I haven’t seen some of the shows/movies on that list, but it does seem that it’s a little too heavy on the North American entries. Surely there was some great sci-fi from the international lands that could have made this list.
If I can get to it later I might propose some substitutions, but for now my main comment is that this list highlights just how little good science fiction there has been in visual media over the past 25 years. The films and TV shows I’d agree should remain on the list include:
Eternal Sunshione of the Spotless Mind
Battlestar Galactica (with some reservations, as there are a lot of weak episodes)
Back to the Future
Firefly (sans Serenity)
Children of Men
The Termnator (sans Terminator 2)
The Thing
Futurama
Aliens
Blade Runner
The Matrix (probably not Number 1, but c’mon, it was hugely entertaining and highly influential)
The rest are pretty much junk, IMO.
It’s funny, with the supposedly unlimited possibilities presented by the technical innovations in visual media of the past couple decades, literary SF remains far more daring and innovative than anything in film.
I’m surprised that Independence Day is not on the list. It sucked, but was popular and surely was better than V.
Also, where is Jurassic Park?
But, let’s face it - as long as a movie, or TV show, needs millions of viewers to be successful, and literary works can be successful with no more than 10,000 readers, it’s going to continue that visual SF is less daring than where print can go.
You can joke about the Dismal Science all you like, but if you ignore the realities behind it, you’re going to be lying in the street wondering what hit you.
I know I’m starting to get repetitive about it, but let’s just consider two ostensibly similar works, both of which feature invasions of twentieth century earth by lizard-like creatures with a slight technological edge over humanity: V and Harry Turtledove’s WorldWar series. I’d rather not get into the specifics, but let’s leave it at I think that these Harry Turtledove books rock, and the TV phenomenon sucks. But even as popular as the WorldWar books are, I would be surprised to hear that there’s even as many as half a million readers for the whole thing.
Hell, where is Babylon 5? Seriously, what were they thinking?
Not to mention Farscape, or Stargate, the Series.
Hey, consider the source. It’s Entertainment Weakly, for crying out loud. When have they ever had a well-thought-out list of anything?
You guys are overlooking one of the really weird missing ones. If they’re going for the big SF movies where’s Return of the Jedi? I’m not a Star Wars fan but it deserves to be on the list a lot more than Clone Wars.
I think Clone Wars was way, way better than Return of the Jedi.
This list is pretty dumb, though. Heroes? I don’t like the show at all, but don’t even fans of the show acknowledge that one of its two seasons was pretty crappy? I’d stick X-Men 2 on the list instead, along with the first Spider-Man movie.
I agree that Jurrasic Park was a huge omission.
Oh, I agree. I’d love to see just about any of Iain M. Banks’ novels filmed, especially Consider Phlebas, Against a Dark Background or Feersum Endjinn, but their sprawling size and scope mean there’s not much chance of that ever happening.
Meanwhile, just off the top of my head, I’d pitch Pitch Black and 28 Days Later as worthy of inclusion (yeah, I know they both are at least as much horror as sci-fi).
Oh, and if they’re allowing animated flicks with an SF flavor, how could one not include The Incredibles?
I think it’s a bit premature to put Heroes on that list, given that the show has been on the air for 1.5 seasons and sucked hairy donkey balls for the latter .5 season. Even if we discount that, putting it at #18 is much too high.
I’d also bump The Matrix down several notches. It’s good, but it’s not #1 good.
Beyond what’s already been suggested, where the hell are these?:
Iron Giant (one of my personal faves)
Pitch Black (not great, but better than much of the dreck on this list)
Fifth Element (silly and tacky, but great fun nonetheless)
Dark City (brilliant and underrated)
I’d also have nominated Escape from New York, but it misses the cut-off by one year.
Children of Men does not belong on the list. I’d probably replace it with Dark City.
Since I’m not what anyone could consider a “science fiction geek”, perhaps someone could clarify something: shouldn’t science fiction be about science at it’s heart? If so, then what business do Aliens, Brazil, Galaxy Quest, Total Recall, Lost and Starship Troopers have on the list at all (regardless of their actual quality)? Aliens and Starship Troopers were action movies set in space, Brazil was set in a dystopian future, Total Recall was just crap, and who the heck knows what’s going on with Lost at this point? Galaxy Quest, I supppose, could possibly be science-y in the fact that it involves esentially “first contact” with aliens. Movies like Brazil might be better classed as “alternate history speculative fiction” based on the possibility of runaway beaurocracies.
I was under the impression that “science fiction” took some scientific aspect and drew some human drama (or comedy, as the case may be) out of it. Has the definition been changed (or muddied), or am I misinformed?
I think the title of this list should be 25 Sci-fi things from the last 25 years that our 22 year old intern could think of in 5 minutes.
Galaxy Quest fits this parameter by introducing the fictional ship made real, as well as Omega 13 (though that was a heck of a MacGuffin). Still, while I adore the movie, I’m not sure that it belongs high on a list of serious science fiction in any case, as it was primarily intended to skewer Star Trek.
Definition per Mirriam-Webster:
*(noun) fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component *
From the OED:
(noun) fiction based on imagined future worlds portraying scientific or technological changes.
So we could take the most out-of-place film from the list, *Eternal Sunshine * to be a stretch, but the main premise involves artifical manipulation of memories and the potential pitfalls of such a technology. No aliens, no spaceships, no outlandish costumes (Kate Winslet’s crayola haircolour aside). Still sci-fi at its core.
Ah, now there you potentially open a thread-derailing giant-sized can o’worms.
“Science Fiction” as a genre, even beyond film into literature and comics and the like, doesn’t have a concise agreed-upon definition. and includes such things as Alternate History, Time Travel, and other iffy things as well as the near-future and plausible. Legendary editor John W. Campbell once listed Fail safe among his favorite science fiction films, although most people wouldn’t put it there. I list Creator as science fiction, too – you can’t extract the science-fiction element from the story (Nobel Laureate is trying to clone his dead wife) without having the rest of it fall apart.
not all science fiction, at any level, takes a scientific idea and extrapolates it. Sometimes it’s set in a world that requires scientific advances or differences. I still classifgy these as science fiction, myself. aliens isn’t just an action movie – how do you differentiate it from action movies set in a recognizable present-day world? And all too often it feels as if people are reclassifying SF movies into a different genre – “Alien isn’t science fiction, it’s a horror movie of the Old Dark House type.” “The Thing isn’t a science fiction movie, it’s an army buddy movie” – because the think the film is good, and scien ce fiction is almosdt by definition trash. That’s one reason I’m against the reclassifying. But besides this, aliens IS science fiction – Cameron is one of a very few SF-savvy producer/directors who can make a film that’s literate, logical, entertaining, and profitable. I wish he was still making science fiction. He took the kernel of the alien biology from the first film and extrapolated it, and extrapolated military development and technology (with more than a little assist from the book “Starship Troopers”) and extrapolated it as well. A good movie can blend both ideas and action.
Forbidden Planet is my favorite SF movie (on those alternate days when 2001 isn’t), and it’s a perfect case of the thing you give as science fiction. It ismn’t juast "The Tempest’ dressed up in sci-fi drag, as I’ve argued often enough. It takes a common sf concept and follows it through to its logical conclusion. Along the way, it also gives us extrapolated technology (FP was tthe first film to give us Human Beings using Flying Saucer craft, instead of aliens) and robotics (Robby is a GREAT creation, embodying Asimov’s laws and being a mechanism, rather than a metal human being.)
Like most science fiction geeks, I draw a line between sf and fantasy, or sf and horror, but the lines are still pretty fuzzy. (One wag once stated that in science fiction, dragons can fly; in fantasy, they can hover)
Yes, the definition of science fiction has evolved. Many of us* think that “speculative fiction” is, indeed, more descriptive of the field. This includes alternate histories & most stories set in the future–even when they don’t dwell on specific scientific developments.
“Hard” Science Fiction fits your rather Fundamentalist criteria.
Starship Troopers & *Total Recall * were, in fact, based on specific SF works.
- Reader of science fiction since Heinlein/Asimov/Clarke bent my mind in elementary school. Began reading “adult” science fiction while still a kid, mostly in Galaxy & The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. (Before Dangerous Visions, adult SF was still pretty innocent.) Thus, I regarded Twilight Zone as more “serious” SF, although I did (& do) consider Star Trek great fun. As was* Star Wars*, although it was definitely Space Opera.
Yeah, but so completely changed that you wouldn’t get away with it in a non-genre film. Starship Troopers has the biggest discrepancy of story, philosophy, and scientific literacy between the book and the movie of any mvie adaptation I’ve ever seen. Total Recall exhausts its inspiration’s story in the first twenty minutes, tops (and greatly changed at that), and lifts the rest from other science fiction. Mostly, I’ve argued, Robert Sheckley’s “The Status Civilization”. They’re more like “loosely inspired by” than “based on”.
The only other genre you can get away with such wholesale change is in spy novels. Alistair MacLean must constantly be spinning in his grave. Robert Ludlum, too.
The Matrix should be on there, but not number 1. Children of Men should be a lot higher. It’s not just a great science fiction movie, but it’s on the shortlist for the all-around best movie of the 21st century. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is also a phenomenally good movie that most people don’t even recognize as science fiction because of a) the presence of Jim Cary (in what is hands-down his best role ever) and b) the emphasis on characterization. The absence of Cowboy Bebop is particularly egregious, since it was a strong influence on both The Matrix and Firefly. And Galactica better than Blade Runner? No freakin’ way. I just watched the restored Blade Runner a couple of days ago, and that movie is a fucking masterpiece.
My partial list would be:
- Blade Runner
- Brazil
- Cowboy Bebop
- Children of Men
- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn
- The X-Files
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- Back to the Future II
- Firefly
- Futurama