Science fiction films:
The best Star Wars movie is Star Wars. There is no such movie as “Episode IV: A New Hope.” it is called Star Wars and it is the best one. Period.
It has a simple and comprehensible plot (based on archetypal stories as outlined by Joseph Campbell), likeable characters, decent (if not stellar) acting, a certain gravitas lent by Alec Baldwin, humor, good action, and a satisfying ending. It invented the concept of the “used future,” helped bring SF back to mainstream movies (something of a mixed blessing, as it turned out), and pushed the boundaries of movie SFX in the pre-CGI era. It was rollicking good fun.
*The Empire Strikes Back * is not the best SW movie because it doesn’t stand on its own: it’s clearly only a bridge between two other movies. And Return of the Jedi is not the best because having teddy bears defeat storm troopers is stupid.
The prequels are perhaps the worst films ever made in the history of the universe. They make Plan Nine From Outer Space look like Citizen Kane. And all the rest are tired rehashings of the first three, and/or heartless corporate attempts to extract ever more cash from the little kids who gaped in wonder at the first film and desperately want to somehow relive the magic that was [the one and only] Star Wars.
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Decker was NOT a replicant. The concept robs the story of its whole point for a stupid and meaningless “gotcha” plot twist. But let’s face it: the whole notion of replicants – androids that are virtually indistinguishable from humans without some complicated and highly unreliable test – is idiotic on its face.
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Arthur C. Clarke’s novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey is not canon, and does not explain what happens in the movie. (We’re not even going to talk about 2010.) Anything you think you know about aliens, the monolith, why HAL did what he did, what the slit-scan sequence means, what happens to Dave at the end of the movie, or the Star Child is wrong unless you heard or saw it in the movie, or came up with the idea on your own (which is what Kubrick actually wanted).
Kubrick used Clarke’s original story as a jumping-off point, and used Clarke as a sounding board for some of the film’s concepts, but the movie is 90% Kubrick, and he explicitly did not want the audience to have all the answers when they left the theater. The book is Clarke’s retconning of the movie for all the people who couldn’t stand not having the “explanation” spoon fed to them. But it absolutely is NOT the explanation of the film that Kubrick made.