Favorite top 5 Classic Sci-Fi movies

[mrc1214]

TAG started a thread about TV Shows a little while ago so just to switch it up from the comic talk what are your top 5 Sci-Fi movies. I know we have a TV/Film board but I don't go over there.
1. Blade Runner
2. The Road Warrior
3. Escape from New York
4. The Thing (1982)
5. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

[CaptCleghorn]

2001: A Space Odyssey
Alien
Blade RUNNER
Silent Running
Soylent Green

[dan bailey]

Has to be '50s sf, of course. I mean, I think extremely highly of most of the movies already mentioned -- about half of them are some of my favorite films ever, period (I've never gotten around to seeing Escape from NY or Soylent Green, for some reason ... Blade is solid, but if it's sf, I'm an astronaut) -- but a thread that asks about classic sf flicks & doesn't start wtih the '50s is the equivalent of a classic comics discussion that passes over the Silver Age. Personally, I just can't do it.

Off the top of my head --

Them!
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original)
The Day the Earth Stood Still
It Came from Outer Space
The Monolith Monsters

Again, that's completely off the cuff. The likes of The Thing (original), I Married a Monster from Outer Space, Invaders from Mars, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, The Incredible Shrinking Man & probably at least a good dozen or so more from that era are also strong contenders.

[Jezebel Bond]

Not sure about my top 5, but I'm sure #1 is the first Terminator film. Also, would The Crow be considered sci-fi? If so, it's at #2...

I was also expecting to see Star Wars all over the place...it's nowhere in sight yet in the above posts

[thwhtGuardian]

I numbered them for the sake of the thread but honestly they're all so good that I don't think the order I presented them in has any relation to their relative worths.

1) The Day the earth Stood Still
2)A Trip to the Moon
3)Forbidden Planet
4)2001
5)Metropolis

[shaxper]

1. Frankenstein
2. Metropolis
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. AI: Artificial Intelligence
5. Battle for the Planet of the Apes

[Artycool8or]

I'm not sure if they qualify to be Classics, but these are the must see on my list:
1. DARK CITY (1998)
the rest are not in chronological order
- Impostor (2001)
- Equilibrium (2002)
- Deep Rising (1998) (Man, would I love to see a sequel to this movie)
- The Fifth Element (1997)
and the guilty pleasure:
- Monolith (1993)
most anticipated:
- Thelomeris: City Of Time (Coming soon)

[dan bailey]

Not sure about my top 5, but I'm sure #1 is the first Terminator film. Also, would The Crow be considered sci-fi? If so, it's at #2...

When I caught The Crow on cable 8 or 9 years ago, I think I missed the very beginning ... but doesn't the title character basically just return from the dead to wreak vengeance? If so, that strikes me as horror rather than sf.

For some reason I've never caught the first Terminator. The sequel was solid, though.

I was also expecting to see Star Wars all over the place...it's nowhere in sight yet in the above posts

Nice little movie with a couple of competent sequels (as well as some horrible ones, I gather), but insanely overrated, especially by an unfortunate generation of fanboys who elevated it to some sort of pathetic religion.

[dan bailey]

And shaxper's resonse to Justin Crowe's mentioning 12 Monkeys reminds me that I should've included it in my list of personal favorites from the last few decades.

At the dollar theatre in North Little Rock I remember seeing it & Seven back-to-back. That was ... not uplifting.

[The Confessor]

The Krays is also a pretty darn good movie, IIRC.

Even with two members of '80s new romantics Spandau Ballet in the lead roles it was still great.

I was also expecting to see Star Wars all over the place...it's nowhere in sight yet in the above posts

So far, it's not appeared at all and frankly, I'm proud of you Classic Comics forum!

Star Wars really isn't sci-fi, it's space fantasy...and yes, there is a difference. Actually, it's one of my personal annoyances to see Star Wars described as sci-fi...which it all too often is.

For me, sci-fi has to have some anchor, no matter how tenuous, in real life. For example, Star Trek or Blade Runner are sci-fi because they're set in our future and involve humans beings. Likewise, Frankenstein, The First Men In The Moon or even Battlestar Galactica are sci-fi because they have some tie to our real world. Star Wars, on the other hand, has no ties to our world. There are no human beings in it (even the likes of Han Solo and Princess Leia are Corillian and Alderaanian respectively....not human).

The saga never visits our solar system or galaxy and aside from an ill-advised mention of a "duck" in the original Star Wars novelization (which we can put down to author Alan Dean Foster not quite "getting it"), there is nothing to suggest that Star Wars even takes place on the same plane of existence to us. Sure, it says at the start of each film "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." but that's so vague that it could be billions of years ago in an altogether separate parallel universe.

Can I get a witness?

Nice little movie with a couple of competent sequels (as well as some horrible ones, I gather), but insanely overrated, especially by an unfortunate generation of fanboys who elevated it to some sort of pathetic religion.

Man, you oldies just don't understand us young kids, with our crazy rolling rocker music and long hair (and lightsabers)!

[dan bailey]

For me, sci-fi has to have some anchor, no matter how tenuous, in real life. For example, Star Trek or Blade Runner are sci-fi because they're set in our future and involve humans beings. Likewise, Frankenstein, The First Men In The Moon or even Battlestar Galactica are sci-fi because they have some tie to our real world. Star Wars, on the other hand, has no ties to our world. There are no human beings in it (even the likes of Han Solo and Princess Leia are Corillian and Alderaanian respectively....not human).

They sure look human to me. You're not, perchance, confusing human with Terran, are you? If I were to have a grandchild (which would be difficult, not having any children to begin with) born on, I dunno, Callisto, it would be human; it just wouldn't be Terran.

Maybe you're right, though, & Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, & all those other characters who look just as human as anyone I'll see out on the street today (assuming I stir from my abode, as I'm planning to do) -- actually, since I'm in the middle of Alabama, I should probably say "much more human than anyone I'll see out on the street today" -- are actually of a different species altogether, & George Lucas' signal failure of imagination is at fault once more. As a real student of SW, you'd certainly know better than me.

(Nice reference to First Men in the Moon, btw -- another one that's warranted earlier mention.)

[Slam_Bradley]

Can I get a witness?

Not from this area. I find the contortions people go through to try to make Star Wars "not science fiction" to be hilarious. It's classic space opera, pure and simple. I'll agree that it isn't the be-all end-all, but it's clearly SF.


And Bailey...get you hands off Kurt's shtick.

[mrc1214]

... Blade is solid, but if it's sf, I'm an astronaut) -- but a thread that asks about classic sf flicks & doesn't start wtih the '50s is the equivalent of a classic comics discussion that passes over the Silver Age. Personally, I just can't do it..

What genre do you consider Blade Runner to be in? Clockwork Orange usually gets mentioned as sci-fi as well.

I agrre about not starting in the 50s I just haven't seen many movies from that era. And I mean any movies not just sci-fi. Anything classic to me is from the 80s back but I'm 25 and still have alot of movies to watch.

[shaxper]

What genre do you consider Blade Runner to be in? Clockwork Orange usually gets mentioned as sci-fi as well.

Are you two talking about the same film? Blade Runner = very sci-fi, Blade = not.

I agrre about not starting in the 50s I just haven't seen many movies from that era. And I mean any movies not just sci-fi. Anything classic to me is from the 80s back but I'm 25 and still have alot of movies to watch.

This statement (and Dan's) completely ignores the critical sci-fi work done in the 20s, 30s, and 40s. You can't lump all of that into one Golden Age. In contrast, I think a lot of 50s sci-fi was incredibly campy and just as fun but artistically void as most Atom Age superhero stories of the time.

[mrc1214]

Are you two talking about the same film? Blade Runner = very sci-fi, Blade = not. .

You're right sir. I am in the wrong thats what you get for posting from a phone. I didn't see someone posted Bladeand just assumed dan was being cool and just putting Blade meaning Blade Runener. You know like people my age say cray instead of crazy.