Now, Cal, I wouldn’t expect you to make these claims; This Island Earth (1955, a year before FP) had non-cigar-shaped spaceships, faster-than-light travel, and Cal meacham.
Well, sure. So what?
Rocketeer: he did specify humans piloting non-cigar shaped spacecraft.
Yeah – but all by aliens in UFOs. Forbidden Planet was the first one with Humans using such technology. That’s why I was so deliberate in my wording.
There is – you should pardon the expression – a world of difference.
… and the Professor.
Several people have put Blade Runner on their short list of nominees. To be honest, I don’t know why. I’ve seen the movie and it’s not particularly memorable for me. What’s the attraction?
What…no Mary-Ann? 
2001 is, if nothing else, a great example of why you can’t translate a novel into a movie too directly. It would have been helped immensely by some exposition, some indication of why we should care about this bunch of guys in ape suits and what they are on the verge of accomplishing by banging those bones around. It would also have helped immensely to have some indication of what connection the Star Child had to David Bowman and what the Monolith was (i.e., a tool as advanced relative to our space stations as the space station was to the anthropod’s bone).
The novel can be seen as one long meditation of how humans have used tools to shape the Universe and how those tools, in turn, shaped humanity. The movie still contains those themes, but it expects you to do inhuman amounts of extrapolation from some very bizarre visuals to ferret them out. This is wonderful if you have read the novel and frustrating if you have not: You end up beating your head against the beautifully shot effects sequences. The most you’re likely to get out of it is a ghost story, with HAL as the villian and Dave as the hero, bookended by a strange acid trip.
It should be pointed out that Kubrick’s movie is not a “translation” of Clarke’s book: the book and the movie were created concurrently and in collaboration between the two artists, and the movie was actually released first, although the novel was finished first. Kubrick had its publication held up for several months so as not to spoil the movie.
I don’t feel that the book is a necessary (or even particularly helpful) component to understanding the movie, which functions perfectly well on its own. The movie certainly expects more of its audience than the book does, but I consider this very much a point in favor of the movie. 2001 the movie is a genuinely challenging piece of work, that demands the audience engage it on its terms. 2001 the book presents the reader with some interesting ideas, but does so in a fairly workmanlike and non-challenging manner. Which is largely a function of the respective places of the artists in relation to their medium. Kubrick was a genius, an utterly unique voice in the cinema who created masterpieces in a half-dozen or more genres. Clarke is particularly notable only when compared to other science fiction authors, and even then, as someone who was both preceeded and succeeded by much brighter lights.
No “Best of” Sci-Fi thread would be complete without the mention of Silent Running and The Andromeda Strain.
Not only that, but too much explanation would be counterproductive to the effect of the movie. We can intuit and interpret much in the film, but part of the majesty of the ending is that it has such an obviously monumental importance that it is even beyond our comprehension. The film is (in part) about man’s evolution, and the starchild, as the next incarnation, transcends us–its exact function or future are ambiguous, but there’s no doubt that it’s an image that implies hope, rebirth, and change for the better. The parts of 2001 that are most “comprehensible” are the moments of horror (deaths in space) and sad banality (the routinization of something as marvelous as space travel). It’s Kubrick’s optimism that is rooted in something more spiritual and personal, and less literal.
This is why the film, more than any other, is one I refuse to see on TV, since the boob tube truly trivializes the visual, aural, and thematic scale of the film. It’s also the reason why I find very few films more moving than 2001. And it’s also why it’s the first film I’ll eagerly apply the YMMV tag to, since it will quite easily disappoint those who are expecting something more conventional, literal, or linear.
“Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.” - Harry Turtledove 
See my post above.
Derleth
Umm, seems like you’re not familiar with suspension of disbelief.
None of it is real, dude.
Phew! There are a lot of criticisms one can make about Blade Runner–the gaping plot and continuity holes, the dead-pan performances by the leads, the droll voice-over (in the cinematic release), the mush it made of Dick’s novel–but being unmemorably isn’t one of them. The dark, brooding, anachonistic sets, the powerhouse performance of Rutger Hauer and the coiled, innocent sensuality of Daryl Hannah, the strong supporting cast of character actors (Joe Turkel, M. Emmet Walsh, James Hong, Brion James, and the ubersleezy Hy Pyke), the incredible visuals, and the unimpeachable soundtrack by Vangelis all elevate the fairly mundane contemplation on the nature and purpose of existance to a higher level. This is the film The Matrix and Batman Begins were trying to be. If you’ve only seen it on the television screen then you’ve been cheated. Like 2001 and Lawrence of Arabia it demands to be seen in larger-than-life aspect. Just listening to the opening theme gives me chills. In the right environment, it is immersive.
Scott is supposed to be releasing a newly minted and edited DVD version (as opposed to the faux “Director’s Cut” that was released a decade and change ago) as soon as the legal ownership issues get worked out “any day now”. :rolleyes: I’m hoping that they’ll cut a few prints as well and distribute them on the festival circuit. I’ve seen the decaying in-process cut a couple of times at festival showings and while it pales to other versions it is still an astonishing film and well worth seeing on screen. It’s a pity Scott hasn’t lived up to that promise he showed here and (to a lesser extent) in Alien.
Stranger
Sure, Clarke wrote in in our world. But if Napoleon had beaten Wellington at Waterloo, Turtledove would have written it first.
In my opinion, not only the best but pretty much the only science fiction movie ever made was 12 Monkeys. Alien was a horror movie with rocket ships; Star Wars was a fantasy with rocket ships; Outland was a western with rocket ships; Blade Runner was a film noir with … well okay, it didn’t have rocket ships, but I think you get my point. 12 Monkeys was the only genuine science fiction movie in the bunch.
I wonder, Stranger, if you could please list some of the plot holes in Bladerunner.
And as Lissener once said elsewhere, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is just fine. It’s still intact no matter how Bladerunner turned out.
No, read my (and jimpatro, damn his hide’s) posts. There’s a very slight but significant variation between Clarke’s Third Law and Turtledove’s Corrollary.
As for your comment, have you ever read “He Stepped Between the Horses,” by H. Beam Piper? It suggests that your statement is not only but absolutely, factually true. (“It’s just a matter of selection of coordinates.” – C.L. Dodgson, private communication to D.T.B. Carter, as reported by R.A. Heinlein ;))
OK, Polycarp, what’s a quote from Number of the Beast doing in a thread about good science fiction?
And I have to say that I largely agree with Little Nemo on Twelve Monkeys. I’m not quite sure I’d call it the best SF movie ever (it’s up against some awfully stiff competition, as noted by many other posters), but it’s damn good, much better than most of its publicity made it out to be. And I will without hesitation say it’s the best time-travel movie ever made. Which coming from me, means a lot, considering how obsessed I am with time travel.
Thank you. Andromeda Strain was well done; I saw that one in a theater when it first came out, I believe. And Silent Running I have the album for the music from; Bruce Dern was an actor, unlike most of his contemporaries. The fact I lived at the base of the Sierras and contemplated running away and living in the wild Sierra Forests might have had something to do with my love for the movie…
Totally unrelated side note: the album with the soundtrack for Silent Running was made out of transluscent green vinyl. :eek: 
I’m betting you didn’t see Star Wars in 1977. It was the first movie that assumed its audience knew the sf conventions. It was the first movie that gave the mass market a taste of what we small band of sf fans loved about space opera. Forget about the movie technology - even the Force stuff was so much in keeping with Leigh Brackett Edmund Hamilton scifi from the '40s.
Baird Searles, in his F&SF review, said that when he got to the Cantina scene he just burbled. It showed on the screen the images he had built up from reading sf for years.
Forget how it enabled sf in the movies. Star Wars was the first effective screen presentation of a very popular sf genre. I still like 2001 better, but Clarke was my favorite writer already, and thanks to reading all his books (and the very good Life Magazine article about it) I understood it when I saw it the first time in May of 1968.