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What do you think are the top four (chosen for the last four decades) science fiction films of all time.

Choose one from the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, and the last seven years.

Coggins7 wrote:What do you think are the top four (chosen for the last four decades) science fiction films of all time.

Choose one from the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Nineties, and the last seven years.

Here are mine:

50s=The Day The Earth Stood Still
60s=2001 A Space Odyssey (gotta love that waltz)
70s=Star Wars: Episode 4
80s=hmmm...Aliens/The Terminator
90s=The Matrix (the original one)/Jurassic Park (the original)
00s=probably Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (although it's fantasy)....what's the diff between science fiction and fantasy (is there one?)

They had Sci-fi before the 70's? ;)

I'm not a sci-fi buff (though I enjoy it), but here's my best shot:

50s: either Godzilla or Invasion of the Body Snatchers Both are tacit social commentaries speaking against societal problems (A-bomb and McCarthyism)
60s: 2001: A Space Odyssey
70s: Star Wars Episode IV. I would give Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and Black Hole a mention too.
80s: Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan. This was a tough choice. There is also Dune, Back to the Future, and Star Wars V (my favorite Star Wars), and mayve even Ghostbusters if you cound the ghost catching technology as sci-fi.
90s: Men In Black. It's a bit silly for sci-fi, but I liked it. I liked the Matrix up until I thought it paralleled Scientology all too well.
00 : Minority Report.

I can only think of two right now for me:

The Day the Earth Stood Still


and

la Jetee


possibly I'd include Tarkovsky's Solaris and Nic Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth. And maybe others, as well. I'd have to think about it more..

No love for the original Planet of the Apes (60's)? How about Logan's Run from the 70's? Just kidding on that one, it was terrible. I'll go with Alien for the 70's. The 80's are a little more difficult...Aliens, Predator, The Terminator, Space Camp ;)...I'll choose Robocop because I like the satire. I'm choosing Gattaca for the 90's. I'm a DNA research scientist, so that one was easy. For the last 7 years I'll choose a recent, great film--Children of Men.

Bond...James Bond wrote:what's the diff between science fiction and fantasy (is there one?)

The difference is the "handwavium" the use to explain how they break the laws of physics.

Science Fiction uses, well, science, or at least the appearance of science through some sort of ubertechnology. You've got everything from stuff that is actually doable, like Clark's "2001" tech (where the technology is scientifically possible, we just haven't gotten around to having an engineer build some of it yet), to extreme tech along the lines of Starwars hypermater reactors and hyperdrive "handwavium" devices.

Fantasy used the supernatural, be it spirits, magic, or mythological creatures. The Lord of the Rings is a great example of this, where you've got dragons, magic swords, and a few very badass wizards blowing stuff up.

But then, I like how Clark put it... "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."


Now for my list...


1950s: Toss up between War of the Worlds and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Both are classics, both have some very memorable moments, but TDTESS has one of the all time best lines... "Klatu Barada Nicto!"

1960s: Planet of the Apes. 2001 was a great movie, but it bores me to death. I've never been able to watch 2001 in a single sitting as it makes me fall asleep. But Planet of the Apes... "Damned dirty apes!" Or as Jay said, "In this dark future it is not we who will spank the monkey, but the monkey who will spank us!" Snoogans...

1970s: Starwars. Anyone that disagrees is a communist and probably supports the Jihad. Alien comes in as a close second.

1980s: The 80s produced entirely to many Sci-Fi flicks thatw ere created from pure, distilled awesome for me to choose just one. I mean, you've got Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Blade Runner, The Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Repo Man... The 80s wasn't just new wave pop and goofy haircuts, it was awesome sci-fi and badasses with laserswords and guns.

1990s: The 90s produced a couple of good ones as well... Let's see... Predator 2, Total Recall, Naked Lunch, Terminator 2, and Stargate. Of the batch, toss up between Stargate and T2.

2000s: So far this decade suchs the balls for good Sci-Fi. It's all popcorn movies like Space Cowboys, boring hard-SF like Mission to Mars, remake schlock like Planet of the Apes/War of the Worlds, and mindnumbingly stupid abuses of scence chicklittle flicks like Day After Tomorrow and The Core.

Man I totally forgot Repo Man...

Also I do like Planet of the Apes, and the Terminator One and Two...for the life of me, I can't remember much of Three...and Starship Troopers was a whole lotta fun. Alien, too I suppose I would single out, and Robocop, and a great deal of Gattica is not bad, either.

But the only two sci fi films I could say I actually love are still The Day the Earth Stood Still and la Jetee

Mr. Coffee wrote:2000s: So far this decade suchs the balls for good Sci-Fi. It's all popcorn movies like Space Cowboys, boring hard-SF like Mission to Mars, remake schlock like Planet of the Apes/War of the Worlds, and mindnumbingly stupid abuses of scence chicklittle flicks like Day After Tomorrow and The Core.

I agree. This decade has been pretty bad for sci-fi. Hollywood has been so caught up in remake mode that very few good, original sci-fi films have come out. I noted Children of Men above as an exception. Another cool sci-fi movie I saw is this little, low-budget, independent film called Primer.

The greatest Sci-fi movie of all time is Dune. I assert this as self-evident and refuse to debate it.

For 2000s, the Firefly series was pretty darn good. I became very caught up in Stargate SG-1 though I admit it sucks. A very good movie in the last 7 years was Solaris. If it can be considered Sci-fi, add Vanilla Sky.

And don't forget Equilibrium.