What is your Favorite 3 Sci-fi Films and why

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

That's still ok, despite the crap robot. When they get to Washington and learn life lessons from Peter Ustinov, that's when the film turns rubbish.

The crap robot is the second best bit.

Does anyone remember the TV series? I used to really really really really love that. I watched the TV series before I even knew there was a film, and as a child when I did see the film (late one night) I was very disappointed in the actors (thought they were not Z list) and that there was not cool car.

I always wanted a sandman outfit. I think I still do.

 

[Reno]

I saw the film first and hated the series because it consisted of them running around the same bit of woodland outside LA every episode and the futurisitic city barely featured. I also thought Michael York and Jenny Agutter were a lot more sexy than their TV incarnations.

If I'm honest, despite the crappy second half Logan's Run made more of an impression on me than Star Wars did a year later and I still prefer it now, if only for the camp value and the future disco production design.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I saw the film first and hated the series because it consisted of them running around the same bit of woodland outside LA every episode and the futurisitic city barely featured. I also thought Michael York and Jenny Agutter were a lot more sexy than their TV incarnations.

If I'm honest, despite the crappy second half Logan's Run made more of an impression on me than Star Wars did a year later and I still prefer it now, if only for the camp value and the future disco production design.

The TV series was shit and is waaay shitter than the film but as a child I didn't care. They could run around the same shrubland for as many episodes as they liked as long as they jumped in the car now and then. I was just saying that my childish viewing of the film were a bit backwards.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

The TV series was shit and is waaay shitter than the film but as a child I didn't care. They could run around the same shrubland for as many episodes as they liked as long as they jumped in the car now and then. I was just saying that my childish viewing of the film were a bit backwards.

I saw the TV series before the film - which I didn't actually see until years later - so consequently loved the TV series and was a bit indifferent about the film (similar to "The Jungle Book" - why do Disney want to confuse 8 year olds like that, or in my case what the fuck was Kipling writing about but it wasn't the film I knew and loved! .

Also as a young girl Gregory Harrison was hot - much hotter than Michael York!

 

[dylanredefined]

It's not an episode, it's a film. Are you sure you have seen it? If you have ignore this next bit.

It's the real ending with the end of the world and all that. The TV ending is what's going on in Shinjis head, the film is the mega apocalypse with Rei as big as a planet.

Still left me with a feeling of what is going on and why .From the army happily slaughtering the only people capable of saving the world onwards.
(obeying orders blindly is not a jssdf trait anymore )

 

[cat107]

After reading this thread I'm going to be spending some time in my local library's film section, refreshing my memory.

However, I fart in the direction of Battlefield Earth and give you instead Luc Besson's Le Dernier Combat, a magnificent black and white, post-holocaust exercise in French art misery.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Still left me with a feeling of what is going on and why .From the army happily slaughtering the only people capable of saving the world onwards.
(obeying orders blindly is not a jssdf trait anymore )

Hummm sounds like you were not paying attention. All the army stuff is explained and the LCL llith lillum adam stuff satisfied me (though I did end up reading quite a lot about the dead sea scrolls, the tree of life and the hall of gaff etc afterwards). Long time ago now though.

The four new films are supposed to be far more accessible.

 

[camouflage]

Me I love too many to pick one. but I'll go for three.

Lynch's Dune. Deeply flawed and startlingly brilliant.

Carpenter's remake of The Thing. Brutal, fucking brutal. Kurt's finest hour

Pitch Black. A modern, perfect sci-fi B movie. Dialouge and shooting, camera work and story all added up to this sparse brilliance that managed to make Vin Diesel look good ffs.

oh and for me sadly underrated choices as a PS.

Dark City-Tis proper good

GATTACA- an accomplished look at the potential for genetic facism

Dune - a fevered dream on screen. Tell me off your homeworld Usal...

Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith. All other Star Warses were only to justify that one.

Vanilla Sky - Tear jerker. Not me of course because I'm a man. >:- ]

Equilibrium - Silly, some say. But I like it.

 

[DotCommunist]

Dune - a fevered dream on screen. Tell me off your homeworld Usal...

Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith. All other Star Warses were only to justify that one.

Equilibrium - Silly, some say. But I like it.

The gun-kata stuff was cool, even if the film was evor so slightly ripping of farenheit451

 

[Stigmata]

And Brave New World, and 1984... steal from the best I say.

 

[Reno]

....

 

[kyser_soze]

Can't do just 3...

50s/60s:
Forbidden Plane
Them!
The Day the Earth Stood Still
2001 (1968 people!)

70s
Dark Star
Silent Running - still makes me cry like a cissy
Star Wars. Sorry, I know it's fantasy sci-fi cowboys in space, but it's just so well put together as a movie...and that John Williams score

80s onwards
Alien & Aliens (I prefer Aliens DC for the sentryguns alone)
Bladerunner
Dune
Matrix
Equilibrium
Starship Troopers
2046
Minority Report
Pitch Black
Pi
And my personal shame...the Resident Evil films. I know it's unconscionable, and I don't like Nemesis, but I eckon the first one and Apocalypse are reasonable eye candy...
Can't remember the name, but a film wit Tim Robbins and the chick from MR about him not being allowed to shag her...weird and more concept than film, but still good)

BTW - someone said nominated the Aeon Flux cartoon. WTF?! Biggest pile of shite even before Uwe Boller got his mitts on it.

Possibly another thread but...classical, electronica or pounding techno and heavy metal as soundtracks?

 

[stdPikachu]

Impossible to pick a "top" list of anything, but my perennial favourite has always been Bladerunner, IMHO yet to be equalled, bettered or even just sidling casually alongside. Sublime.

Terminator is another must. Absolutely epoch-defining and original in scope and execution.

Alien would also like to get a mention, for much the same reasons as the Terminator, although there's bound to be someone who doesn't follow the "why yes,things CAN be in two or mroe genres at once!" rule moaning that it's actually a haunted house movie and is therefore banned from being watched by anyone. Aliens is such a flawless sequel that I can't really think of the two films as seperate.

So I'm going to gave to go with the terrifically understated Contact for now.

Throw them all in the same pot with Brazil, The Thing (remake), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (78 remake), Cypher and A Scanner Darkly and you have a fair approximation of my fave films-that-are-sci-fi-with-a-bit-of-what-you-fancy-on-the-side.

Starship Troopers also has to get an honourable mention, along with t'other Verhoeven subversive classic Robocop, although they're very much from the tongue in cheek scion of sci fi, rather than the I'm Being Deep and Serious one.

Misc gubbins;
Ky, you class 2046 as sci-fi?
Equilibrium could have been so much better. Horribly underwritten and not really giving the rather quite good cast the ability to stretch their muscles. Yes, it's horribly derivative of lots of things (more Harrison Bergeron then Farenheit 451 IMHO) but if Matrix can get away with style-over-content so can this
As much as I love Silent Running, it could have done with drastically better direction. But FFS Hollywood, please don't remake it, even though I know you're going to.

What I can't believe is how many people like fucking Star Wars. Most over-rated thing in the history of the English-speaking peoples of the world. even more over-rated than The Beatles or Thatcher.

Fuck knows, the whole thing passed me by as a kid. At it's best it's almost-entertaining space fluff, at worst it's like gargling used razor blades in chilli oil.

 

[Leica]

Alphaville
Blade Runner
Starman

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

C
2046

2046 isn't sci-fi, it's set in the past. The guy is just writing an adventure story set in the future.

 

[dream_girl]

Hey, but what about the naked ice cave bit?

gets me wet every time

 

[Lauge]

1. Children of Men. Deserves much more than one mention on this thread! Very grity and very scenographic

2. Terminator

3. Akira. Why hasn't this been mentioned at all? The original 1988 english dubs is IMO the best.
(BTW they are making a live-action remake with Leonardo De Caprio as Kaneda which takes places in New Manhatten. I'm definitly not setting up my expectations, reasons being Leonardo De Caprio and New Manhatten. But since it's in 2 parts, there's more room of the epic manga.)

 

[Augie March]

(BTW they are making a live-action remake with Leonardo De Caprio as Kaneda which takes places in New Manhatten. I'm definitly not setting up my expectations, reasons being Leonardo De Caprio and New Manhatten. But since it's in 2 parts, there's more room of the epic manga.)

Yeah, had a thread about this not too long ago: http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=241569

I'm very much keeping my expectations on a low boil with that one, still can't see why it's worth translating it to live action when it worked so well as an animation.

Still, every decent film is probably due for a re-make/re-imagining at some point I guess. The next generation of film fans can't be expected to watch films that over 10 years old can they?

 

[Augie March]

Can't really decide on a top three myself and many of my favourites have been mentioned many a time on here already. But some notable omissions (as far as I can see):

Donnie Darko
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Cube
Primer

 

[Bajie]

Robocop - As it was classic 1980's vision of a corporatist future where even the cops are privatised.

Metropolis - I first saw this when I was a kid and it totally freaked me out. It was another vision of a dystopian future with the present as the reality. Whereas in Robocop the worker became the underclass, it Metropolis the worker became just another part of the machine, post-industrial (1980's) contraseted to the industrial (1920's)

Empire Strikes Back - Just because it is sorted..

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Unfortunately he was a bit too subtle for a lot of people. Only got a pirate copy so haven't heard the commentary .The humans are all shiny and happy living in what looks like a utopia.Bugs are nasty and violent with no redeeming features so its hard to see any downside to the supposedly fascist
state they live in. No apparent discrimination or oppression .
Except Heinlein original idea that the citizenship had to be earned.
It defiantly makes it a great film as we can still argue about .
Unlike starship troopers 2 don't watch it .

Still think the book would have be great to film if only for the opening scene.

Yes, but the racism/xenophobia wasn't against any other human race, only the bugs/xenomorphs.

 

[CharlieAddict]

Event Horizon - i love this film. stuff of nightmares.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

This thread has really shown how many great scifi films there have been. And in fact of course that what is 'scifi' is a rather bendy concept in itself (e.g. inclusion of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Donnie Darko).

That being the case, I really should have included the Truman Show, which is one of my favourite films ever and is definitely on the borders of scifi...

 

[dylanredefined]

Yes, but the racism/xenophobia wasn't against any other human race, only the bugs/xenomorphs.

Hardly irrational hatred though .Hard to feel sorry for the brain bug when it was being vivisceted.As it had sucked out the brains of its prisoners .

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I saw them as being a metaphor for the 'other' that any fascist or nationalist regime seeks to demonise in order to control and regulate its people.

 

[CNT36]

2046 isn't sci-fi, it's set in the past. The guy is just writing an adventure story set in the future.

More importantly it is a terrible film. It really really is. I made it most of the way through gave up with about ten minutes to go. If something redeeming happened then fair enough but I seriously doubt it.

 

[Reno]

I saw them as being a metaphor for the 'other' that any fascist or nationalist regime seeks to demonise in order to control and regulate its people.

...and often the enemies/victims get compared to vermin in their propaganda. Jews were likened to rats in the Third Reich, Tutsi's were called cockroaches during the Rwanda genocide.

 

[stdPikachu]

The humans are all shiny and happy living in what looks like a utopia.Bugs are nasty and violent with no redeeming features so its hard to see any downside to the supposedly fascist state they live in. No apparent discrimination or oppression .

This is precisely the sort of satire that makes me love Starship Troopers. When you're looking at the fascist dictatorship from within, you're never presented with any of the harsh realities (the Holocaust was hidden from public view, remember?) because the state has so much control that it chooses what you can see, read and (ultimately) think. Half the script reads like a cross between an army recruitment film and Goebbels' autobiography. When you're in a fascist state, you're told you're living in a utopia, and you believe it because there is no conflicting information to sow the seeds of doubt in your mind. When you're in a fascist state, you're told the enemy are evil, and you accept it because everyone knows they're evil. Pretty much any human being can be manipulated into doing nasty shit, especially if everyone you ever meet, talk to or see believe that doing nasty shit is the right thing to do. Suggestion in combination with pack mentality are immensely powerful. Niemoller, anyone?

The fact that so many people see Starship Troopers as nothing more than a gung-ho war movie full of splattered bugs proved that it worked

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Good posts, std and reno

 

[Stigmata]

I'd always assumed that the asteroid impact that triggers the war against the Bugs was just an accident- how could they possibly have launched it from their side of the galaxy and hit Earth?