Favorite top 5 Classic Sci-Fi movies

[Cei-U!]

Your willingness to not only admit but indeed trumpet your faults is not only brave but also even sort of heartwarming.

Oh, I'm far more cunning than that.

Cei-U!
I summon the proper attribution!

[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.)

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

King Kong is probably more of a science fiction than Star Wars, but I think it's an "in the eye of the beholder" thing. Science fiction is a very broad category and it allows for a lot of different kinds of stories.

[Chris N]

Blade Runner is my all time favorite.
I have appreciation for 2001, but certainly do not love it. I fear I have not seen enough 50s sci/fi. To my mind the best sci/fi is all pretty recent.

Let me make a random guess at a 5:
1. Blade Runner
2. Moon
3. Dark City
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. A Clockwork Orange

That was a little random. I also love: Gattaca, Truman Show, The Matrix, Wall-E and many others.

Source Code was the most recent movie that I saw which I think will stand the test of time as great sci/fi.

Jurassic Park is probably where my love of sci/fi movies began.

When I think of my favorite sci/fi movies, I think of the movies where the exploration of the sci/fi ideas takes prominence. As opposed to Alien, which I see as a great action/horror movie with science fiction elements. Serenity is among my favorite movies, but I'll always think of it as a space opera (or space western) rather than sci/fi. I find the Star Trek movies tend to straddle the line a bit more, but tend to be at their best when they take a space opera over sci/fi focus (Wrath of Khan/First Contact versus Final Frontier/Insurrection)

The one movie I didn't include, because not enough people would call it sci/fi is Memento. But I was tempted to include it because it strikes me as great sci/fi, although it extrapolates off real science as opposed to imagined science.

And finally there are the supehero movies, which I prefer to separate for personal reasons, because they make up a good chunk of my favorite movies. But Spider-Man 2 is actually my favorite movie one might call sci/fi.

[mrc1214]

(see also: hideous hair metal like Guns 'n Posers),
*ahem*

My eyes Dan I'm going to pretend you didn't type that. I love GnR. Do you find that they stole from other bands? I know they covered the Dead Boys aint it fun.

Do/Did you like any bands or singers that are considered mainstream?

[Fesch_]

This has been at the very top of my "To Watch" list for almost a year now. Can't wait until school is over and I finally have the time!

Stalker is one of the best movies of all time. And one of the few sci-fi films that actually foresaw the future (at least, visually speaking: Chernobyl before Chernobyl).

On the other hand, I don't dare to make a top list (too many movies), but it would definitely be filled with lots of 50's sci-fi. I guess it would look similar to dan bailey's list, with Them! right on top. Or maybe not, depending on my mood at the moment I compiled it. BTW, though Metropolis has been mentioned several times, I don't see Lang's Woman in the moon, which is worth mentioning because of its amazing rocket physics for the epoch.

Mmm, does Franju's Les yeux san visage count as (medical) sci-fi or as horror?

[Brother Justin Crowe]

Mmm, does Franju's Les yeux san visage count as (medical) sci-fi or as horror?

Definitely horror, and definitely one of the best films of all time in any genre.

[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.

[Cei-U!]

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

Ooh! Oh, that's good! I must capitalize on this! I could say... or maybe... and then there's...

Oh no!

Too!

Many!!

Choices!!!



Cei-U!
I summon the putdown paralysis!

[Chris N]

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.

I would call it classic space opera, pure and simple. I'm not convinced that's too much of a contortion.

[dan bailey]

My eyes Dan I'm going to pretend you didn't type that. I love GnR. Do you find that they stole from other bands? I know they covered the Dead Boys aint it fun.

I just don't find anything they did even remotely innovative or original. And when you add the genuinely insane Axl Rose's (what a shame that his real name, or at least the stepfather version thereof, is the same as my dad's) laughably cliched look-ma-no-testicles "singing" voice to the mix (of course, pretty much the same thing can be said for Robert "I'm not Human, I'm a" Plant), with a large dollop of drugs thrown in for good measure, you've just got a pathetic mess. I mean, take away the quite good first half or so of "Sweet Child o' Mine," & for me nothing worth listening to is left.

Do/Did you like any bands or singers that are considered mainstream?

Oh, sure. Creedence has been a huge favorite since I was about 10 years old. Big T. Rex fan, too. I also have no problem at all with Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Dylan before his death in 1967, Cheap Trick thorugh at least their first 3 albums, The Cars, just about any ELO single I've ever heard, tons of '60s & '70s r'n'b, Prince still he went (even more) nuts, lots of '80s electrofunk & rap, & loads of other stuff not put out in editions of 50 by someone living in a closet in a squat in Leeds.

As it happens, the place I ate lunch today happened to play some unusually agreeable music over the P/A while I was there -- The Cure's "Pictures of You," Berlin's "No More Words," the Pretenders' "Precious," the Banshees' "Kiss Them for Me" & something by, I think, Duran Duran, though it could've been Depeche Mode (can't quite remember, obviously). And then afterward, walking to my car, I heard the Gap Band's "Early in the Morning" (a real treat -- one is far more likely to hear their "Burn Rubber" or "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" in such settings, though of course both of those are stupendously great) as I walked by the next restaurant up. I'm pretty sure none of those are considered particularly esoteric or outre.

[dan bailey]

Source Code was the most recent movie that I saw which I think will stand the test of time as great sci/fi.

Definitely another really good one.

The one movie I didn't include, because not enough people would call it sci/fi is Memento. But I was tempted to include it because it strikes me as great sci/fi, although it extrapolates off real science as opposed to imagined science.

Gave it a go a couple of years ago, but nothing that happened in the first 10 minutes or so made me want to keep watching. I'll try it again one of these years, maybe.

[dan bailey]

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.

Of course it is. Confessor, poor soul, has clearly listened to one self-pitying SoCal singer-songwriter too many, to the point that his brain has collaposed in upon itself.

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

For the record, I'm not lowering myself to respond to this ... except to the extent that I just did.

Hmmmm.

[mrc1214]

I just don't find anything they did even remotely innovative or original. And when you add the genuinely insane Axl Rose's (what a shame that his real name, or at least the stepfather version thereof, is the same as my dad's) laughably cliched look-ma-no-testicles "singing" voice to the mix (of course, pretty much the same thing can be said for Robert "I'm not Human, I'm a" Plant), with a large dollop of drugs thrown in for good measure, you've just got a pathetic mess. I mean, take away the quite good first half or so of "Sweet Child o' Mine," & for me nothing worth listening to is left.



Oh, sure. Creedence has been a huge favorite since I was about 10 years old. Big T. Rex fan, too. I also have no problem at all with Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Dylan before his death in 1967, Cheap Trick thorugh at least their first 3 albums, The Cars, just about any ELO single I've ever heard, & loads of others.

What earlier band would you compare them to or say they stole from? I mentioned the Dead Boys not sure if you like them but I listened to some songs and GnR definitely borrowed/took from them.

berk was recommending me some punk music over in the meanwhile thread if you want to go over there to discuss music. Just so we can keep this thread on topic.