Favorite top 5 Classic Sci-Fi movies

[Artycool8or]

Jack Nicholson RULES.
Zombies SUCK!

[dan bailey]

No wonder you think Kubrick's Shining is so wonderful, given your apparent complete lack of familiarity with horror.

Vampires suck. Zombies chomp.

Also, best regards to your Uncle Jack.

[Artycool8or]

No wonder you think Kubrick's Shining is so wonderful, given your apparent complete lack of familiarity with horror.

If you say so, but there is no credentials for someone who puts 2 Zombie films on his top 5 HORROR list, either. Perhaps there is a place for Zombie flicks on an exclusive Comedy list in a Idiotic sub-genre at that, yes..., but definitely not on a horror list. (Oh, those Zombies they always make me laugh, such a light hearted folklore it is.) Unless, all you have seen is G Rated stuff, then your familiarity would suffice.

Vampires suck. Zombies chomp.

Yes, Vampires Suck, and so do Zombies, but on an entirely different way. If you insist they do chomp... a little... and droll a lot, too.

Also, best regards to your Uncle Jack.

Yeah, about that... He sends you his Regards.

[dan bailey]

Let us know when you hit your teens. I bet you'll be a real little pistol.

[The Confessor]

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.

No, no...the likes of Luke Skywalker et al have absolutely no human ancestry at all. Obviously they look human because...you know, it's only a film and Mark Hamill is a human (or so I've heard), but the humanoid characters in the movies have no connection to earth or to the human race. So, Han Solo is a Corellian, from the planet Corellia, which is not a human colony or somesuch (as per your Calisto example above), but a planet upon which no one with any human ancestry has ever trod.

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

It's classic space opera, sure...but I really don't think it's sci-fi. I have no problem with sci-fi as a genre, but must all space opera automatically be sci-fi? Not as far as I'm concerned, with Star Wars being my "exhibit A".

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.

On a tenuously related note, the Crosby, Stills & Nash song "Wooden Ships" is based on a short sci-fi story that Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Airplane fame) and David Crosby came up with. I'm not exactly sure what the story is supposed to be, but clearly there's been some kind of futuristic war -- possibly involving an invasion of alien robots ("silver people on the shore line, leave us be") -- and a sub-section of human survivors are sailing away from the carnage and destruction on wooden ships to start civilization anew. Obviously the parallels between that scenario and the hippie counter-culture's rejection of mainstream American society's values, its war in Vietnam and its civil rights struggles are pretty clear.

[dan bailey]

It's classic space opera, sure...but I really don't think it's sci-fi. I have no problem with sci-fi as a genre, but must all space opera automatically be sci-fi?

Of course, in the sense that I suppose (might be overly simplifying things here, since as per usual I can't really call myself fully awake) all sequential art is automatically comics. Or all stories set in the Old West are Westerns, whatever else they may be.

[dan bailey]

On a tenuously related note, the Crosby, Stills & Nash song "Wooden Ships" is based on a short sci-fi story that Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Airplane fame) and David Crosby came up with. I'm not exactly sure what the story is supposed to be, but clearly there's been some kind of futuristic war -- possibly involving an invasion of alien robots ("silver people on the shore line, leave us be") -- and a sub-section of human survivors are sailing away from the carnage and destruction on wooden ships to start civilization anew. Obviously the parallels between that scenario and the hippie counter-culture's rejection of mainstream American society's values, its war in Vietnam and its civil rights struggles are pretty clear.

That would be the same Paul Kantner whose LP (with or without various other Jeffersonians; can't remember to whom the record is credited, don't really care & have never sought out the album anyway, though probaby I've heard at least one song courtesy of the Flight Log double-LP comp from when I was a kid) whose Blows Against the Empire won a Hugo some 40 years ago, IIRC.

[berk]

As far as the question of genre titles goes, I think of them more as overlapping or nested than as mutually exclusive zones. So, for example, Alien is obviously science fiction and equally obviously it is horror. To me, when I think about it, the movie's impact is primarily due to its effectivenss as a horror movie. The science fiction setting gives it a unique flavour and style, but I'd say is an important but secondary element. So I'd consider ranking it amongst my top horror before my top SF movies. Same with Star Wars and fantasy. I wouldn't argue the point too strenuously, though. You could make a case that, for example, the horror of Alien is crucially linked to our horror or fear of the alien in general - or perhaps better, the unknown - which might be construed as saying something about our attitude towards science - a means of overcoming that fear by gaining knowledge and doing away with the unknown, but also a risky venture that exposes us to even more frightening unknowns, unknowns we didn't even know about before, as Donald Rumsfeld might say.

[Slam_Bradley]

No, no...the likes of Luke Skywalker et al have absolutely no human ancestry at all. Obviously they look human because...you know, it's only a film and Mark Hamill is a human (or so I've heard), but the humanoid characters in the movies have no connection to earth or to the human race. So, Han Solo is a Corellian, from the planet Corellia, which is not a human colony or somesuch (as per your Calisto example above), but a planet upon which no one with any human ancestry has ever trod.


It's classic space opera, sure...but I really don't think it's sci-fi. I have no problem with sci-fi as a genre, but must all space opera automatically be sci-fi? Not as far as I'm concerned, with Star Wars being my "exhibit A".
.

You can make almost the exact same argument that is made about Star Wars not being SF about Dune. But I don't see very many people doing it.

[Venomous Mask]

Anyone else here as psyched about Prometheus as I am?

[dan bailey]

I know nothing about it, so I"m definitely not psyched.

[shaxper]

Anyone else here as psyched about Prometheus as I am?

I want to be, but I'm not. I honestly don't have much faith in Ridley Scott. Have you ever watched the deleted scenes from Alien? It almost feels like he was trying to do a completely different film, and a really good editor just sort of saved it at the last minute.

[destro]

examples? i sort of remember people being thrown into a pit or locked in a room to be eaten by Zombies (did this happen?). the scariest thing to me about it was the OTT characters and acting. just completely unbelievable. and OMG they had a pet zombie.

Well be fair, brilliant acting was never really the showcase for the Dead movies. By horror movie standards the acting isn't really that bad though. You should watch it again though, the zombie wasn't a pet. A scientist was trying to do behavior modification on it.

I don't think Day is the best of the original 3, but it's my favorite because I find it has the most rewatchability (is that a word?).

[Greg Anderson]

suspect I didIIRC (I haven't seen the flick in at least 25 years -- can't remember if I caught it at the cinema or not, though I think I did -- & obviously have no desire to repeat the experience), Kubrick, self-loving genius that he was, decided to make a movie that of course reflected his personal supergenius better-than-the-book interpretation of the original novel, since he was, of course, an ultra-supergenius as opposed to some hack horror writer.

The movie has some very nice moments, mostly derived straight from King's pages, but Kubrick's own interepretation takes prominent precedence & in so doing shows that he had as much understanding of horror per se as I do jazz or opera (.i.e none whatsoever).

YEESH! Great hate for the Shining. I thought it was a fantastic movie that gets better each time I watch.

[dan bailey]

No accounting for tastes, of course. If I had $1 for every horror flick with perilously low IMDb or Netflix ratings that I've thought highly of, I'd probably be able to finance at least my next Lone Star order.