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Space.com's Top 10 Space Movies of All Time
Comatose51 writes "Space.com has posted a Top 10 Space Movies of All Time list based on reader ratings on each movie. Apollo 13 is currently the #1 movie, followed by Star Trek: First Contact at #2, and Wrath of Khan at #3. I was surprised by Apollo 13 at #1, since I initially equated space movies with sci-fi. However, I don't disagree with it. What do other Slashdotters think, or suggest as good space movies?"
Zathura was actually quite a good movie, i was somewhat imprssed with it. i think, that given time itll make this list.
Where is StarWars VI?
I think Serenity hasn't been around long enough to sink in to the culture properly, but god, such a good movie. Firefly was a good series too.
First Contact before Empire Strikes Back? I liked them both, but c'mon now. Overall I think the top ten are solid choices, but the order leaves a little to be desired.
That's the shit that feds me up
khan is #1 for me, just because it resonates so deeply with me. i, too, was left stranded on ceti alpha five.
. . . and Heavy Metal . . .
and I'm sorry but Episode IV practically invented the "summer blockbuster" for better or worse. It should be listed first.
I'm laughing at clouds.
I don't see what's so difficult to understand about that.
The original Solaris could well be the best movie of all time.
Bar none. Period. Certainly no other space movie stands close.
Uhm, IMHO, of course.
They don't really define what constitures a "space movie," though. Does it take place in outer space? What if it's set entirely on another planet? Blade Runner is one of their candidates, but it hardly involved outer space at all. Are they using the term just to avoid the annoying flamewars about what defines "science fiction?"
"I see that your schwartz is as big as mine."
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
What About 2001: A Space Odyssey....geez it's a classic :-D
Bad Religion Rocks.
Where's Spaceballs? :(
How could this movie not at least make the top three?! Shocking lack of taste, I say. Shocking.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Contact - #9 - for crying out loud. Does it even count as a "space" movie? (Oh right, the message comes from space - so we should include any movie that includes sunlight).
For those who want a change in order, click the banner and you can vote for other movies...
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Sandurz: I'll call the attack squad, sir.
Helmet: No, we can't go in there. Yogurt has the Schwartz. It's far too powerful.
Sandurz: But, sir, your ring. Don't you have the Schwartz, too?
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Then I nominate "The Right Stuff". Also I think this list is a little too Star Trek heavy (but I'm probably in the minority on that).
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
2001 is one of the best scifi movies.
Also don't forget StarTrek the motion picture. The original was long in spots but none of the others were as deep. The ending was great.
I never watched the series, and just happened to catch the movie two days before it disappeared from my local theatre. It was the matinee, and there were three other people in there with me. I have to say, I've been avoiding going out to see movies in recent years, because there always seems to be some asshat sitting behind me who feels that it's perfectly ok to discuss plot points in a normal voice, or be in a constant state of candy rustling, or other noise that just ruins the whole thing.
... empty ... walking out of those movies. All special effect, no humanity, no heart. Is anyone else yawning these days at the latest, greatest special effects? I mean, it's been a while since I was really wowed by this stuff - I think Terminator II was the last movie that really made me go "hey, neat!". The Matrix was ok (the first one only, please, not the travesty that the other two became), but it was mostly the style (and bullet time) that make that movie.
Anyway, back to the real point: Serenity has restored my faith in movies. Star Wars (the recent run of prequals) almost killed off my hope totally. I just felt so
Serenity was a return to something that George Lucas almost had in his grasp with his very first Star Wars movie: A sense of real people, experiencing real life, only in a very, very different environment to ours. This is true escapism - not Grand Councils and "sheratons in space" (thanks Joss), but real, gritty, imperfect, cowardly, funny, wisecracking people. The sort of characters you would probably like if you met them in real life. Who can imagine interacting with any of the recent Star Wars characters in real life? Sheesh.
Joss Whedon is one of those people who has a talent for mixing the real with the fantastic in a funny, witty way. I think Serenity is right up there at the top of my list of all-time favorite movies. It rocks because it has heart, which so many movies these days lack. The big mistake action movies make is that if you don't care about the characters, then who cares what happens to them? In Serenity, I cared. I took my wife to see it for a second time (had to travel a bit, since it was gone from most places by then). She is not a Sci-Fi fan, but I had a hunch, and I was right - she loved it. That says something.
I also went right out and bought the Firefly DVD set, and we both watched it all the way through over the next few nights. I have to say I am totally amazed that this show was canceled. They canned this in favor of what? More reality sludge? Yikes.
Any Top 10 Space Movie list that includes ST The Undiscovered Country yet leaves out Heavy Metal obviously cannot be taken seriously. And as much as I like Trek, I really don't think ST First Contact belongs on this list either. I do, however, agree with ST Wrath of Kahn. I also take offense at the absence of Silent Running.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Any given Dirty Pair ep or movie.
Wings of Honnemaise
Space Battleship Yamoto
Macross, Mac2, Mac+, but *not* Mac7
Magnetic Rose (Somewhat obscure, but enthralling)
Planetes
Tenchi GXP
Various Project A-Ko
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
You talkinng about the special FX on the shuttle launch scene? Great FX for the time, but they look downright crappy on the DVD. You've gotta look past the tiny defects and just enjoy the movie for what it is.
I've got two words for you: 'Dark Star'.
David Furst, Melbourne, Australia.
Frankly, I'm confounded by the list. When I first saw this post, I thought "Plan 9" is free on archive.org and one of the most memorable (for better or worse ;) alien movies... it SHOULD be on there! Then I actually started thinking and decided that one of the "Alien[s]" movies should be on it and one of the Star Wars movies. Then I R'd TFA and saw that some of them had been chosen. I was confounded when I saw that "Contact" and "2001" weren't (at least) #2 and #3. I didn't even think about them. "2001" is a classic. "Contact" was probably the best movie that explored faith ever.
But I'm surprised that "teen" flicks like "Armageddon" and the like weren't on there. But I guess that is an issue of what does "best" mean: an extremely popular film or a very good film.
What about "Rocky Horror"? Sure it took place on Earth, but there were aliens in it...
They missed Airplane II. Easily the best space movie EVER!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
But I think the top ten is a little biased in favor of movies that are part of a series. I guess that's because the characters are better known ( having spent more time with them ) and because it's easy to carry over karma from other films in a series. ( For better or worse. )
My top five would be, in order:
1) 2001: A Space Oddessy
2) The Right Stuff
3) Apollo 13
4) Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
5) Star Wars: Episode IV
Too bad the list is just space related movies, rather than space related stories in any medium. I'd love to throw Babylon 5 in the mix.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Tm
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That says it all. It's shit. I actually liked some of TNG as a series, their best movie was as good as a bad Voyager though...
but what about Dark Star? Come on people, it was co-written by Dan O'Bannon, who later reused the "alien mascot" section of the film as the basis of his script for Alien FFS!!
Directed by (the) John Carpenter as well.
And then there's Silent Running, although wabbits being nuked is probably not a big vote winner among the majority of popcorn-crunchers.
Spaceballs forever!
Forbidden Planet
When Worlds Collide
The day the Earth stood still
and
Wallace and Gromit's Grand Day Out
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
I think you left out Ridiculous Speed.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Aw, I loved that mediocre childhood favorite!
Those rankings don't look right. Seems like an ongoing ranking system and the more users they get the better the list will get.
And Aliens is not in the list while contact is? Come on give us a break...and please don;t give me the "it's not space, it's a horror movie" argument. I totally agree with Apollo 13 as #1. off topic: Btw i was so shocked when I saw in one of those NASA documentaries that those guys actually figured out how to make an oxygen generator out of scrap material.
I thought the list was too heavy on the "air/sea battles transplanted into space" genre (nee space opera), and light on movies with deep emotional content. It looked like one generation's list. To go back a little bit, I'd nominate Silent Running as one of the better movies (especially for the sense of isolation in space, the challenges of living in such an environment, etc.) Besides, with a gorgeous soundtrack by Peter Schickeley (of PDQ Bach fame, amusingly enough), could it be all bad?
Oh come on, this is slashdot, so has to be the best space movie of all time.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Geez, this is the movie that first showed us Robby the Robot!
Actually, I'm only half joking. I have it on good authority that 2001 is MUCH more enjoyable and less boring if you are hopped up while watching it. I don't remember what kind of drugs the guy said were best.
Disclaimer: I actually enjoyed 2001, and I have never done drugs.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I swear if you tell someone who hasn't see it the plot they think you're making it up!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.
I've got to wonder what standard they used? Apollo 13, 2001 and Contact were solid and obvious choices but a lot of the rest were largely fantasy films. If hard science was a factor most of the rest of the films barely gave science a nod. If it was a science fiction list, several were definately fantasy and Apollo 13 was factual. Seemed to more reflect box office than anything. Another pointless ten best list.
When you consider that this film was made in 1968 it wasn't until 1977 when Star Wars appeared that you could get something to actually compare with in quality. And even though that film is almost forty years old it is still a film that you can watch. The only thing that it actually missed was the political situation in the world of today, but wh coul tell that at a time when the Soviet Union was at it's height and al-Qaeda wasn't known. The worst terrorists at the time was PLO and Lebanon was a holiday paradise.
Personally I don't give much for the Alien films, but it's a matter of taste.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
- Star Wars 4
- Star wars 5
- Alien
- Aliens (the sequel to Aliens)
- 2001: A Space Oddysey
- Blade Runner (well if Contact is on the list, why not this?)
- Star Wars 6
- Star Wars 3
- Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Yes, i've gone against convention and used digits not roman numerals for the Star Wars films. I'd be interested to see are larger list - Star Wars/Trek domaination makes it seem more like a top 5.The ONE time those GNAA asshole could post this link and be on-topic, they are conspicuously absent from the discussion.
I don't quite know what to say.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I looked at it and it seems like a Star Wars/Trek fan's wet dream. Some of the choices are obvious, but Star Wars V? Not that great. First Contact? Not sure where that's from. And contact itself - the link to space seems a bit tenuous, leading to the point that other films could easily be shoved into the list. The list seems very biased. I mean even Spaceballs could easily make this list. And the GNAA could easily put their favourite film into there as well.
Apollo 13 is a great first choice, along with 2001, Contact and the Wrath of Khan, while First Contact and The Undiscovered Country being the two most overrated of the Star Trek films. Star Wars is more mythology than "space movie" so I don't think they belong on the list. I'm a bit disappointed that plenty of good (and not so good) 50's and 60's space movies were ignored for this list. It's like the guys making the list were all born after 1975.
2001: A Space Odyssey is on the list at #5..
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Only half an hour, but I found it more clever even than spaceballs!
Loke: "I'm going to trust me feelings and use the power of the thumb."
Oobedoob: "Loke, use the instrument panel."
Loke: "What?"
Oobedoob: "The instrument panel. Advanced weaponry designed to hit tiny targets."
Loke: "Okay, okay."
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I find it very sad, that the list contains little less than a bunch of star wars/star treck movies. Who was the voting audience? Space Odyssey only #5? No Aliens? (OK, at least Alien is on the list). Where is "Blade Runner"? "Total Recall"? "Dark Star"? Hell, even "Stargate" or "Starship Troopers" deserved to get on that list more than some other entries ("Contact", for example, is a very good book, but a mediocre movie - to say the least).
But Ed Harris was good.
Some obvious missing classics:
Forbidden Planet
Silent Running
Powers of Ten (ok, it's a short feature, but still a classic)
And some good ones that are better than ones that made the list:
Aliens
Galaxy Quest
(And if the new Battlestar Galactica series counted it would be near the top of my list.)
"Office Space"!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
If you don't like the movies that are listed then you can call to complain (vote) also. Their number is 231-357-4741.
Posted anonymous since I don't want to ruin my terrible karma.
I know I'm the minority on this but I hated First Contact. They ruined the Borg in the movie. What made the Borg unique was their total alien like qualities. Total logic, no emotion, total devotion to a single goal, etc. It made them a different kind of enemy, something special.
In first contact the introduce the Queen Borg who asks just like you average generic power hungry villian. No longer are the borg this unstopable, uncarring machine, now the Borg are just a the standard typical enemy you can try to seduce, reason with, etc.
How sad to take such an interesting race and completely ruin it's interesting qualities.
It was a wonderful movie - and it was about /going/ on a space mission. Not too much of science fiction in there.
It should have been there on the list. 'Contact' sucks, really, except for '22 hours of static on the tape'. It's more about Jodie Foster as this astronomer(!), and her fixations. The part where she uses the 'man can fly' analogy is the worst, and very obvious.
But hey, don't flame me, I'm clueless.
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
I thought Serenenity was a very good movie, which leaves me more annoyed that like effectively all hollywood SF movies, it had no real concept of astronomy, how really far it is between planets in a solar system. (Or how vastly far it is in a galaxy, which Firefly sometimes declared to be its setting.)
A solar system is not like a western frontier where you meet other ships along the trail. And a solar system with hundreds of moons around many planets will have, depending on the place in the orbit, immense vast distances between planets on opposite sides of the star, and relatively short ones between moons, but still a vast void on all trips. You are not going to happen to run into Reaver ships.
Now as I said, most shows get this really wrong. To some extent the shows with FTL get it "better" even though FTL is itself fantasy, at least you get a reason to not treat the differences as so vast. Hyperspace jumps, another fantasy, are even better.
2001 got space right. Apollo 13 did (duh.) Few other films and very few TV shows ever did.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Staring Krita Allen. Hot stuff.
I find it strange they picked Undiscovered Country to be in the top 10 when you have a large array of awsome Star Trek films to choose from as i never really considered it as one of the greats. The fact Alien (very mainstream) and Contact (two words Jodie Foster) was present in this 10 top list really does worry me.
I agree with Wrath of Kahn, great film and as was 2001: A Space Odyssey. As for Apollo 13 it does make sense as being number one as im guessing this top 10 was thought up from generic film critics and not ones that we scifi or space film experts.
The ones i believe they've left out are Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, ET, and Planet of the Apes and If they actually considered TV series i recon they could of included the Hitch Hikers Guide the Galaxy as the recent film release could never hold a candle to it.
Made in 1950 but still really watchable, complete with Woody Woodpecker cartoon explaining to the disbelieving backers how rockets work.
Robert A. Heinleins Destination Moon.
Scenery by Chesley Bonestell, famous for his space art.
I find it hard to believe that Space.Com, of all people, left out the first movie really worthy of the term "Space Movie"! Sure, it's old and dated, but Destination Moon was the first movie to even TRY to take the idea of space travel seriously. It stands with Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still as the only even half-way decent science fiction movies of its day, but those other two really aren't space movies. They may have space ships, but they're not about space travel, per se.
Three Star Trek's and three Star Wars.
At least we can say they weren't biased q:)
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behind 2 star trek movies for christ's sake?
sheesh.
i saw the baby, and the baby looked at me
Battlefield Earth didn't make the list, I'm so suprised! Thoughs religious bigots! I'm going to sue YOU!
Great minds think alike :) but seriously, the omitting of DM causes the list to lose all credibility with me. It is still more accurate than 99% of movies made today.
A combination of "Rocketship Galileo" and "The man who sold the moon" was used for the screenplay, if anybody is interested. Pic of RAH and Ginny on the set
"Dark Star", baby!
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0069945/
Check it out! It's a spaghetti musical western set in space! what more could you want?
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Darkstar surely deserves a place in a top 10. Apollo 13 first? this is nonsense. First Contact above Khan? come on!!!
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Willis was really good in it, I thought. He can turn out great lines if you put him in the right tough-guy role: Pulp Fiction, Sin City (even though his opening speech in the movie was horrible, the rest was dead on).
So yeah. Despite Tucker, I still would have put 5th Element on the list, maybe at #7.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
2001 in #5, behind Star Trek: First Contact, which is AHEAD of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN??? CONTACT??!?! That one, apologies to Carl Sagan, doesn't belong on the top 40. Here's a better 'Space movie' list, which is in alphabetical order.
1. 2001
2. Alien
3. Apollo 13
4. Pitch Black
5. Planet of the Apes (1968)
6. Solyaris
7. Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan
8. Star Wars 5: The Empire Strikes Back
9. Star Wars 4: A New Hope
10. The Black Hole
Print it out and take it to the rental store, you'll be glad you did!
Someone said that a good war movie isn't about what people do in war. It's about what war does to people.
I agree with that sentiment and I think one could perhaps adopt that here: A good space movie isn't about people doing things in space. It's about what space does to people.
And in that category, there really isn't any movie like "2001". I don't know any movie which has tackled the issues of space travel like that. Man and machine. Man and space. The mysteries of the universe. Alien intelligence. It's all in there, almost like a guide to the philosophical issues of the space age.
Not that it has any answers. You've got to find those on your own. But it poses questions nobody had dared do before in Sci-Fi films. And it manages to do it without being noisy about it, unlike, say, The Matrix, which is quite overt with its philosophical pretentions. (Or worse, the contemporary 1968 "Planet of the Apes")
Add to that the stunning special effects for its age which were truely groundbreaking, the great directing by Kubrick, including some now-legendary segues like the bone-to-spaceship cut. And his usual incredible attention to detail. (missing though, that Pan-Am and the Soviet Union would be gone by 2001)
A lot of people are talking about Star Wars. Really, I'm a huge Star Wars fan, but you just can't compare them. Star Wars was just a revival of the old Flash Gordon matine. It's a great movie in it's own right, but it doesn't really aim higher than to be entertaining, and it's not really a space movie. I mean, the fact it's in space isn't terribly relevant to the plot, is it?
Well, that's what I think anyway.
This list is generated through user ratings. We're talking about lowest common denominators here. The fact that there are three movies apiece on the list for both Star Trek and Star Wars just means that there are a lot of fans of those series frequenting Space.com. I'm sure after this story has been on the front page here for a while the list will go through dramatic changes.
I cant believe i neglected it!
1) Jason X
2) Hellraiser: Bloodline
3) Leprechaun: In Space
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
"Contact?" Trash, pure trash. Right down there with "Twister".
Replace that with "Solaris (1972)".
Or "Dark Star"
Bomb#20: In the beginning, there was darkness. And the darkness was without form, and void.
Boiler: What the hell is he talking about?
Bomb#20: And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.
Or "Heavy Metal"
Even "Space Balls"
And put "2001: A Space Oddessy" it's proper place at #1!
But the new classic will be "Serenity."
*Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot*
Well it did come after Star Wars IV, but for many of us older than 35 and younger than 45 it was pretty cool when it first came out.
The Cylons just oozed illogical evil in a way the Borg only emulated in later years. And more polished armour! You'd think the Borg had a *little* downtime to do some basic polish work on themselves in their Cubes. They obviously needed Baltar's firm hand...
Apparently you can just keep voting on the same movie as many times as you want. Either by going to the top 10 list and clicking on the one you like then voting for it then going back to the list etc or by writing a script to sumbit your vote many times. I voted on 2001 about 100 times and it seems to be up to #3 now. ;)
I don't know whether this actually changes anything, they might be smart enough to sort | uniq or something on URL. I'm tempted to vote on 'Return of the Jedi' until it disappears. The ewoks just bugged me, almost as bad as Jarjar.
"Nobody's ever going to make any money on the internet"
--VP of the company I worked for, circa 1995
isn't it interesting that this earlier list from last year contains an almost completly different set of movies?
i could understand a bit of a change but to tell the truth, this is a little shocking...
What (to me) still sets 2001: A Space Odyssey apart from all other/later films with an "outer space" theme is that feeling of complete loneliness and despair when Frank Poole drifts away from the spaceship...
Sure, it would have been equally deadly only 10 miles from earth's orbit (or half a mile at sea), but watching that film I understood for the first time how vast, lonely and unforgiving that "outer" space really is.
I watched the film with my dad when I was about 12 (far too early IMO - I had nightmares about the end for weeks, but my dad (bless his simple soul) thought I shoud see "the original" first befor we would go see "StarWars"). I recently saw 2001 again (now at age 30something) --- and yet I still find the aforementioned scene the most disturbing of the whole film.
sig? Oh, that sig...
KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!
I must say that I'm really happy that that awful piece of crap 2001 isn't even on the list.
Am i the only person in the world that loves that movie? It's one of my favorite sci-fi movies... though i guess it woudlnt realyl qualify as a great "space" movie, since the movie has very little to do with space...
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
that was a great film...and it was in space too.
I understand that this list is most likely biased to the teen to early 50's crowd, as most kids under 12 would fall asleep watching a movie like Contact and most senior citizens would not be interested in a movie like star trek 2. Many of my favorite movies are those that I saw before I was a teenager; Star Wars 4-6, Star Treks 1-3, Alien(s), and even Flash Gordon.
Having said that, I have a little kid and when his little friends come over to play, we sometimes try to get them to settle down and watch a movie when it starts getting late. We have tried so many movies, mostly kids movies, but nothing ever works. They keep running around playing.
When the Star Wars 4-6 dvd set came out, I tried getting them to watch the original Star Wars for the first time. It only held their attention for about 15 minutes. I tried episode I and II at different times but both had the same effect. When the episode III dvd came out, one of the other kids parents told me she and her kid, age 5, hadn't seen it yet. My kid also hadn't seen it yet so I decided to give it a try. Then the unspeakable happened, the kids sat quietly and watched in amazement. I had never seen anything like it. I will admit that I fast forwarded through any parts of the movie where both anikan and padme where on the screen at the same time.
The thing that I realized was that my kid was experiencing the same thing I experienced when I was about his age and I saw Episode IV. Sure most of us in our generation would never place a movie like Episode III in our top ten space movie list but it's quite possible that 20 years from now this movie could be in the top 5. How many of our parents, who are now seniors, have nostalgic memories of shows like the Lone Ranger the same way we have nostalgic memories of sitting in a theater watching Star Trek 2 for the very first time?
you use a DeLorean
1. 2001
2. Star Wars 4
3. Explorers
4. Close Encounters
5. the Right Stuff
6. ET
7. Contact
8. Dune
9. Solaris (original)
10. Star Trek 1
Honorable mention: The Last Starfighter, Alien, The Black Hole
1950, with Robert Heinlein working on it. It looks absurd now but was well founded on the science of the time. The characters were real people, to the extent that they took dorky tourist photos while they were on the moon.
Silent Running as well.
The list in the article is just a fanboy teen thing.
I'm sure there of hundreds of stories like mine.
Before everyone here starts oozing with happiness about Serenity, it should be noted that IT FLOPPED. Despite a lot of attention, lots of dedicated fans, and great reviews, it was not even able to recap production costs at the box office. Look at this years yearly box office to get an idea of just how badly it did (for those tired of scrolling, it is in place 77).
Now, with DVD sales I am sure the studio won't end up in the red when all is said and done, but $25 million for a high budget high profile movie is terrible. Serenity will probably be pointed to in the future as a good reason not to use cult DVD followings as a reason to greenlight films. Sorry to tell ya all.
1. Star Wars Ep4
2. Star Wars Ep4
3. Star Wars Ep4
4. Star Wars Ep4
5. Star Wars Ep4
6. Star Wars Ep4
7. Star Wars Ep4
8. Star Wars Ep4
9. Star Wars Ep4
10. Star Wars Ep4
Man, that was easy!
-Dennis B. Schramm
Sigs suck!
I know they are seperate movies but I think that the "real" 3 Star Wars movies should be grouped together, hell who just watches one of them at a time anymore.
To fill the 2 empty spots I think either of these should be added.
1. Dune, though more Sci-fi then true space
2. Babylon 5 In the Beginning. Technically a tv feature presentation, but it's long, on dvd and a damn good space movie to me...also a damn good series.
3. Stargate, I would put it above Contact personally, more entertaining than informative.
4. Event Horizon, interesting physics concepts...though that guy should have died instantly when he was spaced, especially since they where in the freakin atmosphere.
5. Bladerunner, see Dune.
6. Aliens, yeah not so much always in space but more entertaining than Alien.
Yeah, so some of those are more deserving than others, but I think there is just to much Trek and Star Wars heading their list. I do give props for Apollo at #1, it's always 2001 in these lists but Apollo is technically a tad more space oriented I guess...to bad the rest of the list was not as well thought out.
Core dumped
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/spacemovies/in dex.php?url=spacemovies_contact_00.jpg&cat=spacemo vies
/G
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The voting engine is farked up - got to vote for some 3 times, and it doesn't always show the correct one as "Last shown"!
Bah!
I was suprised that no one's yet proposed Le Voyage - C'mon, world's first real Sci-Fi movie! Other than that, almost all of these are mentioned somewhere. Some of them are obvious choices, some not so much - but they're my choices. Have fun picking my list apart!
R How 'bout a top ten WORST space movies ever list? I nominate Star Trek: Nemesis...
Yeh it is a kinda cheesy movie but i always loved the premise, get the high score on a video game, go and save the galaxy. Makes me think about how corny old movies get when you get older, and the fact that i think i am getting older, but i ramble. Pretty cool flick
Forbidden Planet This Island Earth all the Star Wars movies and no Silent Running Starship Trooper - not great but not bad at least 2001 made the list although it's kind of depressing in 2005
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
--- the rest of my non-space list ---
Blade Runner, Abre los ojos, Brazil, Delicatessan, Hombre mirando al sudeste (remade into a Robin Williams crapfest), Metropolis, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Last and probably least, They Live has a kind of genius shittiness to it. It's painful to watch, yet always fondly remembered (leading you to inflict it on yourself several times before you learn your lesson).
I was in the airport bookshop a few days ago and found a section labeled "sci-fi" that contained nothing but fantasy books. In this light, i declare Lord of the Rings the #1 space movie.
What are movies like Alien, Star Trek and Star Wars doing on that list. Any movie with stupid booster rocket sounds in space cannot be considered a space or true sci-fi movie.
And in general, what does alien have to do with space/science? Stereotypical aliens with a humanoid bodies, artificial gravity on spaceship. It's trash aimed at the mainstream audience.
Same applies to Star Trek and Star Wars. The aliens are simply humans that look slightly different. There is no understanding of the depth and complexity of space. It's all "Yo dude! Lets check out that new planet, start up the motor." The Star **** series is imply a mix of action which is set in space. They don't deserve to be up there:
Movies that should be on that list:
2001: A Space Odyssey 2010: Odyssey Two (still a worthy movie) Dune (lynch could have done a better job, but Dune beats Star **** any day) Contact Apollo 13 Solaris (nowhere near as good as the book, but still great movie)
In general, I think that things like Star **** and alien shouldn't even be classified as sci-fi. It should be action/horror/melodrama. True sci-fi shouldn't have pointless violence and crap aliens (humanoid). True sci-fi doesn't even have to have futuristic sets and shit like that. Think of the following movies:
13th Floor Gataca Primer
Excellent sci-fi without any mainstream trash.
C'mon, if the 5th Element should be on there, so should Armageddon. At least it sucked like the vacuum of space through a pinhole in a spacesuit...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
the Firefly http://www.fireflyfans.net/main.asp series were a blast, and the movie Serenity http://www.serenitymovie.com/ is a must be seen too! Especially since it took a different turn: no aliens, just humans in space! Nice thought pattern as it reintroduces the frontier and outlaws in space!
The wise are not erudite, the erudite not wise!
for the USA maybe. The rest of us had been dealing with it for many years. Apparently there was a falling off of IRA funding from the USA after Sept. 11th. The same thing may happen to you guys with wars as well; you are lucky to be one of the few nations not to experience a modern war on your own soil. At that time you might become a little more reticent about choosing "war war before jaw jaw".
I'm disappointed. That movie is so bad the badness overflows and it becomes good again. Also, has 2001 got an operating system named after it?
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." -- Salvador Dali
Planets aren't static points, they are in a constant state of motion. Spacecraft don't travel in straight lines, that would require insane amounts of energy. The trick is to get from point A to point B in a reasonable amount of time without an excessive expenditure of energy. See Hohmann transfer orbit.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
So what is the criteria? Good movies? Movies that were fun to watch? Movies with good science fiction? While Star Wars was a fun to watch movie, the acting and the plot were both pretty bad. 2001 on the other hand was pretty damn boring for most of the movie. I tried voting and found myself giving everything 3.
Certainly my all time favourite.
rgds
I think this top 10 list only promulgates the ubernerd philosophy. I cannot see how The Right Stuff, a film based on the reality of our golden age of space could possibly be left off this list. Sure Star Trek is a great series of films but it's so far removed from reality. Sure my cell phone resembles a tri-corder but all of that was done on some Hollywood set. The Right Stuff is the real stuff and it should certainly be given the credit it deserves. Boo hiss space.com.
What about "From the Earth to the Moon"? This was to space movies what "Band of Brothers" was to WWII movies. It accurately chronicles the entire Apollo space program over 12 episodes (originally an HBO miniseries).
2001: A Space Odyssey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/
Why? For the great visuals, lack of Hollywood cliches, relatively no-name actors and the ambiguous conclusion.
Oh yeah, and the fact that "fail-safe" computers fuck the good guys in the end. It's just like real life!
WTF? Where is Event Horizon?
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
they completely ignored the porn industry! :-p
here's one.
It seems nobody mentioned it.
I fondly remember the special effects - the aliens were done with amazing effects even for that time.
- space movies about actual space. in which case, apollo13 has to be top of the list de facto since it actually happened (give or take).
- space movies about the human fantasy of what we might like space to be like. in which case star wars would probably be top due to its popularity - most humans seem to be most interested in this version of fantasy.
- space movies about the transcendent nature of space as a concept. 2001 comes top.
- space movies that are simply good movies that happen to be set in space. don't know which one would come top here.
I would put "Forbidden Planet" ahead of any of the Star Trek and Star Wars movies.
Which means it is statistically unsound.
It also shows the bad taste of americans.
No Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy?
*ducks*
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/
;)
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
How the hell could they put CONTACT on that list! It was totally lame! I know I'll get modded down as redundant, but contact was completely retarded. I mean, in the end, noone is even sure that she even went anywhere. The whole damn thing could have been in her head. Come on, any movie where a woman supposedly travels through space and the only thing she finds at the end is her dead father! Please! There are so many other great movies about space out there. How about Serenity, or as someone else suggested, Blade Runner. Hell Space Balls would be better than that!!!!! I give up, the world is coming to an end.
My software never has bugs.
It just develops random features.
2001 A Space Odyssey definetly should be in number one. One of the greatest film of all times, if not the greatest.
Where are the Fobin Projects, the Brainstorms, The Fly?
Lightsabers and ethics do not sci-fi make.
Where's the confrontation with humanity, where't the questioning of whether we SHOULD do something?
Where's Dr. Strangelove.
This isn't the BEST top 10 by importance, merit or anything like that, it's the feel good top 10 + 2001.
I'm not impressed.
Just as a comparison, this is how these movies rank at Rottentomatoes.com, which relies on professional movie revies:
1. Alien - 100% (44 reviews)
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - 100% (25 reviews)
3. Star Wars V-The Empire Strikes Back - 98% (49 reviews)
4. Apollo 13 - 97% (37 reviews)
5. 2001-A Space Odyssey - 94% (36 reviews)
6. Star Trek: First Contact - 94% (32 reviews)
7. Star Wars IV-A New Hope - 93% (44 reviews)
8. Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi - 81% (43 reviews)
9. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - 79% (33 reviews)
10. Contact - 76% (29 reviews)
Although the idea that The Wrath of Khan is better than 2001 is amusing to say the least, I still like this list better because it confirms Alien as the masterpiece it is and relegates Contact to the bottom of the list where it belongs (if it belong on the list at all).
I was SIX when I first saw it (in... 1973!) and my dad had to take me out of the PLANETARIUM where it was shown because of one disturbing scene. I bawled, not when HAL kills Frank and the crew, but when Dave Bowman kills HAL! Should've been a sign.
The only thing I can say that was as traumatic for me was when Space: 1999 went off the air. I'll never forget the night it was replaced with the '25,000 Treasure Hunt'. Why is it that sci-fi shows always seem to be replaced with exactly the opposite kind of programming?!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I am English and I would probably agree with this list however I would put Alien and Return of the Jedi a bit higher.
Love a part of hate... Truth a part of lies... Whenever, however... still... Mr Maggoo.
They all have an average rating of 4.2.
The only thing I see amiss is that Return of the Jedi is rated lower than Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope on a "best space movies" countdown. The space battle at the end of ROTJ surpassed anything in the prior two movies.
I'm not really into sci-fi. I do somewhat like action (I saw that starwars thing last summer). I would have had no idea about Serenity if there weren't some hardcore fans at my school who took me along to see the movie (I was just looking for something to do that friday night). We drove for an hour to the nearest theatre that had the movie showing. I am now in love with that movie.
Yet amongst most of my friends who like action movies, sci fi, star wars, doom they don't even know Serenity existed. I can't imagine somebody wasting their money on Doom when they could go see Serenity instead. The marketing to mainstream american was nonexistent. Universal messed up a lot. They could have even tried to use Mal = Han solo to get some buzz but its really their fault for messing up competely
> Ever heard of Solaris? Stalker?
Solaris was boring, and no, I don't remember Stalker.
> It is also missing what is for me possibly the best sci-fi movie of the 90-es. Gattaca.
Gattaca is hardly a "space" movie.
Besides, who did the rating? If other countries were allowed to vote, then you have nothing to complain about.
Solaris was extremely boring. It wasn't very good at all.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
And not the old outdated Kubrick's one, but the new one. BBC has made a great docudrama on manned exploration of Solar System. 5 astronauts set on a scientifically correct journey around the Solar System, starting with a brief landing on Venus, then going for a 3-week stay on Mars and then to the outer planets. As of today this is undoubdly the best movie about space with the possible exception of Contact. Yes, others have more action, better directing or have been more influential in the past, but overall Space Odyssey wins.
d yssey/
See the information about it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/spaceo
Get it off the BitTorrent (sadly it doesn't seem to be available on DVD yet):
Part 1
Part 2
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Nothing beats SPACE HERPES!!! Brilliant!
was amazing for its time and is still my favorite sci-fi movie....of course it came out seven years before I was born...but its still amazing!!!
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
That's a very pissweak poll on Space.com's behalf. Why even bother calling it a poll of 'space' films when it was just another top-ten of Sci-Fi films?
...ergh ...um ...okay, I see why there were movies in that list that don't really fit the bill.
Parts of Star Wars happen to take place in the cold expanses of space, but they're barely sci-fi (they're sci-fi in setting, and setting alone), let alone 'space' movies. The technologies used in the galaxy are never discussed in Star Wars, and the most powerful force in the universe is more magical than scientific.
A science-fiction film should, in some part, be about the relationship between the human race and technology (that's where the 'science' part comes from, kids). Star Trek may be full of technobabble and pseudoscience, but Gene Roddenberry used the march of technology to portray a very different world from that of the 1960s.
Granted, the top two movies (Apollo 13, 2001: A Space Odyssey) are bang-on the top two I'd have chosen, but the rest of that list is garbage if you want an actual list of movies where 'space' is intrinsic to the story being told in the film.
Obligatory section with my own top ten in no particular order:
* 2001
* 2010
* Apollo 13
* Silent Running (yes, it's bad, but the theme is perfect, and I'll choose this over the stink-heap that was Lost in Space any day)
* Event Horizon
* Solaris
* Contact (sub-plot being our means to defeat the 'tyrrany of distance')
I reckon "Silent Running" should be in the list. THAT was an awesome movie!
ful short, but awful funny.
I find your lack of TPS report cover sheets disturbing.
Apparently that makes three of us that think Destination Moon should be on the list. Did they just not include any of the classics in this? The oldest movie they list is (i believe) 2001, from 1968.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
2001 is listed as #1! Shift down.
Blade Runner is HANDS DOWN, my favorite movie of all time! With all of the over the top special effects now-a-days, which I love BTW, Blade Runner could still go toe to toe with any of them today. Ridley Scott has a way with camera angles and atmosphere is his movies that make them timeless. Add a fantastic story and great acting, and you have the recipe for a perfect movie.
BTW, I also really liked Serenity, and The Wrath of Khan is up near the top of my list as well.
.... but I saw the movie and think it is complete crap.
There is so much wrong with it that I will not bore you with my complaints about plot(puerile and broken), unplausability (in an Universe that they have full control of, for goodness sake), and acting (the girl is the most annoying character I have seen this year).
Thankfully in one year time this movie will be completely forgotten.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Great film - "High Noon" in space. Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen. Pretty crisp piece of work, IMHO. And what about Gattica? Hasn't every one of us said, well, I may not have $20 million, but I'd cheerfully give my left nut to spend a week on the ISS? Either of those films swamps anything Lucas did after Empire Strikes Back, and most of the Treks. And for the record, I DID like Undiscovered Country.
Exactly my thoughts. I will not abound in the logic of send a killer that uses a samurai sword and how kewl it is to look at the protagonist walking barefoot (New Age nonsense) at the drop of a hat.
You are my anti Firefly hero now.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... and still biuld a consistent fantastic universe.
Let say you ignore you can't travel faster than the speed of light. But then as a counterbalance you acknowledge the distances are vast and will not happen to stumble upon enemies.
You can at least try. After 2001 and Solaris you simply can't say oh well, I will ignore all laws of physics. That makes your plot childish, unplausible and fore the same reason boring.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Trash everything except SO:2001, Apollo 13, Alien, and Contact and you have a good starting point. Star wars and star trek....gimme a break. Where they good movies? Perhaps, but not deserving a spot in the top 10.
And other box office flops, like the Princess Bride, will continue to be pointed to as a reason to green light films based on cult DVD followings.
Surprised to not see that on the list, or mentioned here too much.
That is the most frustrating thing. If they would say the movie is one million years in the future then many of the things they portray would gain believility since it would be impossible to relate to such a different time in history.
We know that almost for certain we will recognize many things of human society in 500 years althought certainly many will look like magic to us, but certainly one would be able to digest how things progressed if given a chance.
The point is that in 500 years we know we will not be in the technological situation portrayed in the movie, and this, amongst many other things, makes it completely absurd.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
How about Armageddon?? Although it is one of those blockbuster mainstream marketing machine movies, I think it's probably the most realistic in terms of today's technology. Additionally, I think that the asteroid collision scenerio will eventually happen, and may be plausible that we will attempt to nuke it out of the sky.
Coderz 4 Life
I agree that it would be nice to have somewhat more realistic physics/science generally in sci-fi, but only up to the point where it doesn't damage the story. It's science fiction, but it's still science fiction, after all, and a little dramatic licence can carry a plot a lot better than rigorous mathematics.
Funnily enough, TV series seem to get this balance right more often than full-length movies. Two shows I've always appreciated for this are B5 and (shock!) Andromeda. Take a look at the workhouse small craft in B5, the Star Fury: it's pretty much exactly how you'd really design a ship like that to work in space: boxy, thrusters distributed to make it highly manoeuvrable, etc. <inside joke> You'd almost think they talked to real rocket scientists about the design. </inside joke> Earth ships, unlike those of more technologically advanced cultures, still require rotating sections to provide artificial gravity, as does the space station itself. There is technology that we don't yet understand and have to research, sometimes with unfortunate consequences. Even searching a huge database requires a non-trivial amount of time, and may not even be possible if we're too far away to communicate effectively.
To give credit where it's due, despite the criticism it often receives, Andromeda also had one of the most realistic representations of action in space in any sci-fi show. We're talking about ships moving at high fractions of lightspeed here, so they mainly fight each other using projectiles that also travel at near lightspeed, with "laser beam" type weapons only used at very close range. In several episodes, there are clear battle tactics being used involving controlling space and distance in three dimensions. Real-time communications are an issue: while they have long-range communications, which clearly involve faster-than-light signals, there is still a significant time lag, sometimes minutes or hours, and this affects the plot. Rather than inventing strange propulsion technologies, they invent a mechanism that reduces a ship's mass to almost nothing, which conveniently means they can have highly manoeuvrable ships, yet not kill every human on board the moment they accelerate. Having created this plot device, they do still have to stop to collect raw materials to use in their propulsion system. Leaving aside the whole "stuck on the edge of a black hole for 300 years then rescued by a much smaller ship that could somehow escape" premise, which had some concessions to today's physics but wouldn't exactly work out that way according to our current understanding, the series was reasonably realistic when it came to physics - not bad for a show that is an unashamed "action hour" not trying to be some deep sci-fi movie.
Personally, I prefer these approaches to the magic of Star Trek physics, where inventing a new device that can do anything we need for this week's episode is pretty routine. However, I also prefer them to the overly realistic physics of some "classic" sci-fi movies, where we have to put everyone in suspended animation for years to get to places, everything is silent, and computers look like things that were invented 30 years ago today. All of this may be a fairer reflection of what we could possibly achieve with our knowledge today, but it's not nearly as interesting to watch.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
.... with canning a Soap Opera (that happens to be in a nonsensical, badly thought, unrealistic or badly engineered context) with Reality TV?
What is so great about a pseudo cowboy movie, where you have the settlers killed, the Indians attacking you, and the protagonists on each side deciding the fate of the Universe, with, hum, their fists, knifes and a samurai sword. Sorry but such a thing is completely ridiculous.
Honestly, if you don't see the inconsistencies and completely childish assumptions made in the movie (oh! how "kewl" and newagey is to watch the girly walking barefoot) then there is no much else to say.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The database keeps barfing errors, and the listings are at total random intervals. click next twice and get the same movie.
*STICKS A BIG FAT FIX ME STICKER ON THE PAGE*
XML - A clever joke would be here if
the subject movies don't belong in the space movies list imo because they aren't about "space" - they aren't even sci-fi but are space opera instead.
Here are the top movies on imdb, filtered to Sci Fi and filtered by "Space Theme" (by me)
spot (imdb spot) [imdb rating] title
1(1)[8.7] Star Wars (1977)
2(2)[8.7] Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
3(8)[8.3] Alien (1979)
4(10)[8.2] Aliens (1986)
5(11)[8.2] 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
6(15)[8.1] Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
7(16)[8.1] Kin-Dza-Dza (1986)
8(19)[8.0] The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
9(23)[8.0] Serenity (2005)
10(33)[7.9] Planet of the Apes (1968)
Original sci-fi imdb list here
Just because you can't deal with poetic and philosophycal matters (paying respect to the vastness of space) all the rest wiil bow to such an idiotic opinion.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I saw a couple of Firefly episodes. It was simply a Western in space. Oh yeah, and the mystery trollop was a tiresome device. Fifth Element, maybe? The Reavers were not very sensible--I assume they are politically-correct stand-ins for the Injun savages of the frontier. Geez.
Call me hard to entertain, but that half-hour of entralling HIGH-SPEED SOVIET HIGHWAY FOOTAGE failed to tickle my fancy.
Silent Running should make it to that list. Sadly forgotten film where SFX meets environmentalist concerns.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/
Starwars is science fantasy, come on now.
Silent Running...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067756/
A 1972 movie that really post a good story about an psycho pro-environmentalist drifting in space who actually used a nuclear device to destroy the last batch of ecosystem in our solar system.
(I'm just a sucker for Oxymoronic type of space movie like Space Odessey 2001, anyone else?)
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
der, mod me troll or brainfart or somthing. SPACE MOVIE duh, gotit.
Hes talking about the original Russian movie, not the crappy Hollywood remake.
Are you talking about the glorious russian version or the http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307479/">american/cra p one?
I can't be the only one wondering where Transformers the movie is on that list...
My slightly stale but more comprehensive annotated listing of this subgenre is at:
SPACE: MOVIES AND TV-MOVIES ABOUT SPACE Updated 9 May 1997: 124 film hotlinks
Many of these also deal with aliens Those that do NOT have aliens are marked with an asterisk (*)
Those that are particularly recommended are marked with an exclamation point (!)
(recommendations based on the Space content, not escapist entertainment value as such) -- Jonathan Vos Post
former Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Cypress College
You think that's bad? I was stranded on Ceti Alpha Six.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
The definition of sci-fi is very tricky because in reality nothing can truely define the genre. And yet using your definition Serenity is sci-fi because as far as I can tell most people don't fly through space. Sure they may face the same problems as people traveling on a bus but that's because we are huuman and I doubt human nature is going to change whether traveling on a bus or on a rocket ship.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Because they never allow movies recently released (and popular) the same benefit of becoming as dated/poignant/prescient/terrible as films made 10 years earlier (or more). There should always be a 1-2 year cut-off to disallow the passing whimsy of the box office.
Personally, I'd add Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' to the list.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Actually that part was shot in Tokyo, due to the shortage of the futuristic-looking highways in Soviet Union.
How the hell is 2001 at #4? That makes no sense to me at all. Granted Apollo 13 was a great film to see at a drive-in (that's where I saw it for the first time) amongst the stars, it had a great effect of expanding the screen essentially. I can see Empire at #1, but there's no way that Apollo 13 should be above 2001.
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
Jaws invented the summer blockbuster. Star Wars was the first movie to successfully repeat the formula.
To film the city of the future, Tarkovsky simply went to Tokyo, hired a taxi and had it drive down the Teito expressway. It's one of my favourite things about the film, and there are a lot of things to like about it. That said, I like his Andrei Rublev a little better.
...like changing a multinational crew by an Northamerican-one-person-crew, changing science for religion in some points, a grobal point of view about space science changed in a "we (USA) pay it all", ... yes, an accurate movie :P Just like Rising Sun, yes.
Whilst Not a "Space" Movie (set in Space) The Dish is an Australian film about the Parkes Radio Telescope that transmitted the moon landing images in 40km/h winds. great film, well worth it. Sam Neill included!
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
> Your average English speaker from 1505 wouldn't even be able to converse with someone.
William Shakespeare was born in 1564. Granted, sixty years after your date. But still within a reasonable part of that era. Shakespearean English sounds weird. hokey, awkward, and very definitely dated. But it's still very much comprehensible. And to keep the 500-year timeframe, I'd bet almost anything that english-speakers will still very much be able to attend and understand the plays of The Bard in 2105. (Not that it wouldn't sound even MORE weird, hokey, awkward, and dated. And definitely not that I'd have an opportunity to collect on that bet.... but still.)
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Blade Runner is conspicuously absent.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
...and when Alien first hit the video shelves in the 80's, it was rightly placed under "Horror."
>>little did seemed to consist of posters with Mal and Inara staring wistfully into ... That's not Inara in the poster. That's River.
>> space.
And she's got a gun.
This mind intentionally left blank.
My top space film - "Silent Running"
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
I also recommend:
* Capricorn One (1978) the paranoid premise here is that NASA fakes a manned Mars mission; whereas I'm apalled that many citizens believe this premise, it is done well in this film
* Conquest of Space (1955) from the Chesley Bonestell/Willie Ley book, produced by George Pal, directed by Byron Haskin, great special effects, with a somewhat muddied plot about a secret Mars mission pretending to be a Moon mission, but the space station and Mars ship look cool over 30 years later.
* Destiny in Space (1994) IMAX movie narrated by Leonard Nimoy (voiceover)
* The Dream is Alive (1985) IMAX movie narrated by Walter Cronkite, with various astronauts including Sally Ride
* For All Mankind (1989) 13 astronauts featured in this documentary with atmospheric Brian Eno soundtrack
* Hail Columbia! (1982) IMAX film narrated by James Whitmore
* Man in Space (1956) Short subject by Disney
* The Right Stuff (1983) Superb adaptation of Tom Wolfe's novel of Mercury 7 astronauts, warts and all. Several astronauts I've talked to resent the soap-operaization of exaggerated conflicts between eagle scout John Glenn and the more rebellious others, but appreciate the intensity of passion for the viewpoint of the test-pilot astronauts coping with the unknowns of space and the all-too-knowns of bureaucracy.
My slightly stale but more comprehensive annotated listing of this subgenre is at:
SPACE: MOVIES AND TV-MOVIES ABOUT SPACE
Updated 9 May 1997: 124 film hotlinks
Many of these also deal with aliens
Those that do NOT have aliens are marked with an asterisk (*)
Those that are particularly recommended are marked with an exclamation point (!)
(recommendations based on the Space content, not escapist entertainment value as such)
-- Jonathan Vos Post
former Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Cypress College
The force? It's simply a sort of mash-up of the ideas of Chi energy and the code of bushido.
The Death Star? Granted, there's nothing in The Hidden Fortress that can destroy a planet. But the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant to the actual plot. The ramifications are never delt with (As they are to a somewhat greater degree in the Star Wars tech commentaries (I personally like the one about how the destruction of DS#2 all but guaranteed the devestation of Endor and the exterminatio of the Ewoks.). But at the end of the day, the Death Star is simply the fortress from which the princess must be rescued.
The Droids? No issues of robotics are delt with. There's no sence of human workers being displaced my mechanical. There's no discussion of the ethics of the treatment of man-made artificial sentience, as in Asimov's Robots series. R2D2's purpose could just easily be filled by a human hacker/engineer type; and C3P0's by a linguist like Daniel Jackson or Hoshi Sato. The fact that they're robots is irrelevant (especially to their primary role: comic relief).
The clones-troopers/storm-troopers? Generic and expendable foot soldiers. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger delved deeper into the social implications of cloning!
Star Wars may be many things. But by your own criteria, it's NOT SciFi... it's "samurais in space".
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
What, no love for Dune? Dune (1984 version) is a very cool, very stylish movie. If you haven't seen it, I recommend that you check it out. The SciFi channel version is good too -- and much more faithful to the Frank Herbert novels, but David Lynch's version is really damn cool.
Guild navigators do exactly that: navigate.
The actual FTL drive is strictly mechanical, and requires no prescience whatsoever. Travel without a navigator *IS* much slower. But it's still FTL, and there were intestellar civilizations both before the guild's monopoly, and after Leto II made the spice all but impossible to get ahold of (thereby much reducing the abilities of, need for, and power of, the Spacing Guild.
A navigator's prescience makes the journey much safer, faster, and reliable. But it's not *technologically* impossible to trqavel FTL without one.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
That list just isn't serious.
... Zardoz.
Not that they're actually the best, but just as an aside :
Silent Running.
Maybe, just for fun,
Darkstar, and
You're confusing the setting of a movie with the subject of a movie. This is about space movies, presumably movies about space.
Aliens is no more a movie about space than Die Hard is a movie about skyscrapers.
Aliens is set in space. But all it is is an action movie/thriller. Monsters show up, monsters get shot. Those monsters aren't from around here. But space doesn't have much to do with it.
At least T2 didn't make the list.
And Dark Star is terrible. I don't have anything against low-budget movies, but Dark Star just isn't entertaining. YMMV.
I rewatched Stargate two weeks ago, and found it was as boring as I remembered. I think I actually like the series better.
Total Recall? I enjoyed it. But it's not nearly good enough.
Blade Runner? Takes place on earth, space is hardly even mentioned, there's no space travel. Sure, it's sci-fi, but it's not a space movie.
I'm surprised you didn't suggest "Robocop". It's as good as "Starship Troopers", and it's futuristic too!
I agree, the Contact book was a lot better than the movie. The book actually covered a lot of science topics (the multiple modulations on the signal), and in dumping all that for the movie, it lost a lot.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Then the winner is hands down, "Office Space". Anyone who disagrees
... I thought this place was for nerds.
can walk on over to my cubical and deal with me and my big red swing line.
Sheesh
Wings of Honneamise was the movie that made Studio Gainax famous, and with good reason. Of course one can't expect a cartoon to get recognized with real films, can one?
I keep hitting next and Im seeing the same movies over and over but where the hell is Stargate?!?! It ought to be in the top ten, as well.
"Space Trucker" was fun. Worth the popcorn on a slow day.
Oh, and "Ice Pirates" - can't forget that one (no matter how I try).
Does "LifeForce" count ?
Anyone else old enough to remember it? It would be on my top ten. Certainly ahead of any Star Trek movie.
Proverbs 21:19
You have to with the all-time classic...
Oh, sorry, I thought you said "spaced".
Never mind...
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
There are several movies that puzzle me on this list. But none more than Contact. It was completely devoid of science, conveyed nothing factual about the cosmos, and after teasing us for two hours with a slow buildup to alien contact that had us writhing in our seats, they wussed out and showed us the ghost of Jodie Fosters dad. I wanted to set fire to the theatre. And the overall message is that science is an expensive waste of time, indistinguishable from magic, that in the end only manages to create a pale sense of mysticism that is a weak imitation of a religious experience. Feh. I would put it on the "Worst movies of all time" list, just below Ishtar and Arnold Schwarzenneger in "The Villian".
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
Warhol had several movies over 5 hours, among them Sleep and Empire , tho these might more reasonably be called "portraits that move" than "movies".
(Incidentally, Chelsea Girls is over 6 hours of footage, but since it is shown on two projectors simultaneously it takes only 3 1/2 hours to watch. And it's much more entertaining than Empire and Sleep.)
Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz was originally shown in the US as a 16-hour feature (screened in 2 eight-hour sessions), and received critical acclaim in that form. However, it has generally been shown in installments since then. It was originally a 14 (?) episode TV mini-series in Germany.
I've not seen The Longest and Most Meaningless Movie in the World , but it seems no different than running your screensaver all weekend.
I remember sitting thru Chantel Ackerman's films je, tu, il, elle (having not gotten much sleep the night before) and Jeanne Dielman , and both seemed to last all day. Turns out they run 90 and 200 minutes, respectively. That said, if you want to see what it's like to spend an entire day with a movie character, these are like that.
SOLARIS is the greatest of them all, of course RUSSIAN version (one of rare movies that sucked in american version, though). Stalker is also a great movie.. I've heard that Kin-Dza-Dza is also good.
Space Truckers should've been in there, shoehorned if need be. And a Warning about your new hybrid car: http://www.newpath4.com/firefightersandcardriversg etfriedbyhybridelectricvehicles4_notnewpath4engine .gif You might want to have some metal ID plates mounted visibly...
This film should be Number 1!!! What better way to bring together the Babylon 5 and Trek universes!!!
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I'm only allowing 1 entry per-trili/qunit/pent/sext/ogy
1) Serenity
2) Star Wars V
3) Aliens (Alien II)
4) Star Trek 2 : Wrath of KAHN!
5) Blade Runner
6) Starship Troupers
7) Last Star Fighter
8) Airplane 2
9) Galaxy Quest
10) Starchaser : Ledgened of Orin
Serenity had to win as it is the most well thought out and beleavable sci-fi universe I have ever seen; I think all brown coats accross the globe should picket FOX till they:
1)reverse there descision on the TV series
2) Agree to not interfere with the show in anyway, especialy not in a way that forces Joss to have to write a new pilot over a weekend!
"You cant take the sky from me!"
PS go to the signal
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Now, with DVD sales I am sure the studio won't end up in the red when all is said and done, but $25 million for a high budget high profile movie is terrible. Serenity will probably be pointed to in the future as a good reason not to use cult DVD followings as a reason to greenlight films. Sorry to tell ya all.
With a production budget of $39 mil, it's definitely on the low end of sci fi movies this year.
War of the Worlds - $132 mil
The Island - $126 mil
Star Wars III = $113 mil
Constantine - $100 mil
Fantastic Four - $100 mil
Doom - $60 mil
Aeon Flux - $50 mil
Hitchhikers Guide - $50 mil
Serenity - $39 mil
And I think few would call it high profile. Every other Sci-Fi movie on the list received far more advertising, etc. Universal played very conservatively both with the production cost and the advertising costs. They wanted to make money, but weren't willing to spend millions advertising it... instead choosing a viral marketing campaign.
It's done decently considering that there was no big advertising push... $36 mil worldwide... it'll make them money.