Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan
Zap guns, robots, lightspeed-smashing spaceships and bikini-busting princesses do not real science fiction make. Just ask George Lucas. Star Wars defined movie SF in the mind of many a mainstream viewer. But while the film and its sequels and, er, prequels certainly provide the sci-fi enthusiast with thrills a-plenty - guilty or …
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Swiss film "The Cargo"!
Absolutely brilliant! A nice little horror edge, a little though provolking and a little bit of gentle romance. German language with English subs, nobody I'd heard of and for once not wrecked by big named, short-arsed, short-tempered Hollywood B-listers with wooden acting skills that could be bettered by a broom handle!
Oh, and one other thing: Dark Star
Dark Star was the first movie to show the non-utopian(*) version of the Sci-Fi space travel future: bored, lonely people in a cramped uncomfortable dirty spaceship with everything breaking down and going wrong and a disinterested planet Earth back home cutting off their funding.
(*) - Yes, I mean non-utopian as opposed to dystopian. I'm treating topianity as (at least) three-valued, and I don't think it's really about a dystopia
Re: Oh, and one other thing: Dark Star
Dark Star is superb. But a comedy, not a serious sci-fi fillum.
Re: Oh, and one other thing: Dark Star
Wrong. it IS serious sci-fi, but a comedy film, unlike Star Trek which is mostly a serious film but comedy sci-fi.
Tarkovsky
<i>Solaris</i>, absolutely. But my God, not the remake. Tarkovsky is <b>way</b> better. And while we're thinking of the genius of the man, <i>Stalker</i> should also be in this list. In fact, remove everything from the list as it is, and just slot all of his films in there, 'Sci-Fi' or not. That's all that sentient fans need.
Re: Tarkovsky
I thought the remake (I didn't see the original) was '2001' set in a different plane (...the jogging track). And unless my dvd didn't include the audio track, I don't think there was any dialogue in the movie....
Solaris is great, yes indeedy!
Kudos for mentioning Solaris. The original and the remake are both superb movies, though the styles are stunningly different.
Total Recall
The original Total Recall is one of my favourite movies of all time, in the top 10. But the recent remake - I swear to *Deity* - it illustrates everything that is wrong with modern corporate Hollywood!
REMAKE FAIL
Re: Total Recall
Eadon gets a FAIL correct!
HELL REFRIGERATION FAIL
Re: Total Recall
Total Recall is great but rarely gets acknowledged as a classic as people can't overlook Arnie. Remake was awful.
Re: Total Recall
Not one mention of Ripley either ooooh how could you!
"The character has been included in many Best Characters lists: In 2011, Total Film ranked her first of their top of the 100 Greatest Female Characters.[1] Ripley has been selected as the eighth-greatest hero in American cinema history by the American Film Institute, as fifth-coolest hero in pop culture by Entertainment Weekly,[2] the ninth-greatest movie character ever by Empire (the highest-placing female of the list), and the eighth-best movie character of all time by Premiere,[3] In 2011, John Scalzi called her "Clearly the Best Female Character in Scifi Film"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Ripley
Cyber Punk Masterpiece
Permit me to mention a little known gem - One Point 0 aka Paranoia 1.0
It's a low budget cyberpunk movie which is stunning. HIGHLY recommended, completely brilliant! But it's not for those with short attention spans who want explosions and CGI aliens.
Primer
Can't believe Primer is not on this list, surely one of the the most intelligent, intriguing and frightening films of the last 10 years?
Re: Primer
Damned right - more serious than half the films in the article, fully realises its premise (and then some) and delivered in a realist style that reminds me of the real-life young scientists and engineers I've seen in their places of work. Confusing as hell though, but by necessity.
A scandalous omission for the Reg, especially as the first act resembles a documentary about a silicon valley start-up.
The creators of Primer have a new film out this year- 'Upstream Color"... IMDB can help you out.
As well as some mentioned above...
Can I suggest:
5th Element
Moon
Primer (yeah - a SciFi film not about space)
Re: As well as some mentioned above...
Oh, and I forgot about The Time Machine (original) and best of all DARK STAR:-)
Things to come?
Some pretty big ideas in there too.
Also agree that Metropolis should be in there. . But only the 2010 rekease.
Zardoz is completely pants.
Re: Things to come?
"Things to Come" is in the public domain now. Check it out on archive.org. It's a site worth checking out for a lot of older stuff like "The Brain that Wouldn't Die", "Metropolis", "Plan 9", "Night of the Living Dead" (sci-fi due to the McGuffin "radiation from Venus" explanation for the "ghouls"), "The Lost World", "Virus" and "Le Voyage dans la lune". Lots of B-Movie junk, but some good or historically interesting stuff there.
Stack overflow
A difficult list to fault. I peronally would have dropped Zardoz and Star Trek, but I would have been left trying to fit Silent Running, Dark Star and Moon into those two slots.
Missing a few...
Terminator
Back to the Future
1984
The Matrix
The Fly
Inception
Tron
I'd err, think about finding the exit Tim. Here, take your coat. You'll need it.
Re: Wot no Matrix?
Well, apart from the excellent Animatrix...
Good choice..
..but the ElReg readers and Forumites have also added some classics that need mentioning:
Silent Running, without a doubt a grear classic, although it was a 70's eco awareness type message. I loved the three little tape driven drones, Hewie, Louie and Dewie... I was young when I saw it and it sowed the seeds that made me an eternal SciFi fan..
Sunshine: Visually stunning and also real scifi in the fact that mankind would dontate his nuclear arsenal to rekindle the sun... but it was the little things like how a slight alteration in course almost led to disaster and even with all the technology in place, man is the weakness that made the maiden mission fail..
Black Hole, sure I am going to hell for digging this Disney "classic" out, but it was entertaining and also visually brilliant for its era too.
Event Horizon: Love it or hate it, it was believable SciFi with some scares in the plot. Quite enjoyable and one of LFJr's better roles as a stern faced, no nonsense salvage crew commander
Re: Good choice..
- me too "Hell is only a word. The reality is much, much worse."
Re: Good choice..
So more of a horror film than SF? But agree well scary!
Re: Good choice..
i'm a big sci-fi fan, but not a fan of horror
somehow, i only saw sci-fi in the trailers for Event Horizon and figured any film with Sam Neil has to be good right?
so completely came as a surprise when the horror begins in the movie.
still, damn good film, despite the lack of sleep i endured afterwards. wish i could bring myself to watch it again
No love for Dune?
Yes, faults galore (please don't mention the sandworms!), but for all that a film I can watch again and again, not least for the brilliant styling and costume design.
Missing Silent Running is surprising, but missing Dark Star is actually unforgivable.
Re: No love for Dune?
I quite like Dune, but it's space opera, not sci-fi
Re: No love for Dune?
And based upon a book written as an ecological parable- the same criticism levelled at Silent Running.
Re: No love for Dune?
Dune is too choppy, especially if you read the book. It needs to be a mini-series, unless you have 5 hous to watch a $500 million movie.
Other than that, a great and thought provoking possibility.
Re: No love for Dune?
I suppose someone had to mention it.....and there goes my "pet hate" button.
If only they hadn't reworked the thing to "bring it up to date". What's wrong with leaving it as personal shields 'n swords (the "slow knife" sequence would have actually made some bloody sense then), pointy-nosed rockets, artillery and the family atomics? No, they had to give it a "ray gun" makeover and remove all references to anything "nooculuh" to keep the plebs in the audience on-message.
It all made little sense after they'd butchered the plotline. The implementation and visualisation is fantastic, but the script is unfortunately utter crap.
I hate it for promising so much and yet delivering so little.
Re: No love for Dune?
Ah, Dune, my favourite book of all time...
I doubt they'll ever make a movie to do it justice. I do like David Lynchs' version and I also like the Sci-Fi mini-series interpretation, but both are flawed. The David Lynch version had wonderful sets and good costumes but the plot could not be covered sufficiently to make sense in one movie. The book is all about dialog and the monologue of various characters and does not carry over well into an 'action movie' . The subject matter is related to mysticism, ecology, politics and statecraft., again not easily meshed with the obvious succcessful template of the 'action movie'. Despite the plot changes to give the Atriedies advantage a physical aspect 'the sound gun' and the heretical conclusion that Muad dib is a God and not just a man playing God, I've always felt that the 1984 film would be good if only the missing scenes could be returned (I know they don't exist, but an extra hour to the movie would make the story soo much clearer).
Although the Sci-fi channel version had more time to cover more of the book, it makes several mistakes in characterisation. The costumes (what were they thinking?). Paul starts out an arrogant jerk (Re: the opening scene in his bedroom on the ship to Arrakis) and ends the series and arrogant jerk (in a really non-fremen white loincloth, over Feyd's body) but at least the film didn't declare him an actual god, although the water scene in the Sietch does. He was a man playing god only. As for what the mini-series does to Gurney Halleck, I tend to try my best to ignore scenes with him in, as his character was obviously lobotomised and brainwashed by the evil Atriedies... He should be a poet-warrior not a nightwatchman.
Re: No love for Dune?
I've read the book at least 3 times now and I really do love it, but last time I noticed the death of Paul's first son largely because Herbert skipped over the whole thing so quickly. Herbert himself must have realised he'd bitten off more than he could chew and must have had to cut stuff out or rush it. The Harkonnen takeover and subsequent Fremen rebellion seem glossed over. If the book needs to be interpreted for the screen as a mini-series, then I submit that the book itself should also have been split up so the second half could have been expanded. The only other book I've read from the series is the sequel, Dune Messiah, and Herbert must have thought the first book was too long, since Messiah was so short in comparison and I don't know whether it was a bit poor because it was too short, or just because it wasn't that good.
/if you reverse the colours of the icon you get blue eyes.
Re: No love for Dune?
Definitely not space opera. I love space opera. I hate Dune. Still, I would be amiss if I didn't recognize it's impact on the SF world.
Re: No love for Dune?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287839/combined
you know it was also a mini-series recently:
Dune (2000):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142032/combined
Children of Dune (2003):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0287839/combined
Re: No love for Dune?
Mini-series was much better than the movie.
Strange Days
Bit of an underappreciated classic methinks. Directed by Katherine Bigelow who got the rights as part of her divorce settlement with James Cameron who wrote the script. It has dated a bit because they chose to set it in 2000 and the technology seems to involve MiniDiscs; but the idea of people recording their experiences seems somewhat prescient in the era of Google Glass.
The opening POV robbery is a work of genius and it has the amazing Angela Bassett as one of Cameron's strong female roles. There are a couple of incredibly violent scenes, including a rape, which some people might find too much.
Re: Strange Days
While I thought the allegories for the '90s L.A. riots in that film got a bit paper-thin at times, it's still an excellent sci-fi, and I agree that it's massively underrated/underexposed.
Re: Strange Days
Gets my vote. Nice bit of Juliette Lewis on show too!
Phil.
Remove Star Trek and Close encounters
Replace with Dark Star and Silent Running and you have the perfect top ten.
Re: Strange Days
Strange Days started brilliantly with a great concept but it's trawling the depths by the end with the most ridiculous conspiracy theory dénouement.
Gattaca is a great shout. You could have mentioned Forbidden Planet had the first entirely electronic soundtrack (which wasn't released as 'music') and, what's more, was composed by a woman, Bebe Barron.
Dark Star, Silent Running (flawed), Dune (seriously, but again flawed) and Alien might have been candidates for me. I think Alien in particular, although being as much horror as SF, raises some serious themes (genetic adaptation/dystopian future/corporate exploitation/human flaws/woman as heroine) and spectacular plot twists/shocks (chest burst scene/Ash as a robot) that were so new and influential at the time that they have coloured everything since and detracted from its radicalism today.
Guilty pleasures - Them, Rollerball, Robocop.
s/10/20/
Everyone who can be bothered to post will want to add the one you left out
Mine :
Dark Star
West World
Re: s/10/20/
Westworld almost made the cut. Top 20 material for sure.
Re: s/10/20/
Westworld. The movie where you get Yul Brynner to make a Terminator impression ... at least a decade before Terminator came out!
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