Greatest Science Fiction Film of all Time

[peter johnson]

Andromeda Strain IS very very good -- for all the reasons you give.
Also, the whole Descending Into the Depths of Hades business, when they enter the lab in increasing levels of Purity, Ring upon Ring, is very mythic.
Good show --
peter johnson

[AndyC]

Roddenberry didn't rip off the plot, although The Cage comes pretty close. He ripped off pretty much everything else. It's not even that there is a mild resemblance, or a suggestion that the movie inspired old Gene. Star Trek, in its original form, was a wholesale ripoff. A lot of the sci-fi trappings are the same. Pike and Kirk are so much like Nielsen's character, it couldn't be a coincidence. Even the speeches about being responsible for all these lives are the same.

Fact is, Gene Roddenberry wasn't the genius people think he is. It was Gene Coon who made that show great. Look at TOS, TNG and the first movies, and it's pretty clear that the more control Roddenberry had, the more it sucked. Not that he didn't contribute a lot, but I suspect Star Trek succeeded more in spite of him than because of him. Doesn't surprise me in the least that he would have borrowed the premise for the show in the first place. Not that Star Trek didn't quickly grow into much more, but watch Forbidden Planet and The Cage together, and one is pretty clearly an imitation of the other.

As for Forbidden Planet lifting its plot from The Tempest, it was always my understanding that that was the point of the movie - a sci-fi adaptation of Shakespeare's story. In fact, the first time I saw it on TV, it was advertised as Shakespeare's Tempest in space. Adapting a classic tale to a new genre is one thing. Copying a movie that came out a few years earlier is another.

[Susan]

I like Andromeda Strain, the movie didn't come to mind but i guess as the thread goes on more will. The camera shots were well done, drawing alot of suspense to various scenes..making us fear something we cannot see (which is often one thing in movies I find the scariest).

on the other hand - i must be the only one here who isn't a forbidden planet fanatic....

[AndyC]

Andromeda Strain is an excellent movie. Liked the way humanity was saved by the disease simply mutating into a non-infectious form, while the human safety precautions almost ruined everything.

Read the book years ago, and found it very enjoyable. Crichton is a fantastic writer, and was even better back before he got too commercial.

Just the same, I just can't bring myself to hand the title of "greatest" to any movie. I can't even settle on a personal favourite. They all have their strengths.

Perhaps if the criteria were more specific, narrowing it down to a subgenre, as has been suggested, or defining what constitutes a great movie. Is greatness measured by financial success, or the movie's influence on later filmmaking, or it's ability to appeal to generation after generation? Or do we judge the quality of the filmmaking, in spite of a lack of success? It also becomes very difficult when we must judge each film in the context of the time it was made. The special effects of Star Wars, in 1977 terms, beat the hell out of most science fiction movies today. Forbidden Planet, for the 50s, might be better than Star Wars. It's all very subjective.

[trekgeezer]

Glad to see someone giving Gene Coon some of the credit he deserves for the success of  Star Trek.  ST:TMP stunk because Roddenberry didn't know how to produce a motion picture and didn't even have a finished script when they started filming.  Later this caused him to be stuck with the bane of Star Trek , Rick Berman. Berman was a bean counter made producer so Paramount could have a baby sitter for  Gene because they didn't  trust him.  Michael Piller, Ira Steven Behr, Ronald D. Moore,  Rene Echeverria, and a lot of other good writers made  TNG  the success it became .  A  lot of the scripts in the first two seasons were adapted from Star Trek: Phase II scripts.

Gene was a good at concept, but after TOS  he was not good at execution.

[Haze]

I enjoy the charm of Ray Harryhausen's 50s schlock.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers... they all come to mind when I think of great science fiction.

I also like the inclusion of Quatermass and the Pit, most of the Quatermass films are at worst worthy sci-fi and at best, in the top echelon.

[Kory]

I saw "It Came from Beneath the Sea" the other night-   It's a story about a giant nuclear squid that terrorized submarines and the San Francisco area.  The female that played one of the biologists was none other that the woman from "This Island Earth".  

It's definitely NOT the greatest Sci Fi flick of all time, but I thought it an honorable mention as far as cheesy 50's Sci Fi flicks.


PS for anyone who's seen it:  Regarding the submarine captain- have you EVER seen anyone with bigger ears???

[Pus]

My favorite is a rarely seen movie that is based in Seatle about a man who's dreams come true. His psychiatrist uses these dreams for his own devices and almost destroys the world. It's called "The Lathe Of Heaven". Anyone seen it?

[JohnL]

>My favorite is a rarely seen movie that is based in Seatle about a man who's
>dreams come true. His psychiatrist uses these dreams for his own devices and
>almost destroys the world. It's called "The Lathe Of Heaven". Anyone seen it?

The original starring Bruce Davison or the remake starring Lucas Haas?

I've seen them both. I think I like the original better.

[Flangepart]

Well, before he got promoted, he was a REALY good sonar operator....

[Pus]

The original is my favorite. And the setting is Portland, not Seattle. My bad.

[Dave Munger]

I rented Moontrap, and I seriously expected it to be one of the great classics of the genre! It starts out so well! I think that's what hurts worst in a crappy movie, when it gets your hopes up.