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sebster wrote:

Medium of Death wrote:Help us James Cameron, you're our only hope...

It's a long time since Aliens and Terminator, though.

I think maybe our best chance might be with an unknown director who's hungry enough to spend the time making sure his script is sound... or lacks the influence to dick around with a script everyone previously liked.

Mannahnin wrote:What was the last really smart, good, big-budget sci fi movie? Children of Men, maybe?

You know what might be awesome? If Aronofsky tried it. Pi is great, and that's shoestring budget. He's managed to keep making good movies even with bigger, too.

Neill Blomkamp maybe?

He is working on his own big budget sci-fi film at the moment. So I guess we will see how well he does with this new venture.

It's strange to class District 9 as a low budget film considering it still cost $30 million to make, but I'd say that is my most enjoyed Sci-fi film of the last few years if not all time.

As for James being too old, I enjoyed Avatar so I think he's still good to go.

Mannahnin wrote:What was the last really smart, good, big-budget sci fi movie? Children of Men, maybe?

You know what might be awesome? If Aronofsky tried it. Pi is great, and that's shoestring budget. He's managed to keep making good movies even with bigger, too.

Off the top of my head:
-Star Trek
-Serenity
-Tree of Life sci fi?
-Predators
-Battle for LA
-The Avengers
EDIT: with the new expanded definition:
-Zombieland
-Walking Dead
-Tru Blood



Automatically Appended Next Post:

LordofHats wrote:

Hordini wrote:Really? What would you consider it then?

Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia. Is there some technology angle I'm unaware of? I haven't seen the movie since its release, but I don't remember it being about science or human advancement, or having any of the typical sci-fi set pieces.

Agreed. There's nothing sci fi about it, even if I did like it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hordini wrote:

LordofHats wrote:

Hordini wrote:Really? What would you consider it then?

Post-Apocalyptic Dystopia. Is there some technology angle I'm unaware of? I haven't seen the movie since its release, but I don't remember it being about science or human advancement, or having any of the typical sci-fi set pieces.

It is post-apocalyptic dystopia, but that's a sci-fi subgenre. Sci-fi doesn't necessarily have to deal specifically with technology. The film isn't hard sci-fi, but like Mannahin said, it still falls under the relatively broad umbrella of sci-fi/speculative fiction.

If thats the case my Walking Dead and Tru Blood fall into it. In that case I watch a good bit of sci fi. Just recieved season 4 of Tru Blood for Father's Day. Now I can drink rum and celebrate sci fi!

sebster wrote:So you'd argue that it has to be about a specific technology, then? I don't know, I guess I'm not much of a tech nut, but the actual specific piece of technology itself never seemed to be the important thing to me. Neuromancer is great because of the society it portrays and how that society interacts with technology, not because of the technologies themselves.

I mean, most all sci-fi gets the tech totally wrong anyway, so if it was just about that it'd be a pretty pointless genre.

I would agree. The specifics of the distinction I'm making is that I don't think science fiction can exist without some 'science' serving as a theme, a medium, a premise, or a driving factor. Science doesn't have to be the point of the story (I.E. Soft Scifi, which is more about characters than technology) but I feel it needs to have a core role in whatever is going on. Children of Men, assuming I remember the film correctly, doesn't really have anything to do with science. It's a story about hope, which of course is what most post-apocalyptic stories end up being about (good movie btw not basing it or anything). EDIT: This of course factoring in that most people lump genre's together like there's no tomorrow, obscuring the already blurry lines that exist between them.