ethan Hawke is excellent, and Jude Law is good as a spoiled genetic-elite with a spinal injury. I liked Jude better as "Gigolo Joe" in AI, though.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
I looked at the list and while I don't think Blade should be #1 much less even on the list I can say some good things about it.
I don't care what list someone comes out with but as long as it has Brazil on it has got my vote for being at least somewhat well researched. Brazil is 1984 meets Fear and Loathing. The later of which is also by Terry Gilliam. Brazil should be watched many times to fully "get it" and it should not be watched for at least 2 hours after the acid has worn off.
I also saw that #20 was Barbarella. A must see movie. Jane Fonda in the prime of her life in some of the sexiest costumes around. I only own two movies and Barbarella is one of them. I have no VCR to play it on and I have no TV, but I can bring this to a party and pop it in after Army of Darkness and people will sit glued to their chairs.
Ascii artist &
I stopped reading when I realized the list didn't include The Fly So you stopped reading when you reached the end of the list? Me too.
As for the Tired list, who cares about what order they're in? Just make it a 'club' of sorts, the top 20 in no particular order.
My prefs:
Scratch off: Clockwork Orange, Boys From Brazil (more a political pic than sci-fi), RoboCop (hardly original at the time), Barbarella (a drug fantasy more than sci-fi).
Add on: Forbidden Planet, Metropolis, Altered States, and some choice among the original Frankenstein movies (perhaps Son of Frankenstein).
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Vengaboys! Oy. My side hurts. Thanks for the early morning laugh.
*grin*
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
As for bias, the list IS biased, towards newer movies. Leaving older classics like the Frankenstein pics, Metropolis, The Fly, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Forbidden Planet, and a ton of other films off the list is just short-sighted, and/or indication that they need a larger list.
Minor editorial: if the list was biased towards special effects, they could have put The Ten Commandments on the list... in some people's opinion, it qualifies as sci-fi ;)
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
the sterile outlook of Star Wars (is every planet in the universe a desert?)
Which planets in Star Wars (just the movies, not counting novels) other than Tatooine are deserts? I can't think of one. Unless you stretch the definition of desert to include a frozen wasteland like Hoth.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Not if you're looking for action and explosions, no. But 2001 is clearly a brilliant SF movie, and it's got no action at all. If action is what you want, then choose the best action movie of all time -- but for pure SF, Gattaca is definitely up there.
:-)
And the fact that Ethan Hawke and Jude Law are total hotties is neither here nor there, obviously
I'd prefer it to have included The Fly rather than The Fly.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
That top20-list included some movies I've never seen, or even heard of, so I really don't think those could be good movies.
So, you're the reason all that top-40 shit is popular!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Given today's headlines, Brazil seems to be the truest version of the future. From terrorism to coporate abuse of the population to environmental damage , Terry Gilliam has hit the nail on the head. Even the smaller details like abuse of the phone system , rouge technicians bucking the establishment , and lousy technical support ring true.
(Leans back in chair and softly hums Brazil theme song.)
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I appreciate that they made Gattaca, Blade Runner and Brazil rate highly for the simple reason these movies do some justice to one of the real strongpoints of science fiction - The ability to use an abstracted situation to point out conflicting situations of the present. Whether they do it well or not is another question but they do ask to you to think.
This is not a put down of technical effects films such as the Matrix, which also has that element of abstraction (where are we going with our preoccupation with things digital?) or terminator or the star wars series. There is a need for pure entertainment as well and everybody loves a simple action filled story full of effects and fairy tales. But disliking films because they ask you to think says more about you than it does about the movie.
Some films that didn't make it
A film that was never popular but also had a good mix of action and the think factor (if higly simplified) was Enemy Mine.
And my own favourite fantasy film with brilliant acting and huge laughs was Time Bandits, also by Terry Gillam who made Brazil.
Omega Man
12 Monkeys
Ghost In The Shell
Metropolis
The Lathe of Heaven
The Fly
Things To Come
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Rollerball
If any confusion arises, the original is the one I'm talking about (The Fly, Body Snatchers, Rollerball).
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
I'm with you.
Perhaps some folks think SciFi has to include battles between spaceships, alien invasions/cultures, lots of computers for folks to scrutinize ("...is that GNOME on that system? I think it may be..."), etc. Gattaca deals with actual human beings -- not spaceships, aliens, pod races, blahblahblah -- and does so in an intelligent, stylish way that is not only cool to watch but is also representative of a future that I can actually buy into (as opposed to a future where people live in deserts, fly floating cars, hire flying bug things to run stores, or whatever). What makes Gattaca so cool is that it's believable. I can't say that for the Buck Rogers, Star Trek, Star Wars, MIB, etc. genre of movies.
I don't know if Gattaca qualifies as being #2, but it definitely deserves a single digit rating (no, not "0").
I also like the music Holst made for "Star Wars" too.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
The Day the Earth Stood Still is greatest Sci Fi movie ever made.
And C'mon, Total Recall is the Bomb.
That would be great. Something along the lines of "I Heard Ramona Sing".
Seems like every time a new list of top n movies (as the AFI top 100 films) or television shows (as the TV Guide top comedies) or whatever shows up, there's invariably a hue and a cry from folks who don't appreciate the rankings, or the content, or a series of egregious omissions.
It's a whole lot easier to stomach these things if you take them as a signpost and not a destination. In fact, the debate here about what does and doesn't get included and why (the why is the particularly important part, IMO) pretty much validates the creation of the list, even if I don't agree with its contents or its order. Fortunately, there's even a means of redress:
"Disagree? Send your own picks to movielist@wiredmag.com."
The most unfortunate part of the article as presented is that it explains the three ranking criteria, but does not provide any evaluation as to how the movie satisfies them (for example, I imagine that it's nigh-universally agreed that The Matrix is an "adrenaline" movie, but probably much less so that it's a "precision" movie, owing to some spotty scientific principles).
(I also have my reservations about the breadth of knowledge of films that the panel has, but the article did say "fans" and not "experts")
I'll also echo the sentiments of some of the other Gattaca sympathizers that it's probably the most "science-y" science-fiction that I've seen in recent memory, but that's the age-old argument between the "hard" and "soft" views of whether the science or the fiction part of science fiction is what gets the emphasis.
I think it strange, that Dune is absent in this list, IMO it should rank among the top ten. It's definitely better than "Jurassic Park", but maybe i'm the only one who thinks, that a good story outranks special effects.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Hmmm.... what about THX1138? Another early 70's disutopian movie. I liked the look and the feel of it. Computers and robots have basically taken over. I can;t quite recall the point of the whole thing... it was more an exercise in examining what could be, rather than being a traditional story. It's been a while since I have een it, though.
Oh, I heard the director of the film went on to make a few other movies that seem to be a bit more popular.
Barbarella is in the list, but Forbidden Planet is not? Blasphemy!
I missed it in my other post, but if there ever was a science fiction film that had a brilliant story (The Anthrax scare last year) excellent acting (Madeleine Stow plays the part of a woman who is intelligent , warm and not some male macho replica, and we all love to see Bruce Willis suffer), Gillamesque wierdness (the strange society under the earth) and a refreshing sad and sweet ending (the tragic hero dies but humanity is saved), this was it.
I actually wonder why this didn't make it onto the list? I think possibly because of the ending. I think it frightens audiences to see the hero die.
I saw an interview with Terry Gilliam and he said the title of the movie came from the feeling he got from the song used as the theme. It is from the 1930's and it is called 'Beaches of Brazil'.
Click here or here.
Let me chime in on this one as well. Gattaca is definitely a top 5 selection. Maybe one of the most brilliantly understated films ever, an attribute which has to have heightened value in a Sci Fi film.
MY question is why is Star Wars there? Star Wars is so blatantly fantasy that it really has more resemblence to Lord of the Rings than 2001.
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
Rollerball should definitely have been on the list, especially if plausability is a major factor -- blood sports, corporate-run government? Other than the fact that killing is just slightly against the rules in football, how far away are we from *that* reality?
I also think that the original Mad Max was a much more plausable reality than the Road Warrior. A bunch of S&M types with pneumatic arrow guns that could get a supply of nitrous and not gas is far less plausable than a government that can't govern sinking into biker chaos.
I'd vote for the Omega Man, too, as well as They Live.
Well, I for one have never even heard of Gattaca. So, I'm not sure how it ended up on the list at all. Every one of the other movies I've actually seen. Being a movie fan is certainly not the central point of my existence, but I am a pretty big SciFi fan when it comes to books. So I tend to see and/or pay more attention to SciFi movies that come out. I'm not saying that simply because I've never heard of it is it sux, but you'd think I would have at least known of it's existence.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Eric
Be who you are...and be it in style!
One of the problems I have with judging SF in general, but SF cinema in particular is the extent to which the cinematic realisation is based on a preexisting work, in particular literature. Can one really judge the merits of the cinematic realisation of the future apart from the original author's vision? (and more based on than say, Blade Runner).
:-).
I think that by any standard, there will be an inherent bias against older SF cinema, particularly if the original (as in innovative) idea presented in the film has become passe (Planet of the Apes for example) or SF is merely the setting for an old story (The Forbidden Planet as The Tempest for example) or the vehicle for allegory (The Day the Earth Stood Still for example).
The prevalence of Dystopic future visions, suggest SF as vehicle for allegory and pure SF story telling is actually pretty rare.
Some glaring omissions (IMHO). 1984, 'nuff said. Have there really been no good implementations of a work by HG Wells? What of Verne? A cinematic execution of an illusory world, what about Dark City, if not as good then certainly better than The Matrix. What about Cube? Anyway the list of omissions is, as ever always extensive. But most of all, why isn't Star Wars number 1. Surely by any criteria (except maybe acting
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I agree. This can't be true. How can a simple Action/Sci-Fi movie beat these two classics. The story is just so simple in Matrix with no real suprising moments. But I still think Clockwork Orange is no Sci-Fi film. It's a critic of the society. The futuristic elements are only to not accuse people directly. So this list is really wrong in my opinion.
Why do people get upset at this list, or billboard's top 40 or any other stupid "list of top X".
Get a grip. I like what I like because I like it. You may not agree, great - rock on with your bad self. Doesn't bother me nor does it change my opinion.
You'd think Wired just proclaimed that you have to agree with them or something the way some of you react.
Haven't you learned by now that any list of "popular" anything is SUBJECTIVE and therefore doesn't mean jack?
Nothing to see here.. move along.
Watch what you want. Enjoy what you want.
I don't have a solution, but I certainly admire the problem.
I am a Kubrick fan and loved ACO but I agree that it is borderline. I would rather see A.I. there in its stead because like 2001 it asks what I think is the greatest scientific question of all: How does science relate to God?
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...
and much as I may have enjoyed Tron in the day, it's not a great movie.
When was the last time you saw it? I recently picked up the 20th anniversary edition, and it still sucks me into the uber-cool world inside a mainframe. The ideas and concepts in that movie really got me excited about computers as a kid. I used to spend hours in the driveway chucking frisbees at my brother pretending that I was de-res-ing him with each stroke. The damn video game has got to be one of the best that came out of the early 80s arcade scene.
I don't seem to be the only one supporting Tron, as they're currently making a sequel.
-- passion
- passion
Surprising! OUTSTANDING movie. It was, though, definitely a 'sleeper' hit, it had a relatively small (36m) budget, but did $120m+ in the US alone. Frankly, it's a little too highbrow to have been a 'big, big' hit, but it was very well done.
;-)
Great cast: Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, Jude Law. Spectacular writing, great symbolism in the film. It's not a "Star Wars" type SF film, it's got a much more sublime vibe to it. It was pretty heavily advertised once it picked up pace at the box office, and its video sales went through the roof from what I understand--how'd you never hear of it? You must have been obsessed with Diablo or something that year.
Here are some movies in the list I think don't belong and why:
5. Brazil
Brazil uses some sci-fi imagery but doesn't really pose any "What If?" type of questions necessary for true sci-fi. It is mainly an exercise in psychology.
8. The Boys From Brazil
This movie uses the concept of cloning as a what if, but is mainly a suspense thriller. Where are the killer androids? (just kidding)
9. Jurassic Park
Action film, again uses cloning as a plot device. Totally forgettable.
10. Star Wars
Certainly not worthy of the top 20. A great bit of entertainment, but it doesn't advance sci-fi at all. Mainly an exercise of Lucas's ego.
11. The Road Warrior
Entertaining, to be sure, but is this really sci-fi or an action film?
12. Tron
This is sci-fi but the acting is weak, the story is weaker. If you are going to have this one on the list you might as well knock off 2001 and replace it with "The Black Hole". Otherwise an entertaining film.
16. RoboCop
Duh. If this is here why not Predator? This is simply an action film with sci-fi as a backdrop.
18. The Day The Earth Stood Still
18. Eighteen? Are they nuts? This belongs in the top 10. One of the only two movies from the entire 1950's to belong on the list at all.
20. Barbarella
This makes the list? Jeez, why not put Zardoz here or the pr0n version of "Blackula"? This movie sucks worse than "Flash Gordon" (70's version with Queen music).
Where is Highlander? Where is The Beach? Where is War of the Worlds? Where is "The Lathe of Heaven"???? Where is "The Man Who Fell to Earth"??? Barbarella makes it and these classics don't? Are they out of their collective minds? Bah! I am so glad I cancled my subscription years ago. I would have written a nasty letter to the editor and gotten all worked up had I paid for this insipid opinion!
Anyway, rant over. Back to work...
I think a LOT more time needs to pass before we can judge films like The Matrix and Gattaca. Part of the greatness of a film is how well it stands up to the test of time. They need to do this again in another 20 years.
Never confuse feeling with thinking.
I think the list is really good (I disagree with a few, of course, but overall they hit the high points).
As to Gattaca: it was a brilliant movie, well written, directed, and acted, with a tight, logical plot and lots of symbolism. The style of the film reminded me of old (Heinlein/Asimov) sci-fi, particularly as the characters lift off for the moon wearing suits and sitting on benches. Symbolic, not literal. So I think Gattaca definitely deserves its spot.
I'd put Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926) in the top 20 (near the top), maybe at the expense of Barbarella.
-m
I thought Gattaca was fantastic, because it wasn't fantastic. It was plausable, a good warning, a compelling story, and relevant.
I believed in the complex characters and, unlike a few recent blockbusters I could mention, I cared what happened to them. That's a much better benchmark than box office receipts.
That and I'd never walked out of a scifi movie before thinking "they're robbed if they don't get the Oscar for artistic direction." Well, they didn't get the Oscar, but they did get a nomination, and that's close enough.
It's great to see this (non-yawn) movie get some much-deserved recognition.
Kevin Fox
Not to mention the best soundtrack ever. U2, Nick Cave, Talking Heads, R.E.M., Elvis Costello, a great Depeche Mode track. I love that film.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I agree 100%, Brazil beats Blade Runner on that list for vision of the future in my opinion. You can also watch it more times. Perhaps its emphasis on satire obscured its more serious messages? It manages to be grim but funny, a mess of a future where we aren't intentionally heading towards but may end up. Less extreme than 1984 (its big brother?) it's still my top-rated 'thinking' SciFi film of all time. I think it's the heavy oppresive atmosphere of Blade Runner that got it the top spot.
:-)
No need to hum the theme tune though, it comes as a standard ring tone on the Sony Z5 mobile phone
And just because something is from Hollywood doesn't mean we have to be snobbish about it. Gattaca is a good film. Move Alien up a place and I would say that's a very good top 6.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Jesus...if they thought that was a classic, why not just add Krull.
Seriously, I don't believe they didn't include one of Andrei Tarkovsky's films: Solaris and Stalker.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
I too really liked Gattaca. In fact, if I were going have a problem with it being listed as one of the best "Science Fiction Movies Of All Time", it's that based on current trends, sometime in the near future it's going to not be fiction anymore.
P.S. Off topic, but cool anyway: This is obvious to some, obtuse to others: the letters in "Gattaca" are the same four letters used to label the nucleotides in DNA. Neat.
He dies but was the world really saved? I seem to remember (I haven't seen this movie in a couple of years) that the man with the virus still gets way, (he dies in front of his younger self...spooky) which is to say he can time travel but cannot alter time.
No sig for you!!
Actually, other than some trivial details, the movie version of Logan's Run followed the book reasonably well UNTIL we meet Box, and after that went off in some almost-unrecogniseable direction.
The TV show wasn't based on Logan's Run, but rather on one of the sequels (can't recall offhand if it was Logan's World or Logan's Search, been near 20 years since I read 'em), and the TV show was VERY close, in theme and environment if not in story detail, to what happened in the book as Logan roamed around the wastelands after leaving the city.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Thanks for the suggestion; I'll look for it.
Of course you realize that all lists like this are bent towards movies that get wide play/are popular... or else we'd have ZardoZ up there somewhere.
"The gun is GOOD!" Heheh. What a dumb movie. =)
Get off my launchpad!
What your kidding right? That doesn't work. I mean, realize that Matrix is a GREAT movie, yet only came out about 3 or 4 years ago. Sorry you have to include them, but realize that some movies will be rated higher because they are new. IMHO, anything this year should be dropped and move in stuff from the bottom. That would add the next movies...
21 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 7.8/10 (2467 votes)
22 Terminator, The (1984) 7.8/10 (29576 votes)
23 Twelve Monkeys (1995) 7.8/10 (33520 votes)
24 Fail-Safe (1964) 7.8/10 (1732 votes)
25 Lost Horizon (1937) 7.8/10 (983 votes)
26 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 7.7/10 (14451 votes)
27 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 7.7/10 (22851 votes)
28 Planet of the Apes (1968) 7.7/10 (9553 votes)
29 Cité des enfants perdus, La (1995) 7.7/10 (5882 votes)
30 Truman Show, The (1998) 7.7/10 (35475 votes)
You figure out what to drop and what to slid into those end slots before 20.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Gattaca is on a list of 3 movies for me...movies I've fallen asleep watching. The other 2 are Cabin Boy and the live action version of Wicked City.
Gattaca was boring, and moreover, thoroughly predictable, and not as plausible as the reviewer thinks. Think of how hard it is for you to EAT without leaving crumbs. No understand that there is absolutely NO WAY you'd be able to keep every stray hair, every fingerprint, every fleck of dried skin in check.
All those ways he "fooled" the tests were hokey. A simple X-Ray on the guy would his "discreet" heightening, and they'd notice the sleight of hand after oh, say the first week, especially considering how suspicious looking Ethan Hawke always managed to make himself.
Hell, we can't even fully get rid of dandruff.
And you knew how the stupid movie was going to end after you find out about him & his brother swimming, and then you discover that his brother's working the case...movie's over right there. I think that's at about the point I dozed off. Woke up to see him getting on the shuttle. Yay. The fact that apartments in the movie are located on my brother's college campus couldn't make the movie any more interesting.
It's great that it wasn't a movie chock full of explosions and all. But it also was devoid of any drama or excitement.
And everyone knew "Gattaca" was a reference to DNA nucleotides. But you could make a movie called "Gat-A-Tat-Tatta" about genetically engineered super soldiers and it would have the same reference.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Aliens has got to be the finest sci-fi action film ever produced. Going by Wired's own rating system, "Vision" and "Precision" have to be at least equal in this film to Alien, which made #7. Which leaves "Adrenaline"... in this category, it easily blows away everything else up there, except possibly The Matrix. So how did it not make the list?
Great direction, story, writing, effects, and acting (Sigourney Weaver was even nominated for Best Actress, which is unheard of in a sci-fi film). And yet it doesn't even make the list; instead we get crowd pleasing soulless baloney like Jurassic Park, and nostalgic camp crap like Tron and Robocop. (Not to knock Tron's rightful place in sci-fi history, but Top 20??)
On a related note.. Terminator 2 is vastly superior to Terminator. Perhaps the folks at Wired have deemed sequels to be ineligible?
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
No discussion of old scifi would be complete without a riff on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Remember the opening song (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there were lips) - everyone sing along:
Michael Rennie was ill
The Day the Earth Stood Still,
but he told us where we stand.
And Flash Gordon was there
in silver underwear;
Claude Rains was The Invisible Man.
Then something went wrong,
for Fay Wray and King Kong
they got caught in a celluloid jam.
It Came From Outer Space
Then at a deadly pace
It Came From Outer Space.
And this is how the message ran...
(chorus)
Science fiction, double feature.
Doctor X will build a creature.
See androids fighting Brad and Janet.
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet.
Wo oh oh oh oh oh
At the late night, double feature, picture show.
I knew Leo G. Carroll
was over a barrel
when Tarantula took to the hills.
And I really got hot
when I saw Janette Scott
fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills.
Dana Andrews said prunes
gave him the runes,
and passing them used lots of skills.
But When Worlds Collide,
said George Pal to his bride,
"I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills".
Like a...
(chorus)
Science fiction, double feature.
Doctor X will build a creature.
See androids fighting Brad and Janet.
Anne Francis stars in Forbidden Planet.
Wo oh oh oh oh oh
At the late night, double feature, picture show.
I wanna go.
Oh oh oh oh
To the late night, double feature, picture show.
By R.K.O.
Wo oh oh oh
To the late night, double feature, picture show.
In the back row.
Oh oh oh oh
To the late night, double feature, picture show.
There's a nice annotated version of this at:
http://www.rockymusic.org/sfdf/
sulli
RTFJ.
"Which planets in Star Wars (just the movies, not counting novels) other than Tatooine are deserts? "
Heh, I bet he didnt realize that the 'desert scenes' in Episodes 1, 4, and 6 were all the same planet. When I was a little kid, I was kind of confused about that too.
Interesting note: Anybody remember the desert in the X-Files movie? It was called Tautoine, or something like that. Heh I think I was the only person in the theater who caught that.
"Derp de derp."
While I may not necessarily agree with the rest of the list, I do agree with Bladerunner ranking at the top. Bladerunner is a movie that is artistic and visionary, conscious of both style and substance. It is a dark movie with a dark ending that is uncharacteristic for Hollywood (ignoring the happily-ever-after driving scene that was mercifully removed from the director's cut). It is neither a post-nuclear apocolypse like The Road Warrior nor is it the sterilized world of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's an urban setting that's winding down and decaying. It's the Sprawl from William Gibson's Neuromancer brought to the screen.
I have watched Bladerunner many times, and while part of me wishes for a sequel, another part of me knows that the story is complete and would only be tarnished by a sequel. And, knowing Hollywood, any sequel would be complete with marketing tie-ins so that McDonalds could include Bladerunner II action figures in each Happy Meal).
I don't want to appear to be a wiseguy, but I think the number of responses and above all their content answers a question I made in another post about movies to make you think. 12 Monkies does this by not giving one a clear ending. It doesn't really matter how or why the scientist got in the plane (my own idea is that from her point of view, 35 years in the future, all these people are already dead and in her past no one believed Cole/Willis or would have until people has already started dying, and by saying "insurance" she was making a pun as to why she was there). The thing is it leaves you with questions, both moral ones and ones related to the plot.
Most science fiction work says more about the times that create it than about the times they claim to be writing about - and in turn, can actually create the future as much as report it. Check out The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of by SF writer Thomas Disch for a funny and insightful take on the relationship between SF and society.
I mean, take The Matrix: great film (IMHO). But vision - yeah, I can just see a near-future where man and machines fight a war, the machines win and enslave us all as power generators while building a convincing virtual world. Oh yeah, and the science holds up on that as well. Pfffft.
I actually think the Matrix concept was borne of readings of the works of Carlos Castaneda, who describes us being enslaved to demonic beings he calls "flyers", who implant a foreign mindset into us to keep us distracted and feed of our awareness (like the computer in the Matrix provides a synthetic reality and uses us for batteries).
I've read all Castaneda's books and The Matrix scared the shit out of me, and no, not because I was tripping.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Heh, yeah, that's true -- any criteria that CAN be interpreted subjectively WILL be interpreted subjectively. Are my fave films all deserving of being on the all-time best list? Maybe, maybe not. How about "best films" as voted by the public? More often than not, that's slanted by marketing, availability, and what they've seen this week.
Personally I think it's an impossible task, but sometimes useful in that it may point up some film you'd never heard of before and would enjoy seeing.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Hey, I loved the movie, but it should get a 0 for futuristic. I mean, it did happen a long, long time ago.
The reason Zardoz wasn't popular was that it wasn't very good, but then, neither was the book.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I'm puzzled by your antipathy to this topic. It really doesn't deserve to be placed in with the tinfoil-hat crowd. Its actually a pretty common type of scientific story, with the exception of the Reagan/Bush antidrug connection.
1970s - american researchers find some antitumorigenic activity with THC. Interesting, needs to be followed up.
1980s - the drug war begins, and as a political move the Reaganites want all government-backed drug-related research trashed. Not a move many in the scientific world would agree with, but that's politics. The research in question has not been trashed, however, in that much of it is replicated in libraries around the globe.
1990s - another group comes up with some interesting antitumorigenic results using THC. Again interesting, but not the "cure" for cancer. Just another research avenue to follow. Forget the drug connection, this is about biochemistry.
No need for conspiracy theories. The "project censored" spin on the tale is a bit X-Files heavy, however.
Of course not. It was for movies, not books, and for the top, not the bottom.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The original poster is, of course, entitled to his opinion. But the sense that I get from his post is that, because HE finds it boring, it shouldn't be included in such a list.
Am I being pretentious? Maybe. But I'm not a Maoist, and I don't believe that the cultural values of the masses are necessarily the best a society has to offer. There are lots of things that most people in the world don't/can't appreciate, but in many cases that's because they have no taste. Most high school kids think that Shakespeare sucks, but that doesn't mean that Shakespeare sucks, it means that they're idiots.
I don't like most classical music. I also don't like most jazz. But I'm not such a jerk as to suggest that these things have no value just because I don't like them. Nor am I silly enough to suggest that anyone will be listening to De La Soul in 100 years just because I like them now.
Sorry, I didn't know that. I haven't seen AOTC yet, and I'm not planning to see it until it's on video. Anyway, that's still hardly "every planet in the universe a desert", it's two out of probably a dozen planets we've seen. That doesn't seem too farfetched - in a galaxy with easy interstellar travel, anyplace habitable will eventually be inhabited, and there are likely to be more borderline planets like Tatooine or Hoth than earth-like planets.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Forbin takes Colossus on a "tour" of his house. Forbin: "This is the bed. It's used for sleeping, and ... other things."
I tottally lost respect for that movie when I noticed that the locker room is in the middle of the atrium of the building. Yeah, the main office building has kick-ass architecture and I'd love to visit it (or actually, I liked his house, too.). But, if you notice the locker room, there are people seen in the background (on higher floors) walking by. With no windows or anything in between.
The movie had a certain neat style, but I didn't get brought it because it was too much about that style and not about anything else. Glad you enjoyed it, though, just not my taste as a movie.
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Uhhh no... A.I. instead of A clockwork Otange...
Dissolve... Resolve... Evolve...