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Slashdot Asks: What's Your Favorite Sci-Fi Movie?
Many say it's the golden age of science fiction cinema. And rightly so, every month, we have a couple of movies that bend the rules of science to explore possibilities that sometimes make us seriously consider if things we see on the big screen could actually be true. The advances in graphics, and thanks to ever-so-increasing video resolution, we're increasingly leaving the theaters with visually appealing memories. That said, there are plenty of movies made back in the day that are far from ever getting displaced by the reboots spree that the Hollywood is currently embarking. With readers suggesting us this question every week, we think it's time we finally asked, what's your favorite science-fiction movie? Also, what are some other sci-fi movies that you have really enjoyed but think they have not received enough praises or even much acknowledgement?
Editor's note: the story has been moved up on the front page due its popularity.
Editor's note: the story has been moved up on the front page due its popularity.
Bladerunner. The original with the overdubbing.
Corny, but a classic to enjoy for all time.
Starship Troopers. We can end all discussion now. It's about the greatest movie ever made. Anyone who disagree is a bug lover.
"Show me a successful sci-fi movie that's not a remake, sequel/prequel or spin-off in the last ten years."
The Martian?
Interstellar?
Arrival?
2001: A Space Odyssey
Contact
Metropolis (1927) or The Fifth Element.
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2001 Space Odyssey. "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Serenity
>> Many say it's the golden age of science fiction cinema Slashdot editors must be getting dumber or I'm getting older. Show me a successful sci-fi movie that's not a remake, sequel/prequel or spin-off in the last ten years. On second thought, I'll vote for "dumber."
Interstellar. Moon. Inception. District 9. The Martian. Ex Machina.
They aren't all my favorites, but they're all original (the Martian is an adaptation, not sure if that counts). And they are all firmly sci fi.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
It's one of the few movies that has actually become more though provoking over time. Sure it's full of cheese and an-old but great story.
love is just extroverted narcissism
"Silent Running" has never been my favorite movie (it would probably "Outland" with Sean Connery). But it has more science fiction than a lot of science fiction movies that came before or after. It fit the 1970's environmental theme quite well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running
If only for kevin spacey's voice paired with emoji
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
...that are far from ever getting displaced by the reboots spree that the Hollywood is currently embarking.
Did you have to run that through a translator a couple times to get the desired effect? ;)
Based on HEINLEIN's work: PREDESTINATION - Starring Ethan Hawke (gives NEW meaning to the phrase "Go fuck yourself", lol).
* It is truly awesome...
APK
P.S.=> A friend of mine brought it home & the SECOND I saw Robert Heinlein on it, I just knew it had to be great (it didn't disappoint)... apk
Forbidden Planet
I saw it four times in the movie theater and it was the first DVD I ever bought.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01...
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Because Kubrick did meticulous research from flat screen displays and glass cockpits. Also had all actors be boring just like the characters they portrayed, i.e. people that do space are not expressive like most actors (compare 2001 to 2010). Of course Kubrick missed a few things, like Pan Am no longer exist, we ignored the Moon after 1972. But then I'm old enough to remember seeing this movie in 1968 shown at Century theatres on Winchester Blvd, a time when it seemed only obvious because soon we will have men walked the surface of the Moon. And many people were around to remember reading the news of first flight of Wright Bros and Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. By the time they were retirement age, they can ride an airplane that comfortably flies across continents or oceans. Hey when I'll be their age, I can do the same with space travel. But no, still waiting to see who will walk the surface of the Moon again, still waiting for my flying car (oh wait there's roadable airplanes I cannot afford). However, we got computers to enable me to rant on the forums (can't do that with a HAL9000).
mfwright@batnet.com
He who controls the spice controls the universe!
first VHS movie i bought
Because of the story it is based on, which I had read before. Westworld (1973) was also pretty good. Unfortunately, there are not so many good Science Fiction movies, although there are quite a few. I don't remember any good recent ones, even though I watch all of them. Metropolis with live classical piano accompaniment was also very good. They Live is also fantastic, and I also liked Solaris (1972). Many more, of course, but I'll stop there.
Edge of Tomorrow came out in 2014, a scant 3 years ago.
Interstellar came out in 2014, a scant 3 years ago.
Looper came out in 2012. It wasn't as big as the other ones I've mentioned, but its box office returns were 6x its production budget (which is much better than some of the bigger names above).
Gravity, 2013, might be argued to not be sci-fi but science fact, but presuming we can reasonably call it Sci fi, it did pretty well, bringing in about $723M in revenues.
Inception, 2011, made approximately 5.5x its budget and brought in around $826M, which is successful by most people's account
District 9, 2009, brought in only around $210M, but only cost around $30M or so, so a 7x multiplier, and hugely popular
(all numbers courtesy of http://www.boxofficemojo.com/)
Now, it's likely -- this being Slashdot -- that someone will argue that some/all of these movies aren't good, or particularly original. That's fine. The original claim was "no successful Sci-fi movies in the last decade who aren't remakes, [s|pr]equel, or spin-offs. None of these movies are that.
Not a 'great' movie, but for sure one of my favourites. =)
Night Watch (Russian: , Nochnoy dozor) is a 2004 Russian urban fantasy supernatural thriller film written and directed by Timur Bekmambetov. It is loosely based on the novel The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, and is the first part of a duology, followed by Day Watch. You have to watch both movies to get the complete narrative and it is friggin awesome! This is one of the best sci-fi/fantasy movies I have ever seen!
Primer
As far as I know, it's the only one that involves time-travelling without inconsistencies, although I may have missed several.
Star Wars easily. If you saw it back in when it was released, it was a life changing event!
So many other great ones out there too, I'm enjoying the majority of the lists so far. But nobody has mentioned the original scary monster space movie:
Alien
And I don't think I've seen any of the big Japanese anime films mentioned so within my top 2 or 3 is:
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Finally, my favorite during my college days, even the trailer blew me away:
The Matrix
Not a popular movie, but it's my favorite. It accomplishes the almost impossible task of thoroughly explaining 2001, for a start.
Other things I like about it? HAL 9000 redeems himself. We find out what his problem was and who was responsible. Then HAL sacrifices himself to save lives.
Another nice bit - the science in this movie is just about 100%. The zero gravity, the air brake scene, the actual 3d environment of space where the Discovery is simply tumbling. Space ships aren't moving around like flat horizontal pieces on a chess board. The only flaw I can find is when Jupiter ignites there is a sound, which of course there wouldn't be. But that's about it.
It's a great story and it's told very well.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Loved the fist Matrix movie. Philosophy, virtual reality, crazy new visual effects. I remember walking out of that movie and there was silence from the audience. Many were still processing the meaning and some were discovering brand-new ideas for the first time.
Colossus: The Forbin Project
So many others,
A Boy and His Dog
Quintet
Zazrdoz
Oh yeah and I forgot, The Ice Pirates, fucking Robert Urich.
Maybe considered sci-fi/fantasy but hands down my favorite movie ever. I prefer the director's cut since it excludes some of the hand-holding voice-overs. The story is great, it was shot "film noir" style, has great sound track and an excellent cast. I think "Richard O'Brien" played a perfectly creepy stranger. I like how they cast Jennifer Connelly as the caring wife of her homely husband (Rufus Sewell). William Hurt played a great contemplative Det. Bumstead. I could go on.
The question was just about "sci-fi movies" and not about "sci-fi movies but not in space". But ok:
Source Code
Chappie
Ex Machina
Edge of Tomorrow
Elysium
Tomorrowland
Limitless
The Book of Eli
Better? ;)
WTF? Arrival, the Martian and Interstellar were all successful science fiction movies made within the last ten years. They met the criteria perfectly, why by condescending?
Right, right, right... but apart from Avatar, Edge of Tomorrow, Interstellar, Looper, Gravity, Inception, and District 9, what have the Romans ever done for us?!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Hard To Be A God (2013) is also good.
The question was about "successful" movies. Not about "movies liked by people over 30/50/90 years old". I'd argue that box office IS one criteria for measuring success.
That said, I do like all the movies I listed. If that makes me young, so be it.
I find that there are few movies that I can watch more than once, but I've seen The Thing many times and will watch again. The paranoia and fear among the characters is palpable, and there is no lame CGI.
You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Did you see Daywatch? If not, you need to watch both back to back. The conclusion is friggin awesome! One of my friends that is a movie buff didn't understand the conclusion of Nightwatch till I explained it to him. It is one of the best ending to a movie ever and ties the two movies together like no other movie I have ever seen. You need to do this!
As you as you start talking about "all times favorites", I think the well known movies like Star Wars come to mind for most of us. I agree with another poster that the first Matrix movie was also top-notch. That one bothers me though, only because the sequels derailed some of the things I liked best about the original. Basically, they took the story to different places I didn't think benefited it and I would have been happier if parts 2 and 3 were never made at all.
One of the low budget sci-fi flicks I really enjoyed, though, was "The Cube". In fact, the limited resources and "unknowns" used as actors and actresses add to the enjoyment because IMO, the whole cast did an amazing job and it's intriguing how so much suspense could be created with a backdrop that's typically just empty white rooms.
Where spacecraft traveling interstellar distances at superluminal speeds. Engage the enemy like WWII fighters (well Steven modeled manuveurs from that war's combat footage), larger ships engaged each other like 18th century navies. And it had flaming fireballs and thunderous explosions in the vacuum of space, yeah!
mfwright@batnet.com
Has to be Darkstar, John Carpenters directorial debut, co written with O'Bannon. It is notable not least for the reuse of the alien beach ball as the star of Alien some six years later. Darkstar is possibly the best $60,000 ever spent on a movie. If you do not tell anyone else I can let on that it can be found on YouTube in a fairly low resolution. Absolute classic and funny as hell. Star Wars is of course Cowboys and Indians in space for twelve year olds.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
...for its thoughtful resolution of the time travel causality paradox.
Dark Star!
Oh wait, James Cameron's been sitting on the rights for that for almost two decades so he can waste our time with giant blue aliens encounter generic military stereotypes.
Either use your rights, or give them to someone else already, John. My opinion of you has gone from top-notch to meh about you over the years. Shit or get off the pot.
this was the movie that set the Flying Saucer as the premier interstellar spaceship design. There were some good special effects, however, I think those effects pretty much blew the budget. They then had to rely on good plot, story, engaging character, script, acting skills, dialog to make this an epic film.
mfwright@batnet.com
Fifth Element. Just like in real life, you know you have an arch nemesis out there, you just may never meet them. Your actions are always in direct conflict with theirs even if you never come face to face with them.
n/t
Have gnu, will travel.
> Avatar came out in 2009, 8 years ago. You could argue there are some derivative ideas in it (as you could argue for any other work of fiction these days), but it was not a remake, not a sequel/prequel, and not a spin-off.
Avatar was a 100% remake of "Dances with Wolves" -- and I'm saying that as someone who bought the BluRay the instant it was available AND The Ultimate Fan's Guide to Avatar
You might enjoy these reads:
* Avatar: A Multi-Dimensional Pop Parable for Ascension
* The Theology of Avatar
What makes Avatar so good is that it is layered -- you have dumb action at the lowest level and interesting perspective/philosophy at the top. It brings the Out-Body-Experience to the forefront of mass consciousness. It hinted that plants were conscious. Lots of interesting questions for the layman to think about.
I would also put some of those originals (and their contemporaries) in the top tier: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, War of the Worlds... Obviously, you have to forgive the limited special effects of the day, but some of the stories were every bit as good as the top-rated films today.
And, though it's not a movie per-se, um... Twilight Zone anyone?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Why do you think moon is overrated? I barely heard about it, and really enjoyed it when I watched it. (I can understand and agree regarding the rest).
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Primer may be my favorite Sci-fi of all time, certainly in the time-travel sub genre.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
The Day the Earth Stood Still,1951
I don't think there is a single story that isn't derivative in some ways.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I'm surprised Howard The Duck hasn't been mentioned yet, I would have thought that was everyone's favourite sci-fi. Or are people not mentioning it because they see it more as a drama?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I love 2001, but many of the key themes are more in the realm of fantasy. I love Forbidden Planet but it's really an adaptation of The Tempest; replacing the sorcery with science. Metropolis is a beautiful film, but it hardly depends on the scientific themes to deliver its message. Same thing with most of the other dystopian films like Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, 1984, or Logan's Run.
But that's really the tricky part about "best science fiction". You've gotta get everyone to agree on what defines quality science fiction.
In whatever order I'm in the mood for, which varies:
Bladerunner - the original, with the narration.
Firefly - TV show same. These were just plain fun, except for the pilot's death, which struck me as uncalled for.
Starship Troopers - loved the twisted angle on government. Great bugs. Would you like to know more?
Paul - hilarious, totally non-serious SF.
Alien (original) - great SF horror, and great SF besides.
Terminator - original
The Martian - really good hard SF, quite rare to find
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because it's an almost totally original concept, not relying at all on hyperdrives or laser canons. Maybe the producers got some ideas from "Stargate" which preceded it by three years.
Because it's suitable for everybody.
Because it's based on something that we can all participate in, the SETI project.
I'm wondering if and hoping that there will be a sequel in 2024.
Ones that sort of straddles the intimate/big effects
District 9 . (south african alien flick)
And ones that straddle the "sheer force of will", low budget, and goofy good category
Iron sky
sky commander and the world of tomorrow
while the latter technically did get the hollywood budget treatement the back story is the key elements were done over 10 years on an old macintosh before being re-made.
My main criteria here is films I enjoy watching again.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
For example, I'm pretty sure that
Anne Hathaway’s Husband Begs Her to Stop Practicing Oscar Acceptance Speech
and John Hinckley, Jr. Furious to Discover Jodie Foster is Gay 32 Years Too Late
Aren't to be taken too seriously :)
The alternate ending version.
BlameBillCosby.com
Or maybe Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Sphere!? You have to be joking. That was a terrible movie. The book was great, but so much of what made it great was internal dialog and psychology that just didn't translate to film.
Knowledge Brings Fear
along with Tremors, Terminator/Terminator2, and Back to the Future. All great ones in my book!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
"Edge Of Tomorrow" - a clever sci-fi interpretation of "Groundhog day" with a good choice of a cast
No special effect and no budget. Just a bunch of good actors in a room with an interesting concept.
This is one of the most ridiculous memes ever. Sound is a mechanical vibration, and Jupiter probably vibrates like hell after it ignites.
What people mean is that there is no direct transmission of physical sound waves through the vacuum of space.
Snooping Through Walls with Microwaves
Laser microphone
Or you could drop a few thumb-sized motes.
I like 2001, the Russian Solaris, and A Scanner Darkly.
Blade Runner and Alien were better than a jab in the eye.
If we further widen the net to include Space Fiction, The Wrath of Kahn rocks; while A New Hope and WALL-E both have their moments.
If we further wide the net to include any form of thematic overlap, I'd include The Right Stuff, Apollo 13, the first Back to the Future, the first Iron Man, select chunks of The Terminator franchise, RoboCop, Young Frankenstein, Dr Strangelove, and certain aspects of The Fifth Element. One might even include the sensibility of Tree of Life or Hugo.
I'll also give an honourable to The City of Lost Children, because I would actually rewatch that movie. Can't recall much of anything about the plot (not usually a good sign), but there's plenty of there there in other regards. In a pinch, I could rewatch Dune as an entertaining car wreck.
Unfortunately, much of the rest of the canon only serves to rouse my appetite without entirely beddin' her back down.
Note that I did not exclude any Spielberg movies by accident. If I had to rewatch one, it would be THX 1138. Spielberg is so sentimental, I'm soon humming Indian Love Call and wishing it would work.
On my list as the least science fiction film ever made would be the original Matrix. Perhaps the humans harvested for their cerebellar electricity was a satirical neoliberal talking point adapted from Ayn Rand.
The Martian may well be forgotten, but it was a much better movie than any that you named. Space Odyssey is practically unwatchable because it's so full of anachronisms. Star Wars is a typical hollywood three-act play. Don't get me wrong, I loved it when I was twelve, but it's not great art, and it's not even great story. The Matrix was fantastic, I loved it, I even use imagery from it in my meditation practice, but there were way too many bandaids. One of them is even the bandaid that my wife and I use to joke about Hollywood scriptwriting bandaids: "combined with a form of fusion..." Alien 2 was pretty good, I'll grant you that, but it was basically a bug hunt.
What is great about The Martian is that it's got story, it's got adventure, it's got a kick-ass optimistic view of the future, and most of the science is fine. There is one plot band-aid at the beginning—the windstorm that can knock over a spaceship—but that's the worst one. And above all else, the film honors and lauds science. That's what science fiction is about, not blasters and bugs.
Children of Men (2006) It is about civilization collapsing, after 18 years of global human infertility. No spaceships, no aliens, no CGI; just a great story and amazing performances.
I thought Moon was a great movie, but my biggest issue was that carelessness on the part of the movie makers left a bunch of not-hints that misled me to believe that he wasn't actually on the moon. e.g. when he exited the airlocks he was clearly not entering a vacuum, there were a few opportunities to showcase low gravity that were (what I thought was intentionally at the time) passed up. Up until the very end I was expecting him to run one of the vehicles off the grid and through the side of a giant dome to reveal that he was basically in the truman show: moon edition.
And if you think about it, that actually would make an interesting premise. Take a guy off the street who doesn't understand science very well, tell him you'll pay him a bunch to go to the moon (or mars... mars one reality show anyone?) for 3 years, stick him in a box with some rocket noises, give him some handwavium technobabble during his "training" that explains why he won't feel the gravity difference (assuming your citizen of average intelligence even understands there would be a gravity difference), stress the fact that he'll die if he goes outside without his space suit on, and I bet you could trick someone for quite a bit of time.
That and then the scene at the end with the corridor stretching off into infinity really annoyed me. That was enough to last up into the 1000s of years, at which point I'd think shipping up that many replacements kind of exceeds the expected life of the station by several orders of magnitude, and kind of squandered any kind of cost advantage they thought they were gaining.
Normally, everyone says Bladerunner. The latter is truly great, but it lacks the story and character development of Gattaca.
The only real competition to Gattaca is Donnie Darko, but few think of it as sci-fi. Amazing they both came out in 2001.
Matrix clearly superb, as is 2001: A Space Odyssey.
"Her" is a great little film, the best sci-fi since Gattaca.
Empire Strikes Back, Terminator (original) and The Thing -- all these are either perfect or borderline perfect.
It is easily the first scifi film I remember watching when I was a kid, I remember most of the star wars and stuff but the first one I can remember was TRON. I also vividly remember The Last Star Fighter, and Wargames.
Man, came here looking for Brazil, no mentions so far. I hope everyone takes the time to see this film.
Solaris is my favorite, and a very, very close second is 2001.
I will probably be chastised for this... I always loved Demolition Man. Stallone is a terrible actor, the film isn't particularly artistic or high-brow, but it was a fun film, a sci-fi premise (right down to the morality study of today's society by using an abstract world).
I liked it... sure, not the artistic appeal or thought provoking ability of Gattica. Perhaps not the commercial draw of Avatar. Still a fun film.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Not my favorite, but not mentioned yet
Men in Black
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Space Odyssey was based on a book
Nope, read the foreword to the book. Clarke wrote the book at the same time as working on the screenplay. The book was, as I recall, released slightly earlier than the film, but neither was based on the other.
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District 9 was terrible. The premise was lifted directly from Alien Nation and the 'racism is bad' theme was ham fisted and the films assumption that all Nigerians are criminals somewhat detracted from its ability to retain moral authority regarding prejudice.
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In addition to being around longer, we only discuss the good ones. Here we are discussing five standout movies over nearly 50 years rather than the thousands of terrible movies released over the same period. Yeah, most movies today suck. The same was true in 1980, but we don't waste our time re-watching "Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Not much science but using a video game to screen for hidden talents was pretty good. Plus Robert Preston was great as the alien.
If you're going with TQOOS, why is there no complementary love for Plan 9 From Outer Space?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Not best, but pretty good and different. Made in 2007, but looks like it was made in the 70's.
It's an "in-universe" propaganda movie to get people jacked up for war and boost recruitment numbers.
Think "Triumph of the Will" meeting "Top Gun".
Except it's Verhoeven behind the camera. And when he satirizes something he dials it up to 11.
And then he breaks off the dial and replaces it with a "MORE!!!" button, which he then beats with a hammer until there's nothing left to indicate that it's a satire.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The 1972 Russian version, is the only thing that comes immediately to mind.
Chris Marker's 1962 film is my perfect science fiction movie.
If you ever get the chance, watch it in the original French, with subtitles. The dubbed English version is not nearly as good. For some reason, since I first saw it when I was in the Film School at the School of the Art Institute back when Jimmy Carter was president, every frame has stuck with me.
It has influenced directors ever since.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd love to list only relatively unknown ones: K-PAX, Coherence, Primer, OXV: The Manual, Los cronocrÃmenes, Twelve Monkeys, Source Code, The Butterfly Effect, Moon, Europa Report, Perfect Sense, Franklyn, The Signal, The Machine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I watched Gattaca recently with my daughter. Only to find news articles the next day about the limited approval to use DNA editing on embryos in the U.S. to prevent diseases (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/us-panel-gives-yellow-light-human-embryo-editing). That combine with the recent advances of CISPR... makes this movie a very real possibility. I think it should be required watching for any legislators working on any genetic editing laws.
I never did understand why Live Action Disney movies of the past never did well... I really loved The Black Hole... I think I even had a Lunch Box... Other good ones: The Absent-Minded Professor Tron And for a more modern favorite (but not Disney): Stargate
The best.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The Matrix.
Watching that movie for the first time with no idea what it was about was fantastic - was it a hacker movie? alien invasion? spy thriller or detective movie? some kind of martial arts superhero movie? Going down the rabbit hole was great.
A shame they never made a sequel...
Solaris. NOT the Clooney/McElhone version, the Soviet version, made back in 72 or so
Also on the list is Stalker, also by Tarkovsky. But calling that SciFi is borderline. The first half hour at least is absolutely stunning. Cate Blanchett once said every frame of that movie is burned into her retina.
And then there is always Blade Runner, The Matrix, Alien and The Martian.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
The best science fiction movie of all time is a short (half-hour) black/white French film called "La Jetée" [translates as the airport's observation deck]. It is in the format of scanned photos with narration, like Ken Burns' PBS documentaries.
A child sees a man crumble and die while visiting Paris Orly airport's observation deck in 1962. Shortly after there is total nuclear war. Because he is obsessed with this image of a man's death, he is selected to be a guinea pig in an experiment to send him time traveling into the future in order to get an energy source to restart civilization. He succeeds in moving in time, but always ends up in the pre-war era. There, he meets a beautiful woman and falls in love.
It doesn't sound like much, but it is a true masterpiece. MIT even published a coffee-table book detailing every scene.
It is super low-budget. One scene that shows the Arc of Triumph in Paris with a huge chunk blown out of it actually has a pin hole from a thumbtack displayed in it.
David Bowie did a homage to it in video for a song from his Black Tie/White Noise album in the early 1990s.
It is available on DVD from most big-city library systems.
That `ring' from the Death Star explosion has always bothered me. To this day I keep thinking they should have made that a spherical blast effect.
Then watch the *original* or *revisited* version (if you can't find it, here's a clip comparing them). There is no 'ring' explosion in the *original* or *revisited* version, only the "special" edition has that particular abomination...
AFAIKT, this controversy is probably only second to the han-shot-first controversy...
A thought provoking and well done trump through a serious possibility. Adding it to the list here as I find favor with nearly all the suggestions but found this one mysteriously missing.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt03...
Nothing evolves faster than the word of god in the minds of men who think themselves divinely inspired.
Star Wars had such an impact because of the world building - that element was good science fiction. The actual story was pretty shallow fantasy, but so many more stories were told in the world that movie created.
I was 12 when Star Wars came out. I'll tell you why it was popular. All of the big science fiction of the late 60's and most of the 70's was heavy with political and social messages. There was no real pulp science fiction. According to "Logan's Run" and "Soylent Green" we were doomed because of overpopulation. "2001" was about a computer killing people. In "The Omega Man" humanity is wiped out by a disease that turns people into zombie vampires. The only real movie science fiction franchise of the time, "Planet of the Apes", was about civilization being wiped out by a nuclear war. Star Trek of course had its social messages. By the late 70's we were more than ready for some good mindless fun.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Eh, I watched Ex Machina and Chappie (and Wall-E and Big Hero 6) on the same transpacific flight, and I think they all belong... exploring different aspects of the same AI imagination. Maybe more on the level of Short Circuit, but it was still cute. Anyway, same director as District 9, and it's a neat and somewhat pragmatic vision of the not-too-distant future.
I wouldn't say the following are necessarily the best for eating popcorn, but they are the ones that I think really show how the genre can be great:
2001 (enough said)
Ghost in the Shell (the anime version)
Solaris (Tarkovsky version)
Metropolis
Honorable mentions:
Primer
Gattaca
Her
Moon
San Junipero (Short from the series "Black Mirror")
Also https://xkcd.com/657/
Released right before Star Wars upped the game as far as special effects ... great concept, wild sets, including an ice cave patrolled by an insane robot, a domed utopian/dystopian city, and Washington DC covered in vines... wonderful stuff.
The original from the 80s, not the remake.
No true Scotsman would agree with your assessment.
They actually wrote a script for a sequel. A good one. A really, really good one. It had everything. It explained the missing links of the first one. It cast Morpheus into a MUCH darker light. And presented a really interesting dilemma: Is it acceptable to kill billions to free a few thousands. The dialogue between the Agents and Neo near the end alone is an absolutely priceless goosebumps moment of high cinema.
Read it yourself. And weep that this movie never saw the light.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry, but no. I have NEVER EVER read a worse book.
What do you have? A completely unlikable protagonist, a Mary-Sue character if there ever was one, worse than in any Star Trek fanfic. Knows everything, can do everything, and every other important figure wants to be his friend and suck up to him. And being immortal he doesn't even have the decency to die at the end and sacrifice himself for everyone else, which is about the only redeeming feature those Mary-Sues have.
Plus, there is zero character development. None. At the start, when he acts all childish, kicks out the nudists for not conforming to his whims and flushing everything when he notices he made mistakes, you'd think that in the end he realizes that this is morally wrong and that one shouldn't do that, you'd expect some sort of catharsis, some insight, some atonement and eventual redemption so he would in the end emerge as a better god... but no. Nope. In the sequel he sends his son down (who is a far more likable character) and has him tortured and killed because ... reasons.
Sorry, but that book just sucks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For me there is absolutely no contest. Blade Runner (director's cut or Final Cut, obviously) shows a world that is fleshed out, a world that feels real and realistic, where your natural reaction is "yeah, this is how the world could be in 50 years". It's not huge on special effects fanfare, technology exists naturally in the world and no big occasion is made of it. It feels natural and grounded.
The Fifth Element is a close runner-up. It's just so big and colorful and goddamn French, like nothing else. It's a visual extravaganza and one hell of a ride.
And I have to mention Dredd as well, because like Blade Runner, it just feels real.
Eat the rich.
Cloud atlas was an honourable failure, and had several storylines that were compelling and believable. It fell apart under its own weight, since just one of its threads could have sustained an entire movie easily. Due to the fact that no-one will watch a ten-hour movie, the Wachowski's could only really scratch the surface of each storyline, which ultimately let all of the stories down.
But Jupiter Rising is total, complete, absurd, nonsense. And believe me, I did pay attention, it's a little bit patronising to suggest that people didn't like it because they couldn't follow it. I could follow it fine, thanks. It was just very, very, very bad indeed.
Now, I know, it's not science fiction.
But my god if you wanted a movie that predicted the future perfectly that was it. Fox News, crazed personalities spinning "news" as entertainment, the fall of communism, right down to the how easily replaceable people in most industries are. There's even a bit where there's filmed terrorism for the sake of broadcast money. It was supposed to be satire, well guess what there's filmed "terrorism" for broadcast money going on all the time in the middle-east. Faked terrorist attacks filmed on high quality cameras and sold as real to the news networks who buy it all up, one wonders how long before ISIS or whatever the next one will be called will realize there's more money in monetizing their youtube terror youtube video and selling their attacks as news stories than there is in trying to hold oil wells.
the han-shot-first controversy...
There is no controversy. There is only the original.
Not the recent silly Hollywood version but the original 1995 Mamoru Oshii anime:
GitS
The sequel is pretty darn good too as are the follow up series.
Quality-wise, I have other Sci-fi-themed movies further up my all time "Movies top" (such as The Matrix, Alien, Total Recall or Blade Runner), but as pure a Sci-Fi flick and based on things I personally enjoy most from Sci-fi, I consider this one to be "most Sci-fi".
It's true: 2001, Matrix, or even Blade Runner might have applied more relevant individual Sci-fi elements, less nonsensical and/or actually referencing stuff that might or even has actually become science (rather than stay fiction), but if you look at it from perspective, the best thing about Sci-fi is not predicting innovation or making applying nice uses to current tech, but creating a perplexing, stylish universe from plausible or even implausible science, past or present. And that's why Star Wars gets it: the lore is just immense and every bit of it applies scientific fiction with a style that is on a class of its own.
In that same perspective, but on different grounds other than lore, I believe my second choice on such a list would definitely be Nolan's Interstellar. No other movie captures an out-of-this-world feeling like Interstellar, and that's special. Sci-fi special.
By far the most interesting movie. It's stuck in my brain all my life.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
ok here goes.. Dune Krull the matrix ghost in the shell and the new movie screw anybody who says otherwise. back to the future bicentennial man cloud atlas demolition man elysium Equilibrium escape/whatever to witch mountain damn best movies every even the freaking new one with the rock. exmachina existenz face-off flight of the navigator what to see the future check out Gattaca hope you are born the right way.. hackers Hancock Her Highlander movies, yes i know some are lame but they tell an interesting story so screw the party line. i robot inception independence day interstellar johnny mnemonic judge dredd jurassic park lawnmower man 12 limitless 2011 looper lucy paycheck resident evil all of them Riddick... don't laugh at me its the bod its all the bod robocop all of them don't judge the older ones are just as good as the new one.. Serenity short circuit source code all the star trek movies yeah even the bad ones.. star wars the old ones, the new ones are like luke warm milk, u can drink it but i wouldn't recommend it. Swordfish, made to laugh at the bad hacking.. Terminator, only the 4th on salvation i loath. the 6th day, i love Arnold FU world butterfly effect, cause it was a profound affect on me. The day the earth stood still both of them. The fountain? i am not sure it is sci-fi The Giver one my fav fav The Ice Pirates The Illusionist The Jacket its time travel its SCIFI The Last Starfighter The lost room tv/movie miniseries the Machine The Prestige The 13th floor the time machine The X Files? The Zero Theorem The Fifth Element The Martian The Signal Time Cop Total Recall old one Tron old and new 12 monkeys waterworld x-men movies all of them except #2 last but not least Zardoz for shits and giggles
NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER GIVE UP! "No limitations, no boundaries, there is no reason for them."
Back To The Future 19
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