So here I am, at home, all alone, and I'm getting ready to devote my entire Friday night to science fiction. I'm going to watch the "Stargate: Atlantis" special, then the "SG-1" season 8 premiere... and as an extra special bonus, I'll get to watch the "Farscape: Peacekeeper War" teaser trailer (which is scheduled to air during one of the "SG-1" commercial breaks)...
Alright, now that you're done laughing at how much of a geek I am, I wanted to ask this question:
I went to IMDB tonight and looked at their top 50 list of science fiction films. I noticed that Star Wars (the very first movie from 1977) tops the list. Is that really the greatest science fiction movie ever? What do the rest of you think "the best science fiction movie of all time" is?
Forbidden Planet
>What do the rest of you think "the best science fiction movie of all time" is?
That depends, there are many different types of science fiction. There are action oriented movies, realistic movies, intellectual movies, etc.
The Star Wars films and the Terminator films are good examples of action oriented movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey could be considered a realistic movie (at least up to the point where he enters the monolith). An example of an intellectual movie might be The Andromeda Strain. All qualify as science fiction, but they're very different movies.
Just as JohnL said, there are numerous subgenres of SF films.
But if I had to pick, I'd narrow it down to two films:
Dark City - I absolutely love this film. It never gets old no matter how many times I see it. It's a perfect example of a passive progressive film and it's obvious homages to Metropolis are fantastic.
Blade Runner - Another film that never gets old. This film is by far Harrison Ford's best work in the SF genre. Fantastic music, expertly directed and acted and scripted. (Well all except for the original ending which I caught recently.)
This would have to be 2001: A Space Odyssey. For the time it was made(1965-1968) the SFX compete with most modern science fiction films. I know a lot of people find it boring, but when it was made it was downright awe inspiring and still remains probably the most realistic portrayal of space flight.
This may be a generational thing, but there have been so many big SFX movies that I think it has jaded much of the audience and there isn't much that anyone is awed by any more. I remember seeing this film and the original Planet of the Apes the same year when I was thirteen and nothing like either of these movies had ever been done. I was used to seeing space flight in those old 50's movies, so I have to tell you that this movie just blew me away.
It can also probably be given credit for the beginning of " the paranoid computer takes over" craze in science fiction.
"The Greatest" is such a loaded term.
Trekgeezer can make a great case for 2001, and I'm sort of inclined to agree. One of the best things about 2001 is NO GODDAMN NOISE IN SPACE, which all the Star Wars films have in abundance. Nowadays, even "serious" science-fiction films have very noisy spaceships: Banging and clanging and wooshing and going boom when they explode. I wish it were all silent, with grand musical scores underlying the portentious moments if we must.
My vote for Greatest of All Time is another film that came out the same year (1966), and dealt with many of the same themes: The origins of humanity, the meaning of God and alien life, how the past forms the future, etc. etc.: Hammer Film's "Five Million Years to Earth", aka Quatermass and The Pit.
Ever see it for real? I know at least one of you has because it's listed in the films that scared us as children thread.
The premise that humanity is the result of genetic engineering experiments carried out 5 million years ago by insect hordes of soul-less Martians, whose lingering spirits may be the origins of fairie legends and Satan himself, is simply priceless. Everytime I see this thing I find some new bit of detail to marvel at.
That and the fact they were working with 1/16th the budget of 2001.
peter johnson
Yeah- I have it on DVD & It's awesome! It is kinda hard, though, to see Leslie Neilson try to do "serious" acting.
>Nowadays, even "serious" science-fiction films have very noisy spaceships:
>Banging and clanging and wooshing and going boom when they explode. I wish
>it were all silent, with grand musical scores underlying the portentious moments if
>we must.
One more recent film did this, but it wasn't exactly science fiction; Moontrap. It was very disorienting to see biomechanical creatures attacking and Walter Koenig fighting them off with a machine gun with no sound effects at all.
Star Wars Episode 4
Hands down.
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sci-fi has a broad spectrum, i don't know if i could say "the best". I can say my favorites. I have my dvd collection divided by genre, and my sci-fi section is the largest, second to that is horror. I guess that says what I like. If I had to make a list they'd include:
Terminator
The Matrix
Logans Run
Close Encounters of the third kind
Time Machine (original)
Fahrenheit 451
It's hard for me to pick between the Body Snatcher movies. Each had their own spin that made them their own. I also love alot of the old Mystery Island and voyage/journey to the bottom movies but i wouldn't list as favorites. I enjoy "pitch black", but i guess enough time hasn't passed for me to rate it's staying power.
(http://datacore.sciflicks.com/logans_run/images/logans_run_large_05.jpg)
Post Edited (07-11-04 00:01)
Star Trek : the Motion Picture ( Director's Edition )
d. by Robert Wise
1979, 2001
Kory wrote:
> Yeah- I have it on DVD & It's awesome! It is kinda hard,
> though, to see Leslie Neilson try to do "serious" acting.
Actually, serious was all Nielsen played until 1980 or so. The makers of Airplaine cast him, along with guys like Robert Stack and Lloyd Bridges, because the disaster spoof needed serious actors. Turned out Neilsen had a gift for comedy.
Anyway, I agree that Forbidden Planet was way ahead of its time, and still holds up pretty well today. It was also quite influential, since it's pretty obvious that Gene Roddenberry borrowed heavily from the movie when he created Star Trek.
I like STAR WARS, but it probably isn't in my top 10 (or maybe even my top 20) sci-fi films. Here are a few of the ones that I think are better (in no particular order):
* 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
* FORBIDDEN PLANET
* INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
* THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
* PLANET OF THE APES
* WAR OF THE WORLDS
* THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN
Re. Forbidden Planet being borrowed from by Roddenberry --
Forbidden Planet's characters and plot is lifted practically verbatim from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Check it out -- get a Cliff Notes version & run the DVD & flip back and forth -- amazing parralells!!
. . . and I don't mean this as a negative criticism, either, just an observation. All the best stories are simply retellings of the ones that went before. Joseph Campbell suggested that there are really only 4 stories to tell in all of human history, and all the grand myths and legends of our times are variations on these themes.
Many people have pointed out that the reason the Star Wars saga works is that it's just one more retelling of what Campbell calls "The Hero With a Thousand Faces" story: Man of lowly stature receives a revelation from Beyond by strange emissaries that he is of Noble Birth and must leave immediately on a Quest to discover his righful heritage, etc. etc.
Hammer Films rule . . .
peter johnson
Well, the best SCIENCE fiction in my humble opinion, is ANDROMIDA STRAIN.
Conciter.
No stupid "Love story" interfearing with the plot.
The scientests are all pros, and the way they get facinated with the challange at hand always impressed me.
They act like pros.
The malfunctions involving the mistakes people make are realistic, and believable.
The action elements are logical, and played out well.
All in all, this seems a flick Susan should conciter a model of "How its done"
I often wonder...would StarFleet Medical use this "Ancient History" as a means of tweaking the minds of budding studients, before they begin their class studies on "Alien lifeform interactions and advanced Procedurial orginisation?"
"Now class, this insight into how such proceduries may seem quaint, but even today, the basic principles do remain consistant. The lab design is not too different from the modles used by Starfleet medical. Who can tell me, what methods used in this story, are NOT being used today? Ens. S'Tall?"
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
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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???
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?
>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.
Well, before he got promoted, he was a REALY good sonar operator....
The original is my favorite. And the setting is Portland, not Seattle. My bad.
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.