Greatest Sci-fi Film of All Time... - Page 2

Definitions for Science Fiction are so variable that to exclude a film because it may
or may not be Fantasy is almost laughable ....Clarke sums it up quite nicely

* CLARKE'S "LAWS" *
1: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states
that something is possible, he is almost certainly right.
When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
2: "The only way to discover the limits of the
possible is to venture beyond them into the impossible."
3: "Any significantly advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
4: "For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."

For me 2001 is not a great film but i can see why so many others think
otherwise and respect their opinions ... but

Fritz Langs Metropolis is the film i would choose(if you bastards force me to pick only one)
and even though opinion is divided about Alien it would be my second choice

See, I think 2001 is pretentious. Those long, slow shots in space just seem to scream "Look at me, I'm deep!". It's just my opinion, but it's what I think. For that reason, I don't consider it even good sci-fi. Of course, I've never read the book. I'll admit that I do like that it is a true sci-fi movie, with the artificial intelligence possibly being the next step in evolution. But I think something like Blade Runner deals with that idea 10 times better, without being pretentious.

What??? No love for Contact? Or The Abyss?

Say what you like about their endings, but both of these deserve mention in a list of top Sci-fi. (I actually loved the end of Contact once I got past the knee-jerk 'I want to see Aliens' feeling).

I don't think that was Kubrick's intention at all. To me those shots, like no others I can think of in cinema, perfectly capture the eternal loneliness and monotony of space. They remind us of our own insignificance to the barren, frozen, lifeless void that surrounds us.

There’s a very interesting book written by Andrew Smith titled Moondust: The Men Who Fell to Earth, which tells the stories of those astronauts who were part of the Apollo space program and returned home from the moon.

One of the men, whose name escapes me, tells Smith how he often likes to sit all day on a bench in some shopping mall eating ice cream and watching people go about their business. Only whilst standing on the moon, he says, is it possible to truly comprehend the true beauty of the earth and how it stands bright, colorful and defiant against the oppressive emptiness. Now he lives every day revering the cosmic miracle he’s part of.

Watching 2001: A Space Odyssey gives me some small insight into what that man must have felt staring down at the earth from the ash grey surface of the moon. No higher praise could I give any movie.

Am I the only one who liked 2010 better than 2001?

Just asking.

I tend to think of movies where science creates a philosophical or moral choice that the character or characters have to take because of that science. So I would put something like Primer or Vanilla Sky or Blade Runner in there, but not Star Wars, where their choices are human conflicts with sciency stuff thrown in as toys.

I think 2010 is a perfectly good nuts-and-bolts SF thriller with some delicious special effects (the space walk between Discovery and Leonov gives me vertigo) and competent performances from Scheider and Mirren, who is always good value for money.

It sheds a bit more light on why HAL goes bonkers in the previous film (trapped between his reason for existence “accurate processing of information without distortion” and his programming, which demanded distortion and inaccuracy), a fact which is missed by many who watch 2001.

Clearly the producers thought it would be commercially risky to aim for previous levels of realism and inaction (hence the return of sound to vacuum and explosions aplenty), but to their credit they didn’t dumb the whole thing down completely. I’m a bit meh about the benevolent-aliens-intervening-to-prevent-stoopid-humans-from-blowing-themselves-up angle (the intrusion of 80s cold war politics is the reason 2010 looks dated today whilst 2001 seems almost untarnished by the force of time). I do like the more sympathetic treatment of HAL and the underlying assertion that all intelligent life, no matter what its component elements, should be treated with the same respect we demand for ourselves.

A sequel to 2001 could only ever have attracted the ire of fans and critics alike so Hyams’ mission was one of damage limitation from the beginning. Whilst I don’t think 2010 comes anywhere near the visual, technical and intellectual achievements of its predecessor, I do feel Hyams, who has an eye for the visual aesthetic, delivered a substantial piece of SF that ranks above the mean for the genre.

I agree on the intervening aspect of the aliens (if they hadn't sent that message to earth and instead just blew up Jupiter, I still think you could believably say that people would stop fighting) but I'm interested as to why the cold war politics of 2010 date this film, while films like Wargames and the (maybe) impending Watchmen movie don't feel dated? Is it because they went into specifics while the other works are more theoretical - central america and the like? I don't even have a problem with that.

Maybe Wargames is still loved because they wanted to blow up Las Vegas and Seattle.

I watched the first 45 minutes of Day after Tomorrow on cable the other night. I wonder in 20 years how dated that movie is going to feel with its pseudo-science.

Possibly, yes. And the specifics were a bit too contrived for my liking (I did enjoy Kubrick and Clarke on the front page of TIME, tho). Wargames' treatment of cold war politics is perfunctory. It's more concerned with the lunacy of attempting to turn war into an algorithm and the mechanization of human beings. I don’t know anything about Watchmen, so I can’t comment.

I don't think anyone will care too much, tbh. TDAT lays its cards on the table with its cover art.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and I liked Puppet Masters)
The Thing
2001
Starship Troopers (bring it)
Andromeda Strain
AI

Contact is an interesting film. It's a far more interesting book, but I give the filmmakers credit for managing to translate most of Sagan's ideas on to the big screen. The continual chase after funds if you do hard science. The governmental paranoia. Whether someone who does not believe in God can be representative of the human race. Heavy stuff. The film also has the most realistic depiction of what it's like to be a working astronomer ever put on film (except for the stuff about listening to the radio signals: do that and you will go crazy).

The Quatermass Experiment - I think you can get the original BBC series on DVD now, seminal Sci-Fi. Same for Day of the Triffids.

And I agree with the 2010 love. Great movie.

Others on my list incl;
Akira
Matrix 1
Dark City
Jurassic Park
Day the Earth stood still
ST2;WOK

Which brings us to The Andromeda Strain. This is one of the most underrated genre films primarily because of a the lack of any action pieces, big name stars, or attractive people. It's a handful of scientists trying to identify, understand and ultimately stop the spread of a contagion. They work in a steril underground bunker with their test subjects, and the only two survivors of the contagion... an old man and a baby. It's a delightfully tense puzzle in which all the pieces fit together.

It's a toss up between that and Gattaca, which mixes sci-fi with romance, mystery, and triumph over adversity. It's a beautifully shot picture with an affecting score and wonderful acting all around. Many other films have a similar feel to this (1984, Handmaids Tale, Code 46) but none really put it quite as perfectly together.

On 2001, I was disappointed upon my initial viewing of it (in my late teens), and upon subsequent viewings (and watching 2010) things started to come together a little more. But Clarke's novel is what really made me appreciate the film. The novel and the film (Clarke created the ideas for film and worked on the novel after the screenplay, iirc) differ in many respects, but they work as fine accompanyment to one another. I can't say the book is better than the film, because they're completely different experiences. Clarke's a great writer, 2001 was a smooth read, while Kubrick's film is an experience in sight and sound, dealing less with the complexities of plot or concept.

I love trashy sci-fi/fantasy stuff, but Andromeda Strain and Gattaca are easily tops.
One that's not completely awesome but still a good watch is the 70's flick Capricorn One, about the faking of a Mars landing (which plays upon the urban legend that the Moon landing was faked). It's a neat film, with a curiously abrupt ending (it's a long film, but I could still have handled a 20 minute Spielberg-esque epilogue).

Ah, Quatermass is fantastic, brilliant stuff.
Two of the films (Quatermass and the Pit, and Quatermass 2 are Hammer films from the 50's?) are available from Anchor Bay in one package on DVD, and the 70's tv mini series just came out on DVD from A&E (cudos to them for the amount of classic Brit tv they are putting out...) although I hear it's not as great. The first Hammer Quatermass film, the Quatermass Experiment isn't yet available on dvd, at least not in Region 1 (I note that amazon.co.uk has the trilogy packaged together)

<----The original Quatermass productions were live TV and apparently there are no videos of them anywhere (as they were broadcast live without tape). ---->strike that, I was thinking of early Dr. Who...

A great resource for this search is "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" by John Clute. A great book that looks at SF from every angle, works hard to define it, breaks it down into subgenres, includes biographies of every major author, and tracks every thread of the movement up until about 1995. The film sections alone are great stuff. It was a Dorling-Kindersley publication; I regret to say that it's probably out of print now.

Minus marks for asphyxiating the monkey, IMO.

It was a different world back then. Doesn't excuse it, though...

Yeah well he's blind.. what else does he have to do?

Seriously, Contact is one of only a handful of works where I enjoy the movie every bit as much as the book. I understand the problems bringing a lot of Sagan's ideas to the screen yet I'm not offended with the changes they made to make the movie.

It's not top top but upper eschelon IMO.

There is no "original" 2001 novel. The 2001 book is a novelization that Clarke wrote after collaborating on the screenplay with Kubrick.

Also, where are you getting the "artificial intelligence is the next step in evolution" theme? That's not the point of the movie at all. HAL isn't necessarily smarter or better than his human crewmates. The central idea in 2001 is that human society is dependent on its tools for survival and progress. (Note that after the monkey man tosses the bone in the air, we never see another natural earthbound environment again; all those spaceships and habitats are direct descendants of that thrown femur.) The problem is, once humanity becomes too dependent on technology, it can stagnate and become vulnerable to simple errors of judgement. When Dave Bowman risks his life to return to the Discovery and pull HAL's plug, he's demonstrating to the aliens in orbit around Jupiter that homo sapiens is capable of relying on its own instincts and self-preservation, and thereby earns the right to evolve to the next stage of human development.

Feel free to criticize 2001 all you want. But don't put it down for not being Blade Runner, which really deals with totally different philosophical issues.

I never said there was an original novel, I just said that I never read the book. I've heard the book actually gives meaning to the random visuals tossed into the movie.

I think of that movie as almost three separate stories with the connected theme of evolution. The monkey beginning, the HAL middle, and the acid trip ending.

I wasn't criticising it for not being Blade Runner. I was criticising it for being boring, pretentious, and pseudo-philosophical as opposed to truely-philosophical. Like I said, I'm probably alone in this opinion, but it's the one I got upon viewing the film, and I don't think anybody telling me how deep they think it is is going to change that.

The weirdness is interspersed with planets, exploding stars and alien spacecraft. The book isn’t a bad piece of work (working with Kubrick clearly gave Clarke extra angles to his pen).

Before reading the novelisation you could try the short story which, whilst seeming a million miles away from 2001, is much closer in spirit than people give credit.

Well at the risk of being blasted as well, I agree. 2001 never really interested or entertained me, I found it too slow and unengaging. If Star Wars is off the table, then I would give a nod to: Brazil, 12 Monkeys, Bladerunner as well as Back to the Future and Donnie Darko if they qualify.

The greatest Sci-Fi story I know is Enders Game, but we'll have to wait and see if the movie can measure up to the book.

Probably the reason for this disconnect is that there's no embraceable human element in 2001. The human characters are all Kubrickian ciphers, as cold as HAL, around whom hugely consequential events take place. Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys, SW:OT and all the others mentioned by ShortRound may fall short in some areas, but their characterizations are gold and their heroes are people we can relate to.

I love 2001, for the record, but there's not a Han Solo, Rick Deckard or Jeffrey Goines anywhere to be found in it. Dave Bowman is just a pivot point for the fabulous cosmic shitstorm. Maybe the definition of GREAT sci-fi has to include humans who not only react, change and grow, but are emotionally accessible from their very first scene.

Soylent Green (I don't think it's been mentioned yet) is another terrific sci-fi movie. Like Blade Runner, Soylent paints a bleak and plausible vision of the future with over population and starvation as major issues. One of the best scenes from the movie is when Heston's friend is ready to die and is treated to a serious of video footage of Earth accompanied by classical music. Things he hasn't scene in years and things that Heston's character has never seen, including numerous animals, green pastures, oceans and flowers.

I’m not sure about that. To me, it seems, the taciturn Dave Bowman and Frank Poole aren’t too dissimilar from those people we see around us every day. Why should characters be ‘emotionally accessible’ when the human norm is anything but?

Philip Kaufman tells a very interesting story in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers commentary. Originally they planned on hiring hundreds of extras to play the stone-faced pod people who subvert the humans. Very early in the production they realised there was no need for such expense. Just catch regular people going about their daily business on camera. The big joke at the end of the movie is – nothing’s changed.

We already are pod people – reflections or perhaps products of our increasingly sterile, emotionless and mechanical environments.

In 2001 Kubrick took things one step further (ten or more years earlier) with what is a pretty accurate social commentary.

I would maybe add that 2001's Bowman and Poole are not really regular people in space, they are professional astronauts doing a job they were specially trained and chosen for. They were probably picked partly or largely because they were so neutral, cool and precise... and bland. You really would not want to end up with the odd couple stuck in a confined spaceship for months on end- it would end in blood rather quickly. This may even be the most realistic part of the film, that there was no "wacky guy" (maybe he was one of the "frozen people"). What ended up going space-crazy was the computer, something that was rather unexpected hence the lack of a good contingency plan. (Something they solved by 2010 with the HAL "Guillotine".)

Yes, the characters in 2001 are true, real characters, but that doesn't make the huggable as Han Solo. My point was that their very remoteness, which is true to the overall picture unfolding around them, is probably what creates a distancing effect other posters here have cited: "I can't relate to the characters, and without that the overall package is boring." Mainstream moviegoers don't want movie characters to be object lessons; they want them to be their buddies.

To cite a specific scene, witness Heywood Floyd's conversation with the Lunar Base team in the moon shuttle to the monolith. "We figure it's been buried there about twenty million years." "Twenty million years, huh?" "Yep. Well, who wants some coffee?" Very Kubrickian characterizations, very cool in the face of the astonishing, which doesn't ring true to life.

You wouldn't necessarily want to hang out in a bar with Frank Poole. You'd do shots with Han Solo until last call. That doesn't mean 2001 is a bad movie; it means it's not Star Wars. It is possible to love both, for different reasons, but your feelings toward the Original Trilogy are likely to be a lot "warmer" than your feelings toward 2001. Because Han Solo is your pal, dammit.

And Invasion of the Body Snatchers (both versions) does, in fact, kick ass, for all the reasons cited.

This almost made it into my sig.

I think the scene is psychologically credible. These are middle-aged bureaucrats, not hot-rodding space teens; sobriety is part of their profession. But, if you pay close attention, you can tell that deep down, they are awestruck. Listen to the way Floyd says "deliberately buried," and the long pause before he speaks again.

If 2001 were directed by Roland Emmerich, the Floyd character would be an excitable twentysomething whiz kid, probably played by Topher Grace, and the line would go, "Omigod! Do you know what this means? Aliens came to our solar system millions of years ago, and planted artifacts for us to find! Now they know we know they've been here! Is that fucking cool or what?!" None of the dialogue in the movie is so telegraphed, so on the nose. It's one of the reasons it's held up so well over 35+ years.

It’s also worth recalling the suppressed looks of puzzlement, alarm, panic and ultimately grim resolution that spread across Bowman’s face whilst barred from entering Discovery by HAL.

The easy way out would be to have Bowman punching the console and screaming profanities, but that would be totally out of character for a man who, as Hot Black points out, has been picked for his ability to function in extreme and perilous circumstances. Astronauts can’t afford to lose their cool. If they do they run the risk of making mistakes in an environment that doesn’t tolerate mistakes.

In Bowman’s trembling face you can almost see the analytical mind weighing-up the situation and calculating, in clinical, machine-like fashion, possible avenues of escape. His ultimate decision is derived from a HALesque calculation of probabilities: probability that HAL won’t have locked the door x probability the explosive bolts won’t damage the ship x probability of not passing out on exposure to vacuum x probability my blood won’t begin to boil before I’ve closed the exterior hatch = the best chance I’ve got.

Dullea portrays, quite realistically, a man drawing upon every last scrap of will to prevent his powers of reason, the only thing that’s going to keep him alive, being subverted by the insanity of his situation. How anyone can suggest this isn't a 'human performance' is beyond me.

I agree. Of all the characters on offer, Bowman is the easiest to relate to, and Keir Dullea is a great actor. I wish someone would find better uses for him now, in his more mature years, than "Alien Hunter."

Again ... I'm not saying the performances are bad or unrealistic, or that 2001 sucks. I will defend it against all comers. I'm just positing a theory for why some moviegoers -- perhap raised on the milk of Michael Bay -- find it boring and inaccessible. (If memory serves, it didn't do phenomenal business upon its first release either.) 2001 is many things, but action-packed and full of warm fuzzies (Armageddon, Back to the Future, Independence Day) it is not.

I will aim higher. Thanks.

Begins and ends with "Blade Runner"

But honestly, chosing "the greatest of all time" anything is tough. I would throw these out as all pretty equal in terms of great movies standing on their own, movies influencing the direction of sci-fi overall, and having the most cultural impact:

In no particular order:

Metropolis
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Forbidden Planet
2001
Planet of the Apes
War of the Worlds (The original)
Star Wars
THX1138 (low on cultural impact but very influential in the genra)
Tron
ET
Blade Runner
Alien/Aliens
Terminator
Matrix

Not a single mention of Logan's Run? I'm not saying its the greatest movie, but it's an interesting story. They took the notion of "Don't trust anyone over 30" to a whole new level.

And Jenny Agutter was HOT. Maybe hotter than when she was in American Werewolf.

That's a tough call.

Can't I pick both?

Maybe not all that interesting. To me, it's one of those "prophetic, cautionary tales" that now seems rooted in the era it was produced. (Hell, rooted in an even earlier era than 1975!)

A much more interesting treatment of the idea is in Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, in which the U.S. is effectively ruled by a gerontocratic leisure class that can afford youth-sustaining pharmaceuticals, while everyone else works all their lives in the hopes of being able to afford the drugs. This is a much more likely scenario than wan hedonists living in giant computer-run domes. Unfortunately, it's too complex and realistic for movie producers who can only see SF as simple allegory.

No argument here, that's for sure.

Good question for the topic mate, though hell'va tough to come up with a real answer.

Firstly my own top 5 all time favs are just about all sci-fi of some form or another, but if you were asking about real Sci-Fi, which is just another version of Fantasy, which is really just a renamed version of the old romance genre.... I'd have to go for something that actually was either based on science or the quest for science knowledge. Within and without.

Where would all of our new films be without all the oldies having asked the important questions first?

Here (In my biased and worthnothin opinion).....

In some bizzare order:

War of the Worlds (Original version) {why? because the new one sucks but is pretty}.
The day the earth stood still
2001
Akira
Start Trek 1
They Live
The Thing
Alien(s)
Dune

But these are not necessarily my favourites. Robocop for one is one of my favourites. Plus I'm deliberatly taking out Star Wars cause Lucas ruined it for me with his editing nonsense and re-releasing of different edits. THX1138 was a great film and he's done nothing but fiddle with Star Wars since back when he made decent thought provoking films.