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 JNAProductions wrote:
It’s kinda hard to take you seriously when the rest of those films get labeled as sci-fi, but you don’t give Star Wars that label.
There is a perfectly cogent definition of sci-fi that excludes Star Wars, but it’d also exclude a lot of the other films too.

I don't care if you take me seriously.
I have zero control over your thoughts.
The fact I specifically mentioned Star Wars and nothing else is completely meaningless.
That's like saying that because someone only mentioned atrocity X means they don't care about Y and Z. It's a logical fallacy.

trexmeyer wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
It’s kinda hard to take you seriously when the rest of those films get labeled as sci-fi, but you don’t give Star Wars that label.
There is a perfectly cogent definition of sci-fi that excludes Star Wars, but it’d also exclude a lot of the other films too.

I don't care if you take me seriously.
I have zero control over your thoughts.
The fact I specifically mentioned Star Wars and nothing else is completely meaningless.
That's like saying that because someone only mentioned atrocity X means they don't care about Y and Z. It's a logical fallacy.

You have had plenty of time to simply say "I don't consider Star Wars sci-fi, nor do I consider [OTHER FILMS] sci-fi."

I don't get why you'd be intentionally unclear.

Aliens
Predator
Wrath of Khan
Dune (84)
Terminator

The "Last Starfighter" is pretty good stuff and an honorable mention to "Soldier" with Kurt Russell.

Stupid Ko Dan armada rassin frassin…

I can't believe we're 3 pages in and nobody has mentioned Akira yet.....

Great lists though, I don't think I can do it in 5.

My list would be:

Akira (BBC version as it has superior subtitles)
The Thing (yes it's sci-fi)
Alien
District 9
Ghost in the Shell (anime version)

Cutesy sci-fi?

Batteries Not Included

Lovely little whimsical film, and not held in high enough regard.

I would have said Bladerunner; it's got great visuals but I just couldn't get into it which is odd because I like the book.

Showing my age somewhat, but I think my list would be:

1. Dune
2. Alien
3. Starship Troopers
4. Judge Dredd
5. The Matrix


I also think Enders Game needs a special mention though I couldn't get it into the top 5.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

StraightSilver wrote:
I can't believe we're 3 pages in and nobody has mentioned Akira yet.....

Is it still sci-fi if it's set in the past? I genuinely don't know.

If so, then I'll need to find a place for Back To The Future, too.

For Super Cheese factor
StarCrash with David Hasselhof and Caroline Monroe
And Flash Gordon (DIVE!!!!!!!!!!!)

Such a terrible pieces of trash, but so awesome!!

I'd watch just about anything with Caroline Munro in it. I've thought she was hot ever since she gave James Bond the dirtiest wink in movie history! Yes I'm aware that that was nearly 50 years ago and she's probably old enough to be my grandmother, but she was a goddess back then.

One movie I'm surprised nobody is talking about in here (unless I somehow missed it) is Forbidden Planet. That movie laid the foundation for a lot of modern sci-fi movies. And it introduced Robbie the Robot, who went on to appear in many other movies and TV shows.

 ZergSmasher wrote:

One movie I'm surprised nobody is talking about in here (unless I somehow missed it) is Forbidden Planet. That movie laid the foundation for a lot of modern sci-fi movies. And it introduced Robbie the Robot, who went on to appear in many other movies and TV shows.

Oh yes that film should be in my list somewhere I'm sure! Robbie is a huge classic character robot and yeah Forbidden Planet is one of the giants from its day!

I'm also really surprised no one's mentioned Back to the Future yet. Or did I miss it in someone's list?

I'm sure its appeared a couple of time s

Cyel wrote:
Let me explain how I see it. So, we have 2 components of a sci-fi story: a fictional hypothesis and its logical (scientific?) extrapolation and development.

Yes exactly. By which metric SW of course isn't sci-fi and ST is. But ST's hypothesis isn't "what if impossible tech," it's "what if impossible tech puts a post-scarcity socialist utopia in contact with things that are at odds with its core principles".

I strolled in here with a bunch of opinions, read everyone else's reply and realized there is no way I could limit it to five.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Cyel wrote:
Let me explain how I see it. So, we have 2 components of a sci-fi story: a fictional hypothesis and its logical (scientific?) extrapolation and development.

Yes exactly. By which metric SW of course isn't sci-fi and ST is. But ST's hypothesis isn't "what if impossible tech," it's "what if impossible tech puts a post-scarcity socialist utopia in contact with things that are at odds with its core principles".

Yup, that's convincing. ST as a socio-political sci-fi with technobabble being just window dressing makes sense to me.

Pretty much. Just like in SW the robots and spaceships are window-dressing for Farmboy-saves-princess.
Although ST being primarily a series gets to do much more than just explore social issues; the FTL drive also lets it explore different questions, problems, and conflicts.

And as with so much else, don't hold too tightly to a rigid definition. There's a lot of overlap, and if you try to too definitively put a given story squarely in one box or another, you run into the same problem young earth creationists do when they try to classify a given hominid fossil as either human or ape.

Honestly most sci-fi stories can often have "window dressing" removed and you've got either a regular story or a fantasy one.

Even things like space ships can often be swapped for regular wood and sail ships on the high seas if you start stretching things.


Personally I feel once you're at that level of stripping out huge chunks of a film or artwork or story to get to the "core" then you're kind of over-simplifying it and if you then base its classification on that then you start to lose what I feel is the whole work.



Sure lots of the story of Starwars could be built around modern times or fantasy times; but to me part of Starwars is having ships in space; pew pew lasers; luke with a machine hand; Vader being "more machine than man" and so forth. I feel that those are as much as part of the story as the component elements of the story itself.
Because Star Wars isn't just "farmboy saves princess" its all the other things too which makes it Starwars and not just "farmboy saves princess".

Farmboy saves princess from space fascists! Yay parliamentary monarchy?

Top 5 for me is canny tricky because I am not very forgiving with movies.

1. The Thing - definitely up there with one of my favourite movies ever, so it takes the top spot here. Phycological horror is the best kind and this is the pinnacle. From the moment the movie begins till its darkly funny finish, it sets the heart racing.

2. Metropolis - come on, is this not one of the most influential sci fi movies of all time? So many other movies in this thread owe so much to Fritz Lang's epic. Plus a futuristic city where the elite live high atop the underclasses is still just as prevalent today as it was when it came out. That is the epitome of science fiction to me.

3. Alien - toss up between this and Aliens but the tension and the cinematography just edge this out. A superb film and of course a trend setter.

4. Starship troopers - it's a fun movie but really it's a satirical bit of genius, that hasn't really been touched since.

5. Children of Men - A whole hell of a lot of movies could have taken this spot for me, but Children of Men is just one of those movies I love. Plus that scene in the car is brutal.

Speaking of Children of Men, I feel I ought to highlight “Never let me go”. It wouldn’t be in my top 5, but it is as a truly excellent piece of sci-fi, if you’re looking at the “interesting exploration of the real-world issues that could arise from a technology” vein of sci-fi.

But good grief, is it a depressing film. I saw it at the cinema and the entire audience sat there for a good 5 minutes while the credits rolled in stunned silence, with a “what’s the point of anything, really?” look on their faces (me included). So, consider that a content warning for basically everyone.

Honestly? All three Guardians of the Galaxy films are really good, the first one especially.

I wish they'd kept them fully separate from the whole Marvel universe thingy they did because yeah they are fun adventure space romps

I read the book of the Children of Men. Hard to stop crying… both book and film are amazing, but they are hard experiences.

The Road is probably the most depressing film I have seen.

Most influential for me were probably....

1. Star Wars OT
2. Lynch's Dune
3. Battle Beyond the Stars
4. Total Recall
5. Star Trek OG

This isn't easy but here is my list

1. Aliens (A classic I think we can all agree)
2. Priest (Scifi Post-Apocalyptic Western Vampires!?}
3. Dredd (Shame it never got a sequel)
4. Starship Troopers (I play IG can you tell )
5. Pandorum (never meet anyone else who has watched this movie}

I base this on how often I find myself rewatching them as I love a lot of other movies such as Demolition Man, RoboCop, and the 5th Element etc etc.

 IronRose wrote:

5. Pandorum (never meet anyone else who has watched this movie}

Hey

Also check out Cargo (2009)

I thought Pandorum was a nice movie the first time I watched it. I saw it again fairly recently, but that left me with a somewhat different impression. Not sure if I wasn't in the mood or if the movie just isn't the same once you know the story developments, but it didn't work for me all that great the second time around.

Definitely a movie you want to see at least once, though.

wulfbrigade wrote:
For Super Cheese factor
StarCrash with David Hasselhof and Caroline Monroe
And Flash Gordon (DIVE!!!!!!!!!!!)

Such a terrible pieces of trash, but so awesome!!

Starcrash for sure. But Flash Gordon? Slander! Slander, I say!

Either one is far more entertaining than Rise of Skywalker, though. And better written.

Hard to narrow this down to 5.

1. Primer.
The best film about time travel that you can possibly see. The director is an engineer apparently, and yeah, it shows.

2. Children of Men.
Species go extinct, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Terrifying concept as in this scenario, there is little we can do. Also, the ending is left open to personal interpretation based upon one's outlook. Fantastic!

3. The Martian.
Simple concept, but wonderful to see how Science is our greatest tool. A few moments of comedy thrown in for good measure.

4. Arrival.
I adore how this film starts as an exploration of language, then shifts gear to explore the idea that how we communicate shapes our perception of reality.

5. Her.
Before people decry this as not being a Sci-Fi, at its core this film is about our relationship with our technology. That is I argue one of the defining concepts of Sci-Fi. This film was prophetic, as we now see the rise of A.I. partners... which given the fate of my second choice (Children of Men), is a bit worrying.