Ironically this movie (Children) interested me enough to see it in theaters, I walked out though it was so dark and depressing. FE is too out there (I know 90% of sci fi movies are). Galaxy Quest too.
Oblivion is closest to what I want of this list. The ending is a little like What Dreams May Come - which I love (depressing middle but really nice closing scene, as someone else mentioned). Super 8 too because it felt like an 80s flick (Stand by Me-ish).
I’m not entirely sure I’d call Serenity upbeat. I mean, it’s not slit-your-wrists depressing, but some fairly horrible things happen.
Is 2016 too late to suggest *Star Wars: A New Hope? * Pretty upbeat, really, in general.
Jackpot… 5 days looks fantastic!! Sci Fi (especially pre 2008) series are a little low budget but I don’t care; they’re usually not too dark or violent and have fascinating premises. I’m thinking the Lost Room and Rewind.
Primer looks good…but I don’t want anything I have to see multiple times to understand (that’s what has stopped me from Momento).
I’ve got About Time on the list. Now You See Me was great. Others too out there/too fantastical. Yes I’m looking for something very niche/specific!
Check out Secondhand Lions then. It certainly has elements of fantasy: a kid [Haley Joel Osment] is foisted upon his great-uncles [Michael Caine & Robert Duvall] and isn’t sure if the stories they tell are tall tales or not until the very end.
The end credits feature artwork by Berke Breathed.
This looks awesome! Deal sealed by a review on Rotten Tomatoes says “schmaltz fest.” Added to the movie party i am having in December when wife and kid are out of town. 
Agreed, my favourite science-fiction movie, 2001 is certainly more worthy but 2010 is a lot more fun to watch. If I had to describe it in one word it would be ‘humane’. What do you consider to be its flaws, I can see how people might view it as overly preachy and to some extent its of its era (with the Cold War tensions) but I just love it.
Oh,and the OP specified emotional, there is one line that gets me every time “I’m afraid”…it turns HAL from simply a machine, no matter how clever, merely following its orders, into a person bravely and nobly sacrificing himself to save the others
I’m not answering your question (too long since I saw 2001) but you reminded me of Contact, which is also a beautiful, moving film… and while the ending may have been a copout to some, I think it was the best way to handle it (without being ridiculous).
You have weird taste in movies, thorvitz. Either that, or you’re on some kinda binge here that feeds a specific need and you’ll be back to your old self when it’s over.
Oh, duh. I get it now.
It looks like we’re mostly talking about sci-fi (Star Wars, Avatar, Aliens) here rather than what I’d consider “fantasy” (Conan the Barbarian, The Princess Bride, Robin Hood, etc.), although the line is one that is easily blurred; Nausicaa got mentioned upthread! I see Oblivion and [del]All You Need Is Kill[/del] Edge of Tomorrow have already been suggested, so how about:
[ul][li]Minority Report - Washington D.C. police officer John Anderton works for his department’s new “Pre-Crime” division. Using a machine that can analyze the visions of three pre-cognitive diviners, Anderton and his men stop murders before they can happen by arresting those responsible ahead of time. What will happen, though, when the precogs predict that Anderton himself is going to become the next killer?[]Summer Wars - Young genius mathematician Kenji Koiso is temporarily hired away from his job as a software tech at Oz, the global on-line virtual supercommunity, by his classmate Natsuki Shinohara. She (secretly) intends to present him as her fiancé to her grandmother during the latter’s 90th birthday celebration. At the same time, Kenji may have accidentally opened Oz’s security system for takeover by “Love Machine”, an experimental artificial intelligence. Can Kenji and the combined attendees of the birthday celebration defeat Love Machine before it does something really nasty?[]Safety Not Guaranteed - A group of writers from a small Seattle magazine decide to investigate a want ad for someone to go back in time (the ad includes the lines “You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed.”) with its poster, who turns out to be just a local grocery store clerk who thinks secret government agents are stalking him. Is he crazy? Paranoid? Or … is it really time travel?[/ul][/li]Emperor’s Teeth! Is it cliché to end short movie descriptions with stupid questions if you don’t want to spoil anything (and I don’t!)? Maybe they’ll seem more exciting if you can imagine them being read by Peter Cullen.
Minority Report is good; I saw it. Especially the premise.
Safety Not Guaranteed was excellent–saw it during my last binge.
What I am looking for is very niche- and is actually 4 separate niche’s!
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sappy Hallmark movies about love that transcends time (The Last Valentine, Edge of the Garden—yes these are made for TV movies; Somewhere in Time) or about redemption (Another Earth). Many 80s Twilight Zone episodes fit this.
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feel good, sweet fantasy (Family Man).
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Twilight zone premises (what if scenarios) involving time travel or alternate realities…preferably with twists (Triangle, Contact, The One I Love). Not traditional sci fi with shooting aliens or dark, desolate futures. I’ll take B movies or obscure sci fi channel series to get interesting.
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Major Twist movies–this isn’t sci fi–like The Others, The Village, Wild Things, Masquerade (Rob Lowe), and 100s of other B movies.
Maybe it’s a temporary binge… I think it’s more I have odd taste in movies. Which is why it takes me 20 hours of searching to find a suitable list. When I was 20 and had all the time in the world to wander video stores and stay up all night watching movies it didn’t matter. Now I get one break a year since we have a 1 1/2 yr old.
For more perspective my all-time favorite TV shows (besides the 80s TZ) are Early Edition and Quantum Leap.
The Abyss?
The Hunt for Red October is rooted in sci-fi, namely The Red October and her propulsion system.
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Batteries Not Included
Cocoon
Sorry. My specialty is the exact opposite.
All 3 are fantastic! Seen the last 2 4-5x each.
All good, most people don’t dig this kind of stuff. Even Richard Matheson admitted as much when he wrote What Dreams May Come & Somewhere in Time.
Ah!! The mention of Matheson jogged my memory! The Incredible Shrinking Man.
Edit: The end is upbeat that is.
OK, take Princess Mononoke, for instance. The fundamental conflict in that one is the developing city versus the natural wilds. And it’s never resolved at all. They’re not quite at each others’ throats any more at the end, but the reason they were at each others’ throats is still there.
Or Spirited Away: The river-spirit is dying because there’s so much pollution. By the end, the human characters are aware of the problem, but there’s still too much pollution.
Or Howl’s Moving Castle: We’re talking about literal deals with demons, here. And while “demon” has a different meaning in Japanese culture than in ours, the fire-spirit at the heart of the castle certainly seems to be at best amoral.
If a daisy posts spam, is it a daisy chain?