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Blade Runner Is The Best Sci-Fi Film
Delchanat writes "Now there's scientific proof: according to 60 of the most influential scientists in the world, including British biologist Richard Dawkins and Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is the best science fiction film. Late Mr. Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) finished 2nd, followed by George Lucas' Star Wars (1977) and The Empire Strikes Back (1980)." There are several other stories as well: favorite authors, the basics of science fiction, and an excerpt of a new Iain M. Banks novel.
Blade Runner is awsome. Everytime I see the cityscapes and the hear the music that was used in those scenes I get chills down my spine. I'd love to live in a dark, gritty Blade Runner style world.
jsadaslks fuck you
I really enjoyed 2001, particularly in subsequent viewings. It is less of a movie, and more of an art masterpiece. Kubrick uses a variety of subtle techniques, my two favorite being writing the movie for the music ("The Blue Danube" in particular) and silencing the voices when he wants to suggest that Hal is reading lips.
I'm a bit suprised taht "Contact" did not make the list....
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
Despite the awkward ending due to the death of Natalie Wood, Brainstorm (1983) is a pretty good sci fi film.
Very underappreciated.
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Careful. Influential is not the same as 'important', or even 'competent'. It kind of makes me think 'attention whore', personally.
That, and what do they mean by 'best'? The one that most closely aligns to my worldview? Prettiest?
This is no better than those fluff 'top 100 whatever' pieces from the popular press. Meaningless and divisive.
The thing about space travel is that it would take a very long time to get anywhere. Most of that time would be boring, stupid little tasks like talking to the AI so it doesn't go crazy or making sure that the thing that never breaks isn't broken. That's what the movie was trying to convey - it takes a long time to get anywhere, and there aren't fantastic space fights to get to Europa. There's nothing out there to impede our progress except that we don't really want to go.
Imagine the first people to fly to Europa. It would be exciting for the first, say, month. After that, you'd start to get bored and wig out.
"What's on the scanner / out the window?"
"Uh, nothing. Same as yesterday."
"Ah. Want to play cards / Doom3 / on the holodeck?"
Nothing exciting happens, and that's the point.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I am of the opinion that the exact opposite is true: I'd be exceedingly suprised if a group of scientists didn't include it in their top 10. Indeed, I'm rather suprised it wasn't in the #1 position.
2001: A Space Odyssey still stands today as one of the most scientifically accurate Sci-Fi movies. And when you consider that it was produced prior to man's first landing on the moon, that's quite a huge feat.
Not only that, but the story is vastly moree thought provoking than your typical sci-fi fare intended for mass consumption. It deals with issues such as human evolution, human exploration, the role of artificial intelligence, man's attempt to "play god" gone terribly wrong, and man's place in the universe.
It's not a movie for people with a closed mind, or people who don't want to think about the story for themselves. I don't think there is anything wrong with people who want to go to a movie that tells them a simple to understand story (like, say, anything in the Star Wars series) -- but that doesn't mean there isn't a place for well through, thought provoking films in the genre.
2001: A Space Odyssey is simply brilliant. There's a reason why it appears on virtually every top movies list (like the AFC Top 100). And even thought the movie was filmed nearly 40 years ago, it still stands up as scientifically realistic in its portrayals of computer science and space travel.
How many movies out there can say that?
Yaz.
I don't see how that makes it a good movie. That may make him a good director, but it doesn't change the movie in total.
I have seen many movies with outstanding acting performances that lacked a plot, or great plots with poor cinematography, etc. They are what they are - good performances, plots, etc., but still not good movies. The movie is the unified whole. The greatest directorial performance in history would not make a plotless movie good, it would just make it a bad movie with great direction.
G
Stanley Kubrick's films are very different than typical Hollywood fare -- you may not like them, appreciate them, or even get them, but you can't deny that they're art. But hey, tastes differ; that's why Baskin-Robbins makes 31 flavors of ice cream. Just because YOU don't like mint chocolate chip doesn't mean that it sucks.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
The article says "Blade Runner was the runaway favourite in our poll." followed by 2001 which was "A very close second". Which is it?
Trolling is a art,
Get the Director's Cut edition, not the one that hit the theatres in the US, or you get stuck with Harrison's voiceover throughout the movie describing what is going on on the screen...
Science fiction always gets a bad rap in a lot of literary criticism. Part of the reason is that some of the ideas are so bare, so obvious. But I think this is what makes it so powerful. Blade Runner (at least to me) has always been about the unfairness of life; specifically, it's too damn short. It's very clear that the replicants are lots more human than the real ones. They burn brighter, bleed more, feel pain more. They're the Ubermensch, the hero, the essential human. The "humans" are passionless and evil. There's this idea that their short lifespan is a consequence of their superiority. If this was the reason then it's maybe not too tragic. However, it isn't a consequence of nature that dooms them; rather, it's an arbitrary decision by their creators that their lifespans would be shorted. This idea kicks me.
The other reason I enjoy Blade Runner is that science is not the scapegoat. Almost every other movie I've seen has made scientists and intellectuals (not that I count myself as either) as "evil". Technology running rampant destroying the earth is a common theme (Terminator, various post-Apocalyptic movies, "mad scientist" blandness). Even movies that celebrate the triumph of the intellect eventually bow down to superstition (the scene of an Aborigine praying to unseen gods to help a lunar module land safely sticks in my mind).
So yeah, I'm glad that Blade Runner is up there.
I saw 2001 when I was in grade school and I was completely fascinated, totally absorbed by what was happening on the screen. Not that I understood it, of course. :-)
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With the hover craft wheel chair? Or the common use of specialized droids? Or the Senetorial room also using antigravity devices? Or cloud city? Or any one of a dozen other instances where we see advanced technology seamlessly blended into society? True, Star Wars isn't hard Science Fiction, but there was some effort to make it more than just an action flick in space.
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The book and the movie were written in conjunction. If you read the book then see the movie, it's A LOT better! Trust me.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
(so we can all point and laugh...) Laugh at you, maybe. Star Wars isn't science fiction - it's space fantasy.
Yes, it's entertaining. Yes, it is (or was, before Lucas dorked it up) a fun movie to watch. The point the grandparent was trying to make is that, strictly speaking, it's not really SCIENCE fiction because there's no science. Read some real science fiction(*) and compare it to Star Wars and you'll see the only thing they have in common is that they're set in space. (*) Some real Sci-Fi titles to check out:
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
All the special effects and futuristic themes notwithstanding, what separates the neat from the incredible is what a sci-fi film says about the human condition. It's no surprise that Blade Runner is so highly placed--it deals with the question of what really makes us human. Likewise the other films in that poll pretty much do that too.
Perhaps one measure of a truly great sci-fi film is the extent to which it becomes a popular metaphor afterward. For that reason, unlike others here, I'm not surprised Matrix is on the list. I hear people make reference to it a lot.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
So i'm having to disagree with you there. having watched both films back to back recently (didn't bother with the rest of the series). or maybe you didn't mean to add that 's'?
Sorry, I just don't understand why the sequel consistently seems to rate higher with the general public..
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Well, Star Wars is sci-fi as much as Dune, Foundation, and Ender's Game are. Star Wars was always geared a little more for the mass market, but it is still quite an epic tale spanning generations and civilizations.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
They didn't mention Metropolis? That would be like having a "top-ten films of all time" without Birth of a Nation. Hell, Fritz Lang wasn't even racist. But in all seriousness, try naming a sci-fi film that doesn't take something from Metropolis.
English is easier said than done.
I'm clearly dating myself, but I saw Blade Runner in its first theatrical release, and its my recollection that it was pretty much a disappointment to most people.
It was Ridley Scott's follow up to Alien, and it just doesn't have the narrative drive and shock value of Alien. Of course it grows on you with repeated viewings, but it really didn't go over very well initially. What really cinched Blade Runner's reputation was the advent of home video. People got a chance to look at it again and really appreciate it. I know I do. It is one of my favorite movies.
Not more favorite than 2001: A Space Odessey, however. I'd quibble about the 1 - 2 placement. I vastly prefer 2001. I don't know exactly what it is, but the combination of impressionism and cold realism is completely gripping. Its never quite the same movie twice. Its driven by ambiguity and it is exceptionally beautiful. Nothing else even comes close.
Brazil doesn't really make any contributions other then its gorgeous visual design, and the irony of being a rip-off of 1984 the book while simultaneously being a better movie then 1984 the movie :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
"He hardly seems to be someone who can't stand his job."
Possibly because he was programmed that way?
(Cue huge original theatrical release vs. directors cut flamewar)
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I actually preferred the movie with the dialog left in. I've heard that Ford hated having to recite the lines, so purposely sounded bored, but I think it adds to the film. Of course, the really stand-out dialog is from RH. The "Tears in rain" speech was a bit of a master-stroke...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I agree with Bladerunner as the top pick, but I thought Brazil should have been in there (how can you pick Terminator over Brazil?). Oh well.
If I were to add a film to this list, it would likely be "Contact". The opening shot is the best explanation of "space is big" I've ever seen, it deals with the big science-vs-religion flamewar in a way that seems respectful to both sides and it says an amazingly large number of things about science. I didn't like the movie at first, but it's really grown on me the more I've thought back to it.
(although I do think it should have ended at the limo - that's when it had made its point and that's when it was done).
yeah it seems pretty obviose that from the posts that people have completely missed the point the movie was making. Like all good sci-fi gattica is not talkning about the future but talking about now...those geneticly modified , impoved people, represent what is really going on now...and that there are people who are better then other people. Someone is smarter then you, and me, and stronger and well just better...what gattaca is talking about or critisizeing is that where does equality come from if we are literaly born unequal. The movie does not particualary critisize genetic improvment...what it does question is our ability to evaluate quality.
Another movie "signs" makes the same point. The characters in the movie survive the aliens not despite of their defects but becouse of their defects. Both movies draw attention to the idea that no system or buisness or government or even cultural standard can truely and acuretly suscribe what is a defect and what is an adventages quality in a human being.
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>Possibly because he was programmed that way?
Parent post is referring Ridley's direction that Decker is a replicant -- although he was not in the book. As for how Ford acted the part, you can just as easily that he didn't act anything. The action star hated being in the film. (or more precisely, the director).
The director's cut eliminated the cheesy voiceover. Voiceover narrations almost never work (Dances with Wolves comes to mind, ug) except when done by John Cusack.
1. Some sizable fraction of replicants are sex slaves like Priss. In this case you certainly want as human as possible.
2. While humans are supposedly going off world to work, we don't meet anyone that has actually come back. The replicants can survive extreme environments. Perhaps humans are just being killed and all off world work is done by replicants, only the general populace doesn't knows this because any video shows off world activity full of human looking replicants.
3. Working with someone offworld that looks in-human might engender mistrust.
4. Any obvious cosmetic change like color could be overcome with makeup.
5. When we first started making them, it never occurred they would come back and start killing people. Making new replicants visually different would highlight the original oversight, and governments rarely want to do this.
Letter To Iran
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Replicants aren't robots at all. They're bioforms crafted from DNA. That's why they look like people; they are people. Really tough, capable, designed-for-function people. Not to mention that products like Pris, which are designed for, er, "service", will generally do better if they look like people. So will soldiers, as they're properly built to deal with weaponry that was designed for human handling.
Olmos wasn't supposed to be Japanese. The story was saying that cultures were merging, that's all. There were tons of other examples. Punk style, traditional cop sleaze, high tech advertising, corporate hegemony, DNA manipulation at the "street stall" level and leading to designer pets and props (remember the snake that was instrumental in the "detective" oriented portion of the plot?)
The Vangelis score is certainly a matter of taste. I found it quite apt. I preferred the narrated version of the movie to the director's cut, though - the mood was more apparent and fit the score better in my mind.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Although I agree with Asimov being ranked first in the authors polls. I would have put Clarke second. Certainly before Wells, Hoyle and Wyndham.
Every time I read a book by Clarke it routinely blows my mind. Take Childhoods End for example, that is probably the best sci fi book I have read. I originally read it when I was 15 and even after many rereads I am still blown away (I find it somewhat depressing)
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
The replicants could not know they were not human or they would have severe emotional problems. This is why they were given human memories...to trick them. It would not be possible to trick them if there was some obvious thing showing that they were replicants, like having green skin.
I'd have to say you're half right. While I agree that Lucas was just in the right place at the right time and his "cheap" sci-fi happened to appeal to the right producers/movie-making goons, I think the first three Star Wars movies are incredibly polished and put together wonderfully. His more recent Star Wars endeavors might lead us all to believe that his original sci-fi opera might have just been a fluke as far as his creativity pool is concerned, but nevertheless the original three are still great movies.
I do have to agree with many other posts I've seen so far in that Star Wars is NOT science fiction. Yes, it takes place in space and makes heavy use of advanced technologies to foster it's appeal, but I've never felt Star Wars to be at all based on reality. I think we can all agree that the BEST sci-fi takes concepts that are already existent today and either expands on them or twists them around in such a manner that we view them from an entirely different perspective.
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Is it me, or did it just get fatter in here?
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not knocking Blade Runner, which is a fine piece of film on its own. I'm merely countering those who don't think 2001 should have been on the list (which can't be all that hard -- after all apparently I have 60 of the most influential scientists behind me on that one :) ).
It deals with some theoretical AI issues that have been bandied about by computer scientists since Turing. What is it to be sentient? Can computers be sentient? If we give them artificial intelligence, can we control them? Will we be able to produce a knowable result?
These are the areas where 2001 shows some scientific acccuracy in the realm of computer science. True, it is fantasy, and it is dealing with only one possible outcome. But all of these topics are dealt with. in the BBC interview, we learn that while HAL appears to simulate a person, he is viewed as non-sentient, but instead as merely a complex simulation. At the same time (which we learn later), HAL is given conflicting programming (no distortion or withholding of information, the protection and health of the crew, the need to complete the mission at all costs, and the keeping of the true nature of the mission a secret from the crew). These orders come into conflict.
Now if we do create a human-like AI system like HAL, how will it react to conflicting orders? Conflicts in programming in current "dumb" systems usually results in a dead-lock situation, but what if the machine can make a value judgement to resolve that deadlock? Will it make the right choice?
In this case, HAL made what most people would consider a wrong choice. Faced with the need to keep a secret and violate his primary design in doing so, he became, for lack of a better description, psychotically ill.
It is still fiction of course -- but these remain important questions and aspects of modern computer science. Clarke thought that by 2001 we'd be wrestling with the practical implications of these questions -- but instead we're still wrestling with them in the theoretical realm.
Yaz.
Like Psymunn said, "science fiction" isn't the same as "fiction with science." Science Fiction is a story that asks "What if?" Here's some examples: Back to the Future 2 asks "What if someone tried to change the past?" Gattica asks "What if genetic engineering and genetic profiling were commonplace?" Star Trek 4 asks "What are the consequences of our destruction of the environment". The movie has a happy ending, but looming over it is the question "We fixed it [in the movie], but what if we hadn't been able to?"
All of these movies are obviously sci-fi, since they all feature neat-o technology and such. But there are others that I'd call sci-fi that aren't so obvious. For example, about half of Jim Carrey's movies are sci-fi: Liar, Liar asks "What if I couldn't lie?" The Mask asks "What if I lost all of my inhibitions?" Bruce Almighty asks "What if I were God?" -- just like Frankenstein (only different).
Now, as for Star Wars, it doesn't ask "what if." Star Wars is just a classic Greek epic, set in space. It's more similar to The Odyssey (by Homer) than 2001: A Space Odyssey (by Clarke/Kubrick).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, to be 100% correct Deckard is the Hero:
:-)
"The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation".
True enough, in our simplistic "hero always wins" mass media movie form. But in some ways, I consider Roy Batty (the lead replicant played by Rutger Hauer) as the Hero, albeit a tragic one. He dies with honour, accepting death at the end and letting his rival live. And his final "Time to die" is sheer poetry, not the death grunt of the archetypal villian, but truly heroic.
A really great film.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Well that's one hell of a surprise, but perhaps not. Most of the "scientists" were probably not computer or pharmaceutical scientists.
;-). That's an interesting notion all by itself.
Science Fiction (SF) is all about holding a story together with interesting characters in a fictional world whose fabric is speculation. It is the "spreadsheet" of literature where the initial cells are fed by chaos. Some of the best SF reflects on the nature of man himself. What if we changed his tools? His body? His mind? His social structure? His world? Does he have limits?
At what point is he no longer Man? At what point are his creations no longer toys? Does he have a soul or is that a pretty good lie that his survival circuits keep whispering to him (and he desperately wants to believe?)
So it's really no suprise that Blade Runner won even if it is an imperfect adaption of Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream...". Dick's mind created more fantastic SF per unit time than practically any other writer.
Considering what a train wreck "The Matrix" trilogy became, it's become very trendy to treat the original with derision. I'm always amazed at the naive comments I heard about the original when it opened and even today. The front page review at the top of USA Today on the Friday after it opened was something like, "marginally interesting SciFi movie with flying Ninjas". Go figure.
Call me crazy, but I believe the original is a masterful SF weave of neomodern philosophy, cybernetics, virtual reality, action and spiritual/political commentary. The most amazing thing is that the original got produced at all.
The truth of the matter is that the Bros Watchowski created a memetic virus wrapped in the bubble gum of an action movie. Ironically when Neo takes the "red pill", we have already taken it.
Upon further inspection this metaphor engine is more akin to a many layered onion. The layer inside the action sequences is about virtual reality. The layer inside that is about Martial Arts. The layer inside that is about belief in oneself. The layer inside that is about self-determination and free-will. Inside that I believe it gets into the nature of reality itself and perhaps Taoist sex magick, but I'm guessing.
In retrospect I think most of the people who grokked The Matrix immediately were either computer geeks or heads (or both
Anyway, we should redo the poll here on Slashdot. I say we seriously mod up The Matrix.
"What's your fucking number?" is still used amongst my circle of friends. :-)
And Soylent Green, which has three of the most chilling scenes ever filmed for an SF film.
--- Ban humanity.
Actually Blade Runner didn't seem all that special. It was a 1940's detective story with a few 22nd century visuals. It is Humphrey Bogart film set in the future with Harrison Ford as Bogart.
It was meant to smack of a 40's detective story, but if that was all you saw, I think real point passed you by. It was a much deeper story of "I don't want to die, where will I go when I do, what will become of everything I have experienced? Can I meet God and negotiate for more time?" We're supposed to connect with Deckard and then at the end suddenly realize that he too is a replicant (if he were merely human, the replicants would have smashed him to pieces 10 minutes into the movie).
The last scene in the movie where Roy saves Deckard we suddenly realize that the replicants are not mindless killing machines. Roy knows his pre-programmed death is near, and even though Deckard has killed his 3 friends, he saves Deckard from a fall that would certainly mean death. Roy then sits down and gives the most important lines of the movie.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
uh...no...Nemisis was not the purged movie. It was 5. Don't remember the title..don't want to. It is now resting safely backdown into denial...aaaaaahhhh...
Kirk vs. God...KirkvsGod...kirkv sgod...noooo
reminds of the classic chris farley SNL bit: Hey Tad, Ditka vs. God...who wins?
DITKA!
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
Traditionally, science fiction movies are either a) very effects/action oriented or b) mostly wow factor from a "big idea".
Blade Runner is a story about humanity, life and death. It is about the feelings and emotions of the "people" and about seeing the moral complexity behind something that starts out seeming very black and white.
Are Roy and Pris, et al "bad guys"? Yes. But, after getting past expectations from action sci-fi, you begin to see why they are the way they are and you end up feeling more pity and relief than hatred and joy that they are dead.
It offers a poignancy most sci-fi distinctly lacks, although I have to admit I still tear up in the scene from 2010 when Chandra finally levels with HAL and trusts him/it to make the right decision. Is it a bad thing to so closely identify with a homicidal computer?
Anyway, the choice of a film noir style gives it a look and feel that seems much more rich and interesting than generic spaceship and space base interiors. And the saxophone work makes me feel like I do when I listen to "Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon.
As other posters have noted it definitely is a film that grows on you.
Regarding your points, lots of otherwise very bad scientifically yet typically considered-as-SF movies (like star wars) have plenty of good science elements in them. I could go on for many paragraphs, cherry picking good science out of Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars (that's who actually wrote the screenplay for the movie, not George Lucas.) I would say that for a movie to live up to a billing of "one of the most scientifically accurate", it'd need to be rid of problems, not have bragging rights to a decent extrapolation here and there.
Also - for me, the best SF implements the fiction portion of "SF" as the storyline; it is not used as an excuse to drag in bad science, or preposterous science, or extrapolation that cannot reasonably follow. Instead, the science and/or extrapolation is as bulletproof as possible, so as to provide both exilaration and hope as a backdrop to a human (or inhuman) story. I get whacked in the eyeballs with a giant world-orbiting embryo, and trust me, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "gonna go right home and blog up how fabulous the science is in this movie!"
As I said, I really like the movie. I just don't think it meets the standard mentioned.
Finally, as to your use of "science fiction." It is very different than mine for a reason. I'm freaking old, and I have a SF (classic SF) upbringing. I still deal with the idea of science fiction the way the crew in Milford (Pennsylvania, very much SFWA's birthplace) did. I grew up there, I know (or knew, sadly) most of those people, and I'm getting pretty fossilized in my outlook. :)
Since those days, the category of SF has very much changed from "science fiction" to "speculative fiction" with (IMHO, of course) the objective of folding in fantasy elements because there are so few good writers doing actual SF. I'm not with the program, I readily admit. My feeling is that the science should be accurate or reasonably extrapolated, or it's not "science fiction", it is fantasy. Or speculative fiction, if you must. Of course, anything can be speculative fiction, because the thing is defined by a lack of rigor. Very much like religion, and for the same reason: It's quite difficult to work with the facts as we know them, and probably just as difficult to actually know them. So people tend to take the easy route, and just wave their hands wildly instead.
All IMHO, not meant to spoil your day in any way.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
In the Foundation series, science and maths were used to predict and plan the development of societies, a device that Mark Brake, professor of science communication at the University of Glamorgan, thinks may be a touch heavy-handed: "We can't even predict a flood in Boscastle, let alone how a society behaves a thousand years in the future."
"I predict that people in the future wont be able to predict the future"
Do you know that both are based on the written works of Philip K. Dick? Of course Minority Report just demolished the short story on which is based. Blade Runner just cut the most important concept of the book. I just couldn't dare to watch Impostor to see what they have done to it.
All in all Blade Runner is a better movie. Minority Report is a show of special effects that don't help the plot and a parade for Tom "one face for all moods" Cruise.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
If the word "fajita" even enters into the discussion, you're talking about Tex-Mex, not real Mexican food. Burritos did originate in Mexico, I believe, but most of the country doesn't eat them, and their familiar form is another Tex-Mex creation.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Glad that Alien got in (that's two for ripley), but if we're going to let in Star Wars sequels then James Cameron's Aliens should have been included, and not for nostalgia reasons.
Not only does it continue the themes mentioned by the list, but also one that often chimes in sf: corporate irresponsibility. It appears to be a Scott favourite too, taking into account Blade Runner. As an extension to the argument "if it can be done, it will be done", first the Company subverts an android to do its bidding, then when that fails, employs the snakiest brownnoser (I still can't watch a rerun of Mad about You without wishing for an alien to crash through the apartment and tear Paul Reiser to pieces).
As a sequel, it's up there with Empires. Never mind that the rest bombed like subsequent Star Wars sequels.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
The DVD edition of 2001 in the Stanley Kubrick Collection has the video of a talk Arthur C. Clarke gave at an MGM dinner for the launch (or announcement -- I don't recall which) about the future of space travel and technology, specifically by 2001.
He's an excellent speaker, and you can't help but feel that the plans and timelines he espouses are realistic. You start to feel that humanity could indeed get together and achieve these ends.
Then you realize that his future is now, and we haven't achieved much of anything compared to Clarke's vision. And that's just depressing.
Yaz.
1984 was not about how the western world feared communism. Orwell was pro-communism. If you could understand this maybe you could see what is happening NOW. But I guess it is too much to ask.
Equilibrium? Equilibrium??
Mildly entertaining but overly-derivative tripe. It was, in turns, a pastiche of Bradbury's Farenheit 451, Orwell's 1984, Huxley's Brave New World, with a big dollop of The Matrix, and Finally a brief flash of Cube for the ending...
If you don't know that then I suggest you start reading. The movie's up-side is that it introduces the dystopian concepts it borrows to new generations of the illiterati, but on the other hand it doesn't acknowledge the sources, leading people to believe that these plot-devices and themes are new.
The reason no-one else steals them so whole-heartedly is because these novels are very famous and interationally acclaimed Important Literature. 451 and 1984 even have even had very well known and reasonably faithful movies made from them. Movie makers rarely fail to acknowledge obvious sources because critics will call their works "Mildly entertaining but overly-derivative tripe."
I do, however, think the Gunkata concept was quite fun.
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Where in the crap is THX-1138? Can we say DECADES ahead of its time, both in terms of message and style? A distinct brand of near-future dystopian cyberpunk of the Brave New World Order variety. High tech mental enslavement, the ramifications of current technologies being utilized by an utterly fascist totalitarian techno-bureaucratic corporate state. Masterfully executed, actual DIRECTING in a George Lucas movie, go figure! I sure hope the re-issue doesn't slaughter it, I can see the pure-white "jail" now being a ridiculously complex CG scene... :-(
As for Roy chasing Deckard, he's not doing it just for sport. Remember what he's saying during the chase ?, "Four, five, how to stay alive!". The whole chase is a lesson to Deckard, he learns what's it like to be a replicant: hunted for wanting to be free, and living in fear. When Deckard strikes Roy in the head with that pipe, Roy shouts happily "yeah!, that's the spirit!", i.e. because Deckard is acting like a hunted replicant, kill or be killed. At the end of the chase, he tells Deckard "Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it?". He forced him to empathize with replicants. Not to mention that he saves Deckard's life in the end, because at that moment, when he was about to die, he loved life. Hardly a villain.
...is best demonstrated by the fact that though made by an atheist and an agnostic, it is one of the Pope's favourite films.
Either something went horribly wrong or Clarke/Kubrick did something exactly right...
Yes, Gattaca was meant to be on my list, too, but I accidentally left it off. Good catch.
Though one thing I'll say about it was that I initially (and, in retrospect, foolishly) expected it to wake up the world to the dangers of medical information sharing in a world where insurance agencies and others can make such abusive use of info they get. But it did nothing on this level. Too artsy and not-to-the-point, I suppose, for the masses. I thought it made the point well, but I guess everyone is not me.
Enemy of the State turned out to be the movie that made the point about privacy better, not by being sci-fi, but by appealing directly to things people in this day and age can relate to: video games, credit cards, and so on.
I saw a lecture by Asimov once where he talked about how he got hauled in to some government place for writing about "atomic" things, and how they let him go on doing it so it wouldn't be suspicious that they'd made him stop all of a sudden. He said for a while, only scifi buffs understood how the world worked and were allowed to talk about it. I suppose we're a harmless niche. In the same sense, maybe only scifi buffs see other coming problems like privacy as addressed in Gattaca. The rest of the world waits for a 9/11-like experience to wake them up and say "it's here now, you have to care."
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer