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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.
dudes, stay on topic! Logans Run should be in there somewhere.
Wow, i'm glad our top scientists have taken so much time to come to this important conclusion!
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No Battllefield Earth?
It's great when scientists concentrate on the more importing questions of life.
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What does Star Wars have to do with science fiction?
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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.
The Matrix is up there but Wrath of Khan isn't?
"Derp de derp."
I'm a bit suprised taht "Contact" did not make the list....
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0 for 9 is it? I'd have thought maybe 2 or 4 would have gotten a mention. There's a couple on the list I think one of those could replace.
Although Logans Run is one of the best sci-fi films from its era (possibly ever), most people have never heard of it, including people who have actually watched it. And this is coming from an avid fan of the series. Oh, you didn't know they made a series too? That's exactly the type of ignorance I'm talking about.
Mathematics is not a crime.
Still no cure for cancer!
Despite the awkward ending due to the death of Natalie Wood, Brainstorm (1983) is a pretty good sci fi film.
Very underappreciated.
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
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.
Gattaca is a great one about DNA manipulation that is a little too close to reality for comfort. A great movie!
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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How is it possible that the world has overlooked "Johnny Mnemonic"?
I guess many artists and musicians are only truly recognised after they die... perhaps it will take the death of Keanu for Johnny Mnemonic to be truly appreciated.
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Brazil should have made top ten if for anything because of its visual and somewhat frightening view of the future. Of the best sci-fi movies Brazil is one of the least outdated (technology wise). Its theme, very similar to 1984, I suspect will always be relevant.
I agree with the choice of Blade Runner.
But I thought that Silent Running was pretty cool.
Also The Andromeda Strain... that was pretty neat in its day.
Just saw Soylent Green too... nice dystopian idea.
On slashdot, anybody can hear you scream.
Seriously, though, my all time favorite. Better than Bladerunner by far.
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What about war games? :P
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"?
I must admit, it's sad to see the Terminator/Matrix movies get so much play in this genre. These are passable action films that don't stand up to much pondering post viewing.
Planet of the Apes should be on any top list.
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,
No other film has come close to bringing sci-fi to life for me. Star Wars is a soap opera in space, including the "dead father" that comes back to life as an unexpected character. The Matrix was pretty cool (the first one, the last 2 were lame), but it didn't have the strength of character, story and acting that Blade Runner has. It's one of my favorite flms of all time.
Star Wars Episode 1 was not in the top 10?! But it had Ja-Ja Binks and that wonderful story that .. oh screw it who am I kidding, it sucked.
What?! No Dark Star? As the wiki says, "Four lonely, stoned hippy astronauts are adrift in space, have several adventures and find various ways to relieve their boredom." Classic. Just classic.
That's exactly what it means.
XML causes global warming.
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.
But there are a lot of not named movies that plays with very hard sci-fi topics, i.e. 12 Monkeys with time (or Terminator or even Back to the future), or Avalon with virtual reality, or more topics covered by the science fiction concept or even Dark City.
But also, they are movies, not just must touch some advanced scientific or science fiction topics, but must be good as a movie... ok, Blade Runner is good, but there are a lot that were don't even named there.
And if well is the author behind Blade Runner, the article don't even names P.K.Dick, that have a bunch of really good sci-fi movies based on his books and tales, maybe him alone should have most top ranked movies in their selection.
The movie was not written for the music. As a matter of fact, there was an actual original score that was made for the film (it's released). While Kubrick was filming, he'd use classical music to set a mood... he ended up liking it so much that he decided to keep it for the final cut.
Overlooked Mnemonic? No.
Johnny-Five, yes. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091949/
With lines like, "Hey Laserlips. Your mama was a snowblower.", how could such an epic sci-fi film be overlooked?
- - Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand. - -
of what is science fiction... How can Raiders of the Lost Ark not be in the top 10?! And, what about Tremors??
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Buckaroo Bonzai
Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time. There's so much to like. One thing that fascinates me is that there is really no hero and no villains in the movie. I'm sure that most people argue that Harrison Ford's character is the hero. But let's think about that: his job is to execute escaped slaves. Hardly a noble persuit. Yes, he does this very relucantly but really that's not much of an excuse. When the film starts, we see him looking in the want ads for a job. Really, I wonder just how hard he's looking. With so much of humanity on the off-world colonies, there's probably plenty of jobs available -- just not very good ones. In addition, once Deckard is on the assignment, he seems to really get into it. Even when he's at home drinking he's studying the photo that he took from Leon's apartment with that fancy photo analyzer of his. He hardly seems to be someone who can't stand his job.
The part about no villians is probably easier to argue. The replicants are simply doing what they can do survive. Yes, they have killed some people when they were trying to escape but they were slaves for chrissake! Pris is described as "'yer standard pleasure model." Basically she was created solely for use as a prostitute. It's not too surprising that she'd be willing to kill to get out of such a depressing situation.
Even though the movie is set in the future and deals with technology and places that don't exist, I think the fact that there aren't any real true 100% heros or 100% villans makes the film very interesting and realistic. I think most people realize this on some level and it draws them to watch what happens when "realistic" people have to deal with messy situations.
I think this is one reason why hardcore fans hate the dubbing. It makes the viewer tend to side with and identify with Deckard. That makes you see him as the hero even if he does questionable things. The Director's Cut lets you watch the movie as an impartial observer.
GMD
watch this
Here are a couple missing sci-fi films that should be considered. They were not exactly blockbusters, but they made for good sci-fi.
I know I am forgetting a whole host of other options, but at least this is a start.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
aka "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" was dam good book too.
Clarke's First Law:
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
Clarke's Second Law:
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
Clarke's Third Law:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The sibling post was quicker on the gun with the third law, though it's obviously from memory.
I used to love Blade Runner. But I can't watch it any more. I realized a huge logic hole that prevents me from enjoying the film at all.
(if you don't want to risk ruining the film for yourself, stop reading!!)
If they are so worried about replicants infiltrating humans, why didn't they just make them green or put a huge tatoo on their forehead? Or even in a less conspicuous place? There is no logical reason that I can think of why such a precaution could not have been taken. If they did that, the entire film falls apart. As may the original story, but I can't remember it too clearly.
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Unpopular viewpoint, but I'd have to agree. I watched it once to see what the fuss was about. I watched it a second time to see what I had missed the first time. I watched it the third time because I couldn't believe that this horribly bad film was rated in the top 10 movies of all time.
Just another trip into Kubrick's mangled mind, but I think in this case you just needed a little too many drugs to appreciate it. Good for the swinging 60s I'm sure, but I'm just a little too sober for it these days.
Watch clockwork orange or full metal jacket if you want to appreciate some of Kubrick's better work. (Concentrating more on the story than tedious and trippy visual sequences.)
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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
2001 is a masterpiece depicting the humanity, beauty, and reality of space travel and the genuine incomprehensibility of intelligent extra-terrestrial life. 2001 is as uninvolved as Beethoven's symphonies are cold and heartless.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
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. Rutger Hauer and Daryhl Hannah looked great in the film, the best-looking film for either of them.
My favorite scene is Harrison Ford talking to the computer to examine in great detail the random digital photograph for clues. Each time I consider buying a digital camera, I wonder if it can get a level of detail described in that scene.
The greatest science-fiction film ever is La Jetee (1964) by French director Chris Marker. This was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys, but it is a much better film. It's quite short at 29 minutes, but still leaves people in deep cinema shock whenever it gets shown in festivals or on campus. It's widely available in video and may be at your local library for checkout. It's a collage of black and white photos zoomed and panned like Ken Burn's documentaries with narration and music. French with English subtitles. It was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the Americans and Soviets came far too close to nuclear war than anyone wants to talk about.
2001 was OK, but extremely slow. It does hold up after 35 years only if you have a lot of patience and are not expecting a Star Wars type of movie.
Science Fiction is always better in books than it is in film. It's a genre that needs one's individual imagination projecting imagery from written text.
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.
Mod-up the Gattaca comment. :-)
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.
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Shouldn't that be "31 Colors" of ice cream?What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.
Remember Pris, the pleasure model? Of course she's going to look human - would you want to engage in sexual activities with a green bodied replicant? No!
Replicants were outlawed on earth, elsewhere they were made to take the jobs thar were too dangerous for humans, or that humans just didn't want to do. Just like scientists today are doing research into robotic faces to convey emotion, the scientists of tomorrow will, if possible, make robots near human in form so as to make people feel more comfortable with them.
Only earth is worried about replicant infiltration - on the colony worlds replicants are in use and accepted - hence no need to 'mark' them.
Also, and this is more of a plot device - if the replicants didn't look the same, then the whole implication that Decker (or anyone) could be a replicant and not even know it falls down.
man is machine
0 for 9 is it?
No, it's 0 for 10.
If your subconscious had purged all trace of Nemesis from your brain and may post has now undone several thousand dollars with of psychotherapy then I humbly apologize...
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.
Consider these points:
2001 was reasonably tolerable when it came to spaceflight itself; even the moon buggy seemed somewhat reasonable (I built one of those once.. by Revell, maybe?) at the time. The space station was a bit optimistic, but in the legitimate realm of SF rather than fantasy, no question about it.
Don't get me wrong - I loved the movie then, and I still do - but I do think there's plenty of outright fantasy creeping around in there, fouling up the movie's sf heritage.
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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).
>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.
Indeed. But there was a purpose and mesage behind both of them.
Admittedly with modern special effects there may have been some better ways to get that message across. I think one of the reasons why some people today "don't get it" is because the special effects in the move are generally so good that it's easy to compare it to your expectations for a modern movie.
The "acid trip" (which isn't 30 minutes long -- closer to 20 :) ) is supposed to represent Dave Bowman seeing wonders of the universe he can't properly comprehend. He's seeing these things, but the best his mind can percieve of them are a bunch of swirly colours, odd planetscapes, the birth and death of stellar phenomenon, etc.
The star child is supposed to be as different as you and I as the apes in "The Dawn of Man" are to you and I. We can't comprehend what Bowman has become through alien influence. How are you supposed to realistically show someething that doesn't exist, and which, by definition, the audience (as humans) can't comprehend? Maybe they should have taken the Star Trek route and had him turn into a green vapour cloud with flashing lights and had some doctor step in at the end to point at him and say he's evolved beyond humanity -- but that ending would have sucked :).
Yaz.
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
Can anyone explain how the replicants are physiologically superior to regular humans, yet the only way to identify them is to ask them stupid questions while videotaping their irises?
Wouldn't some sort of DNA test, or blood protein assay, work a lot easier?
(But then there wouldn't be much of a movie, would there.)
"Do Androids Dream..." was written in 1968, but the idea of genetic assays might not have been known to Philip K Dick. But the film was not until 1982...
Bonus points if you answer the following questions:
1. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
2. What do Electric Sheep dream of?
What about the classics?
Cherry 2000
Damnation Alley
The Day the Earth Stood Still
I have been more of a Horror fan (movie & Book)
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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.
You missed the point. These were not 'robots ... that are made to look and act exactly like people'. They were not mechanical creations. They were artificial, true, but they were biological. They were living, breathing, thinking, feeling people we created, then enslaved. And when they fought against their enslavement, they were hunted down and executed.
The point of the film is summed up early on in Deckard's examination of Rachel. If it takes a trained professional over an hour to spot the small emotional responses that differentiate a human from a replicant, is it moral to enslave replicants? If it is so close to human, does it deserve human status?
This is not a noir dressed up in sci-fi clothes. This is a sci-fi flick asking hard questions dressed up in a slinky noir outfit to get your guard down.
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.
Of course it's a good movie. It's based on a 1948 short story by Arthur Clarke called The Sentinel.
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
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?
- 2001
- Blade Runner
- Solaris (original version)
- Metropolis (original version)
- La Jettee (the short film that 12 Monkeys is based on)
- The Day The Earth Stood Still
- Farenheit 451
- Alien
- Akira
- Things To Come
I urge you to check out some foreign-language and / or black and white stuff... most of the great SF movies are from the 70s or earlier, in my opinion.Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Brazil is about how these movements fall apart and all we're left with the the crumbling infrastructure of a grand social scheme and petty regulations designed to protect that system that trap the ordinary fellow.
1984 is about what the Western World feared communism would be. Brazil is about what communism, small-time fascism, and British capitalism all turned into.
So yeah, it's just like 1984, but rewritten from the side of things where the worst didn't happen. That's not an insignificant contribution. If more tinfoil hat types would watch Brazil, we could all relax just a bit. It's not a nice world, but it's not that much worse than any world we've ever had.
I think Dave Sims said, in one of his famous misogynists rant, that the key point in communism is that you do a lot of things to prepare society and then *boom*, human nature changes overnight, and you're free. Slashdot type know this as the ??? step. Brazil is about what happens if there is no ???.
I can't wait to see what the similar view of today's "war on terror" is forty years from now. We fear a worldwide network of people who would attack us yearly in horrible ways.... what will we get?
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.
Sweet, glorious crap! I must echo the sentiments of those supporting 2001 for being far greater than 'sucking'.
...when the fiction becomes pure science?
I'll admit that the first time I watched it, I thought it sucked, too. It was slow and non sequitur. However, I realize now that the moments where the movie progresses slowly only emphasize the immense speed with which intelligence exponentially increases. Consider how the final moments of the movie seemingly span decades, culminating in the creation of an intelligence far beyond what had previously existed.
2001 is a movie about intelligence, transhumanism, and the singularity, all of which are amazingly timely. 2001, as a movie, is not merely an artistic statement, though it is among the most finely crafted movies of the century.
Star wars, for all of its fantastic, visual action, wears its short-sightedness on its forehead. Honestly, which is more plausible: attaining faster-than-light travel or hacking our own bodies and amassing intelligence at an exponential rate, building towards some sort of creature we don't yet have any conception of?
I'll answer that: the latter is the case, and is, in fact, currently the case. It's not a thing waiting just around the corner. Slashdot is the star-child of 2001. People wandering around the planet, plugged in to the network 24/7, are far, far smarter than humans who aren't plugged in.
Literally. Ask a person with a cellphone any question at all. As long as the answer is a factoid and that person posesses moderate searching skills, it doesn't matter if the answer is cached in their cortex, because a slightly higher latency but infinitely larger storage medium is a few thumb-presses away.
If that person is able to answer questions that a non-connected person is unable to answer, there is clearly an information differential between the two. One human is more human, and the other, transhuman.
Humans happen to be little more than information processors riding the crest of the real-time-ness wave, and lowering latencies of access to various forms of information are basically the only thing preventing an entity of unlimited intelligence from processing in real-time.
Perhaps these notions were well understood at the time of the making of 2001, but I suspect not, as these concepts are as yet not well understood. All the more reason that the movie should be regarded as visionary beyond imagination; the movie itself is more than the images portrayed on the screen. The imagination behind the images is communicated lucidly, taking only a very limited number of artistic liberties along the way.
The portion of 2001 regarded as artistic are more appropriately majestic, and the rest, that which we consider sci-fi, are analogous to a higher being channeling symbols through a prophet. Does it possess additional significance when the fiction portion of sci-fi is more readily compared to poetry, religion, and logic?
?/o
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
Sure, why not. I have some extra time on my hands tonight :).
Stargates - no scientific basis whatesoever, then or now. And yet for some reason they remain a staple of science fiction. Note the fiction portion of "science fiction". This is not science fact.Basides which, there have been theories (some of which have been disproven since) that would make such a system posssible. Many cosmic theorists have postulated that there may be "shortcuts" between two points in space.
Note, however, that of the three monoliths we see, only one is actually a stargate -- and it's several kilometres across. The small units never once are shown to be star gates of any sort -- the first one on earth simply has an effect on the apes living in its vicinity, and the one on the moon only sends a signal out towards Jupiter.
Invisible interference with the apes. The movie purposefully leaves the method of interference to the viewer. Indeed, I'd say that DNA manipulation would have been the last things on Clarke's mind when developing the movie. A more likely scenario would be something akin to telepathy (note that this whole scene is expanded upon in the book -- the monolith does indeed take control of various proto-humans to run tests and experiments on them, and uses imagery to teach them some basic skills in an attempt to see if they can jump-start evolution). Radical transformation of conciousness Again, a staple of science fiction -- and part of the "fiction" part of the movie. Most arguable in my opinion, HAL itself. Humanity itself seems to prove that HAL should be possible. The more important part of HAL's sub-plot, however, is the questions it forces the viewer to ask themselves which are important parts of modern computer science (see my other posting on this topic -- I'm not going to repeat it all here).You seem to have picked on the "fiction" portions of the movie pretty good, missing almost completely the science aspects. Note that I didn't claim that the movie was 100% scientifically accurate -- otherwise we wouldn't call it "science fiction" (sorry to belabour that point). Some of the parts that are rather scientifically accurate (or at least possible) include:
These elements make it vastly more scientifically accurate than most scifi movies. Or do you think those movies that involve instantaneous travel between star systems with aerodynamically styled ships using impossible propulsion mechanisms with lasers that travel slower than the speed of light and emit loud sounds in the vaccuum of space are more realistic? :)
Yaz.
It's bad enough it got passed over at the 1959 Oscars, now this?
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
I saw the movie in its first thetrical release and was simply stunned. I was sitting next to an NYU film student and we both felt the same way. The film was and is a masterpiece of visual art.
This parrot has ceased to be!
Certainly better than Solaris at the very least.
Had great special effects for 1956 and quite a bit later.
Good SciFi value with robots, and a pre-cursor at least to Asimov's Laws. And speculative merit in the question of what would happen if you did create each individual as an all powerful being.
And Anne Francis.
"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.
Mathematics is not a crime.
Maybe not, but it can get you 5 -10
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
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.
Just another trip into Kubrick's mangled mind, but I think in this case you just needed a little too many drugs to appreciate it.
I don't think that is a completely fair evaluation of 2001. 2001 was the most honest portrayal of space travel out there. It wasn't glamorous, there were no lasers, communicating with earth involved very long round trip times. It is one of the few movies to show that space is very cold, very quiet and very, very big.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
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"
Gattaca is one of the most underrated SF movies ever made. It's easy to show the distant future (or past) but the near future is much more difficult. Sadly, Gattaca probably got it close to right. Very scary.
The scariest movie I remember was Forbidden Planet. Way ahead of it's time. I saw it recently and it's still scary. Even though the ID monster now reminds me of the Tasmanian Devil.
Disasters cause people to stop, look, and talk, too. I'd say 2001 was a disaster of a movie.
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...
I was disappointed to read that the top 10 list of sci-fi authors in a recent post neglected to include one of the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, Robert A. Heinlein. He was the author of such books as The Puppet Masters, Time Enough For Love (a personal favorite), his irreverent Job: A Comedy of Justice, and Starship Troopers. Most of Heinlein's works dealt with social models, interspersed with science. In Farnham's Freehold, the main characters are thrown into the future through a rip in the time-space continuum when their bomb shelter is at ground zero, stranding them alone, as the only survivors of their race. In Job, Heinlein looks at the gods themselves in a story of one man who is tested (hence, Job), and eventually sees the apocalypse and the resurrection, though neither is as he expected. Aside from interesting social examination, Heinlein's works are interesting, irreverent, and original.
move 'sig.' for great karma
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
I'm still pissed off at the fact that 3 years later I still can't walk up to a Bell videophone booth. Or that there's no Pan-Am space clipper. Hell, there isn't even a Pan-Am any more.
Talk about lousy product placement.
Need Mercedes parts ?
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.
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... :-(
2001 and Blade Runner are both beautifully executed masterpieces. Their form is beautiful, both in their story and their presentation, to a level of perfection that few other films have EVER achieved. Beyond this, their existence is the impetus for a continued informed dialogue on humanity. All great art shares this. Form and beauty first, with the power to inspire secondary thoughts, creation and revelation.
I don't know why it's marked "funny" that someone would suggest Wrath of Khan belongs here. I put it not only in my list of top 10 scifi pics, but in my list of top-ten best movies ever. It seems to me that it is the movie sequel that pioneered the idea of treating the time between movies as "part of the movie" instead of as "something to be ignored". So while James Bond grows older and we're supposed to ignore the fact, Star Trek did something boldly different: it allowed the characters to age with the actors, and allowed "grown up" thoughts about aging and death from people who used to be carefree young bucks and had off-screen learned what life was. Not to mention being a brilliant idea for a sequel and an outstanding plot.
Also, before The Matrix, I would always prefer to see The Thirteenth Floor, which it seems to me is the same sci-fi concept cast into a much more thoughtful rather than Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark format.
And while I think War of the Worlds was a pivotal book and radio production, I don't think the movie was an especially important work.
And though I thought Star Wars was a fun movie, I have emotional trouble listing it as a great work of scifi. It's pulp. And maybe that entitles it to a spot. There's been tons of pulp scifi (Flash Gordon, etc.) that isn't represented. But there are such amazingly thoughtful pieces that I just don't see giving up a slot to something like this.
Some other overlooked options for this list:
(Well, I was very moved by it because of the age I was at when it came out. It might not appeal in the same way to a modern audience on a small screen, but...)
(Also high on my list of all-time most romantic movies just for that scene where Virgil and Lindsey are stuck in the sub together needing to get back to the main habitat.)
(Perhaps Wargames is also worth a mention in this general category.)
(You may also like Vanilla Sky and Paycheck in the same category.)
(And if you liked this kind of thing you might also try the more obscure The Lathe of Heaven. I also enjoyed Timecop here, but a lot of people classified that as a simple action flick.)
And, ok, they're funny, but they are also still sci-fi and outstanding:
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
While I have to agree that Philip K. Dick has written some of the best scifi ever, it is also important to note that he was also quite insane, and as a result many of his stories make little to no sense.
The main thing about PKD is that he wrote large numbers of stories in varying states of lucidity. Many of them work wonderfully, but others either just fall completely flat, or build up to what looks like it will be a profound ending, but rather just leaves you wondering what the hell he was thinking.
If you have never read PKD before, I would suggest you try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for Blade Runner).
"Invisible interference with the apes. This really needs a lot of work to be anything near reasonable, but it is closest to having an explanation. DNA sample on touch, subsequent EM manipulation of subject DNA. Certainly not possible now (much less when 2001 was written), but EM does have bio effects, and there might be a path to reason here. The problem is, 2001 didn't follow one, so it fails the test. Ding. "
It just goes to show that your frame of reference is everything. I don't see this as some magic obelisk which comes down and "changes" the apes so that they can evolve, I see it as the first clear evidence that the apes have seen which indicates that there is so much more than their "little world" It awakens the curiosity centres in their brains, which are already there, but untapped. In other words the obelisk is simply a marker which inspires the apes to further themselves.
Maybe it's just me though. I've always been a little bit different....
- The Shape of Things to Come (1936) based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name.
- The Man in the White Suit (1951) speculative fiction with Sir Alec "Obi Wan" Guinness.
- The Fantastic Planet (1973) Psychadelic animated european sci-fi.
- Wizards (1977) Ralph Bakshi, 'nuff said.
- The Quiet Earth (1985) freaky end-of-the world stuff.
- Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure (1989) <simpsons voice="comic book guy">Best! Time-Travel! Movie! Ever! </simpsons>
- Until the End of the World (1991) with William Hurt and Sam Neill, oddly catches the essence of Gibsonian cyberpunk without the punk.
- Just about anything by Hayao Miyazaki but especially Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) or Nausicaä (of the Valley of the Winds) (1984) (but not the god-awful Warriors of the Wind from 1986).
</self_indulgent_obsessive_list_making>> Alan Dean Foster's Star Wars (that's who actually
> wrote the screenplay for the movie, not George
> Lucas.)
Alan Dean Foster wrote the novelization of the movie, and some other Star Wars books. George Lucas wrote the screenplay.
..yeah, but what's with all this "Blue Danube" crap? Everyone knows they stole their music from the Commodore 64 game Elite - when you turn their Docking Computer on. I can't believe they don't have the Elite creators listed in the 2001 credits. Sheesh.
That scene always moves me.
Honest. Go rent/buy it and see for yourself. When you then learn who was involved with the movie, you'll understand why. Ridley Scott is an SF cinema wannabe.
Actually, no. That's not why.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
Here is my interpretation: 6 total replicants. 4 replicants shown, 1 fried, and 1 "other". Deckard, was not "just" a replicant, he was the sixth replicant from the crew.
The theory is consistent and explains some otherwise non sequitirs in the DC. The line of reasoning is that Deckard was imprinted with memory engrams (like we saw in Rachel). It gives a reason for the unicorn scene and implication that he is known as a replicant to the department. More telling is how the four replicants react to seeing and interacting with Deckard.
Next time, watch the film while bearing in mind this postulate... the replicants are reacting to one of their comrades--who has no recollection of them--who is intent to kill them. The flickers of sadness in Batty's face, Batty's reluctance to kill Deckard, and visceral feeling of betrayal Batty communicates is almost tangible.
Anyway, it also explains how each of the four recognized Deckard on sight, even before he pulled his gun.
Except that 2001 does indeed have a plot. A rather complex plot at that.
Technically, while I disagree with the parent's idea that a plotless movie is necessarily bad, your contention that 2001 has a complex plot is incorrect. I think you're confusing the sophistication of the metaphors, themes, and ideas of 2001 with 2001's plot itself, which is pretty simple.
The plot of a story is synonymous with the story's plan. Here's the basic plot of 2001...
Dawn of Man
1. Monkeys get beaten up by other Monkeys.
2. Monkeys from beaten-up tribe find and fondle the monolith.
3. Monkey from beaten-up tribe discovers a possible use for a bone as a weapon.
4. Monkeys with bones beat up the Monkeys without the bones.
The Lunar Journey (forget the actual name of this section...)
1. Scientist goes to orbital moon base.
2. Scientist has discussion with Russians, who ask about a possible outbreak. Scientist stonewalls Russians.
3. Scientist meets his team, thanks them for understanding the inconvenience of the outbreak story.
4. Scientist and team go to monolith. Scientist fondles monolith, monolith sends out signal to Jupiter.
Jupiter Mission, 18 Months Later
1. Astronauts hang out with HAL.
2. One astronaut sees through HAL's masqueraded psych evaluation.
3. HAL announces a communication unit is going to have a failure. Astronaut checks it out, they can't find anything wrong with it.
4. Astronauts have a secret pow-wow and talk about the possibility of having to shut HAL down. HAL lipreads.
5. When they try to replace the unit, HAL takes over the pod and kills one Astronaut. Second Astronaut goes to rescue, gets the body, but HAL locks him out of the pod bay. Astronaut returns into the ship via an emergency entrance, does a little zero-gravity gymnastics to survive in the airlock.
6. Astronaut shuts HAL down, and learns about the ship's secret mission.
Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite
1. Astronaut reaches Jupiter, he sees monolith (monoliths?), things go a little koo-koo.
2. Astronaut goes through an accelerated evolutionary stage, grows old in the chamber, dies, is reborn and is in what is assumed to be a new evolutionary state for man.
3. Astronaut-turned-foetus returns to Earth for mysterious purpose.
That's not much of a plot -- especially for such a long movie. Don't get me wrong, I love 2001, but saying it's got a complex plot is like saying Blade Runner stars Tom Cruise -- it's just incorrect.
Even the Harry Potter movies have a more complicated plot than 2001 did. If you really want to blow your mind, try breaking down the plot of Miller's Crossing.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
...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...
A take on the phrase, "rum runner" when alcohol was illegal.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
The MBTA in Boston late at night is more like Mad Max.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning