agree
Alien, and The thing
Excellent point, Zebra, Gataca deserves a place near the top. I guess if one were to put quality over quantity, the uberbiologist James Watson considers Gataca to be a film of note, and a very realistic portrayal of our potential future if we’re not careful.
I also am baffled by Star Wars. I agree: It’s not much of a SciFi flick. I mean, light sabres? The Force? Come on. It’s fantasy, and damn good fantasy at that.
It could be after the fact false memories, but I seem to remeber Star Wars being marketed as Sci-Fi. Maybe that’s where all the confusion comes in. Because, like Star Trek, it’s not Sci-Fi. It’s Fantasy. In fact, some Trekkers refer to our fave franchise as Trek-Fi.
Trouble is, a lot of Sci-Fi has very Fant elements in it. Dune, the Ender series, anything by Bradbury or Ursula K le Guin, all are Fant in Sci-Fi clothing. And some of these have been given the cinema/TV treatment.
With that out of the way, where is Silent Running in this list?
No, it certainly is marketed as such. It’s an interesting question all in its own: What delineates sci-fi from fantasy?
Anyone care to start a thread? I’m in danger of becoming a total-posts whore.
Well, there’s Sci-Fi, sci-fi, and Fant.
Basically, Sci-Fi (hard science fiction) relies on trying to keep the science realistic, sci-fi (soft science fiction) uses plausible science ideas, while Fant doesn’t bother to explain things scientifically at all.
If you explain how the weapon works, it’s Sci-Fi.
If you merely use the weapon without a detailed explanation, sci-fi.
If the weapon is a sentient life form of its own, Fant.
More or less.
I use the term “Space Fantasy” to describe the Science Fiction/Fantasy combos. I stole it from somewhere…
I’ve also seen the term “Speculative Fiction” used to encompass the entire Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre.
The nice things about those terms, is that they can both be abbreviated to SF to avoid offending the SF/Sci-Fi separatists. 
I like the hard<–soft–>fant continuum. Says what needs to be said without being too restrictive.
Star Wars and Empire made the top ten.
I would leave out T2. I love the original but I didn’t care for the sequel all that much and I never got the huge deal over The Matirx.
I loved the matrix. It parallelled my own personal religious view of the Universe, and was therefore facinating.
And what about Carrie Moss (pant, pant)?
Still not better than Blade Runner (which although being the best SF film in the world had the most non-sequiter title), but Carrie vs. Daryl? No contest.
However, Rutger vs. anyone in matrix, no contest.
best Rutger Hauer performance in history. The part was Made for Him.
S
Heck, if they ever make a Dark Knight movie I want him, buffed up, right in there as an older Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Meh, the Matrix lost me with the copper-top thing.
Somewhat right of center fellow (a liberal Conservative, I suppose) who has absolutely no problem with Blade Runner. If a movie/book/person presents ideas counter to my own in a thoughtful, intelligent, non-belligerent manner, I’ll listen, and enjoy, though I may ultimately disagree.
Sir Rhosis
C’tian Rightist who loved Blade Runner (lots of overtones about a Luciferian android who proves more soulful than his human God-playing creators & ends his existence embracing Christ imagery), Metropolis (Big Corporations as Mystery Babylon), Planet of the Apes (a spoof on BOTH sides of the Creation-Evolution debate) and kinda likes The Omega Man (The antidote?- “There’s Power in the Blood!”).
Left vs. Right?- SciFi & Horror Fandom scoffs at all that!
Yeah, even though the Matrix is certainly up there with Films That Make You Think, all the speculative philosophy (which of course is not original, but still reinforces old concepts,) does not make a movie great if there are huge plot holes.
That’s what’s sort of tragic about it. The Matrix, aside from its excellent aesthetic appeal, could have almost qualified as hard sci-fi if they had simply come up with a better rationale for enslaving humans than something as horrendously absurd as using them for electrical power.
What I would have done is made human brains infinite-loop-debuggers, a la the “oracle” used in Oracle Turing Machines/hypercomputers that can deal effectively with the halting problem (among other things). They could even use the term “hypercomputer” to avoid confusing the audience, since the story also uses “Oracles”, and still give the computer scientists a hard-on; meanwhile, most of the audience wouldn’t know the difference either way.
No, no, no: the computers weren’t using humans for electrical power. That’s just dumb. The computers hated humans so much that they wanted to torment humanity, but they couldn’t bring themselves to admit that, because they’re psycho hose CPUs, so they came up with the incredibly lame excuse of using humans as batteries to justify to themselves their eternal torment of the species.
If you look at it that way, the philosophical ramifications–that God is malevolently insane–are pretty cool. I’m sure that’s what the directors intended ;).
Daniel
who thinks Gattaca is the best goddamn SF movie ever made, but who is willing to give Blade Runner its fair credit.
That reminds me of reading one review about Aliens where the reviewer was apparently horrfied by that. I’m assuming the reviewer is a member of PETA.
I can’t fault any movie where the main character says “I say we take off and nuke the site from Orbit. It’s the only way to be sure”.
Well, I have to admit. If I was a character in Aliens, I’d have a tought time deciding between selling an Alien for huge proffits or nuking stuff from orbit.
Question. I just watched Blade Runner the other day and what are the replicants? The opening credits say they are “robots” but they seem more like genetically engineered humans with programmed brains. So what are they exactly?
My take is that they are nuts and bolts androids with flesh grafted on over the frame. I imagine the word “robot” was used for easy 1982 identification for the general, non-SF literate, audience.
Seems that I have read that Ridley Scott did not want to use the word android, choosing replicant instead.
Sir Rhosis
They are andoids (as in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?”) assembled from tissue components. Remember Chew: “I design your eyes!” Hence they come off the factory floor fully adult but basically memory-less. The newer Nexus 6 models have even emotional-memory plants inorder to make them mentally more stable.
Note from the FAQ:
“In a poll of members of the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention, Blade Runner was named as the third most favorite SF film of all time (behind Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey).”
(Not intended to add any fuel to the fire. Just info. Don’t discuss.)