"WIRED" Magazine's 20 Greatest Science Fiction movies ever made

Cafe Society
61

Yes, the special effects were amazing. That was the reason I saw it. The story was weak, the characters were weak, and the suspense…

Wait a minute. Suspense? SUSPENSE?? That’s not suspense. Watch Alien again. THAT is suspense. Jurassic Park is nothing but a 2 hour chain of narrow escapes.

Oh boy, we got away from the t-rex! Oh no, it’s because it threw our truck into a tree!
Oh boy, we got out of the truck! Oh no, it’s going to fall on us!
Oh boy, it fell next to us! Oh no, it’s going to tip over on us!
Oh boy, we went through the open sunroof!

Oh no, we’re being attacked by raptors!
Oh boy, they’re gone! Oh no, it’s because they were scared off by the t-rex!

and so on. Sounds like an old Mad Magazine bit. A six year old could have written that script.

So, in summary:
Acting: Bad.
Effects: Good.
Script: Bad.
Suspense: Bad.
Total entertainment value: Passable.
The fact that it spawned sequels: REALLY Bad.

62

For that matter Frankenstien, largely considered to be the first science fiction work, is just another Golem story using very little science in place of Kabbalistic magics. Forbidden Planet, named several times in the thread is just The Tempest in space, as I recall.

Alien did do much to push along the “dirty” concept of science fiction – that spaceships weren’t all gleaming and white and people didn’t all strut around rocketships with blasters at their side.

63

I can’t take this list seriousily: They left off Dr. Strangelove, Terminator II, The Rocky Horror Show, Dune, and Dark Star

64

GATTACA number 2? WTF??? That’s why i don’t read Wired.

65

The original title of this film was Quatermass and the Pit. It was based on a 1950s BBC serial which was even better than the film.

66

As a time-travel story, wouldn’t The Final Countdown count as a science fiction film? That movie is a lot better than several of the movies on Wired!'s list.

67

I am not going to argue to extensively, but it seems that the only science-y part of the movie is the conditioning experiments, which are really almost a MacGuffin (I know it isn’ t in the correct sense of the word), hardly relevant except to move the plot around. Maybe I am being too cynical, but the movie to me is not Science-Fiction anymore than 1984 was at the time it was published.

68

But of course, Chronos. Is it because you say it is?

It’s obvious you didn’t like the film, but it’s much less obvious that this was a bad or meaningless film. You don’t necessarily have to ponder every possible message in a film, or you will end up hating a film as misdirecting and kaleidoscopic as this one, obviously.

Why do you say “The soul is something that can’t be imitated,” “humans will always persevere,” and “reality is better than the best fantasy”? In fact, what is “better” supposed to mean here? Were any of these statements actually implied in the film, or are they the result of your viewing experience? I ask because these are common themes in sci-fi.

I’m sorry, but the lack of cohesiveness here seems to be coming from you when you make your proclamations about this movie, so for now I will not go into your assesment of the themes. I respectfully submit you may be missing something, and point you to a couple of good reviews that make a good case for the film:

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1998/02/022704.html

http://members.aol.com/aleong1631/darkcity.html

The first one is Ebert’s take. The second one is less in-depth but I include it because it highlights some of the film’s flaws (it’s a somewhat inexperienced if visually gifted director, and the film does have flaws).

I’m not posting these links to get into a “count the cites” war, but bcause I think these reviews address the film fairly, as opposed to the reviews that don’t seem to understand why Dark City, whether one liked it or not, was not a meaningless or atrocious film. Not by a long stretch.

I still don’t understand why you say it is a meaningless film. It’s a very interesting narrative (unique beyond doubt) that touches upon quite a few important themes, but does not explore all of them (which may be bugging you). Criticize Dark City for that, but meaningless it isn’t.

69

A Clockwork Orange deals with a near-futuresque hypothetical advanced society that contains both utopian and dystopian elements. It doesn’t get more sci-fi than that!

If you’re looking for specific treatment of fictional technologies, such as a warp drive, it’s not in there. But fictional technologies are not always necessary requirements of science fiction.

Why wouldn’t you consider 1984 science fiction? It’s often cited as one of THE science fiction books along with Fahrenheit 451–in many ways a similar work–or Brave New World, or others. (As an aside, what relevant technology if any was present in 451? Apart from the awesome Hound of course).

Now if you say that Frankenstein is not sci-fi, I can understand why. As Jophiel pointed out, the monster is not a product of science strictly speaking, it’s more of a golem. Personally I don’t think that everything in science fiction has to be absolutely plausible and scientific (that’s “hard” science fiction), and the differences between Frankestein’s monster the golem and Frankenstein’s monster the artificial human are often quite small; Prometheus is still Prometheus in this novel regardless of the precise nature of the monster.

Thanks, that is actually how I have viewed the film, and I have consistently failed to connect with it. I can appreciate certain aspects of Encounters, but overall it is, as you say, a film about regular people caught up in things bigger than themselves. The regular people are all quite uninteresting, and the bigger things are vague mythological intimations that are never resolved, not even really shown or described in any meaningful manner. Sounds like an episode of the X-Files. Not to say that I am annoyed because we don’t find out what happened (I am appreciative of inconclusive endings in film because they invite the audience in the action) but I would like to feel at least some interest for the highly uninteresting people stumbling towards the mountain like a pack of lepers wandering around looking for a miracle. And even the religious themes of such a convenient set-up are left unexplored. The film feels to me the way most of Stephen King’s novels do–tediously long slices of life with nothing to garnish them with.

I think the problem is that Close Encounters may not actually be sci-fi in spite of the flying saucers and aliens. It strikes me more as a slice of life film than anything of greater impact or scope. In spite of the fact that the aliens have landed and made contact by the end of the film, Spielberg seems more interested in showing us a showcase of uninspiring people doing not a whole lot. That seems like a cop-out, because I’m inclined to think that Spielberg did not know how to handle the aliens and preferred instead to hide behind the humans. The music interpretation scene was good–my favourite-- but in the bigger picture it is no substitute for a science fiction film.

Unlike some others here, I stress that the above is my opinion and I welcome discussion if you disagree with it. I like to think my sense of artistic appreciation has matured beyond opinion-based assertive pronouncements in list format.

70

Firstly, I’d like to second what Abe said.

Secondly – I find it interesting that so many people regard engineering as science, which it’s not, and psychology and economics not to be science, which they are.
The vagueness of psychology and economics, makes it seem less scientific than engineering, which is hard and solid, but simply adapting rocket propulsion to take us further into space, where we will meet aliens and conflict will arise might have entertainment values, but it’s not very scientific. It’s just exploration into the unknown and fables along these lines have been part of human storytelling since we started making up stories. Today, going to unknown parts of the world is virtually impossible, since we’ve seen it all on TV. Therefore, movie makers have to resort to other tricks:

  • Change of times. Where we are in a historical setting, and still exploring, like Indiana Jones.
  • Insert McGuffin: Aliens land here, bringing the unknown to us. We clone dinosaurs, bringing back unknown to us.
  • We going further away, meeting the unknown.

Most of these fables concern coming of age. Farm boy (sic!) wants to leave (moisture-)farm and have adventures. This will increase his status among his peers, bring fortune and get him laid.
To have that taking place in unfamiliar territory is the very idea behind these fables and placing it “a long time ago…” doesn’t really make it science fiction. Thus it’s most properly called space-opera.

Quite a lot of horror and fantasy and pure suspense has been called science fiction, simply because of the element of laserguns, warpdrives and BEM’s.
My opinion is, even though I enjoy it all, is that it’s not really Science Fiction. Real SF writers have tried for decades to change the label to Speculative Fiction, but to no avail. The thing about speculative fiction is the aforementioned “What if… “ Rather than the classic fables proposition: “If… then…”
And the point about the “What if…” is that by extrapolating things around us today to a future or even an alternative present, we learn something about our self today.

Thus Frankenstein really is SpFi, since it says: What if man, with these new technologies, manages to play God? The exact same question is posed in Jurassic Park, but now it’s not electricity, but DNA-technology.
Both stories are dressed up as fables “If… Then…” to create suspense: If you play God, then innocent people will get killed (although, in Hollywood, monsters are always good at telling good from bad people).

The book Starship Troopers is good science fiction, in that it starts with a “What if…?” Being: What if we demand something from the public, in return for the franchise to vote? You might not agree with Heinlein’s conclusions, but the prospect is interesting.
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers could, on the surface, be seen as a “What if aliens land on our doorstep?” In reality, it’s most certainly a fable about The Red Threat – “If we let the aliens (communists) land, then we will be mind controlled zombies.”
Oh, and BTW: Stark Trek is just a Soap in Space.

71

The argument that Frankenstein ain’t SF has been popping up a lot lately, but I think the argument for F being the first true SF novel has been made well in several places. Oddly enough, one of the folks arguing that Frankenstein isn’t SF is Leonard Wolf, in his Annotated edition, and it was that edition that convinced me that it was sf.

As for Fortbidden Planet just being The Tempest in SF drag, watch the film again, after reading your Folger’s Library edition. The similarities are there, but so are significant differences – especially in the characters’ motivations. (Morbius isn’t equivalent to The Duke – the Duke lost his kingdom for spending too much time on his magic. “Magic” (philology, and what comes of applying it) is Morbius’ business.) But even if FP was The Tempest, dialogue and all, switched to an SF milieu it would still win a place for all of the consistent background it created. FP is seminally important, and not to be dismissed with a shrug.

72

spoke- writes:

> Wendell Wagner, I can’t agree on La Jetee, though you get
> points for knowing about it. It’s more of a glorified slide show
> than a film, being a series of still images, and a short series of
> images at that. 12 Monkeys is an improvement on the
> (embryonic) idea, IMO.

So what if it consists mostly of still images and is only 30 minutes long? Why do you want to restrict the limits of cinematic art? Do you think that only sound films can be great movies, or that only color films can be great movies, or that only movies with expensive special effects can be great ones? La Jetee is allusive, while 12 Monkeys insists on spelling out its themes. 12 Monkeys has Bruce Willis in it, which makes it too much like an action film, while La Jetee shows that you can’t change your destiny, so action sequences would be pointless. I prefer La Jetee’s miminalist sets to Terry Gilliam’s usual Victorian cyperpunk set designs.

Incidentally, I saw 12 Monkeys at a preview where Terry Gilliam answered questions about the film afterwards. I told him then that I thought that La Jetee was the better film. He said that he’s never seen La Jetee. He was just handed the script for 12 Monkeys by the screenwriters who had adapted it from La Jetee.

73

If ya wanted funny Sci-Fi, how about fricken The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension !!! ah-hem

~t

74

LateComer: Okay, now I’m picturing a Monty Python verson of 1984. Brazil is now on my list for the next time I go to the video store.

Wendell Wagner: Sorry, but your posts left me neither hot nor bothered. I simply maintained that what I wrote was correct after you said that it wasn’t. I understand that you were simply pointing out that Kubrick wasn’t the first to omit the last chapter of Burgess’s book. I guess I interpreted the way in which you did it as rude and sarcastic–-if I was mistaken in interpreting your “tone,” consider this an apology. Have a nice day.

Abe: It’s been a while since I’ve seen 2001. What I wrote was basically a reaction to the first time I saw this movie. I really don’t remember what was so important about the ape scene other than the monolith and the discovery of weapons (the bone club). Perhaps my reaction would have been different if the first time I saw this film was as an adult. As a little kid I kept thinking something along the lines of, “My God, will it never end?” I still don’t remember enough happening with the ancestors, however, to merit it dragging on that long. I can appreciate what you said about the space scenes being as long as they were to demonstrate the “vastness of space” and the “length of time of space travel and EVAs.” I guess I’m just a victim of modern sensibilities (let’s see some action now!) and various teachers over the years yelling at me to “tighten it up” and “delete all that stuff that doesn’t directly forward the plot” and so forth. In other words I’m blaming the boringness (a word?) of half of 2001 to my youth at the time I first saw the film and the public schools I attended. :slight_smile:

75

I’m rather surprised at the relative lack of nominations for Contact, a movie that everybody and their sister seems to rave about. Good.

But then, I like Close Encounters and think it is more deserving to be on the list than some of the other candidates, so what do I know? :wink:

76

Well, since the one film I was glad to see on the list has been thouroughly trashed, a defense is in order, to be followed by a nomination for the list.

Barbarella is the best filmic example of the overheated pulp extravaganzas that were so popular at one time. The film explores a future society of lax sexual morality, where the pleasure has been drained from sex- they take a pill and touch hands. Barbarella is both repulsed and attracted to the primitives, reflecting a view of human sexuality prevalent at the time. Watch I am Curious Yellow to see society actually trying to take the “sex” out of sex, and realise where Barbarella was coming from.

My nomination for the list would be The Final Programme, the film of the first Jerry Cornelius novel. It was directed by Robert Fuest, the director of the Dr. Phibes movies, so you know it looked interesting. The story once again dealt more with societies future than rockets and zap-guns, but it did have a kewl needle gun. The movie, more than the book even, left it open to interpretation whether Jerry was a genious or a fool, while dealing with some pretty heavy issues- Terrorism, the breakdown of sexual roles, de-evolution.
The pinball room was pretty kewl as well.

I guess it is pretty clear from my choices that European pop-art movies of the 60’s and early 70’s are a personal favorite.

77

Oh, and am I the only one who wasn’t even impressed with the effects in Jurassic Park? The dinosaurs in The Valley of Gwangi had more personality.